Musings on Culture & Life – Page 4 – Christ Centered Spirituality

Black Hawk Down – A Lesson on Love

The movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ is a non WWII war film that is riveting in its realism of depicting the workings of a modern war fought in the urban cities. In spite of the incessant violence in the role of ‘Hoot’ played by Eric Bana I found a poignant lesson of love.

Hoot rugged looking handsome and brave insurgent that works behind enemy lines. While every soldier is supportive, helpful and anxious, Hoot appears standoffish, unloving and almost incapable of compassion. In the battlefield he is decisive, brave and appears to love war that you might want to label him a jingoist. One might want to say that Hoot is either a sadist who loves violence or he is a man who has been hardened by years of living life the hard way at the edge of mortal danger.

The Delta force that Hoot is a part of raids a rebel stronghold. They massively underestimate the enemy firepower and get badly beaten. Not knowing what hit them, large numbers of troops are trapped behind enemy lines. As the trapped soldiers make their way out into the safe zone they get butchered as they fight their way through. After hours of battle, being chased and shot down as though they were dogs, a group of soldiers make it through and Hoot is among them.

While the soldiers that made it through rest feeling safe and blessed to have made it to the safe zone, Hoot retools to go back behind the enemy lines. Sgt. Eversmann is flabbergasted that Hoot wants to go back behind the Enemy lines after having been through hell and back. He asks…

Sgt. Eversmann: You going back in?

Hoot, the seemingly unfeeling in-compassionate machine of a man gives a impassioned poignant reply explaining his rationale for taking this crazy risk…

Hoot: There’s still men out there. Goddam. When I go home people ask me, they say “Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? Why??? You some kind of war junkie? I won’t say a goddam word… Why??? They won’t understand… They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand, it’s about the men next to you. And that’s it. That’s all it is.

There is a deep Christian principle in what Hoot is saying here. If you truly loved your Neighbor as you should, you will do what needs be done. If need be, you will go behind Enemy lines to save souls. When I think of this tall, sharp nosed, handsome Hoot, I am reminded of an ugly, short, (supposedly) large nosed man who lived a couple of millenia ago and loved going behind Enemy lines to save souls, St. Paul.

To Paul, going to Rome was to go behind the Enemy lines. To be right under the nose of the Great Caesar and preach that Caesar isn’t God but Christ is, is asking to get killed. But Paul is eager to do it, Why? Because he feels an ‘obligation’ to the ‘neighbor’ both Jew and Gentile.

Romans 1:
13. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. 14. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

Paul is no crazy adventure junkie. He has a reason why He eagerly risks going behind enemy lines. He explains… that it is because the Gospel he preaches is ‘powerful’ enough to change ‘people groups’.

Romans 1:
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

If you know anything about History, you’ll know that the Gospel is the Power of God that transforms people groups. It may not happen overnight. It usually takes centuries. Since Paul got behind enemy lines it took about three centuries before Rome turned from being the seat of a Pagan power to a well spring of Christianity.

The famed Historian Will Durant when describing this age of Early Christianity succinctly says, “Christ and Caesar met in the arena and Christ won” (BTW, Will Durant was no Christian. He was just a good historian.)

That there were men out there that needed to be saved was preeminent on Hoot’s mind. It defined who Hoot was. That men needed to hear the Gospel, that it was his ‘obligation’ was preeminent on Paul’s mind. It defined who St. Paul was. The question that 21st Century Christians might want to ask ourselves is what thought take such preeminence in our minds that it defines us.

Not every Christian has to have a St. Paul like ministry, but all of us have preeminent thoughts in our minds that define us to such an extent that we appear crazy to other people. Crazy people are attractive. It is the normal run of the mill folks that are vapid. As Christians aren’t called to be run off the mill people. We are called to be crazily in love with our neighbor that others will see that and be attracted to Christ.

John 13:
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Going behind enemy lines looks different for different people. To Paul it was going to Rome to fulfill his obligation to love his neighbor. To us it might be spending time with a friend to make him/her feel valued or may be lending money to people who need help or just being with people listening to their suffering without venturing to give half-baked prognosis as Job’s friends did or just doing whatever it take to make one realize one is loved.

To love is to risk. To love much is to risk much. If the ‘new commandment’ to crazily love is something that would truly be preeminent in our minds, if this would truly define us as Christians, that would be a place where the Power of God transforming people groups through the Gospel would be easily apparent and would attract people to Christ. Unless Christians understand this transformational lesson on love, we will miss an opportunity to help the pagans understand the language of love that Christ speaks in.

Saving Power of Imagination!

My introduction to Woody Allen movies was through his later film ‘Midnight in Paris‘. I liked Woody Allen’s use of imagination in the movie. ‘Midnight in Paris’ is a story about a couple, Gil and Inez, engaged to be married that go to Paris for vacation to celebrate their engagement. The lady’s personality is that of a ‘philistine’ in that she lives in the ‘material’ world cares pretty much for nothing else other than good food, dressing well and exciting sex. The man on the other hand has a finer tastes for life. Gil is thrilled that he is in Paris the city of dreams for the quintessential artist.

The man and the woman see and experience very different worlds in Paris. Inez goes about the city uninterested, disenchanted and ends up having an affair with the guide. Gil on the other hand, finds his imagination getting fired up. He can’t get enough of the city and goes about exploring it. Inez sees no point in enjoying the night walk in Paris. Gil goes it alone. It is in one such midnight walk that a carriage pulls by and he is asked to hop over into it. He gets transported into the Paris of the 1920s when it was thriving richly with a host of young Bohemian artists. He meets everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Gertrude Stein and spends the night in their August company. This happens every night. Gil lives a dream life in his imagination. He is a happy man.

The question here is… What do you make of Gil’s imaginary world? Does it really matter that the guy has such a powerful capacity for imagination? Or may be he needs to see a Psychiatrist? Why make such a big deal of this imaginary world? Should we just dismiss this cinematic depiction of the power of living in an imaginary world as a crazy old Woody Allen’s attempt at making mediocre movies towards the tail end of his career.

I think the answer to this question is implied at the end of the movie in how Paris changes the lives of the couple. Gil is not looking for anything specific in Paris to satisfy him. He surrenders to allow himself to be surprised by his imagination. The more Gil is drawn into this beautiful imaginary world, the happier he is in the real world. That he does not get any sexual satisfaction from his bride to be is immaterial to him when compared with the beautiful imaginary world he is a part of. The woman on the other hand presumably gets ALL she the exciting sex she thinks will make her happy, but ultimately ends up dissatisfied.

When Inez finally confesses that she has been has been having an affair with a mutual friend of theirs and wants to break-up, Gil isn’t the slightest bit perturbed which infuriates her all the more. Gil was living in such a beautiful world of imagination that the pleasures offered in the real world seemed mediocre. His imagination was powerful enough to make life satisfying for him. He did not need a ‘hot wife’ after all. He has his eyes set on a world where ones satisfaction isn’t determined by ones needs but by ones ability to be eternally surprised by imagination.

I think there is a Christian principle here. Just like Gil is satisfied by the hope, joy and love offered by the imaginary world do that he does not care much for the mediocre pleasures of the real world, the Christian is to be satisfied by the hope, joy and love of the Heavenly world so that sometimes when we have to give up some of the pleasures of this world it wouldn’t be that big a deal.

The Bible uses our imagination to enthuse us about the great goodness of the Heavenly world. The Bible talks abstractly about the next world in terms of the length, breadth and height of the treasures God has prepared for those that love Him. Then the Bible also talks concretely about streets of gold, sea of glass, great mansions. This abstract and concrete figures of speech is meant to fire-up our imagination so that in the imagination empowered Hope of the things to come, we would endure the hardships of this world.

If we do not use our imagination to envision, explore and be enthralled by the Hope we have in Christ we, like Inez will see a very ‘reductionistic’ world and will ultimately begin seeking after silly pleasures to satisfy us. Christians like Gil have to be people with fired-up imaginations so that we see that there is more to this world than meets the eye. We should go about exploring the world through the Word of God. The imagination empowered vision of the World painted by the Bible will help us set our priorities right and live a happier and FULLER life in this world and the next. Unless Christians use their imagination to see the BIG world that God created and called us to be in, we would become a bunch of petty people seeking after silly stuff in a reductionistic world. Imagination saves us from this narrow focus by helping us SEE the great things God has in store for those that love Him.

Chick-fil-a – an Apology from God???

I was at the Chick-Fil-A on the 1st of August (Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day) at 10:00 PM and there were about a 150 people in there, most of them presumably Evangelical Christians showing solidarity to the fast food chain over controversy created by a statement made by the ‘Christian’ President of Chick-Fil-A essentially saying that America would incur the wrath of God because of its laws becoming increasingly Gay-friendly. Presumably, millions of Evangelical Christians went to Chick Fil A Nationwide that day.

A more interesting spectacle was watching the liberal Mayors vociferously oppose Chick-Fil-A plans to build more restaurants in their cities only to back track their statements because to do so would have been illegal – the President was just exercising his first amendment right. Here is a really funny video made by a gay dude asks the Mayors to chill. All of this ‘tempest in the teapot’ not withstanding, what really caught my eye was an article quoting Billy Graham quoting his late wife Ruth saying

Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, “If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

I don’t know about God needing to apologize to anyone, but let us go with this for now as there is a bigger point to be made.

Billy Graham in his letter ‘My Heart Aches for America‘ quotes the statement above and then the passage from Ezekiel 16:49-50 from which this quote is purportedly derived from and then goes on to talk about the sins of abortion and sexual depravity leading to impending judgement from God. Yes, abortion and sexual depravity are sins as per the Bible. Yes, America is like Sodom and Gomorrah, but there is a key point to be noted. America’s similarity with Sodom and Gomorrah is not just in it sexual depravity, but in its indifference to the poor and needy.

Read Ezekiel 16:49-50 (ESV)
49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Yes there was rampant sexual sin in Sodom and Gomorrah, but God’s primary objection against Sodom and Gomorrah (and Israel) is not sexual immorality, it is indifference towards the poor while living in excess. The crime is in not treating a fellow human being as someone with dignity – the dignity that comes in one having been made to reflect the Image of a fiercely loving God.

God equating Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah in Ezekiel has more to do with Israel’s indifference to the poor and needy than its sexual depravity. In the New Testament, Christ brings similar complaint against the Jews in the Story of Lazarus and the Rich man – the Rich man did not do anything wrong per se, he was just indifferent to the poor man at his doorstep.

This complaint of indifference applies as much to Evangelical Christianity today as it did to Israel back in the day. Ruth Graham is probably right that if God is to use the same yardstick, He will have to judge the America, but not so much for the sexual depravity of the non-Christians as much as for the indifference of Evangelical Christianity towards the poor and needy around them. Unfortunately, Christians today often tend to exaggerate the consequences of sexual sins while trivializing the consequences of sins of indifference towards people that need our love.

Of course, Evangelical Christians give more to the cause of social upliftment than the non-Christian counter parts, but the question is do we give enough to offset God’s impending judgement, if God were to use the same yardstick that He used against Sodom and Gomorrah. I suspect that answer is no. As much as Evangelical Christians pray and work towards a National revival of the non-Christians, we should also pray and work against Christian indifference incurring the wrath of God that was directed at Israel and Sodom and Gomorrah.

As much as Christians love to show their solidarity with the ‘Christian’ President of a Fast Food Chain, it might be a better idea for the Evangelical Christians to show equal care and concern for the plight of the poor and the oppressed. The day when we see a 150 Evangelical Christians at 10 PM at Nationwide ‘show compassion for the poor and needy’ campaigns, Evangelical Christianity would have inched closer towards a more God-pleasing state of existence. Pray that that day would come soon, before it is too late! Least God should have to apologize!! Of course, He needn’t.

My First Camping Experience

With the sun on my face and the wind on my chest, as I was cruising down I10 this Friday evening to on my way to Edwards Mar’Q to see the ‘Avengers’, I had a Deja vu. Just about the same time last week I was going down I10 for my first camping trip ever with my dear friends, the Brookesmithers, from Church (Sojourn, Houston). Cruising on I10, I was filled with nostalgia for the prior weekend and ‘Avengers’ didn’t seem that exciting anymore. I wanted to re-live last weekend all over again. Unfortunately, time machines only work in sci-fis. On the other hand, I can blog and re-live the memories through words. So here it goes…

Even though I was excited to be going to camping. At the back of my mind, I was also having a nagging feeling that after having had a 4 to 5 hour sleep week I really needed to rest and read instead of going camping. After being in the horns of dilemma for a few days, my need to experience something new finally got the better of me. And experience something new, I did, in more ways than one!

The 4 hour journey from Houston to camp-site was filled with good conversations about books, movies and musicals. We talked about stuff from Francis Shaffer to Fiddler on the Roof. The best part was that we got talking about the Disney animation movies from ‘Lion King’ to ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to ‘Tangled’. I just couldn’t get Timon’s song ‘in the jungle…’ out of my head. I kept humming it all the way to the camp. My fellow travelers were kind enough to allow my indulgence. We even planned that we’ll watch ‘Lion King’ as a group. Long road trips are real fun. The fun part of such trips is that you get to have good long conversations, undisturbed, with nothing else to distract you except may be, snoring if someone dozes off. 😛 Which by the way did not happen in our car. Our snoozers were all silent and I didn’t snooze, so it was all good. 🙂

By the time we got to the camp, it was pretty dark. I figured that if I missed this chance to sleep outside in the wide open spaces, gazing up at the stars then I wouldn’t get another opportunity to do it. So I decided to sleep on a wooden table. It was the first time I slept without a roof over my head. I tried to look for the milky way it was too cloudy. I read some… then I realized that the night was too beautiful for me to let is slip-by, sleeping. I decided to take a walk at about 1:00 AM. I plugged in my favourite collection of classical music, took two left-over Jack-in-the-box apple pies and walked off into the trails. It was most awesome. It was scary and thrilling at the same time.

Every time I had walked a small distance I would wonder if it would be dangerous to go any further, what if I got lost. What if wolf of bear comes after me. I was just being too paranoid. But then the urge to explore got the better of me and I went on. I had often thought that pioneer explorers are sort of weired people. But it was that night that I understood what made the pioneer explorers tick. An explorer does not go exploring just to have a thrilling experience, rather he is being true to the call that God gave Adam – to exercise dominion over creation. As I was walking through the woods, I knew I was at the mercy of Nature, but I was telling myself that I couldn’t allow it to defeat me. I had to conquer it. I couldn’t allow it to exercise dominion over me. I was the Custodian there. In all my useless late-night exploring, I was feeling deep within me the tug of what makes me truly human – the (fallen) Image of God in me bringing alive within the the Custodian mandate that was given my great Ancestor Adam.

I kept walking… and finally came to a point at which I decided that I had to turn back to get some sleep in. I wanted to take a memorabilia from there… to remind myself of this experience. I looked around and found a small oddly shaped stone which I pocketed.

On my way back, I stopped at a vast clearing in the woods. It was such a beautiful sight. The moon lit the whole area, there was a sort of incandescence all around because of the bright moon light…. the fire flies in the distance, a cool gentle breeze, the rustle of the leaves, the sweet chirping sounds… I stood there for quite a bit just experiencing the timeless beauty of the place… allowing it to GET ME. I looked up at the stars and then ominous trees and then the fire flies. I realized how small I was and how BIG God was.

Paul says that atheists have no excuse, they only have to look up at the sky to know that there had to be a God. I think sometimes, Christians apply this verse only to the atheists, to the exclusion of everyone else. I think this verse applies to Christians too. For, often, Christians, though we know the fact that God is God, we forget that and act like atheists. Often, Christians are philosophical theists but existential atheists. What bridges the gap is reminding ourselves about who God is and who we are. After all, we were rebellious beings before God saved us. The reason why we are forgetful of the BIGness of God and our need to worship and submit to Him is because we are caught-up in our own little selves and petty plans, we do not look up at the sky to see what an awesome creation He has created and continues to sustain it (by holding it together by His Word). When we look up at the sky and beautiful nature, we see how BIG God is. We feel our need to worship Him. That shows us our right place in submission to Him seeking to glorify Him. It sets our hearts and minds in the right place so that we can worship Him and enjoy glorifying Him forever through the whole of our being. I think I was there for about 15 minutes standing and worshiping God for how great He is, and thanking Him for helping me see Him and know Him. That experience was so ingrained in my psyche that it has changed my regular day-to-day worship of Him.

Well, this post is getting too long… we are still in the first night of my camping experience. I suspect I’ll have to do a part II.

Anyways, my experience at camping had a deeply spiritual angle to it which I did not quite expect at all. I saw ‘Avengers’ yesterday and I am sure I’ll forget most of what I saw in a couple of weeks. But what I experienced on my first night of camping, in terms of what it taught me about God will remained ingrained in my memory forever!

Love is Stronger Than Death

Disclaimer: Though I am clumsy with poetry, I felt impelled to write one about dear Chilo. Chilo is a character in ‘Quo Vadis’ which is one of the best books I have read. (http://www.amazon.com/Quo-Vadis-Narrative-Time-Nero/dp/B000JPG7HQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333395858&sr=1-1) . If you plan to read the book, you may not want to read the poem below… Chilo I hated so and then loved all the more… not so much because Chilo turns good, but because love is stronger than death.

At last, Old, weak and defenceless
On the tree hung dear Chilo
Whose trade was with words
Wit, his Greek weapon.

Since birth, a vile soul within a wretched being
Forsaken, hungry and ugly
Cunning had sought life.
Vengeful had sought glory.

Venomous worm, made his way
Through the blood of the Martyred
Christians preyed upon by Caesar’s Beasts
Betrayed innocent blood to claim his destiny.

A destiny of comfort, honor and glory
Beside the Caesar, depraved Augustinains alongside
Orgy unending, void of Love and Truth
In the shadow of the Cross

The smoke lifted… joyless and wretched
Beheld he the scary Cross… forgiving him.
Love and sorrow mingled flowed…
Thus was chosen the wise, wretched Greek.

Conquered by love to hang upon the tree. Tongue-less
To proclaim to the Augustinains, the Christian Truth.
Caesar or Christ? Comfort or Cross? Glory or Love?
Chilo chose Christ! Chilo chose Cross! Chilo chose Love!

Terrified Augustinians tongue-tied, blinded by Truth
The Christian Truth the Greek had finally divined…
The loving King had destroyed Death! Death is dead!
And so Christian Love is stronger than Death!

Tenderness Trumps Beauty!

The weekend before last, after the Superbowl loss Tom Brady the quarterback of the losing Patriots was disappointed. To be a quarterback and lose a game is like being the surgeon who loses a patient in the operation. Of course there would be the nurses, the anesthetist etc… who are responsible for success, but when it is a failure the responsibility in most cases, falls squarely on the shoulders of the surgeon. Such is the weight the quarterback feels when his team loses. If my analogy doesn’t quite fit football, blame it on my lack of understanding of the game. I don’t follow sports much. The reason I watched the Superbowl was to just experience the community part of watching the Superbowl.

There was something after the game that perked my interest. The camera focused on Tom Brady’s despondent face ans someone said, “Well, he has lost his game, but he is going home to a supermodel wife”. Then I was watching some news and there too the anchor made the same comment.

Honestly, I was a little bit pissed off with the characterization. Is that supposed to mean that guys who do not have supermodels wives can’t help but be sadder? Or does it mean having a supermodel wife is so great that even if you are total wimp, your faltering ego will find its footing on the beauty of the wife you possess?

Just to make clear, I am not belittling what Tom and his beautiful wife share. I belittle how people perceive and present it to others thus reinforcing a wrong value in marital intimacy. The moment of intimacy that Tom and his wife share is precious, and what makes is precious is not Gisele’s beauty but her tenderness and caring nature.

Unfortunately, our culture places a lot of premium on beauty. Both men and women do it, though slightly differently. Men generally want hot wives, that is all they mostly ask for. Women generally just want good husbands who are also, btw, hot and handsome!

The importance of tenderness over beauty is best said in the words of Max De Winter in the movie ‘Rebecca’. Max De Winter says, “I was told that what a man needed in a woman was beauty, brains and breeding. But now I realize that is wrong. What a man needs in a woman is sincerity, modesty and the ability to love”.

Tenderness triumphs beauty anytime… anyday!

Positivist Christian vs the Faithful Christian

I was reading Jim Collins book ‘From Good to Great’. He coins a phrase called ‘Stockdale Paradox’ which I think is a great analogy to explain Christian hope. The story is about an American Colnel Stockdale who was tortured as POW in Vietnam. He was one of the very few who made it through the brutal POW life. Below is the narrative of the meeting between Jim and Stockdale.

When Jim asked Stockdale what gave him the strength to make it through, Stockdale replied…
“I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

When Collins asked who didn’t make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
“Oh, that’s easy, the optimists.”

Collins was confused. He thought Stockdale’s statment about not losing faith make him sound like an optimist. Collins questions him on how optimists were different from him.

Stockdale replied…
“Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”

The POWs had two types of faith. One prevailed, the other did not.
1. One faith believed that circumstances would change. When that did not happen, the faith died along with that the person too.
2. The other faith believed that no matter what the circumstance, the self was powerful enough to make it through. The self remained powerful enough to make it through.

Among Christians too we have two kinds of people. The optimists believe that life will provide for them what they want at just the right time as long as they have the positive attitude and work hard enough. They expect they’ll be married when they are 25, have a beautiful suburban house when they are 27, kids when they are 30, a great executive position when they are 40, become a Church Elder when you are 45, a director when you are 50 (if not a CEO) and have grand kids by 60. For whatever reason when that does not happen, they’ll begin to grumble, they’ll be angry at God, go in to a bout of self-pity or even depression or worse end up in mid-life crisis induced addictions from alcohol to drugs to illicit sex.

Then there are the Stockdale believers who don’t quite expect that everything in life will turn out the way they expect it to. But no matter what happens, they TRUST God would work it all out for good (Rom 8:29). The Christian believer’s faith has a better foundation than Stockdale’s. Where Stockdale has faith in his self, the Christian’s faith is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Christian does not just say he’ll make it through because he has a strong will. The Christian says he’ll make it through because Christ has already secured a place for the Christian in Eternity.

Stockdale then added:
“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

This an important point we need to remember. We should not try to deny or trivialize the brutal realities of life. Instead, we should acknowledge that life is tough and that we live in a fallen world. We need to remember that NOTHING in this world can separate us from Christ.

Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

The positivist Christian who expects external realities to turn for the good will be disappointed, because in a long enough timeline we will all die. On the other hand, the faithful Christian is more than a conqueror, not because he has a better attitude or luck or marriage or achievement or pleasure, but because even if life deals its worst cards, he has faith that he will not be separated from our Lord who has secured for us a place in Eternity by dying on the Cross for us.

In Joseph’s shoes errrr sandals?

I wrote this as part of my other post ‘Joseph, the Unsung Hero’ /emmanuelreagan/2011/12/joseph-unsung-hero.html, but then realized that this was incongruous. To just delete it off would go against my principle that words are precious, the creativity almost of first order. I decided to make a post out of it. Besides, by making this as a separate post, this would be the 50th post of this year… a good rounded number to end 2011. 🙂 In other words, this is a post for the sake of a post. If you, for some reason have been reading till now, this might be a good place to stop. 😛

If you didn’t, you have only yourself to blame… Well, as I was writing my post on ‘Joseph, the Unsung Hero’, I tried an thought experiment of putting myself into Joseph’s shoes. Just to see what it would mean to be the man that Joseph was. There are three points which I’ll have trouble putting myself in Joseph’s shoes, or should I say sandals…

Matt 1:18 Mary had been betrothed [that is, legally pledged to be married] to Joseph.

This sounds pretty much like an arranged marriage. Even though I come from a culture where arranged marriages do happen, it is on the decline. I would find it tough to willingly accept an ‘arranged marriage’. Living in the world of radical individualism, having someone else make decisions especially when it comes to matters so close to my person, would be a bridge too far to say the least.

Matt 1: 20 An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…”

Honestly, I would rather find it difficult to obey an Angel in my ‘dream’ suggesting that I marry a pregnant lady. Living in a post-Freudian world, I would find such a ‘dream’ rather confusing if not spooky. I would wonder if my ‘subconscious’ was venting out some repressed feelings in my dream. I might even have been tempted to argue with the Angel that he was asking me to something that did not seem very consistent with some parts of the revealed (Old Testament) word of God.

Matt 1:25 But ‘knew’ her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Not be able to have sexual intimacy with my wife for at least a year would be a tough sell to say the least. Having had to be abstinent until marriage and when one thinks one has finally arrived, to realize that one has to wait for one more year would not be an easy pill to swallow.

The Man Joseph had no hesitation. He, with amazing speed agrees to marry Mary as per the Angel’s command. (Matt 1:24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife…).

I think there are three problems why it is difficult for someone born in the modern age to put oneself into Joseph’s shoes/sandals…

I think in the modern age, our culture place a lot more premium on the ‘attraction-factor’ than any other time in history, which is one of the reasons why we find ‘arranged marriages’ impossible. We can’t imagine getting married to someone we don’t feel attracted to. If we look at human nature, for centuries attraction developed after marriage. In making ‘attraction’ a prerequisite to marriage, I wonder if we are putting the cart before the horse.

The second problem with modern age is that we don’t believe that God intervenes in history to communicate to his children about His plan for their lives. When it comes to matters of marriage we listen more to our hearts promptings than to God’s guidance. This reductionistic decision making process is akin to cutting off ones limb to fit the small cot.

The third problem is that we have made sexual intimacy a big part of marital life. I have read psychologists say that most problems in marriages can be traced by to sexual problems between the husband and wife. I don’t know how this works… but I think if someone is truly in love, they’ll be attracted to each other even if they don’t have sex with each other. I think here too people in urbanized cultures, by giving too much importance to sex, are putting the cart before the horse.

I don’t know that we can set the clock back… but we’ll have to be true to human nature, else we cease to be human any more, and I think we are getting close.

Joseph, the Unsung Hero

It is customary for me to write a post about Christmas before Christmas, but I got too busy this Christmas to write anything on my blog… so here is my post-Christmas, Christmas post. After all this is the 4th of the 12 day Christmas, so I am not late any ways.

Over the past few weeks and months I have been pondering what it is to truly be a strong man. I have been looking at most things in life through this lens. Christmas is no exception. I think the unsung hero of Christmas is Joseph, Jesus’s foster father.

As per Old Testament law, if a woman were to get pregnant out of wedlock, she’ll have to be stoned to death. Back in those times, if a woman were to be pledged a man and she is already pregnant, he’ll probably be the guy to hurl the first stone at her. But Joseph being a good man (Matt 1:19) decides to quietly divorce her instead of brining shame upon her. It is noble for a man of that stiff-necked patriarchal culture to be so benevolent.

But then Joseph has a dream and the Angel wants him to go one step further and marry Mary. The Man Joseph had no hesitation. He, with amazing speed agrees to be given the shorter-end of the stick (Matt 1:24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife…). By agreeing to marry Mary, Joseph also forgoes the pleasure of sexual intimacy with his wife (Matt 1:25 But ‘knew’ her not until she had given birth to a son). By sacrificially accepting the shorter-end of the stick, Joseph shows true masculine strength.

Joseph gives Mary and the child the support and legitimacy that they need to live and thrive in a society. In fact, when people are sarcastic of Jesus later on in his life, they still call him the Carpenter’s son! But for the strong man Joseph…

There are two kinds of strong people…
First, the high-achievers – the ones who change reality to get what they want.
Second, the high-sacrificers – those who shoulder the weight of reality to give to others the strength and the support they need, whilst sacrificing their personal prerogatives.

From Steve Jobs to Justin Beiber, the popular culture admires the high-achieving men, who make themselves look good by having great achievements under their belt. I submit that it is the second kind of high-sacrificing men that are seldom looked-up-to. From Bruce Oslon to William Carey, these people expend themselves sacrificing their personal well-being for the sake of others. These are are the ones that are truly strong.

Ironically, ‘popular Christianity’ is no different from popular culture in that it celebrates strong men of high-achieving kind over the stronger men of the high-sacrificing kind. David is the considered a hero in ‘popular Christianity’ because he slew Goliath. He is the strong man who’ll won many battles. But ‘popular Christianity’ often fails to reckon that when it comes to taking responsibility for his kids and family, David was a TOTAL failure. Then there is the whole affair of his impregnating another man’s wife and then trying to get the innocent man to take responsibility for it, failing which, getting him killed. Where David fails to take responsibility for what was his, Joseph does the opposite. He take responsibility for what wasn’t his. That is where true high-sacrificing manliness is. Carpenter Joseph is a stronger man than Kind David.

With 2011 ending, one of the key obituaries people are reminiscing about is the demise of the legend Steve Jobs and how his life has affected billions around the world. What is seldom acknowledged is that Steve Jobs was a terrible father. He disowned the kid (Lisa Brennan Jobs) of the first lady he impregnated. On a court case on paternity, he went so far as to claim impotence. He tried to wriggle out of a second out-of-wed-lock impregnation too before finally agreeing to marry the lady. His daughter did not invite him for her graduation. All of this history of Steve being an irresponsible father is often glossed-over because in the eyes of ‘popular opinion makers’, his public achievements override his private failings.

Let alone popular opinion makers, the idea of celebrating strong high-sacrificing manhood is seldom appreciated even in the Church. The failure of the Church to preach this sort of manhood has had a detrimental impact on the society. I was reading an article by the sociologist/historian David Brooks in New York Times. He talks about the social plight of 40% of the children that are born today being out-of-wedlock kids. Single moms are having to step-up to give the kids a good chance at life. Most of the single moms are great in being momma grizzlies. They show great resilience. The society/government tries to do what it can to help such single moms. But what is missed in the dialogue is the root cause of this problem, which is the irresponsibility of the men that impregnate the women. David Brooks goes on to say that we have lost the social norms from a 100 years ago which warranted that a man who impregnated a woman was expected to marry her. If only we had more Josephs we’ll have fewer out-of-wedlock kids.

We need to delve a little deeper into the psyche of modern men who refuse to take responsibility for impregnating a woman. I suspect that the impetus to be irresponsible is not so much about an aversion towards being a father, as much as it is about a craving for pleasure (of the illicit kind, to not be bound to one ‘partner’ in crime). This craving for pleasure is crudely epitomized by Christmas celebration in the Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania where the Dean approved a Christmas tree decorated with condoms (http://nation.foxnews.com/christmas-tree/2011/12/09/condom-christmas-tree-sparks-outrage). Here too Joseph sets a great high-sacrificing example. It would have been legitimate for Joseph to have wanted to share sexual intimacy with his wife, but he refrains. He sacrifices pleasure in order to help and love Mary. Joseph’s loving-kindness towards Mary in refraining even from legitimate pleasure is a great example to both men and women in today’s world whose lives often seem to be defined more by craving for illegitimate pleasures than by virtues of love, kindness and sacrifice.

In contrast to the high-achieving heroes of our age from Steve Jobs to Justin Beiber (who I believe is currently battling a paternity claim), Joseph stands tall and timeless – a high-sacrificing man with a spine and a chest, shouldering the responsibility of protecting and loving the vulnerable. In as much as the likes of the Josephs remain the unsung heroes, today’s society as G.K.Chesterton says, will continue producing ‘men without a chest’. Eventually, such a civilization will disintegrate, not for the lack of high-achieving heroes of the Jobs kind, but of the lack of high-sacrificing heroes of the unsung kind of Joseph.

Sojourn – A High Stakes Christian Covenant Community

(Disclaimer: What is stated below is my impression of what Sojourn Church Community stands for. My impressions may or may not reflect the Church’s official stand on things)

‘Covenant’ is a very heavy word that has in recent times has lost the depth of its meaning. Before the modern idea of ‘contract’, became the norm for any transaction whether marriage or business, it was ‘covenant’ that bound people together. Covenant has a deep relationship aspect which the ‘matter-of-fact’ contract lacks. Where contract tries to define the boundaries of the liabilities, the covenant went ALL in. Where contract is signed in ink, covenant was signed in Blood.

When I realized that Sojourn had a ‘Covenant Membership Class’ to induct new members, my understanding of the weight of the word caused pause. I needed to really consider the stakes involved. Generally speaking, a Covenant answers three questions, what do I need to give? what do I get in return? who is the covenant enforcer? To me, the key question to which I wanted to find the answer to was the first one, ‘what do I need to give?’. I wanted to know what was at stake before I could commit to be a member of this Church.

Because I was apprehensive, I made sure that I could decide not to become a member if I didn’t want to, after attending the class. I was assured that I could. So I attended the class last week. The covenant class was taken by the passionate Pastor Joseph and facilitated by the able administrator, Drew.

Three points stood out to me from the class.
1. The need to create a Christian presence in urban enclaves.
2. The need to allow the Gospel to permeate everyday aspects/rythmns of ones life.
3. The need to commune, submit and be strengthened by each other.

In every culture, there is a part of the society that is fragmented and is in dire need of the gospel. The Christian has two options to deal with this. Either jump headlong into the decadent culture, open it up to the Good News by building a Shining City in the midst. Or retire to the Christian ghetto, assured that one has the ‘ticket’ to heaven and that one will ‘make it’ even if all hell breaks loose around them. It seemed to me that the Sojourn Christians are encouraged to be of the first kind of Christians. To be the Christian of the first kind, one has to venture outside of one’s comfort zone. For example, Joe said that if you decide to live in urban enclaves (as against the suburbs), you may not be able to own a house until you are in your mid-thirties or early forties. Besides, you have to open your homes for neighbours to come and fellowship at. That is a sacrifice one has to consider making to be a high stakes Christian of the first kind.
This a not a low bar. But how could I not covenant with that? Check!

A big problem with the urban progressives is a sense of entitlement. The urbanite believes he/she has a RIGHT to happiness, no matter what is at stake. In fact, I think, one could draw an almost straight line from the belief in right to happiness to the breakdown of marriages in the Western civilization. The only thing that can effectively work against this obsessive ‘pursuit of happiness’ is the Gospel permeating every aspect of our life. Gospel kills the discontentment that arises out of the sense of entitlement, by helping us SEE the crucified Lord. This Gospel-focus SHOULD fill us with the GREATEST sense of GRATITUDE that nothing else would matter so much so as to rob us of our ‘joy’ in the Lord.

Joe recounted how one of the Elders in the Church had to recite the Gospel to him when he was feeling discontentment over something. It is a great example to see pastors use a self-deprecating examples to glorify the Gospel. To make much of Christ and less of self is the fruit of the workings of the Gospel. It seemed to me that the Sojourn Christians are encouraged to be Gospel-focused to make much of Christ and less of self in their everyday aspects/rythmns of life.
This a not a low bar. But how could I not covenant with that? Check!

If the urban progressives had real, healthy and cherished communities, the Starbucks business model would have bombed right at the start. After all, a good number of people that go to Starbucks for the pseudo-community experience than for the ‘real’ coffee. In contrast to the pseudo-communities around us, Christians are supposed to be the ‘real’ community builders. We are to find our identity in the community of those who love the Lord. While most pagan communities that look real are built upon principle of ‘networking’ driven by self-interest of some form, the Christian community is built upon virtues of mutual love, mutual submission and mutual exhortation. Unlike Communism (Marxism), the Christian community is not classless, there is a definite hierarchy. But the Christian community is a lot more radical than Communism in that Communism mandates that everyone be treated equally, whereas in the Christian community, one is expected to treat the other better than one self. This is where rubber meets the road. This a high bar. I’ll need to covenant with that! Check!

It takes a lot of gospel-focus, prayer and mission mindedness to be able to fulfil my part of covenant deal. Truth be said, it will not be easy. But I have the ‘Helper’ (John 14:16), the Lord the Holy Spirit to help me through. Even if I fail, the covenant Enforcer is gracious (Romans 3:23 – 26: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood). The covenant is cut from His blood, not mine, which is why I can confidently go ALL-in into this high stakes Christian covenant community.