One of the first prayers I was taught as kid was a prayer to say grace at the table. Part of it was to ask God to be with “those less fortunate” while we are being blessed with lots to eat.
The prayer stuck.
It got under my skin and I never seemed able to shake it off. Every meal, no matter how simple of decadent the contradiction or that prayer keeps coming back. While may plate is full, others’ has been empty for days.
That’s the problem with talking about eating while living in Africa. Too many people struggling, too many hungry, too many dying while the rest of us are queuing up for seconds.
The same contradiction is found in the life of Jesus. One of the first stories told of his colourful life, involves a wedding and 2400 glasses of award winning wine.
It’s a story overflowing with abundance and decadence.
But just as quickly as he turns water into wine for the young and hopeful, so does he feed the crowds of hungry people drawn to his message of Good News.
The one night he parties with a mafia boss, the next day he asks a rich man to sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor and follow the signposts of the Kingdom of God.
The Way of Jesus:
A blessing and a burden
An invitation to feast and a call to follow
A prayer of a young boy at a dinner table asking God to be with the less fortunate...
Showing posts with label The Way of Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Way of Jesus. Show all posts
Friday, 26 June 2009
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Day 39
Just your average Saturday post:
One of the oldest virtues in the Way of Jesus is hospitality. The ancient children of God believed that by treating strangers as old friends, we are welcoming God into our lives.
When we invite the uninvited, Jesus shows up, not as one of the guests, but as the host.
Two friends were walking back to their hometown. They were down and out, they’ve hit rock bottom.
Their Friend was brutally murdered a few days before.
They were upset with themselves for not being there for him, with the rest of the gang for abandoning him, with the religious leaders for missing the point about Life and with the women for saying that their Friend isn’t dead after all.
They talked the whole way, trying to figure out what the hell happened. Suddenly, somewhere between depression and giving up, a Stranger joined them on their journey, asking questions with obvious answers, sounding totally out of touch. This led to heavy theological discussion about the coming Messiah, the stuff the prophets wrote about and the salvation of a nation that’s fed up with the status quo. The Stranger baffled the two with his knowledge of history and theology. They were completely outwitted.
It was almost dark when they reached their hometown, but the Stranger still had a few miles to travel. True to their Ancient Faith, they insisted that he stay the night. He looked reluctant, but the insisted.
At the table they served a modest meal, bread and wine, reminding them of better times. The Stranger did not wait to be served, he took the bread and said the prayer, suddenly they saw, as if for the first time, that the Stranger was their Friend all along.
The great thing about this story is that the “kairos” moment, something the Ancient Greeks understood as a moment in history where the divine meets the ordinary and everything there after will be completely different, happened in the stuff old friends do around a loaf of bread and perhaps a bottle of red.
That is why, through the centuries, the friends of Jesus loved to party. What we know today as Holy Communion, with a piece of bread and a shot of sweet red, would have been very bland, compared to the way the first followers used to remember the good old times with Jesus around a table. The idea was to eat, drink, talk, laugh, joke, dance and have a whole lot of fun, because that’s the best way to celebrate Kingdom Come.
No wonder, when Jesus and his friends were at a wedding, he got a dying party started again with 2400 glasses of award winning wine.
Tonight my wife and I are going to party with some friends. Now the best parties are hard to define, but most of the time it involves music, a table (preferably to dance upon...), good food, perhaps wine and a whole lot of hospitality. The idea is to let people feel at home underneath someone else’s roof.
It’s actually very simple: Safe spaces full of fun and laughter, leads to chemistry and connection, which in turn can lead to strangers becoming good friends.
Ole!
One of the oldest virtues in the Way of Jesus is hospitality. The ancient children of God believed that by treating strangers as old friends, we are welcoming God into our lives.
When we invite the uninvited, Jesus shows up, not as one of the guests, but as the host.
Two friends were walking back to their hometown. They were down and out, they’ve hit rock bottom.
Their Friend was brutally murdered a few days before.
They were upset with themselves for not being there for him, with the rest of the gang for abandoning him, with the religious leaders for missing the point about Life and with the women for saying that their Friend isn’t dead after all.
They talked the whole way, trying to figure out what the hell happened. Suddenly, somewhere between depression and giving up, a Stranger joined them on their journey, asking questions with obvious answers, sounding totally out of touch. This led to heavy theological discussion about the coming Messiah, the stuff the prophets wrote about and the salvation of a nation that’s fed up with the status quo. The Stranger baffled the two with his knowledge of history and theology. They were completely outwitted.
It was almost dark when they reached their hometown, but the Stranger still had a few miles to travel. True to their Ancient Faith, they insisted that he stay the night. He looked reluctant, but the insisted.
At the table they served a modest meal, bread and wine, reminding them of better times. The Stranger did not wait to be served, he took the bread and said the prayer, suddenly they saw, as if for the first time, that the Stranger was their Friend all along.
The great thing about this story is that the “kairos” moment, something the Ancient Greeks understood as a moment in history where the divine meets the ordinary and everything there after will be completely different, happened in the stuff old friends do around a loaf of bread and perhaps a bottle of red.
That is why, through the centuries, the friends of Jesus loved to party. What we know today as Holy Communion, with a piece of bread and a shot of sweet red, would have been very bland, compared to the way the first followers used to remember the good old times with Jesus around a table. The idea was to eat, drink, talk, laugh, joke, dance and have a whole lot of fun, because that’s the best way to celebrate Kingdom Come.
No wonder, when Jesus and his friends were at a wedding, he got a dying party started again with 2400 glasses of award winning wine.
Tonight my wife and I are going to party with some friends. Now the best parties are hard to define, but most of the time it involves music, a table (preferably to dance upon...), good food, perhaps wine and a whole lot of hospitality. The idea is to let people feel at home underneath someone else’s roof.
It’s actually very simple: Safe spaces full of fun and laughter, leads to chemistry and connection, which in turn can lead to strangers becoming good friends.
Ole!
Tuesday, 09 June 2009
Day 35
People look for the truth in the stories of the Bible with the question: “Did it happen?” Take the classic cases of Noah and the Ark; and Jonah and the whale. There are books and websites dedicated to the search for explanations on how this could happen so that the stories can be true. Or take the big debate between Creation and Evolution, behind the struggle of some Christians to embrace the realities behind theories of modern day science lies this way of thinking: If it did not happen like the Bible say it did, then it’s not the Truth anymore.
So we need to find proof of Eden, or the ark, or the virgin birth and especially the empty tomb. We need evidence like Thomas, otherwise Faith will always be wishful thinking.
But the Truth of the Gospel evolved in a different paradigm, a time way before modern man and his endless experiments on the mysteries of Life. Before the written word, before Galileo, before Darwin, before Microsoft and Wikipedia, this Truth grew out of a community of storytellers. On camelback, through desert plains, over rocky mountains, around camp fires, beside Babylon rivers, under Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Barbaric oppression, underneath the rubble of a destroyed Temple and city walls and among families, friends, lovers and former enemies the Truth became flesh and bone.
The Truth of the Jesus Way is not to be found in checks and balances, in scientific proof and in a modern understanding of facts and figures.
The truthfulness of the stories of Eden, Noah and Jonah lies not with the question whether it happened or not, but rather in the reality that it happens... today.
Everywhere.
Whenever I pass the buck on to someone else without taking ownership of my own stuff-ups, the story of Adam happens in me.
Whenever I am part of change and hope, the story of Noah happens in me.
Whenever I sulk when Mercy takes the place of Judgment, the story of Jonah happens in me.
And whenever I allow God to let the Kingdom happen in me, the story of a young girl called Mary, happens in me.
Unlike the X-files, the truth of the Bible is not out there waiting to be proven right of wrong.
No, the Truth is a Way waiting to be walked. It is found in the everyday, ordinary lives of human beings living a life of Faith, Hope and Love before the Face of the Ultimate Truthful One.
So we need to find proof of Eden, or the ark, or the virgin birth and especially the empty tomb. We need evidence like Thomas, otherwise Faith will always be wishful thinking.
But the Truth of the Gospel evolved in a different paradigm, a time way before modern man and his endless experiments on the mysteries of Life. Before the written word, before Galileo, before Darwin, before Microsoft and Wikipedia, this Truth grew out of a community of storytellers. On camelback, through desert plains, over rocky mountains, around camp fires, beside Babylon rivers, under Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Barbaric oppression, underneath the rubble of a destroyed Temple and city walls and among families, friends, lovers and former enemies the Truth became flesh and bone.
The Truth of the Jesus Way is not to be found in checks and balances, in scientific proof and in a modern understanding of facts and figures.
The truthfulness of the stories of Eden, Noah and Jonah lies not with the question whether it happened or not, but rather in the reality that it happens... today.
Everywhere.
Whenever I pass the buck on to someone else without taking ownership of my own stuff-ups, the story of Adam happens in me.
Whenever I am part of change and hope, the story of Noah happens in me.
Whenever I sulk when Mercy takes the place of Judgment, the story of Jonah happens in me.
And whenever I allow God to let the Kingdom happen in me, the story of a young girl called Mary, happens in me.
Unlike the X-files, the truth of the Bible is not out there waiting to be proven right of wrong.
No, the Truth is a Way waiting to be walked. It is found in the everyday, ordinary lives of human beings living a life of Faith, Hope and Love before the Face of the Ultimate Truthful One.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
Day 9
It is 20:05 and my wife is in the kitchen helping Angelica with her homework.
Like me, she also struggles with faith. Sometimes it feels as if we are walking the same path. The rest of the time we fight our own battle with religion. But right now, as she is teaching Angelica to speak Afrikaans and to understand Maths, I feel that something of God’s kingdom that Jesus used to speak of is real and alive in our home.
Angelica is not our child, neither a close nor distant relative.
Her mom cleans our house.
I know it sounds patronizing, but the effort she puts in and the passion that accompanies it, is the closest I can get to a picture of “kingdom come”. She doesn’t need to do it, but if she doesn’t then Angelica will not see her dream of becoming a doctor come true.
And this is where her struggle with religion ends and her journey with Jesus starts. Where religion survives by telling people they are bad unless God saves them , the Way of Jesus calls people from humble identities to take a walk in the direction of mercy, hope, justice and love.
You don’t need a Bible to do this. You don’t need a big church for this journey. You don’t need the next big preacher to show you the Way. The first followers had nothing of this, but their impact on the world as we know it is still echoing through the corridors of history. They grew from 12 to 20 million in 300 years. People got hooked on the countercultural way of living an everyday ordinary life of Love.
If you have a little bit of hope, if you made a small change towards giving, if you've decided to give forgiveness a chance, if you are feeling a slight discomfort with the state the earth is in and if you are pondering to live a life of substance and meaning, chances are you’re already walking it.
Like me, she also struggles with faith. Sometimes it feels as if we are walking the same path. The rest of the time we fight our own battle with religion. But right now, as she is teaching Angelica to speak Afrikaans and to understand Maths, I feel that something of God’s kingdom that Jesus used to speak of is real and alive in our home.
Angelica is not our child, neither a close nor distant relative.
Her mom cleans our house.
I know it sounds patronizing, but the effort she puts in and the passion that accompanies it, is the closest I can get to a picture of “kingdom come”. She doesn’t need to do it, but if she doesn’t then Angelica will not see her dream of becoming a doctor come true.
And this is where her struggle with religion ends and her journey with Jesus starts. Where religion survives by telling people they are bad unless God saves them , the Way of Jesus calls people from humble identities to take a walk in the direction of mercy, hope, justice and love.
You don’t need a Bible to do this. You don’t need a big church for this journey. You don’t need the next big preacher to show you the Way. The first followers had nothing of this, but their impact on the world as we know it is still echoing through the corridors of history. They grew from 12 to 20 million in 300 years. People got hooked on the countercultural way of living an everyday ordinary life of Love.
If you have a little bit of hope, if you made a small change towards giving, if you've decided to give forgiveness a chance, if you are feeling a slight discomfort with the state the earth is in and if you are pondering to live a life of substance and meaning, chances are you’re already walking it.
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