Leadership

Compassion as radical criticism

May 23, 2018 0 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

Walter Bruggeman on the compassion of Jesus.

Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empower of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but person are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Empires live by numbness. Empires, in their militarism, expect numbness about the human cost of war. Corporate economies expect blindness to the cost in terms of poverty and exploitation. Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and with his compassion takes the first step by making visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual. Thus compassion that might be seen simply as generous goodwill is in fact criticism of the system, forces, and ideologies that produce the hurt. Jesus enters into the hurt and finally comes to embody it.

 

Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, Second Edition, 2001.

Leadership

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Do small things with great love.

April 20, 2018 0 Comments

Waiting for Spring ~ Central Park, March 2018

 

While preparing for the talk coming up this weekend, I’ve been reflecting on a favourite saying of Mother Teresa, “Do small things with great love.” Our stewardship of the stuff of Creation must be rooted in the love of Jesus. Without confidence in His love our efforts become slavish and our patience becomes apathy. Soon we easily reduce ourselves to the roll of consumers. But, we are consumed.

 

 

In our great affection for celebrity we are as mindless as the kids that want to be famous. Why? They do not know. How? Most cannot imagine small things first. We are too limited. So we look only for what seems great and worthy of applause. We confirm by our longing that we need to be loved. Our hearts need a thaw. We need the Spirit’s spring and warmth to remind us that though we are a small thing in the universe we have not escaped the affectionate eye of the Father.

 

In 2017 a group of musicians, artists, scholars, and pastors gathered in New York City to collaborate. The Porter’s Gate Worship Project has released some wonderful music since then. Here’s another: Little Things with Great Love. Jesus often spoke of little things, acknowledge the little people, and always acted loved.

 

 

 

In the garden of our Savior no flower grows unseen

His kindness rains like water on every humble seed

No simple act of mercy escapes His watchful eye

For there is One who loves me

His hand is over mine

 

In the kingdom of the heavens no suffering is unknown

Each tear that falls is holy, each breaking heart a throne

There is a song of beauty in every weeping eye

For there is One who loves me

His heart, it breaks with mine

 

O the deeds forgotten, O the works unseen

Every drink of water flowing graciously

Every tender mercy You’re making glorious

This You have asked of us:

Do little things with great love

Little things with great love

 

At the table of our Savior, no mouth will go unfed

And His children in the shadows stream in and raise their heads

O give us ears to hear them, and give us eyes that see

For there is One who loves them. I am His hands and feet

 

 

 

Discipleship, Leadership

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Remembering to Serve People on the Journey to Refuge

April 19, 2018 0 Comments

Origin in Athens

Photo Cred: Reed Eaglesham

Dear Readers,

I’m doing something new, using my blog to ask for help.

 

Origin is headed back to Greece. We will be in Athens in May to serve alongside our friends with Canadian Global Response. Ten of us will be going to “remember the poor.” You can help them too. People on the journey for refuge have had to run, to leave, to survive, to witness. Its not a pretty experience and its worse than most of us can imagine.

 

Artist and activist Ai Weiwei, wants you to know that “Over 65 Million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes.” I watched the film and cried. This is what many of the dear people we met last year have gone through. What will our compassion do? Compassion comes alongside the human flow not to judge but to give hope. Though we are tempted to, I’m learning we must not underestimate the power of a cup of water, a smile, a listening ear, a gift, and a moment of care and kindness in a safe environment. We believe these are the small gestures affirming the incredible worth of each person.

 

Our team of ten is going to Athens but we cannot accomplish this alone. We need your help to extend the ministry of our friends there in city. We will be assisting with what they want to do in order to serve folks who had hoped to pass through the city but have gotten stuck there and who find themselves to be intensely vulnerable. Our strategy for supporting and extending the ministry of our partners on the ground in Athens requires about 1000 euro’s per day in ministry funds.

 

Help us serve people on the refugee journey in Athens, Greece.

Let’s move remembering the poor into real presence and action. Here’s how you can give. By clicking on the Origin in Greece button you will land on our Canadian Global Response project and giving page. Follow the instructions, making sure to to note “Origin in Athens.”

Thanks so much.

Craig

 

 

 

Change, Leadership

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What’s on your summer reading list for 2018?

April 12, 2018 0 Comments

As Winter term ends for students and we get ready for summer term, the church I’m a part of at UBC publishes a summer reading list.

Our list of books seeks to get at our desire to be a Gospel-Shaped, Disciples-Making, City-Blessing church. So we know we have to get in touch with authors who help us engage some aspect of the four relationships of Christian discipleship — with God, with self, with people, and with the stuff of Creation.

You can see our 2017 Summer Reading list above.

I’m curious — what would you recommend for a summer reading list?

 

 

Change, Discipleship, Education, Leadership

A Pastor’s Agony on Easter Monday

April 2, 2018 0 Comments

In 24 years of ministry in Vancouver I have never preached an Easter message I am completely satisfied with. The Resurrection of Jesus has more to say to us than I can say. Texts built around the Resurrection of Jesus provide a frame, the subject, and the colour for the message, but I must admit again, I am terribly inadequate to the preaching of the Resurrection of Jesus on the day of our celebration. I fall short of finding words conveying the joyful and fearful surprise of this great reversal.

 

Lord help.

 

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”  Matthew 28:5-7 (NIV)

 

Did you see that?

 

“Now I have told you.”

“Now I have told you.”

Who gets to end a message with that? Who gets to say, “Now I have told you” and be done?

Apparently the first messenger who proclaimed the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, that’s who!

The angel says it.

And next, the women proclaiming this good news to the disciples could have said it too.

“Now I have told you.”

 

But for me, on a Resurrection Sunday I am plagued with the indictment that I’m going to have a crowd who have heard it all before and somehow are not moved. Somehow we have been conditioned to non-response. I don’t get to say, “Now I have told,” with the same confidence that somebody is going to get moving.

 

Lord help. Stir us again Holy Spirit.

 

Maybe I should take up painting. Well on second thought, probably not. Last year Mike Frost introduced his readers to what he calls the “greatest Easter painting of all time.” I like it. The painting, The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection, by Eugene Burnand, is most appropriately housed not in a great museum, but in an old railway station in Paris. Typically no one stands still for long in a railway station. If your train is called, you get moving. “Now I have told you.” The word assumes a change is coming, in fact the change has come, whether you are ready for it or not. Scroll up and take a look at it again. John to the left seems to joyfully anticipating the possibility of a reunion with Jesus. Peter though has a look of agony and fear at the possibility. They have been told, and they are moving.

 

8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”  Matthew 28:8-10

 

Before the women preachers got to their audience they were interrupted by the subject of the Resurrection.

 

Did you noticed the pairing of fear and joy?

Did you notice how Jesus interrupts their movement?

 

The Resurrection of Jesus will illicit both fear and joy. Fuelled by these we may want to dance; we may want to run. We may be so ready to take action. Zeal for the message and task may consume us. But it seems our Lord, would have us pause before the apostolic action is taken, and simply meet Him and worship.

Change, Discipleship, Leadership

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