It is necessary and beneficial every once in a while to make the sometimes very concerted effort to see things from a different point of view; to see something other than our own familiar surroundings as an insider rather than an outsider.  In every culture, in every city and town and house, there are things you can’t see and appreciate without being a part of it and living it.  Some things the outsider can get a hint of, but others are totally inexplicable or hidden except from an insider point of view.

The person born into a specific place or culture or situation is naturally an insider to that circle and an outsider to others, but these boundaries can be crossed: we can become naturalized insiders to another locale and set of circumstances.  And I believe the greatest ministry and the greatest living happens when we experience that exhilaration that comes with the first true and deep discovery.

But we don’t becomes insiders simply by virtue of being present somewhere.  It doesn’t rub off, but it needs to be sought and cultivated.  One can attend a church on Sunday mornings for years and never enter into the organization fully, if a person doesn’t want to do so.  And a person can live in a city for years, conceivably, and never feel a part of it — never know its secrets and its surprises.  Again, it needs to be sought out.

For example, it may be easy (I say this out of a bias based on the fact that I am a Metro Vancouver native) to see why people like Vancouver, BC: mild climate, mountains and oceans readily accessible, high standard of living, etc.  Other places might not look as if they have as much going for them — they are smaller, suffering perhaps because one of their main economies or employers has pulled out or gone under, there may be harsh weather.  But what is the true story of that place to those who live there — maybe even were born there — and know it as well as they know their very selves? What are the stories of relationships to the people, places, buildings, and even the land itself that bind these communities together.  The same could be said for any particular culture — what makes that culture unique and precious to those who circulate within it?

Even larger cities, populated by some many small and individual stories, have a collective story that those new to the city or just passing through cannot even begin to imagine; and these shape people, places, and communities in such a way that is impossible to understand their true character without these things.

This, I think, is the unique power of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He never desired or intended to be an ‘outsider’ forever — it was never an ‘us’ (deity) and ‘them’ (people) deal. Instead, he came to us and experienced life from our side of the fence.  He lived (and lives still) and suffered with us and got to know us.  He wanted to understand the world from the inside out, though he created it all.

In immitation of Christ, then, we should relish the chance to become ‘insiders’ whenever and wherever possible.  Have a teachable spirit, listen to the people, assume nothing, ask as many questions as you can think to ask.  Don’t be afraid to delve deeply into the place or culture where you are in order to understand it better and thus understand how you can live more fully there, cherish it more fully, and impact people for Jesus.  Wherever you go, strive to be an ‘insider.’  Look at things from a different point of view.

I heard a very intriguing interview on CBC Radio last week that brought to my attention the surprising audacity of modern video game developers, and media more generally.  The discussion I heard centered around the less-than-subtle introduction of the philosophy of Ayn Rand into the game Bio-Shock 2.

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, playwright, and philosopher whose indelible mark was made on the literary world in 1943 with publication of her novel The Fountainhead. Her best known work is Atlas Shrugged (1957).  Through her novels, essays, and other writings, she consistently promulgated the philosophy she eventually called objecitivism.  Undoubtedly due to her negative experiences in Russia in the years during and after the Russian Revolution, Rand unequivocally opposed any version of communism, socialism, or collectivism, and held the ethic of altruism in contempt, instead championing the supremacy of rational self-interest.

In the Bio-Shock franchise (1 and 2), we see a Randian uoptia based on her ego-centric philosophy.  Now, I gleaned from the interview that Rand’s philosophy is not portrayed entirely positively, but it would appear that her philosophical option in the game seems more attractive and feasible than the altruistic variety.

As with most things, the truth lies not with the black or the white, but somewhere in the grey area.  Certainly the evil of Stalinist communism and coerced collectivism and sacrifice under the watchful eye of the “big brother” government are written all over the last century.  Equally apparent are the dangerous of unbridled self-interest and the anarchist “non-state.”  However, our typical (post-)modern experience rarely encounters these two extremes — our battles are more subtle.  And, to be fair, Rand isn’t a good-representative of the above-mentioned hard-left philosophy.  Still, on some basic principles, Rand’s system of rational self-interest is at loggerheads with the vision of life that Christian Scriptures portray.

First and foremost, I believe Objectivism is predicated on an atheisitic (or at least agnostic or deistic) view of the world.  And from this springs the huge issue of our relationship to one another and how we interact.  Rand’s philosophy has room for love and helping others, but has no room for sacrifice or conceptions of the common good: for Rand, society is healthy so long as all people are allowed to rationally pursue their own self-interest.  This should immediately throw up a red flag for us as Christians, whose whole ethical system is built on the great sacrifice of all –Christ on the cross, which compels us to crucify our own desires and serve others.

Again, what Rand and others are reacting to is a perverted form of Christian altruism wherein one is enslaved to the demands of others to the detriment of one’s own health and well-being.  It is a system where you allow others to control you, and where individual identity and the power to make decisions is severely limited.  But I am confident that God himself would reject this kind of twisted ethic.  This is abuse, and it does not take into account the unique individuals that God has made each of us to be.

But let us never forget that the Bible (both Old Testament and New Testament) is a collectivist book.  Throughout, God is in the process of calling and forming and sanctifying a people (first the nation of Israel and then the Church) who exist to love and serve one another and then the world.  God assuredly works in us as individuals, but it is within the context of the Christ-based faith community where lives are renewed and people are equipped to be Jesus to a hurting world.  It is lie of the enemy that we do not need one another and ought not to submit to one another.  Our ultimate purpose is not found in ourselves, but in the God whom we serve and in the work we do to bring about his kingdom on the earth.  God does call us to make sacrifices on behalf of himself and others, and serving people in the way Christ served his disciples does not always appear to be in our own self-interest.  Truly, we derive our meaning not from our own personal happiness or in the degree to which we can exercise our freedom, but rather in the character that Christ has created in us and the love he has for us.

I write this because it throws into stark relief the necessity of both being involved in our children’s media consumption, and to demonstrate the importance of being good “culture-watchers” — being conversant with the ideas that are out there (past and present) — and being ready to engage with them from a biblical base.

* Note that Rand’s synthesis is hardly new.  It is a modern reworking and slight alteration of Utilitarianism as originally conceived by Jeremy Bentham and famously defended by John Stuart Mill in his aptly titled work Utilitarianism. But the idea of promoting and seeking after one’s own interests in preference to others’ has been around as long as humanity.

I was listening to CBC Radio One this afternoon.  I am not sure what the program was, but it featured a discussion around different musical genres and how to interact with them.  One commentator had this to say (I paraphrase): “We live in a culture where we walk around like zombies with our earbuds in, caught in our own little bubble.  We know what we like and we know what we don’t like.  We are preaching to a choir of one.  There is a even a term for this: it’s called ‘ego-casting.’  But don’t you think that if you wander through life this way, immersed in your own little world, that you end up cutting yourself off from other things that could enrich your life?”

Thought it is nearly impossible to be ignorant of this trend toward earbuds and ego-casting, when it is mentioned in such explicit terms one is suddenly much more aware of the pervasiveness of it and the its implications.  I took a class not that long ago on ethics, and there was a whole session dedicated to thinking ethically and theologically about technology.  I remember from that session the example of how to automobile can cut us off from others because it allows us to travel in a bubble of seclusion, listening to what we want on our iPod, radio, or a CD.   When I (unfortunately infrequently, as of late) go to the gym in the morning, most people have their ears stuffed with earbuds, soaking up their iPod music.  Each person is in his or her own world, unless they have come with a friend.  It is to me an endlessly fascinating phenomenon that we can get some many people together in one place with the resultant communication being so minimal.  And sure enough, this happens anywhere else there is a crowd: at the mall, on the subway.  We are, apparently, not keen on exposing ourselves to difference or “otherness” in music.  We know what we like and don’t like and interacting with someone else may introduce elements that we don’t like.

I got thinking that this doesn’t just apply to music.  Isn’t it true that we all, if we are not careful, fall into the “I know what I like and don’t want to be bothered with anything else trap”?  Our comfort bubble is only so wide, and we fill it with all the familiar things that manage to convince us that we are an island unto ourselves, despite John Donne’s assertion to the contrary.  Now certainly I am not naive enough to suppose this self-imposed isolation is a new phenomenon, but it would seem that technology only exacerbates the issue.

This “eg0-casting” mindset is especially insidious as it affects the Christian realm.  Christ call us to be — as I heard one young woman say — “willingly uncomfortable.”  The great call of the Christian life is to go and embrace the other, just as Jesus, who is totally other from us being God himself, came to interact with us, exchanging the comfort of heaven  for the uncomfortable cross.  Jesus knew of humanity before he came, but he had never experienced it.  In the same way, we can know of other cultures, ideas, and music, but we cannot experience this difference until we stop ego-casting and make a concerted effort to engage in this “otherness.”  Only then can we truly understand situations outside of our own and be the salt and light that God commands us to be.  Miroslav Volf, in his famous text  Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, also speaks about this.  The Gospel, at its centre, is a message of reconciliation that necessarily demands of its followers actions of embrace rather than those of exclusion, the latter often being predicated on the often subconscious belief that “otherness” is automatically evil.  As with many other areas, the Cross sets up a counter-intuitive reaction to otherness that begins the process of reconciliation.  I remember a professor assigning to us a text book with which he himself profoundly disagreed, and he encouraged us always to read things that flew in the face of our convictions.  Again, all with the goal of creating dialogue and experiencing the other.  This is the true Way of the Cross.

Years later, Christmas doesn’t excite me in the same way, but there are events in life that grab a hold of your heart and make you wish you had a time machine.  My wedding, for example, couldn’t come soon enough.  I dreamt of that special day practically from the day I slipped the engagement ring on my now-wife’s finger.  Other periods of intense change that occur periodically throughout our lives can leave us flustered, excited, and even a bit nervous as we wonder if the longed-for event will ever come.

It has been said that some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.  If believers truly understood heaven, that would never be the case, but that aside, this cliche does point to the more general truism that in life we can often be so focused on the future that our present suffers.  (Many others can become mired in the past and can’t even look toward the future, but that is a topic for another time).  At one point or another during these seasons of intense change, I will come to my senses and realize that, taken to an extreme, this fixation on the future in unhealthy and contrary to what God desires for our lives.

Certainly future-mindedness can be negative and even destructive, especially if it is based in greed (looking for the next newer or better job, house, etc.) or indulged in to such an extent that we totally check out and fail to complete even simple tasks in the present.  But more often than not, this view toward the future has much subtler consequences: we can become frustrated with our current situation, making us curt with, or distant from,  those with whom we are interacting; we can lose the vigour with which we are normally wont to encounter our tasks; we can spend inordinate amounts of time dreaming about and planning for the future, when that time might have been spent elsewhere or on truly urgent present tasks.

This is not to say that there is no room for anticipation — God wants to live excitedly; there is no room for stoicism or a cold-fish mentality within the richness of life that Jesus wants us to experience — but I think we would all agree that there is the danger of missing what God has for us in the present if we keep fixing our attention on the future to the exclusion of the present.  Indeed, sometimes it is hard enough to discern God’s voice and hand in the present even when we don’t have some specific situation to which we can look forward.  What about that person that God wants us to talk to, who needs to hear of his love for them or simply needs encouragement?  We may miss that.  What about the opportunity to witness God’s answers to the prayers that you have been praying.  You won’t see these if you are too focused on the future.  The list could go on.

What can we do in the face of a large and exciting change in order to adopt a present-centered mentality?  We can own a mantra that can bring us back to where we need to be: as John Lennon has said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re out making other plans.”  This reminds me that we are simply passing life by and not truly living it if we are only focused on the future, because the future will always remain in the future and we can only exist in the present.  And, as always, we can ensconce ourselves in God, the Eternal Present.  We can trust both the present and the future to him, allowing him to direct our path both new and then.

Here I am, sitting at my desk with a two-litre bottle of sparking lemon lime water that will last me all day.  I decided I needed to bring a large bottle like this with me to work in order to motivate myself to drink more water.  It gives me a goal to aim for: two whole litres.

Medical authorities tell us that a great many people are dehydrated and don’t even know it, because at first there are very few symptoms of chronic marginal dehydration, but severe medical conditions can occur: arthritis pain can be caused by a lack of fluid between the joints; back pain may be due to lack of water between the discs of the spinal column; angina can mean the heart muscle is not receiving enough hydration; dehydration can also cause headaches, from mild to severe; and less than adequate water can result in lackluster, sagging skin.  Inadequate hydration has also been linked to asthma and can cause a weakened immune system.  And then there are issues like eczema, weight gain, colitis, exhaustion, and weight gain — all linked in some way to various levels of dehydration.

All this to say, we sometimes experience symptoms of dehydration but are not aware that they are linked to inadequate water intake and may be lessened or even cured if we simply drank more water.  Instead, we indiscriminately medicate the problems with painkillers and other drugs.

Jesus himself spoke about the need to drink water.  In particular, he informed the Samaritan woman of the need to drink the water that he was providing — living water: ”Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

So I began to wonder if I was low on this spiritual water, too: if I was getting my recommended 8-cups daily of Jesus Juice. Because I don’t think it is enough to come drink of this living water once and then never touch it again.  It is not enough to merely imbibe enough to avoid dying of severe dehydration all together — most people know enough to know when they are about to actually die of thirst.  I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind.  Surely he wants us to be well-hydrated enough with himself to continue on in this life (i.e. to be saved), but what spiritual ailments may afflict us if we just stop there?  Constipation, arthritis, exhaustion turn into a desiccation of our joy, a lack of spiritual passion, and an inability to grow in the Lord.

Jesus wants us to come drink at the well regularly.  Yes, he says we will never thirst again when we taste the living water he has to offer insofar as we come to know what a truly thirst-quenching Saviour he is, but other portions of Scripture command us to continually hunger and thirst after him.  Jesus himself commands this perpetual state of yearning when he says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).  And the Psalmists declares in his time of trouble: ”As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1).

So the question is: Are you drinking enough water?  Are you being intentional about quaffing deeply at the well of living water even when you don’t feel thirsty?  Are you committed to slaking your thirst with the Word and in prayer, rather than medicating your spiritual dehydration with all other manner of worldly pursuits and “painkillers?”  Are you self-aware enough to know when you need living water instead of more TV or another self-help book?

Not every call to service or a specific ministry is a mandate.  Does something seem as if it is entirely outside of your comfort zone and that you possess no real aptitude at it?  It may be that God is not calling you to this.  Does it require you to move far away into an isolated context bereft of friendships and like-minded individuals? It may be that God is not calling you to this.  Is your first thought that you would rather gnaw your own leg off?  It may be that God is not calling you to this.  As I say, I cannot speak for God, and all opportunities deserve a second look and a consideration in prayer, as well as a readjustment of values and priorities, but your initial reaction can be an indication of how that ministry opportunity would fit for you, provided you are self-aware and are walking arm-in-arm with the Lord.  To dive in to something just because you would feel guilty not doing it is not true sacrifice, but stupidity.

Jesus, as he agonized in the Garden over his crucifixion, saw the outcome in the distance and believed it to be worth the sacrifice.  Often the appropriateness of following a certain path will be felt at a deep level, despite the difficulties involved.  A decision often just “feels right” when we are close to the heart of God (though if we are distant and out of fellowship with him, that can be our fickle hearts speaking out a desire for comfort and self-preservation).  God has wired us each a certain way and given us certain basic needs, desires, and experiences, that often come together to help us decide what a legitimate sacrifice might be and what is mere stupidity born out of guilt or a martyr complex.

This is not all to say that we will always head into sacrificial situations joyfully or be overwhelmed by the feeling of the rightness of our actions: pain often feels wrong and screams at us to turn around and latch back onto the comfortable and the familiar.  Still, upon close examination, there is that “just rightness” in the chest, or, even more viscerally, a knowledge that God would have in a certain place for a purpose.  Jeremiah writes: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot (Jer, 20:9).  That is to say, conviction concerning a certain cause can burn in our bones, even when we struggle to serve joyfully.  This is a good indication that God is demanding this sacrifice from you.

Many of us (including myself) can at time be overwhelmed with the guilty sense that we are not doing enough for God, that we are not uncomfortable enough or suffering enough.  I cannot deny that God calls us to suffering and to discomfort for his namesake, but we cannot do everything, nor does God call us to do everything, and that is okay.  We must weigh the options and considering them when taking on any new assignment, and know ourselves and God well enough to correctly discern the situation, being driven out of love, not guilt.

It’s often been said that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. To this list I would add the inexorable march of change.  Few things save the ground beneath our feet and the fallen nature of the human heart, are beyond the reach of change.  Change can be exciting, but it is more often than not frightening, because we cannot see what is in store.  Change offers the perfect chance to exercise our faith muscles.

We are embarking on a journey of change here at Gracepoint throughout 2010 and beyond.  During seasons of change, emotions run high and tensions that have lain dormant in more stable times have a way or emerging or even exploding suddenly.  Change sometimes violates that which we hold most sacred, but it gives us the opportunity to ask why we have the sacred cows that we do and if we cannot be more open-handed with them.

History exemplifies a varietyy of dispositions toward change.  The Buddhist tradition denies the reality of change — change is merely an illusion that confuses the mind, clouding it from being able to see the true and eternal realities beneath.  The picture employed here is of a stone in a river: the river changes and flows all around it, but the remains anchored and unmoved (disregarding the fact of erosion for now).  Besides, the rock comes in contact with different molecules of water all the time, but it is the same substance.  As the old adage goes, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Now, there is something to commended in this approach: we know that at a deep level the spiritual realities of the world and the nature of the God who holds this world together, do not change.  There are enduring absolutes that can serve as anchors to our soul; but while we are in this world, there is change, and little is gained and much can be lost by refusing to see change or interact with it in any meaningful way.

Then there is the attitude of those who retreat from the world, and this attitude has often been expressed in the church.  The Church can become somewhere to come and seek refuge from the world and all the change out there.  Again, there is some truth here: because we can rest in the unchangeableness of God, the Church should offer sanctuary to the harried and wounded soul.  But it cannot run the risk of turning into a time machine that takes us back decades or centuries as soon as we walk through the door, because God is not bound to a specific time period, and for the newcomer, such a church is so radically disconnected from the world outside that he or she has a hard time navigating this new culture and hearing the message.

Finally, there are those who wholeheartedly embrace change and as a result end up falling into the trap of advocating change for the sake of change.  Newer is not necessarily better (in fact, the opposite may be true).  We need not be afraid of change, because the sovereign Lord of the universe has seen these changes coming since the day he created the world, but we should not uncriticallyn accept all innovations, for there are some that are antithetical to the message of the cross, and these need to be sunned, no matter who is adopting them and how “out of touch” that makes us.

As with most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle.  Yes, we see the eternal behind the shifting present, but the present must still be engaged; yes, we ought to be a place of refuge, but we can’t become out of touch; yes, we cannot be afraid of change, but we cannot afford to give up discernment.

If we truly understand our identity in Christ and know that we are partakers in the person of the unchangeable God, then any focused change toward God that more effectively ministers to people, should excite us from the get-go.  Though it is often the case that the church becomes  a haven for those who want to retreat from the world, the Church should relish becoming all things to all people and should therefore be the early (but not uncritical) adopters of any movement that allows the Gospel to be heard and do its work.  The church should, in fact, change faster than any other institution and be on the cutting edge.

In the end, change will happen whether anyone likes it or not, and it seems to be happening faster than ever before.  Gracepoint, as long as it continues to be led by the Holy Spirit, will make those changes that are necessary and will forge a path of scary yet purposeful realignment with the values and mission of God in the world.

A few days ago, I heard a cover by the Canadian Tenors of what probably has become one of the most covered songs in Canadian music history — Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”  It is a strange and complex song, but what stood out to me was the context in which these hallelujahs were being uttered:

She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

….

I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

….

And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but “Hallelujah”

Though I am not sure what Cohen believed the message of this song to be, for me all these excerpts point out that we can praise God in the midst of our suffering.  The first verse tells us that no matter how cruel people are to us or the evil perpetrated against us, they cannot stop our tongue from uttering praise to God, however agonized those praises may be.  The second verse reminds that as we make an effort to love others in the name of Christ, there will be times in which the love is cold and relationships grow difficult, but God is with us during those times and deserves our praise.  And God invites us to come to him in our brokenness.  The last verse is the most poignant, reminding us that there are times in our lives when the wheels comes off, as it were, and we are left desolate and confused.  At that point we have absolutely nothing to offer Him but our praise, which he gladly accepts.  Now, it is not as if we ever have anything to else to offer him that he did not first give us, but the subtle lie of affluence tricks us into forgetting our true poverty before an all-powerful God of inestimable riches.

This all got me thinking of Job, who displayed a remarkable and entirely counter-intuitive attitude toward his incalculable loss:  ”the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).  Of course, this is not to say that he did not deeply mourn his loss, but he chose to confess with his mouth what he knew to be true, even if he didn’t feel it at that moment.  I remember reading an article in the paper about a pastor who lost his entire family in a automobile accident, he being the only survivor.  When the nurse informed him of the tragedy, the first words out of his mouth were those of Job: “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”  He then broke down in tears.  The nurse was interviewed in the article and was very vocal about her astonishment at his words.

The fact is, God does not change because our circumstances do; he is no less beautiful when our grief and loss cloud our vision.  Therefore, he deserves our praise at all times, perhaps even especially when we don’t feel that we have it in us to give them.  And in that instance in particular, something strange can happen: God deserves our praise, but he doesn’t require it, because we can (and will) praise him for all eternity but we will never be able to ascribe to him his true worth; rather, the “hallelujahs” that we utter in times of crisis are for our own benefit – they beckon us outside of ourselves and soften our hearts to God’s tender advances.  During such times, he desires to soothe us and it has been said by many who have experienced tragedy, that he is most near to them in the depths of despair, but it is also the time that we ourselves are tempted to be furthest away from him.  I heard a story only yesterday of a woman whose husband has had both feet amputated, and for her that was the last straw — God no longer cares for her; in fact, maybe he doesn’t even exist.  But I suspect that, if the cold and broken hallelujah was forced from her lips, she may experience the refreshing and comforting presence of the Lord after a time.  I encourage us to praise God from the core of our brokenness — it’s good for the soul.

In light of the Advent season, I thought I would take a moment to pause in awe of what it means for Jesus to be our Emmanuel.  This is the central meaning of Christmas: that “God, contracted t0 a span, incomprehensibly made man” should choose to live among us, as messed and sin-scarred as we are.  This, when put together with the glorious truth of Easter — that Jesus died for our sins and then conquered death with his resurrection – is the message of the Gospel.

What does it mean for Jesus to be Emmanuel (“God with us”)?  It is rooted in the belief in what theologians call the hypostatic union — the idea that Jesus is both 100% God and 100% human at the same time without division or contradiction.  His two natures (divine and human) are perfectly united in the person of Christ.  The Chalcedonian Creed, adopted at the Council of Chalcedon in modern-day Turkey in A.D. 451, gives expression to the doctrine.  It reads:

We […] acknowledge […] our Lord Jesus Christ [to be] at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, [both] truly God and truly man [...]; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin, and as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages [...]. Christ is Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Since the Chalcedonian Creed was promulgated, there have been a number of attempts to make sense of this tension.  Unfortunately, these attempts were rejected by the Church because they destroyed the tension between the divine and human in the person of Jesus by favouring one aspect over the other.  The first, due to the influence of Gnosticism, which saw the physical body and the material word as evil, was called Docetism.  This heresy favoured the divine aspect of Christ, holding that Jesus’ physical body was only an illusion — he merely appeared to be human.  A more tempered version of this was Apollinariansim, which taught that Jesus took on a humsn body, but not the human nature and condition.

In contrast, Ebionism taught that Jesus was a mere man who possessed unusual (though not superhuman) wisdom and righteousness.  The Arian heresy at least upheld the uniqueness of Jesus, but did not grant him fully equality with God — he was simply the first and most exalted of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless.

These heresies are not dead.  In modern times, many deny the deity of Christ, calling him a mere Enlightened One who shows us how we, too, can attain to the state of Enlightenment and become just as he was.  And unfortunately, modern Christians sometimes take away from the human element in Christ’s nature (did he really go to the bathroom or scratch his butt?) and fall into an implicit docetism or apollarianism because we are anxious to repudiate and distance ourselves from this “just human” view of Jesus.

But the mystery of Christmas is that of the Incarnation: somehow the divine and the human realms collide, without watering down either — God in his perfect fullness experiences the entirety of the human condition.  Jesus ate, drank, slept, went to the bathroom, learned, and grew tired.  But he never sinned and always did as his heavenly Father told him.

Because of this, Jesus truly was and is God with us.  He knows our pains and struggles and loneliness because he lived them, but, as Lord of the cosmos, he brings the power of the divine into those times of hardship.  We can pray to Jesus and find refuge in him because he is one of us, but in so doing we are also accessing the divine, that we might be changed.  To in any way downplay either the divine or the human elements of the Incarnation is the hamper the transforming power of the Gospel: we do not worship a distant God, nor do we worship a mere human.

Shifting gears, I’d like to get us thinking about theology, a word that has been grossly misunderstood.  For many, the word “theology” is a daunting one — either that, or quite possibly irrelevant.  It often conjures up thoughts of stodgy academics with their heads in the clouds, spouting off big words embedded in complex and almost unintelligable sentences, utterly unengaged with the realities of the world.  Theology is for the expert, we might think, and doesn’t really mean much in the workaday world.  Besides, it seems the basic questions of theology were figured out a long time ago.

As with all stereotypes and popular conceptions, there is some truth in this view.  Ever since very early in the history of Christianity, theology has often been co-opted by ivory tower intellectuals who invent complex theological jargon and make matters of the spiritual realm into something obscure.  Doctorates are granted in theology to those who spend 300 or 400 pages of a doctoral dissertation on perhaps even one phrase in the Bible or one narrow biblical concept.

This is not to devalue to usefulness of intense, full-time study of the  Bible and the God behind it — I have a certain affinity for that approach myself — but if theology only ever stays in the theoretical realm, if it never bridges that gap between books and real life, then it is not of much use, and God is not pleased.

True theology is so much more than lifeless black ink on white paper.  It is, at its best, the product of both our love and affection for God and a life lived.  It is real, it is meaningful, and it makes a differences.  Theology, is, at the core, ”the study of the nature of God and religious truth; or, rational inquiry into religious questions.”  Nothing more, but also nothing less.  It doesn’t have to be complicated.  The little girl who asks if her grandmother is in heaven is engaging in a hugely important theology question; the abandonned wife or husband who wonders how he or she can ever let go of bitterness would be well-served by an investigation into the heart of the Father, which is mercy and forgiveness.

Every person, whether Christian or not, has a theology, and is a theologian in the broadest sense.  Do we not all wonder about the divine, about who he/she/it may be, about questions of morality and the afterlife?  What we believe will always determine how we behave — and not what we say we believe about God, ourselves, and others, but what we really believe deep inside ourselves.

It is crucial, then, to take our vocation as theologians seriously.  It is true that not all (or many) people have the luxury to devote their entire lives to the study of God and his Word, but perhaps what we need more of are people who struggle to define who God is and what he desires of us in the midst of everyday life.  Theology is about asking questions and searching for answers while we are living our lives in the home, in the community, at church, and in the workplace.  Yes, it needs to be undergirded with a logic and rationality (our emotions can often mislead us), but the best theology often comes in the midst of a particularly tough situation and yet one in which we sense God’s presence with us and in which he communicates some truth to us.  Naturally, we must filter our experiences through the Scriptures, but our experiences often cause us to see the Bible or a particular text in a different way, and prompts us to ask questions that we did not before.

Every Christian person, needs to be a theologian — if not, you become prey to anyone who comes along with a charming enough personality.  If you do not know what you believe, if you do not stand on the bedrock foundation of what the Church has always taught, you will be deceived by any preacher or prophet who comes along and claims to be speaking for God.  There is a reason that Paul in his letters (I think especially of Romans) takes such great pains to lay out his theology before he calls his readers to action.  The whole first 12 chapters of Romans opens up Paul’s belief on a number of issues that directly affect the recommendations that come after the “therefore” in 12:1.  Paul is saying, “in light of what I have instructed you to believe in Romans 1-12, here is how you should now live.”  How can we be gracious to others if we do not see God as a god of grace instead of a angry God read to punish?  How can we experience freedom from religiosity if we do not understand that belief in Jesus is enough to please God?  Who God is affects how we live.  There is no way around it.  Theology — asking questions and seeking answers about God and his interactions with his creation — is for all people.  It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it is life-giving.

“Theology is the science of living blessedly forever” — William Perkins

“Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God” — William Ames