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Think
back to yesterday. (It seems so long ago!) What did you do with your day?
How did you decide what to do? Was it a good day? What criteria did you
use to decide?
These questions all come down to your worldview, or as I like to
think of it, the picture in your head that makes sense of life. We all
have a picture (worldview), but we don’t often clearly know what our own
one is.
So,
how does this relate to the Godstuff? Well, the bible offers us a good
picture (or worldview), but to be honest I think we struggle to see how
this is actually relevant to us on a daily basis – this is not often
what we use to make sense of life as we experience it.
But
it doesn’t need to be this way.
I
like NT Wright’s analogy, likening the bible to a Shakespearean play
that is missing the last Act. Rather than have someone else re-write the
last Act to complete the play, you choose to get a cast of actors who are
familiar with Shakespeare and have them immerse themselves in the previous
Acts. Then they are told to go and improvise the final Act, working it out
for themselves.
If
we can immerse ourselves in the major ‘Acts’ of the bible – Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and the predicted Future Hope, we
can be those improvising actors, who are working out the missing Act for
ourselves.
These
major ‘Acts’ can help us make sense of life – where we have come
from, who we are, and where we are heading. And strangely enough, I
believe we can see all the aspects of the big themes (or
‘Acts’) of the bible playing themselves out even in just one of our
ordinary days. When we start to see how the ‘small’ story of my life
is connected to the ‘big’ story of God, we are a long way towards
integrating faith and life…and the ‘lights’ start to really come on.
Over
the next few emails I’d like to look at each of these themes (Creation,
Fall, Redemption, and Future Hope) in more detail to help us make better
connections with The Story.
But
until then, may your worldview (or at least the coffee) get you through
the day.
Creation
On
Sunday I went to the beach with the kids and together we built the best
sandcastle ever! (well, we thought it was good anyway) We built it in the
full knowledge that in a few hours it would be destroyed – either by the
tide, an enthusiastic toddler or a passing dog. And yet that did not slow
us down in our attempt to create a well-structured castle of beauty.
It
doesn’t make sense, really. Why bother when it will only be destroyed
and our efforts wasted?
The
answer for me has to do with us being a ‘chip off the old block’: God
made you and me in the image of God. At the very beginning we are told
"God created…" He started with raw material that was formless
and empty and dark and he
set about creating a world that was beautiful, functional,
well-balanced and relational.
And just consider the job titles that God could put on his business card:
architect, engineer, artist, landscape designer, vet, microbiologist,
astronomer, gardener, project manager, genetic engineer(!),…to name a
few. So we are only being true to our human nature (and
‘God-likeness’) when we create.
But
we don’t just create for our own benefit; we also create as part
of what God wants to do in the world. When God made Adam & Eve
he called them to work with him. God made the garden but his
co-workers were to ‘work it and take care of it’ in order to see the
growth continue. God made the animals but the co-workers had the job of
naming them (– without names the animals would not be complete). In true
power-sharing style, God gives us significant creative work to do that is
a part of God’s ongoing creative acts in the world.
And
God is interested in the details. So when you cook dinner, tidy your room,
sing a song, complete a work project, write a letter, enjoy time with a
friend, organise a party, wash your hair, pull out a weed or feed the
cat…in a profound way you are participating with God in making a
world that is beautiful, functional, well-balanced
and relational. That’s why you get that ‘satisfied feeling’
when you do these things. It’s crucial you make this connection.
So
keep doing random acts of beauty and creativity. They are not wasted! This
is the stuff God’s on about, and together with God you share in the
important ongoing work of creation.
Fall
"When
the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to
the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then
the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised they were
naked…" Genesis 3:6
And
I always thought fruit was meant to be good for you.
Anyway,
Genesis 3 tells us how ‘badness’ entered into our world. Things
started well. God gave Adam & Eve a job to do (to take care of
the garden), he gave them lots of freedom ("you are free to
eat from any tree in the garden") but he also threw in a
limitation ("but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil"). There was no explanation as to why
they’d die if they ate it. That was just part of the deal.
One
day a snake came along and threw in a doubt: "Did God really give you
that limitation for your benefit? Surely he’s just keeping
something good back from you." Here’s the crunch: Would they trust
that God was doing things for their best interests or would they
‘break free’ and determine their own boundaries? Option B seemed good
at the time, but the consequences were disastrous. They placed themselves
in the driver’s seat of this thing called ‘life’ but they didn’t
have an instruction manual, they didn’t know where they were going, and
they didn’t have the ability to drive. They thought they could do it on
their own. They were wrong.
Total
collapse soon followed: within themselves, with their relationships with
others, with their abuse of the world and with their life with God. The
harmony, beauty and balance of creation continually gets marred by guilt,
fear and chaos.
Through
the ages, this ‘family likeness’ has been passed on to us.
I
live with the consequences every day – being fearful that something
nasty might happen to me; treating people as objects; being miserly and
unsharing towards those who could do with help. This is just the tip of
the iceberg. And I’m probably at my most dangerous when I think I’m
not actually doing too bad. From within each of us there is a poisonous
gas leak just waiting for a match. When the right opportunity comes along
to meet my corrupted desire…I’m sure I would surprise myself as to how
low I would go.
The
Fall is a crippling disease that slowly kills us from the inside out. We
are all infected. Until we can grasp the gravity of this, the so-called
‘good news’ makes no sense at all.
But
this is not the end of the story. There is good news…
Redemption
Last
time we looked at the Fall, where brokenness was the dominant theme: a
brokenness within each person, with relationships with other people, with
abuse of the world and with life with God. The story was looking bleak:
"The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his
heart was filled with pain" (Gen 6:6). Everything was pretty much
stuffed.
But
amazingly the story didn’t end there. For some reason, God had not given
up on people. He resolved to restore the relationships and fix what was
broken, at whatever personal cost to him. To make it work God had to absorb
the pain and this is what it meant for Jesus – God himself – to
die in the most humiliating of ways.
Suddenly,
we’re given a second chance. Isaiah likened our position to being blind
captives sitting in the darkness of the dungeons. But God stepped in and
began the process of saving, recycling, healing, ransoming, reconciling,
re-creating, and bringing peace to us! We have been redeemed.
This
is no small thing; we are new people. God lives in us (whether we feel
it on any particular day or not) so we have hope for today and the future.
Therefore, it seems to me that a dominant theme for our lives today
should be this redeeming characteristic.
We
encounter brokenness every single day of our lives – in our families,
amongst neighbours and friends, at workplaces, in our communities and
national institutions.
In
small and big ways we need to work with God to restore life out of the
chaos and brokenness we meet. Maybe it’s taking the time to hang out
with a lonely friend; or helping a neighbour fix his vandalised fence; or
joining Greenpeace and sending anti-whaling messages to the Japanese; or
saying sorry to the family member you screamed at this morning. All these
things will cost us personally and to some extent require us to
absorb some pain in order that we may be part of the process of bringing
restoration. But surely God must do a little jig when he sees us getting
involved with him in this great work.
The
lesson from God is that nothing is so broken that it can’t be fixed. As
long as there is life, things can be redeemed. In everyday ways, you can
live out this redeeming characteristic, bringing the beginnings of
hope and restoration to those who need it. Why not start today?
Future
Hope
Game
over. The great winding up of everything. Judgement day. The start of New
Life.
This is the Day the proverbial caterpillar comes out of the chrysalis to
emerge as a previously unseen beautiful butterfly. The Story of human
history finally has a happy ending (and new beginning). Surely this is the
Day we’re all looking forward to.
But
is it? I actually think this must be one of the least thought of
realities amongst Christians I know. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not
saying that we don’t believe in the resurrection and coming of
God’s New World Order. It’s just that, for me (and maybe you), I think
of the coming ‘Judgement Day’ as something that will happen,
but probably not in my lifetime – therefore I don’t really think about
it much or live with it as a fixed event on my calendar. And since I
don’t live with great misery, despair or the closeness of death staring
me in the face, I don’t tend to focus on the Hope of a new and better
life (this one’s not that bad). It becomes easy to believe in God
while at the same time living like everyone else who doesn’t.
But
the reality is that there is a brick wall coming our way called ‘the
end’. And if it is true, then it really places things like fame, money,
job titles, new houses, overseas trips and ‘winning’ in a whole new
light. Not that these things are necessarily bad, but how we use them can
be.
If
I really believed in God’s Day of winding things up, I think I
would hold my possessions more lightly; I’d share more. I would be less
interested in making sure I was better than my peers/rivals/competitors
and more interested in helping them and working with them. I’d take more
time to talk with the people in my world – really talk, not just
fluff around continually with superficial one-liners. I’d sit and enjoy
just being in the company of my family and good friends. I’d be
more honest with people, telling them what I think and what I believe to
be true, rather than just spinning them a line that I know they want to
hear. And I couldn't in good conscience be backward or totally quiet about
my faith with those around me.
What about you? If you really believed it,
would you be
happy to live like you do today?
This is serious stuff. It’s worth asking yourself the question.
Conclusion
Over
the last wee while we’ve looked at the ‘structural pillars’ of our
biblical story – creation, fall, redemption, and future hope. It’s
good theory, and it’s great to have a framework, but how can this make
any difference to us today?
We
talked earlier about the bible being like a Shakespearean play missing an
Act, with us as the ‘improvising actors’. As we draw from the other
Acts (Creation, Fall, Redemption, and the predicted Future Hope), our aim
is to work out the missing Act for ourselves. So we look at Creation, and
get a glimpse of how things were meant to be originally. We contrast this
with the Fall, which introduces brokenness into our story. (When we take
these two ‘Acts’ together it helps explain why we are such a mixture
of beauty, harmony, creativity, selfishness, meaninglessness and
corruption.)
Then
God steps in with the defining ‘Act’ of Redemption through Jesus. This
sets the tone and direction for the rest of the Play. God resolved to
restore and re-create life out of the chaos and brokenness in the world.
"The Kingdom of God is here!" said Jesus, but the restoration is
not complete until the final Act, our Future Hope.
Our
Story is lived out between the Redemption and the Future Hope. Our Act
began with Scene1: the early church (in the book of Acts). There have been
many scenes since then. But we have finally reached the stage and
it is now our turn to improvise.
Nice
analogy, but lets get practical.
Below
are a number of somewhat random issues that we may encounter in our
everyday lives. I have tried to show how the above framework can be used
to help us decide how we could ‘improvise’. Because I’ve done this
as quite a quick exercise, my analysis is pretty simple – and maybe even
simplistic. But that’s okay because hopefully it will give you an idea
how it works. You can always put more work into it and draw out more
detail from specific biblical stories that show these themes.
The
challenge for you is to take ONE of your own issues and see if you
can use this framework to come up with a course of action that is
consistent with Our Story.
Example
Issues
Academic
Study:
Creation
– made like God with capacity to think God gave command to rule &
care for creation - studies help us do this more effectively
Fall
– rather than working together, seek dominion over others - can result
in unhealthy competitiveness & rationale for achieving
Redemption
- "Through him all things were made..in him was life and this life
was the light of people. The light shines in the darkness, but the
darkness has not understood it" Jn 1:3-5 - at the root of all subject
matters is God, but too often his place in knowledge is not understood.
see also Jn 5:39 A healthy submitting to God is important Ecc 12:1. Jesus
who knew how important he was opted use whatever he had in order to serve
others (Mk 10:45; John 13; Phil 2:5-11)
Future
Hope - "now I know in part; then I shall know fully"
1Co13:12 - we will not have any more questions but will know everything at
the end
Possible
Action: study in humility and wonder, not seeking to ‘master’
a subject out of pride, but looking to learn in order to help you take
your place in society as one who serves others. Share what you learn with
others even if it may mean your ‘competitors’ (ie fellow students)
benefit from your knowledge
lunch:
Creation
– in Garden of Eden God provided good things to eat; people given
meaningful job of looking after garden, and therefore co-working with God
to provide food for themselves.
Fall
– we are lazy (don’t want to work to make our lunch) and liable to
want to eat an unbalanced diet (eg eat most fast foods). Money spent on
this could be put to better use (note also all the environmental issues
associated with multinational fast food companies). Some don’t take a
lunch break, thereby failing to benefit from God-given rest, and perhaps
showing ‘work’ to have too dominant a place in their life. (Israelites
in desert given Manna to eat but if didn’t collect it early it would
disappear – if don’t take God’s provision at right time it goes).
For others lunch is purely functional (fuel for body) rather than an
opportunity for relationship – thereby diminishing our humanity.
Redemption
– people who can’t make their lunch (there are some good reasons)
could choose to buy it from a café promoting healthy eating; others could
occasionally get involved in soup kitchens providing lunches for those in
real need; use your lunch break to promote relationship – choose to eat
with others rather than alone at your desk. Many of Jesus’ interactions
with people happened around food.
Future
Hope – ‘whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all
for the glory of God’ 1Cor 10:31. Jesus gives parables of the End being
like a Wedding Feast
Possible
Action: choose to make your lunch at least once a week and/or to
have fast foods no more than once a week or choose to buy your lunch from
a ‘worthy’ lunch café. Resolve to take a lunch break as a daily
discipline and use it to spend some time with others.
Fashion
accessories
Creation
– in the beginning God ‘the Artist’ created beautiful harmonies of
colours and shapes – his world was more than just functional. People
were also given unique individual characteristics and flair.
Fall
– beauty gets marred by excesses eg extremes today of face lifts
attempting to retain beauty but in reality creating ugliness (Michael
Jackson, Cher?); excessive emphasis on appearance over
substance/personality; fashion accessories become social class barriers
because of cost – creating competitiveness and judgmental attitudes
based on appearance; items bought in the West at the expense of sweat shop
workers in Asia
Redemption
- Jesus challenged prevailing social system - woman with bleeding (Mk 5)
made to feel human again both by Jesus treating her with dignity and his
healing her; Woman with the expensive perfume scoffed at by others but
Jesus vindicated her using this expense on him Mk 14. Jesus teaching on
clean and unclean based on the heart not outward appearances Mk 7; also
the place of trusting God for these things Mat 6:25ff
Future
Hope – God will restore beauty and dignity to one and all.
Difference will be admired rather than seen as point of competition
Possible
Action: buy items because of style rather than label snob value;
use TradeAid shops/don’t buy labels made in sweat shops; create your own
items; buy an item for someone too poor to afford it; choose to buy less;
limit yourself to the number of shoes you have at any one time; for every
dollar you spend on yourself give the same amount away; have regular days
when you don’t use accessories/labels/make-up to test yourself making
sure you don’t become reliant on them.
World
Cup Soccer:
Creation
– creativity, beauty, a reminder of shared humanity, pursuit of
excellence, teamwork
Fall
– competitive selfishness, breaking rules and physically injuring
opponents to make things easier for your team, over-emphasis on winning
(pride) at the expense of losers, arrogance, corruption of some players
and officials for money; obsession with the game by fans at the expense of
more important things
Redemption
– fair team and fairplay awards; team can bring hope and lift spirits of
a nation with little else to hope in (eg Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, …),
individual players showing courageous acts of kindness to opposition at
potential cost to themselves, teams learning to lose and win graciously
and not lay blame on individuals
Future
Hope – remember that the 90 minute game is not the all-important
thing but rather that there is another Game which can have multiple
winners and the result is not about how many goals you score but rather
how you play the Game. In parable of talents the servants are not compared
with each other but rather are treated on their own merits – emphasis on
being faithful and using what they had rather than achieving a certain
result Mat 25
Possible
action: don’t support a team just because they’re more likely
to win; ask yourself: Do you spend too much time watching sport on tv? Use
the opportunity to watch with others; don’t slag off at players
because they make a mistake – be gracious in defeat and victory
Money
& Poverty
Creation
- God placed all resources in the care and stewardship of people - the
eco-system was complete
Fall
- at the fall people started to seek domination of others and to find
their value as people in things other than God - material wealth featured
highly as an area to achieve this in
Redemption
- Jesus says it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,
Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God
- money had image of Caesar, people have stamped on them the image of God
- therefore give selves to God. Jesus says: Blessed are the poor, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven ! and woe to you who are rich for you have
already received your comfort! Lk6:20, 24
Jesus says: The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, bec he has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor Lk 4:18
Tho' being rich, he made himself poor so that others through his poverty
might become rich 2Co8:9
Future
Hope - To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost
from the spring of the water of life Rev 21:6 - eternal life and its
acquisition has nothing to do with money; all things come from God &
he will equitably distribute resources in the new kingdom, therefore money
has no lasting value. Jesus also praised the shrewd manager for working
his financial affairs in order to improve his relationships with others Lk
16
Possible
action: sponsor a World Vision child, live generously - be the
first to buy a round of drinks! Send any tax return refund to a charity,
pay for your solo mum friend to have a decent holiday, give food to
foodbanks, always give paper money to people who come collecting at your
door,…
Non-Christian
friends:
Creation
- all people have been created in the image of God, therefore all are of
value
Fall
- Even after the fall, all still retain the image of God Gen 9:6 everyone
begins as a non-Christian because everyone begins by rebelling against God
Redemption
- For the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve & to give
his life as a ransom for many Mk 10:45
It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick..I have..come to call
sinners to repentance Lk 5:31-32
The pharisees of the day sought to distance themselves from 'sinners', but
Jesus kicked against this by spending much of his time with them and
welcoming them Lk7:36-50; Lk 13:34 - Jesus strong heart for reaching the
lost
Future
Hope - the end for those who don’t know God is to be greatly
feared - 2Thes1:8-9. Likewise life with God at the end of time will be
unbelievably good. If we believe this we cannot be a true friend without
this somehow flavouring our relationship with those who don’t yet know
God.
Possible
Action: follow Jesus example of spending much of your time with
so-called ‘sinners’; pray for your friends; be honest and open about
God with them; sacrificially serve your friends as Jesus would do if he
were in your shoes.
Free
Market Political system:
Creation
– we were made by God to exercise our rights to choose and to use our
creativity, which is encouraged in Free Market
Fall
– we are also corrupt and prone to selfishness and abuse of power,
information is not available to everyone, and in practice everyone not
able to participate equally – unfair distribution
Redemption
– Jesus treated with dignity those who didn’t make it in their
economic system; he also encouraged sharing and trusting God to meet your
needs (Mat 6:33). Need to encourage a measure of Free Market so as not to
stifle our positive creative human attributes but also place checks
against abuses (eg minimum wages & conditions, anti-competitive laws
and legal protection for those susceptible to 'sharks’) . Allow people
to make their best contribution but supplement income for those whose
contribution is not highly valued in dollar terms (eg writers/artists,
nurses, mothers,…)
Future
Hope – One day we will be answerable to God as to how we used
what we were given for the common good. (eg parable of sheep & goats,
and Good Samaritan) Therefore ultimately its not a legalistic issue but
rather one of keeping in the spirit of working towards the common good.
Possible
Action: choose to vote for the party whose policies align closest
to the above OR choose to vote for an influential individual who embodies
these things (someone who is keeping in the spirit of seeking the common
good) rather than someone who would most benefit you directly.
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