Yesterday Jen raised the question of fasting and it got me thinking… Right off the bat, my impression would be that fasting is a normal commonplace thing in the New Testament that everyone does but that we don’t really do… for no particular reason. So should we be doing it?
In Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus is commenting on a common Jewish understanding of piety – loving God involves the practices of prayer, fasting and alms-giving (see for example the apocryphal book Tobit 12:8); only one fast was mandated by the Jewish law on Yom Kippur but many more fasts were added over the years and the Pharisees would fast twice per week – see Luke 18:9-14. They, like Jennie’s Orthodox friends, understood these threefold acts of piety as a way to please or appease God; and in this passage I’m not sure that Jesus is challenging that at all – he’s making an entirely different point.
So if fasting was a common Jewish religious practice how does it translate across for us? I went digging to see what the New Testament actually says about it… Read the rest of this entry »
Jesus’ sermon on the mount is full of meaty stuff. I’m sure many Christians could regurgitate much of it on cue. Check out Matthew 6:2 ‘So when you give to the needy…’, which is echoed in 6:5 ‘And when you pray…’ – and that’s all good. Jesus isn’t so much commanding us to give to the poor or to pray, but he’s assuming we will in a response to who God is. So what about 6:16 ? ‘When you fast…’ also carries the same assumption, yet today fasting doesn’t get the same treatment amongst western Christians.
This is something I was struck by in Ethiopia. The Orthadox Church there promotes ‘fasting’ (ie. vegan food only) 2 days a week, as well as 40 days before Christmas and another 40 before Easter. Admittedly the average Ethiopian would probably go along with it to please (or appease) God, but the fact remains Jesus is making an assumption here about the Christian life that we, on the whole, ignore. At least I think we do…? Anyone got any reflections on the who, when, where of fasting?
In the film Amadeus, Salieri gives a wonderful description of Mozart’s music. You can listen to it here:
It reminds me in many ways of the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel. Luke tells a story that will eventually record the confrontations of the gospel with power in Jerusalem (Luke 22-24) and Rome (Acts 28). But it doesn’t begin there. It begins (like 1 Samuel, The Godfather Part II and Mozart’s Serenade for Winds) in a small way. With small people. Simple families. Personal struggles. A ‘single note hanging there…” with the good, righteous poor waiting for the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25).
This will be our text at church this Sunday. Can’t wait.
Popular song artists today tap into markets which express feelings which ‘normal society’ wouldn’t allow one to. This is epitomised by Lily Allen’s song ‘The Fear.’
It talks of a society so indoctrinated by other people’s opinions of what it is to be successful, that one can no longer think for it’s self and boundaries between right and wrong become blurred in the race to succeed. This leads to ‘the fear’. Fear of not succeeding in the world’s eyes, fear of not being pretty or rich or famous enough.
As Christians today, we too are susceptible to this ‘fear’. We can fill our minds with what the world is telling us, and worry about how we compare to our others. However, the bible encourages us to fix our minds upon Christ and battle against worldly desires. We no longer need to be consumed by the fear of what others/the world thinks of us, because Jesus accepts and loves us totally, as we are.
Your job is about power. Your boss gets the power to tell you what to do and you get the power to buy stuff.
Your degree is about power. The power to get the job you want. The power to have the status you want. And all the power that status brings.
TV is about power. Producers get the power to sell advertising, and advertisers get the power to sell products.
And sadly, a lot of friendships are about power too. When you choose who to spend time with, do you think about what you could get out of it? Whether they’ll be fun? Or make you look good?
The French philosopher Louis Althusser had this big insight: it’s all about power. Everything we do, he said, has only one basic goal. To get power. And he was right. Except for one thing.
Jesus was never about power. He never accrued any wealth. He never accepted any position. He never lashed out at his enemies. Where Jesus was from, the first would be last and the last would be first. The greatest is the servant of all.
In Jesus kingdom, it’s not about power. It’s about love. It’s not about serving yourself. It’s about serving others. It hasn’t fully come yet, but you can get a preview. You can see Jesus’ kingdom in the community of his people, the church.
The question out in the world is, ‘How can we get ahead of you?’ But the question in the church is, ‘How can we do what’s best for you?’ They’re completely opposite.
I think this is often the case at Unichurch. Our community isn’t perfect, but I think that when you come to Unichurch, the usual question isn’t ‘what can you do for us?’ but ‘what can we do for you?’
This is completely countercultural. The whole world is out for itself. Everything is about power. Except this one little island where things are turned on their head. In Jesus’ kingdom, the greatest serves the least. And one day, it will take over the world. Until that day, Jesus’ people are showing the world what that’s like.
(The elderly pastor, Rev John Ames, watching his young son and a friend playing in a sprinkler)
“The sprinkler is a magnificent invention because it exposes raindrops to the sunshine. That does occur in nature, but it is rare. When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to watch the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection. For us the water just heightens the touch of the pastor’s hand on the sweet bones of the head, sort of like making an electrical connection. I’ve always loved to baptize people, though I have sometimes wished that there were more shimmer and splash involved in the way we go about it. Well, but you two are dancing around in your iridescent little downpour, whooping and stomping as sane people ought to do when they encounter a thing so miraculous as water.”
From Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, p 72.
This Sunday we are looking at Romans 6, a passage that draws very deeply from the Christian imagery of baptism. And then in a couple of weeks we are expecting to baptize a member of our church who is a new Christian. Yay!
I really love baptism. I hope you do to. Elsewhere in Gilead, Rev Ames’s speculates that God probably made water primarily for blessing and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. Nice.
After a weekend of Sportsfesting, Jono Palmer continues…
It is only through the Gospel that all people – including sportsmen and sportswomen – can be redeemed. When we understand the Gospel we realise that it is God who gives us our talents and that the right response is to humbly thank him. Instead of worshipping our talents, we are reoriented to worship the one who has given us our talents.
The crux of the matter is that Christ has gone through death and come out the other side; he has been resurrected. So despite injury, aging limbs and ultimately death, we have confidence that we too will be resurrected with a new and glorious body. Christ’s triumph over death is the sure hope we have. Thankfully, our identity is not determined by our sporting prowess but by our relationship with Christ.
So how do we bring glory to God though our sport and at events like Sportsfest? What does a Christian response to sport look like? C. J. Mahaney, a pastor at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, talks about sport in the context of 1 Corinthians 10, where Paul says, “…whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
Mahaney points out that bringing glory to God through sport necessitates being informed about God. We cannot hope to glorify God unless we have an accurate understanding of who God is and who we are in relation to Him. If we walk onto the sports field aware of the majesty, glory and supremacy of Christ we are less likely to esteem ourselves. Only a fool would want to glorify himself when presented with enormity of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
We should view our sport as an act of worship. It should be an opportunity to honour God and reflect the character of God. Too often we are more willing to celebrate winning for our own glorification than cultivating godly character. It will be the work of the gospel in our lives that will be celebrated at the end of this age, not sporting accolades. We therefore need to play with humility and not self sufficiency or self worship. When we fail to play with humility we glorify our gifts above the one who gave them to us thereby committing idolatry.
(Jonathan Palmer, possibly the most sporty guy at Unichurch, explains)
… is that referees are biased. And the AFL is not international. And water polo doesn’t get enough coverage. Rico Tice, Associate Minister at All Souls Church in London also had a few pertinent things to say about the problem with sport in a talk I listened to this week. With many of us heading to Sportsfest, it might be a good idea to have a quick look at some of these things and how we can take a biblical approach to playing sport on the weekend.
You don’t have to think for too long to answer the question “Is there is something wrong with sport?” Media outlets chronicle on a weekly basis the involvement of sports stars in drug abuse, alcohol abuse, violence, threats, rape, adultery, racism and bribery. Think about the numerous scandals in the various footy codes or even Serena Williams’ recent comments at the US Open. These types of incidents are not isolated but endemic in the sporting arena. Ironically, it is athletes who often receive the adulation and worship of our society, rather than God.
Rico Tice points out that there is something terminal about sport. Athletes cannot continue indefinitely. Injury, old age and ultimately death will end their careers. Tice cites the example of Muhammad Ali. The man who claimed he was the greatest, the man who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee is now just a shell of his former self. He can no longer walk properly or string a coherent sentence together. Isaiah’s words in chapter 40: 6-8 are particularly apt:
“…”All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
Many sports stars live in denial of the inevitable. In the moment of glory they suspend reality believing that they may escape. Yet when reality sets in through injury or old age, it is common for athletes to become depressed as they are unable to operate apart from their identity in their sporting achievements.
The problem with sport – as with so many other areas of life – is that people want to be king of their lives and make up their own rules. Instead of acknowledging God for their talents, they live to glorify themselves. They elevate their gifts above the giver. As a result they will face judgement and the due penalty for their rejection of God. How can we they be redeemed, rescued from this predicament? The answer is the Gospel….
watch this space for upcoming installments on this theme from Jono
Over the last 15 months you’ve been able to stream videos of the preaching at Unichurch on the website; but that can be a hassle, particularly if you’re on a slower internet connection. As of this week the videos have now been set up in a vodcast (video podcast) so that you can set it to download in iTunes and watch it when you want…
The videos (since the start of the Romans series) will now also work on portable devices like your iPhone or iPod – so you can listen to and watch Rory preaching when you’ve got nothing to do on the bus, or you’re bored in lectures or you’re lying in bed…
Click here to access the vodcast in iTunes, or use this feed for other programs.
Last weekend I went on a Missions Interlink Short Term (MIST) training weekend, which included all sorts of stuff about cross-cultural ministry. The main message, I think, was that it’s hard! That didn’t come as that much of a shock, though a few things on the weekend really made me think.
One ‘penny dropping’ moment was during the ‘Know and tell the Gospel’ session. The presenter asked us to write down the basic elements of the Gospel as we’d explain it given the chance, so I wrote ‘creator God, rightful ruler, rebellion, punishment deserved, Jesus takes our guilt…etc’. Through that our cultural orientation to innocence/guilt thinking was highlighted, and contrasted with the way other cultural worldviews. For example, some cultures really work on a pride/shame basis – maybe Japanese and Middle Eastern cultures – and others on power/fear thinking – maybe some Asian and African cultures.
I probably should have known that already, but it really helped me understand why different people react to different parts of the gospel so strongly. I while a ago I blogged about sharing the story of the prodigal son and his forgiving father with some Chinese people. They were amazed that the wronged, dignified father RAN to the son, which shows their pride/shame orientation.
So I guess the thing is the gospel doesn’t change, but it’s amazing that God uses different parts of it to speak to different people groups. Worth thinking about more…
Everything is about power.![17_Lawn_sprinkler[2]](http://www.stmatthewsunichurch.org.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/17_Lawn_sprinkler2-300x199.jpg "17_Lawn_sprinkler[2]")
(The elderly pastor, Rev John Ames, watching his young son and a friend playing in a sprinkler)
