Friday morning is usually the day I sit and take some time to either put together some teaching for Sunday, or I begin to think ahead to the following Sunday and I do some preliminary work to get my head around ‘where to next’? This is all in between the various distractions of business emails, facebook forays, coffee making and staring out the window at the surf…

So in case you are curious about the ‘sermon making process’ then here’s kinda how it works for me…

The first task of a day like this is to turn wifi off and put the phone on silent. I can distract myself enough without any additional assistance. Inevitably a work email will come in with a person needing a ‘quick quote’… Facebook will tell me something trivial and banal has happened and I will feel compelled to look – now… Or I will wonder when the winds will again turn offshore and that will lead me to www.seabreeze.com.au which will link to some surf cams somewhere exotic and then to checking airfare prices to said locations…. no kidding…

I can’t work with wifi on.

I’m not a ‘sit in prayer for two hours’ before beginning kind of bloke. I am more the person who starts work and figures it out along the way listening to what I hope is the voice of the Spirit. I think both are equally valid methods – you just have to choose the one that works for you. There is much to be said for stilling your mind and focusing your thoughts, but there is also a case for listening to the Spirit as you work.

Today I am preparing for Sunday 19th which is 9 days away – so I have time. And its time I like to use to think broadly and listen for any ideas that might seem important.

My primary question when I’m doing this stuff is ‘God – what do you want to say to these people thru this passage of scripture?’ We are currently in the book of Luke at QBC (because we also have YCC on the go…) and I have scored chapter 5.

As I open it I realise its a big chapter and a lot happens here. I’m immediately a bit overwhelmed by the amount of content and the diversity of it. I know I don’t have to knit it all together into one neat coherent message, but I’d like to cover as much of it as possible. As a methodology we have chosen to simply run with ‘chapter slabs’ every week and the person teaching is free to dive deep into one story or to try and cover the whole chapter if that can work. There is no right way – or preferred way.

I have scanned this chapter a few times over the week and right now my gut feel is to run with the themes that emerge (but I could change that at any time…)

The simple content is:

1. Jesus calls Peter to come ‘fish for men’ after sending him and his mates back out to catch a massive haul of fish despite their previous efforts being futile.
2. A man chases Jesus down who is covered in leprosy – Jesus touches him, heals him and sends him back to the temple and tells him to keep it quiet
3. Next is one of my all time favourite Bible stories of the young men who drop their mate thru the roof at Jesus’ feet to be healed – right in the middle of a room where Jesus is quietly being scoped out by Pharisees from near and far.
4. Jesus calls Matthew and then a big party follows at Matthew’s place where he gets asked why he keeps hanging out with these people.
5. The chapter closes with Jesus again be asked why his disciples don’t fast like other disciples do. He does the whole wineskin spiel.

There’s a lot there and each of those stories could form a message on its own quite easily. As I read I remember that I taught on the ‘haul of fish’ a few weeks back but to a slightly different crew – a combined QBC & YCC as we held a dedication event. Maybe some of that is still pertinent – but it may feel like a ‘repeat’ and I hate repeats.

I am instantly drawn to my favourite ‘lower him thru the roof’ story and I know I could make that one ‘work’ quickly and easily. I’m good at that one. The temptation to just do that is there. It would cut my prep time right down. But if the question is ‘what is God saying to these people?’ then I can’t just drag out an ‘easy preach’ and run with it. That’s cheating.

So I do what I often do and print the whole chapter out then make notes around it with a pen – observing what hits me and what strikes a chord in my heart.

Right now the ‘spark’ thoughts are:

‘but because you say so’ v 5

‘covered with leprosy’ v 12 ‘touched the man’ v 13

‘Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’ v 16

‘They had come from every village’ v 17

‘Jesus saw their faith’ v 20

‘Levi held a great banquet’ v 29

‘But the time will come’ v 35

None of these phrases are focal / summary statements, but rather are just the phrases that struck a chord as I read. I find that because the Bible is so familiar now after so many years I need to ‘listen with the heart’ to what is fresh and then discern what to do with that – if anything.

I also see themes and motifs emerging that are worth paying attention to:

In the context of Luke’s story we have had the accounts of the miraculous children in ch 1 & 2, we have met John the Baptist in ch 3 and then Jesus baptism happens in ch 4 along with his statement of his core mission. Up to now it has felt largely preparatory, even under cover, but it now feels like Jesus has ramped things up a notch or two. He is ‘picking his team’, getting stuck into his work and making enemies with the Pharisees.

So from here I begin chewing on the thematic threads to see if anything fires:

• the calling of the unlikely ones
• rejection of the established paths and the opposition that brings
• the work / rest cycle in Jesus
• covert and overt identity claims – ‘Messiah’ / Lord
• the redefinition of holy / unholy and clean / unclean
• Jesus authority recognised by the ‘outsiders’ – rejected by the ‘insiders’

I wonder what does any of this say to a bunch of middle class white Australian/SouthAfrican/Pom Christians in the northern suburbs of Perth?

I also have to be aware of my own ‘issues’ – my pet peeves, annoyances and hobby horses that can so easily fuel my preaching.

Having got this far I instantly I want to reflect on what we can learn from those who not regular church goers about what it means to follow Jesus. What ‘fresh eyes’ can they bring to a story I have become so familiar with and even oblivious to? That probably reflects some of my recurring internal angst at the moment. I have read this Bible so much and so often over the last 40 years that I am over-familiar with it – bored with it at times – wondering what is there in here that I haven’t yet mined?

In these moments I occasionally wonder about a life that doesn’t involve leading a church – how that might shape my perception of scripture. Have I become so immersed in it for so long that it has lost some of its bite? When I think of mining operations I know there comes a point where you are no longer really drawing out what’s valuable – you’re just pulling up dirt. I sometimes feel like the teaching process has become this for me. Part of my struggle is that I find it hard to communicate ‘old truths’ – stuff that may be new to others but is old for me. I don’t find great joy in that and I find that my own teaching is most engaging when I am sharing stuff I am learning freshly.

I go back and read it again just to see what about the stories I find stirring:

• I see the massive haul of fish – until nets were breaking and I want to ponder that more.
• I see a leprous man seeking Jesus out even though he wasn’t allowed to and I want to consider that some more.
• I ‘feel’a showdown when Jesus heals the crippled bloke whose mates dropped him thru the roof. I see him going toe to toe with the guardians of tradition.
• I see a massive party at the home of an unlikely disciple and that makes me smile.
• I see a rabbi who doesn’t appear religious enough – and I feel like I want to dig into that a bit more

But the party at Matthew’s house is inspiring me… hmmm…

—————-

So that’s where I have got to today.

Overviews – themes – gut stirrings – curiosities and some inner worrying…

I will sit on this now for a few days and see what emerges as I let it percolate. I will read and re-read those stories probably another 30 or 40 times. I will read other people’s perceptions via commentaries and I will probably even do a quick sweep of my favourite bloggers in case there are any nuggets there.

As well as that I will chat my kids and my friends about these stories and ask them what they see. I will ask the questions that interest me and hear other people’s points of view.

Some time over the next 8 days a focus will emerge – one core idea to be communicated and I will then spend next Friday shaping that into something strong, sharp and valuable.

I work with three basic questions when I am teaching:

• what do I want them to know?
• what do I want them to feel?
• what do I want them to do?

It has to be more than knowledge – it must evoke some feeling that leads to action.

Right now its a mess of random thoughts and impressions, but give it time and it will shape up into something with potency. I have learnt that. No matter how messy it looks now I just need to wait – listen – ponder and reflect.

It will come… it always does.

I

A little while back I had a day off work on a beautiful autumn day so I headed down to my local beach hoping to head out for a surf.

When I arrived there was just one other car there. It was a beautiful sunny, offshore day with a very small swell, which suits old bloke surfers like me. I sat there for a few minutes and watched some waves roll in. Small… fast breaking, but definitely ridable and best of all, no one out. That’s a rare find at any break these days so I decided to watch a bit longer and started considering paddling out. I hopped out of the car and stood in the carpark and got talking to the other guy.

‘Not much happening here’ he says.

He was on his phone checking some data on the net. ‘I’ve been here 30 minutes now’, he said. ‘The sets are at 5 minute intervals, the tide is rising…’ and so he went on with info about swell interval, wind direction and tide movement.’ On his phone he had every piece of data you could want on what the surf was like today and it told him that it wasn’t any good. Now I’ll grant you it wasn’t the best day you’ve ever seen, but fun waves and no crowds is surely a win in itself.

After he drove off I decided to paddle out and in the next hour I had a good 15-20 waves. I came in weary but having had a lot of fun.

The difference was that I simply paddled out into what I saw rather than analysing the ‘data’ and making a decision based on that. I think we do this often in life. We look at the data, see that the numbers don’t seem to add up and then disregard our inner hunches that there might be something there.

Now to be sure – there are times to listen to the data, when the evidence is overwhelming, but there are also times when you just have to ‘paddle out’ and take the risk. There are times when your gut is your best guide. It doesn’t always pay off but frankly, the ‘numbers’ don’t tell you everything either.

When it comes to faith some people look at the ‘data’ and conclude that ‘the numbers don’t add up’. The evidence doesn’t seem to point to the existence of a God (although it very much depends on whose evidence you are listening to.)

And then there are others who get a sniff of the truth and follow their instincts into the ‘water’, only to discover a reality they didn’t expect. Perhaps you’re in the carpark now and you have a sense that the ‘truth’ is out there? Maybe you have sensed it for a while but you haven’t known where to head with your internal rumblings.

Maybe you need to ‘paddle out’ and see for yourself? Yes – its a risk. You might be the only one paddling out and you could look silly. It might not all work out as you’d hoped. But could it be that there is a greater reality that you are missing out on because you just haven’t taken the risk? Could it be that the so called ‘evidence’ you are currently relying on is in fact flawed?

A long time ago the prophet Jeremiah recorded God’s message to his people – ‘you will seek me and you will find me if you search for me with all your heart’. Those words were written to another people a long time ago, but their truth is as real for us today. ‘If you seek me you will find me if you search for me with all of your heart.’

A few centuries later the early church leader Paul said that ‘God is not far from any one of us.’ Perhaps the inner stirring you are experiencing is actually the spirit of God at work, drawing you towards him. Perhaps the dissatisfaction with your current reality is the first step in finding life as it was intended to be lived.

For some folks to ‘seek God’ seems an odd thing to do – and yet I would suggest that this is why we were created – to know God and to live in close relationship with him and then follow his leading in life. I believe that as we live in close connection with God we see opportunities open up, relationships form and life comes together in ways that make sense.

It is as we seek God that we discover who we really are – that we tap into our true identity as his much loved sons and daughters.

Perhaps its time to look past the data and follow your heart into the water, to discover that the God you are seeking is right there if you will take a step towards him.

Speaking, being heard and bringing change – these are three completely different things.

The big hope when communication is a major part of your life and work is that you will speak in such a way that you are not only ‘heard’, but that your words will provoke action and significant life change. Otherwise you simply add to the never ending din of white noise that pervades our world.

I’ve been speaking to groups of one sort or other for over 30 years now and as I’ve got better at it, I’ve noticed that I’ve changed in how I communicate. I once wanted to make sure I got the information across correctly and to do that I would sacrifice a degree of personal engagement and spontaneity. With that sacrifice also came a corresponding decrease in passion and energy.

Now any time I speak I’ve got the basic idea nailed – that’s important after that there’s a plan, but its not critical I adhere to it religiously. I am just as concerned – sometimes moreso for the energy I speak with and the feelings that are created as few people respond simply to information. Otherwise we could all read our sermons or even send them by email and the ‘information’ would have the same effect.

So with that in mind here are some quotes I came across that reflect some of my own priorities in communication these days:

‘Don’t memorise, internalise’. – David Brooks. 

If you’re preaching on Sunday and you can’t describe what you want to say in one short  sentence then you haven’t done enough work to clarify and internalise the message. Its the test I give myself each Friday when I prepare. If I can’t frame it in one sentence then there is more work to be done!

‘Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.’ – Dionysius Of Halicarnassus

Aint that the case hey? Ever been listening to someone that would have been better to call for 20 minutes of silent prayer? If it isn’t worth saying then just don’t say it.

‘Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything’. – Herbert Gardner

Ok – a little dangerous. I’m sure this is in the kit bag of all aspiring cult leaders… but I think its a general rule that people will listen to you far more willingly if you have been kind enough to make them smile and laugh. I will always shoot for 3 minutes of funny story or jovial engagement before kicking you in the nuts.

Always be shorter than anybody dared to hope. – Lord Reading

It doesn’t seem to matter how many pages of notes I take with me, I always seem to speak for 25-30 minutes these days. That seems to be how long I can hold most people and not have them wanting to leave. If you’re a beginner then shorter is always better. No one will EVER criticise you for a short talk, but plenty will resent you for eternity if you blather on after they have stopped listening.

Grasp the subject, the words will follow. – Cato the Elder

In other words – know your stuff and you can talk about it in many & various ways. This Sunday I am speaking about how we have significant conversations with one another that will form us into Christlikeness and I could actually talk about that for an hour right now. The work I do between now and Sunday is to cull the unnecessary information, add the stories and make it concise and useful.

The eloquent man is he who is no beautiful speaker, but who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ah… passion! I have heard some theologically correct and technically well ordered sermons in my time that have left me weeping with boredom. But passion anchored to knowledge is the recipe for some real life change. The recent Royal Wedding was an example of passion making people sit up and take notice, when ordinarily they would have zoned out and looked at their phones for 10 minutes.

And if I had two piece of advice from my own experience to share that have been critical I would say:

‘Tell stories. Tell stories. Tell stories.’ 

That’s not lame, shallow, and veering into Ophrah world. Its how people listen. Its how people see the world. If you want to be heard then tell stories – personal stories as much as possible – not those ‘canned illustrations’ from the preaching books. Of course your stories have to be relevant, potent and helpful otherwise they can be rants, time fillers or self indulgence. But if Jesus thought it was best to make his point with stories then I’m happy to trust his judgement on that one. If you live in exegetical world and feel the need to communicate the wisdom of 30 different theological scholars to the people in your community then its time to give that away and start telling stories. Seriously – no one cares.

Second piece of advice from the Hamo school of communication…

‘You have 30 seconds to get me listening or my mind is going walkabout – and probably not coming back.’

The opening of any talk is the most important part. Lose me here and you might lose me forever. That’s how it is for some folks. You simply HAVE TO get my attention within 30 seconds or I go ‘mind-surfing’ and I only come back if you begin telling another story.

Anyway – hope they are helpful whatever communication you are doing!

When I was away over Christmas I read Magda Subanzki’s autobiography ‘Reckoning’. You might know Magda better as Sharyn Strezleckie (from Kath and Kim – she is Kim’s second best friend) or Esme Hoggett from Babe, or to take it back a bit you may remember Michelle – the super-bogan from the Comedy Company with her mate Ferret? And there is of course Magda the Irish dancer…

Subanszki is one of Australia’s most successful comedians and her book is a gem. A really honest and raw piece of writing as she tries to come to grips with who she is in this world.

The opening of the book tells the story of her Polish father – who she describes as an assassin – because that’s what he was during the war. He killed people – many people – as a young man in the Polish undergound resistance army . And she writes about how she felt a terrible weight of shame because of her father. Later she felt shame from her migrant background – her struggle with weight gain and her sexuality.

But the book opens with a powerful image. She writes of a painting she has seen in the Museo Del Prado in Madrid, by a guy called Heironymous Bosch around 1494. It’s called ‘The Extraction of the Stone of Madness’ and it depicts the ‘medical procedure’ called ‘trepanation’ which was in those days supposed to be the cure for insanity.

What that means more specifically is that the surgeons drilled/hacked into your skull and then removed – something – what they called the stone of madness – and surprisingly many people survived… I doubt anyone went back for further treatment, but people made it out alive.

It was this curious belief that part of our brokenness was found in our physiology and if we just sort that out all will be well.

What Subanszki writes next is what I found intriguing. She says:

I swear sometimes I can feel that presence in my head. A palpable presence, an unwelcome thing that I want to squeeze out of my skull like a plum pip, using nothing but the sheer pressure of thought and concentration. If I just think hard enough… 

 

That stone was my father’s legacy to me, his keepsake. Beneath his genial surface, somewhere in the depths, I would sometimes catch a glimpse — of a smooth, bone-coloured stone. A stone made of calcified guilt and shame. I could feel it. I can feel it still.

This highly competent, very successful and much loved Aussie icon speaks in a very honest way of her struggle with guilt and shame – a struggle that goes on to this day – and those themes play out through her book.

And it’s a struggle beneath the surface of an otherwise apparently all together life.

What I love about Subanzki’s book is that she has been gutsy enough to say what plenty of other people feel but don’t dare say. ‘I’m not ok – there is something wrong with me – I can’t even articulate it properly – but it ends up with me feeling guilt and shame. And I wish I could shake it – but I can’t…’

I think if we were having this conversation with her, many of us would just want to reassure her – ‘you’re ok – there’s nothing wrong with you – just believe you are ok and you will be fine’.

But… I think she mighta tried that…

I’d want to say two things to Magda – two things I believe we can take from the Bible that speak to who she is – in fact they speak to all of us because what she experiences is not unique

The first is that yes you are ok – you are much more than ok! You are made in the image of God. You are created in the likeness of God and that is good! You aren’t a random evolutionary misfit that popped up on the planet by chance. The Psalms says he knew you before you were born and he has plans for you – he wants the best for you. More than that he loves you.

The creator of the universe sees you and loves you

You matter to him – you are of immense worth.

But I’d also want to say ‘you’re right – in your feeling that something is wrong – that you’re not ok – you’re spot on – none of us are ok.’

Sooner or later we all feel what you described – that sense of guilt and shame about our life – that somehow it doesn’t stack up – that somehow we are less than we could be.’ That we have done things we never thought we’d do and been people we never thought we’d be…

And we bear the guilt and shame of our stuff ups. And no matter how we try – Nothing we do can fix it.

Perhaps you might have either seen the movie The Kite Runner or read the book. It follows the story of a young boy called Amir who abandons and betrays his friend Hassan. Hassan lives in his home where his father is a servant. One day Amir watches him get brutally beaten up and assaulted and he says nothing – he does nothing. In fact when he gets home he has Hassan’s father dismissed from his job because he can’t live with the shame of his own failure.

The book opens with these words ‘there is a way to be good again’. And the rest of the story looks at how Amir seeks to atone for his failure and his betrayal to help his friend – how he tries hard to erase his guilt and shame and find his way in life again – to be ‘good again’.

That theme of redemption is common in literature – and my hunch is that it’s so common in our stories because it is so common in humanity. The quest for a life that is noble and honourable and good and the desire to overcome the evil that lurks in us – to somehow ‘right the ship’.

None of us wants to live a bad life. None of us wants to screw up our own lives or the lives of others. But because we are naturally self centred – because it is part of our DNA to seek our own interests first – that is the trajectory our life will take unless there is another power at work. Unless a new imagination of life can grasped, we will inevitably find our lives veering in that direction. Like a car with dodgy steering it takes all of your effort just to keep the thing on the road.

Most people live trying to balance the scales of life so that the ‘good’ they do outweighs ‘bad’ but they never really know if they’ve done enough – or if they’ve done enough if that ‘enough’ was done with the right motives – and will it count?

How do you become ‘good’ again? Can you become good again?… How can you erase guilt and shame? What does it mean to live well – to live a full life – to live in ‘shalom’ – peace – wholeness and goodness as God intends?

With your iphone you can plug it in and restore it – take it back to its factory settings. How can you do that with life?

It begins with accepting the reality that you are broken – you are not the person you hoped you would be. Sooner or later as you go thru this life you come to the dark realisation that you are messed up and your brokenness affects everything about you and everything you do.

Some of us hide that well – we appear to be ‘together’ – while for others of us it just leaks out all over the place and there is a big ‘mess’. And I’m not talking about being criminally messed up – I’m just talking about realising that because of who you are life does not seem to work as it should.

Because of who you are you never feel content. Because of who you are your marriage is always on the edge. Because of the person you are its hard to keep a job – or its hard to have friends. Because of who you are your finances are in a mess. Because of who you are your kids are living dysfunctional, destructive lives.

And you despise your part in your own dysfunction, but you don’t know what to do… You don’t have an answer…except to try harder next time.

And even if your life is not in chaos – you still know in your guts that something is not right. The quest to attain to the kind of life we hope for feels always out of reach.

It’s where the Jesus story offers such great hope. There is a ‘way to be good again’, but it doesn’t stem from our own efforts and our own ability to right the ship. It comes from his willingness to take the penalty for our sin and to rise again and offer that power to us to follow him and live differently.

There is way to be good again, but it’s rooted in God’s love for us and his grace rather than in earning our way back into his favour. I’ve said it before ‘Grace trumps Karma every time!’ The Bible says in Romans that God has shown us how much he loves us in that while we were sinners – broken and messed up – Christ died for us.

There is a way to be good again, but it finds its energy in the salvation God offers through Jesus rather than in our own moral actions. In his letter to the church in Ephesus Paul wrote that it is by God’s grace we have been saved through faith in Jesus so that no one can boast. It is Jesus who is the source of life – the source of salvation and nothing we can do ourselves.

Its totally counterintuitive and this isn’t a theme we see in much literature. Most of our redemption stories are people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and ‘making good’.

If you look at your life with a degree of despair sometimes, then that’s not a bad thing. It’s an acceptance of reality – that you are broken. Plenty of people can’t see their own brokenness. – plenty of people feel their own ‘stone of madness’ deep in the psyche. But it’s where you go from there that matters. You can’t fix yourself, but God can.

God wants to – its why he sent Jesus to be the one who dies for us – the one who takes the hit for all of our stupid choices and terrible stuff ups. He takes what was due to us and allows us to walk free into life – right with God and empowered to live in a whole new way.

There is a way to be good again and that way is Jesus.

Last week I watched the story of Private Desmond Doss, a soldier in the second world war whose story is told in the movie Hacksaw Ridge.

Doss grew up as a Christian and a devout pacificist – he was a conscientious objector to war. But he chose to sign up and do his bit as a medic. He wanted to serve his country, do his part and help the cause.

He just didn’t want to kill anyone in the process.

He confused his fellow soldiers because he didn’t play by the rules. He refused to pick up a weapon or to get involved in anything that would hurt another person.

Doss was taunted and abused by his fellow soldiers who considered him a coward. They saw someone who lacked courage and who just didn’t get it. So they beat him up and tried to get rid of him.

They tried to make army life so unbearable that he would quit and go home.

The truth was, he didn’t lack courage at all – he was more than prepared to put his body on the line – in fact he had the courage of 10 men. He roamed the battle field without a gun of any kind, running out to attend to those who had been hurt and to pick up injured soldiers and literally carry them on his back to safety where they could be cared for.

Often those injured soldiers were the same ones who had abused him and accused him of weakness. His presence to save them – at risk of his own life – must have been confusing to say the least.

Doss was a man of great courage and conviction and he was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the congressional medal of honour for bravery.

He saw the world different to those around him and he was misunderstood and abused because of it.

He was a soldier – but a different kind of soldier.

That was the battle of Okinawa in 1945.

Today we remember the battle of Golgotha in C 33 AD where two other kingdoms collided. And we see another man who saw the world differently and who suffered for it.

He was a king – but a different kind of king. He was misunderstood, abused and maligned for his un-kingly ways. And yet that was the very point.

He came as a different kind of king to establish a different kind of kingdom – to lead people into a new way of living – but in doing so he confused his followers who were counting on him to win a military victory and establish a kingdom of power and might.

The only way people could see victory was by force and might, but Jesus wasn’t going to win anything by that means.

If you live by the sword you die by the sword.

But if you die by the cross then you can call people to live by the cross. You can call people to a way of life that is not about being the boss, but rather is about being a servant.

In Mark 10 Jesus was speaking with his disciples about this new kingdom he was going to establish and an argument broke out about who was going to be 2IC – who’s going to get the prestige jobs in the new administration!

And Jesus just says ‘ no you guys don’t get it do you?’

⁴² Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

He came to serve – and to give his life. In fact when Peter objected to having his feet washed by Jesus replied, ‘If i don’t wash your feet then you have nothing to do with me’

He was a different kind of king

Instead of smashing his way to the top Jesus came and served and people didn’t get it. We still don’t. On this planet the man with the biggest guns still rules and gets his way

They misunderstood him at one level and understood him perfectly on another – which is why he was executed. Instead of playing the game, working the system and colluding with those in power he critiqued them. He saw thru their self centredness and ego and he saw the mess that that approach had made of God’s creation.

So they plotted to get rid of him

In fact they feared him. His ways and ideas and his life was at odds with theirs and eventually it came to a head.

Someone had to win. Someone always has to win.

So what does a ‘win’ look like when you don’t want to play the game like those who are abusing you?

What does it mean to stay true?

For Jesus it meant death. It meant allowing himself to be killed by those who didn’t get him and who felt threatened by him. He gave his life literally.

For him it meant not fighting back. Not playing the same game, but drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘from now on new rules apply’.

Jesus willing ness to die set the tone for the kingdom he came to establish so today we reflect on a different kind of king and the darkest day in history when we rejected his rule and killed him.

We come to Easter Friday now with the knowledge of imminent resurrection, but that first Easter there was no recognition of that possibility – just despair and utter grief that it had all come to nothing. The plan had failed and Jesus was another disappointment.

I guess it all depends on how you see the world…

Back when I used to play basketball regularly I would go thru patches of good form and bad form. There would be 5 or 6 weeks in a row where it felt like you ‘couldn’t miss’ – every shot you put up felt like it was going in and often it did.

Then there were those weeks where you felt ‘out of form’, where the ball left your hand and you fully expected to hear a clang rather than a swoosh. Those weeks could go on and on and they were painful.

What was odd was that there wasn’t any way of determining when you’d be on form or off. It wasn’t that you ever stopped being a good basketballer, but simply that some days what you did worked and other days not so much.

I find the same happens with communication in a church setting, but with one distinct and curious difference.

RIght now I’d say I’m in a bit of a ‘form slump’ – putting teaching together has been really hard work whereas often it just flows – the creative ideas aren’t sparking and I’m just having to give it the best I’ve got – to hang in until things change. I can’t pick a specific cause or reason. Its just how it is. In this space I’m struggling to find the inspiration I want and the thought processes are clunking and grinding rather than meshing smoothly.

In the sporting arena that translates to poorer performance – games lost – and stats down. But curiously in the spiritual arena its often when the Spirit does his best work – when I feel like I’m not performing – when my own game is lacking.

I’ve been doing it long enough to know that what I think is my best work – the days when I have ‘belted it out of the park’ (as preachers say…) may not actually be the stuff that the spirit uses, but what I consider awkward and clunky and maybe even ho hum will often touch people’s hearts in unexpected ways.

So I’ve learnt not to worry – not to panic – but rather to wonder ‘how will God use this offering?…’ Because that’s what it is – an offering of the best I’ve got  – 5 loaves and 2 fish which he can do something pretty cool with.

In my early days of ministry I would have happily ‘subbed out’ during these periods and let someone else take the floor, but these days (while I still don’t enjoy periods of ‘creative constipation’) I actually find myself turning up expectant and curious as to what God will do with the best I’ve got to give.

And funnily enough, right this moment, just as I was about to hit ‘post’ a message came in from someone who found this morning’s message helpful…

Ha… Makes me smile…

I haven’t preached at church for nearly 4 weeks now and I haven’t blogged on here for over 3 weeks.

Its lucky I haven’t had to preach because the cupboard feels pretty bare. I am lacking inspiration and spark – maybe if I was more spiritual I would say the Spirit’s voice is quiet, but the more honest reality is that I have been ‘blue arsed fly’ busy – and my thoughts have been consumed with my business and its demands.

As a seasonal worker whose ‘season’ started late after a long cold winter, I have now been deluged with phone calls and service requests. People have turned their sprinklers back on and discovered they don’t work… and the rush is on to get them fixed before the real heat begins.

After 10 years in business I have enough regular clients to never run short of work so my phone rings constantly and no matter what I am doing, I am almost always interrupted. Texts come in from 6.00am to midnight and sometimes in the middle of the night…

Its not a pace of life I enjoy, but I surrender to it for the three months each year that it requires. It means the rest of life suffers during that time as I work 10 hour days from Tuesday to Thursday and try to get thru as much work as possible.

Its difficult to be a good dad and husband when you are preoccupied and weary. Its hard to get motivated to see people, or go out. I eat dinner, watch some braindead TV and then chug off to bed around 9pm and generally I’m asleep in minutes. I was going to go to swimming training with the kids on Friday mornings but I just can’t bring myself to physical exertion on a day when I don’t have to go hard.

That’s one way in which busyness takes its toll, but the other way I see it impacting is on my creativity.  In this time creativity shrivels up and lives in a dark corner of my world and the tasks which it fuels (preaching, blogging, future dreaming) get dropped or done sub-standard because there is little fuel in the tank.

I sometimes open this blog, click on ‘new post’ with a vague idea percolating and discover that there just isn’t the clarity of thought or turn of phrase that comes so easily when my head is in a different, slower space.

My observation is that (at least for me) busyness is absolutely incompatible with creativity – that for the mind to be in a generative mode there needs to be peace and space and quiet. Even in the still moments I do set aside at the start and end of each day I am conscious of the need to ‘get going’ or of other important business pressing in on me. Prayer becomes a task – often a futile one – and I sometimes just give it up and go and ‘do something useful’.

Some of my most creative moments are actually on holidays – when there is nothing to do and nothing to think about. But even then it can take a while to get into that zone.

So for now this blog will show signs of neglect. I will do my best to pull together ideas for teaching at church, but chances are I won’t be ‘in the zone’ for a little while to come.

That said, I know there will come a day – I’m guessing in January once people have overspent on credit cards – when I will get a breath and I will be able to sit at peace with little pressing and listen to the ‘other voice’.

I know that will happen… but what about those for whom ‘January’ never comes – those for whom all of life is lived in the frantic zone? I’d suggest one of the reasons imagination and creativity is seen as the domain of children is because they have wide open mental spaces in which to play and they are not caught up in a life of activity – yet…

I would suggest we all have a creative side to us, but unless it is tended it gets squeezed out of us by a world that insists we get busy. I know there are times we need to be run hard, but I sense the world would be a richer place if the creative spark were fanned into flame more often albeit at the expense of productivity.

If you multiply those two numbers together then that is how many times in my life I’ve been to a church service.

Its a lot

In reality its probably more than that, because for the first 38 years I went twice on Sunday… (remember those days anyone) so I think the mathematicians would work that out as (38 x 104) + (14 x 52) which is 4680 church services give or take a few for holidays and for the years when we had 3 or 4 services a day running.

Let’s call it 5000…

After 5000 church services what is there still to learn, to do, to experience to be part of?… Surely 5000 times is enough?!…

And most of it has been the same kind of thing happening over and over… Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…Sing, pray, listen… sing, pray, listen…

Or in my case once I got a gig it was sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…sing, pray, preach…

Ok point made, church is repetitive – to the point of tedium even.

Not unlike my days, or yours for that matter.

Wake, eat, work, sleep or some variation of that. Every day is pretty much the same and even if I change the content of those activities I am still going to do pretty much the same thing for the rest of my life…

Wake, eat, work, sleep and repeat…

The point?

Repetition is not bad – in fact it is part of life – and health even.  Certainly we all need a holiday and a shift in focus from time to time, but 99% of life is repetitive and routine.

99%

Really.

And we need routine and repetition to give form to our days.

It would seem odd to delete ‘eating’ from our routine, or ‘sleep’. Many would like to delete ‘work’, but if you’ve done that then you would know the emptiness that accompanies a lack of purposeful living.

I’m no fan of church for church’s sake, but increasingly I see the value of the simple discipline of turning up – saying ‘this is what I do’.

I meet with my ‘family’ every week and I check in. And like most family gatherings some weeks its a hoot, other weeks it feels like white noise and others still we fall asleep or zone out completely.

But families get together.

Most evenings 4 of us gather around the table for food and to ‘be there’. Some nights I don’t feel much like talking. Some nights we laugh and joke loudly. Most nights Sam is the last one finished his meal because he talks more than the rest of us.

Our family’s evening meals are rarely inspiring, and captivating, but there is a simple beauty in being there – in turning up – and recognising that its not the same if someone is away – or if we eat at different times.

So I will continue to meet with the family in its various forms just because it matters – even if at times I find it hard to see.

Recently I was at a dinner party and speaking with a person who expressed an interest in all things philosophy and religion. I found myself in conversation with this bloke for a while, so I began to ask him about his religious / philosophical views.

I asked if he had done any study and he confidently told me he had. I was thinking a philosophy degree or similar, but when I asked he explained that he had been on a weekend retreat back in 2011 with a group called Landmark Forum and it had revolutionised his life and been the basis for his thinking.

‘So… 3 days? Was that it?…’ I asked.

‘Yes, but I could do part 2 – another weekend – if I wanted to’ he added.

I admit I was skeptical of someone who would call a 3 day weekend a substantial amount of study…

As we chatted I heard that the group who held the weekend gathering in question  base their work on the EST movement, a school of thought popular back in the 70’s and 80’s but now rebranded as ‘Landmark Forums’.

I had heard of EST, but didn’t know much – they just fitted in my ‘alternative spiritualities’ category. I came home and did some googling and they get both rave reviews and scam warnings, depending on who is writing and what their experience was.

After reading up on them in various places, the common thread I observed was that the weekend was an intense focused time where people were broken down and then ‘re-built’.  It seems the goal of the conferences are to break people emotionally – to help them see and encounter their own brokenness and screwed-upness and to have them experience their own darkness and failure. In that deeply emotional state people are encouraged to scan their past for broken relationships and damage done that needs fixing.

From there they are encouraged to get on the phone, or set up a meeting to reconcile with those they have wronged.  And then once the ‘past has been dealt with’ they can move forwards. Many accounts describe this as a time of powerful healing and breakthru.

The philosophy has connections to the human potential movement, believing that in yourself you have all the capacity to achieve fulness and completeness – to be fully human.

I found it interesting to follow the train of thought and to see the similarity with my own faith – the belief in our brokenness and the need for healing – the importance of reconciliation, but then to see the divergence when it comes to how wholeness is achieved. In Landmark Forums you are seen as capable of moving yourself into a new headspace and of being your own saviour. All around us today in contemporary spirituality are variations on that theme – you are enough – you are your own authority and source of hope.

Its the dominant narrative of our time and in some places it leeches into our Christian story, eroding and ultimately eliminating the need for Jesus. The guy I was speaking with told me that he felt he had evolved past such a primitive mode of thought as Christianity, a theme I hear in the more recent teachings of Rob Bell, as he talks less about Jesus and more about an evolving consciousness. (And yes – I still listen to Bell – because I like him, find him intriguing and I think he has some amazing stuff to say alongside that which I would despatch)

My need for a saviour actually sounds quite ‘weak’ alongside those who would argue they don’t need anyone, which is probably what Paul was getting at when he spoke of the foolishness of the cross and our only boast being in the Lord. (1 Cor 8)

I guess the ultimate question is whose reality is true, but then that’s not the kinda question you ask in these times either…