David Chats

Stickie

Thank you, readers, for stopping by this blog. I value your comments to my posts. This blog is a terrific way to exchange ideas and present individual perspectives on various issues.

To encourage a healthy exchange, I suggest the following:

• Comments should relate to the original post,
• If you decide to comment on a comment, this may be subject to moderation by me,
• All comments should address the subject of the post and never be open to interpretation as a criticism of an individual, and 
• I reserve the right to be the arbitrator of good taste and remove comments that are not written in a spirit of respect and love.  

David Chatelier 

Holidays

By the time you read this, Anita and I will be in sunny (we hope!!) Cairns.  Both of us enjoy all aspects of far North Queensland in winter - reef and hinterland, but this time we are likely to spend most of our time reading and recuperating.  I'm deliberately leaving my computer at home so that I won't succumb to the temptation of reading emails, so, other than one pre-scheduled blog this Wednesday, I will be resuming this blog in late July.

Beyond Defense Mechanisms

On Sunday evening, as part of our series on the Holy Spirit, Beth Barnett preached an excellent message  from Ephesians 6 on the Armour of God.  Beth made the point that our vulnerabilities and insecurities, our family of origin, our sin and the sins of others against us, all combine to cause us to wear armour.  Armour that causes us to be defensive, and armour that we use to attack.  This armour shows itself through our pride and prejudices, and through the "face" that we put on for others.

A question that Beth raised was, "What would it take for us to take off our self-developed armour, in order to put on the full armour of God?"  The ludicrous picture that came to my mind was of a child who insisted on retaining his own home made armour and the consequence was that there was no room to add the best, craftsman developed armour.  The refusal to put off led to an inability to put on.  Perhaps this is what lies behind the lists of vices and virtues that the Apostle Paul writes about.  He urges is to put off (Eph 4:22,25) before telling us to put on (Eph 4:24; 6:11).

Remembering

Together with members of the Canterbury Council of Churches, I visited the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick, Melbourne.  Following our two hour visit, we gathered at a local cafe for coffee.  Conversation was muted.  I suspect that others, like me, were still processing the images and words.  Millions of Jews were murdered, but it was the photographs of individuals that touched me.  More than that, it was the conversation with Holocaust survivors that impacted me - particularly our guide, Rosa (pictured here with me).

Rosa showed us through the Centre, stopping and commenting at the various exhibits, but it was her story that most gripped me.  And it was her two photographs that I best remember.  Rosa told how she had hidden these two precious photographs behind a loose brick in the wall.  She pointed to her parents, a brother and a sister, missing.  Most likely exterminated; never found.  She pointed to the photo of her surviving sister, now living in Russia and to her surviving brother, now living in Melbourne.  Meeting Rosa brought the horror of the Holocaust alive for me in a new way.  And I wondered about the loss of impact when the last survivor dies, when there are no longer living eyewitnesses to the Holocaust.

Perspective

I read recently of a woman who took her troubles and anxieties into the loneliness of her apartment and as she pondered and nursed them, they grew and grew until they became gigantically out of proportion.  Perspective.

The story is told of an African bushman on his first flight in an aeroplane.  Looking down on the open grassland, he was informed that the little black dots he could see were elephants.  "No, they can't be" he responded, "they are not big enough to be elephants, they must be ants".  Perspective.

When Moses sent twelve men to spy out the land of Canaan, the majority report that came back to Moses was that they were people of gigantic stature "and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them" (Numbers 13:33).  Perspective.

And so to the series of rhetorical questions that the Apostle Paul asks in his letter to the church at Rome: "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?"  (Romans 8:31-35).  Perspective.

The good news for those who, by the grace of God, have been adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus and reception of the Spirit of God is that everything becomes reoriented.  "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  (Romans 8:38-39).  Perspective.

In Christ

I remember long debates in theological college about whether humankind [except that we used to say "mankind" in those days of old] was tripartite or bipartite; that is, whether our essential nature is composed of body, spirit and soul (tripartite) or whether of body and soul/spirit (bipartite) - with soul and spirit being synonymous terms.  My mind went back to those luxurious days of armchair theology when I read this little gem from C S Lewis:

When Soul and body feed, one sees
Their differing physiologies.
Firmness of apple, fluted shape
of celery, or tight-skinned grape
I grind and mangle when I eat,
Then in dark, salt, internal heart
Annihilate their natures by
The very act that makes them I.

I'm tempted to let Lewis' glorious verse sit by itself lest I tarnish it by making comment, but, as I ponder the truth that the nature of all food is annihilated in the acting of eating, as it becomes part of the one who has eaten it, what does this say about the words of Jesus, "Take, eat, this is my Body" and "Take, drink, this is my Blood"?

When Love pays a Price

Perhaps because I’ve been reflecting recently on what discipleship is and isn’t, and perhaps because I dabble in electronic media via this blog, I was taken by this old quote from Colin Morris when he was Head of Religious Broadcasting, BBC: “The whole anguish of religious broadcasting is that we are transmitting a message of love and it is costing us nothing. It costs us nothing to say “I love you” or “God loves you” except the breath it takes to speak into a microphone. There is a powerful missionary movement being built up around the use of private satellites and cable television, based mainly in the United States. From these sources, 

electronic missionaries placed 23,000 miles in the air will preach the gospel to the people of Africa, Asia and South America. But you see, it costs nothing. In terms of personal cost – of the real giving of self – it doesn’t cost a thing. Therefore it is a ghost, a distortion of what Christianity is about. Unless I actually stand alongside you – not as an electronic ghost, but as someone who shares your life, who sweats, fears and hungers, and who risks the same diseases, it is not what Christianity is all about.”  Quoted in Still Waters, Deep Waters – meditations and prayers for busy people Edited by Rowland Croucher.

Before you remind me that there is a large cost in terms of finance and time, and before you remind me about the effectiveness of religious media, let me say that I’m aware that there is a cost, but I think Colin Morris is saying that it is a different kind of cost.  To truly be alongside someone, to engage in the issues that matter to them, to extend the hospitality of Christ in practical ways, takes a different kind of love to that which announces the Good News to faceless people.  It is the kind of love that is seen most perfectly in the Incarnation.

"Christian Service is the greatest enemy of the Christian life"

I've just finished reading Kate Grenville's The Secret River.  It tells the fictional story of William Thornhill, transported from the slums of London to Sydney in 1806.  

Thornhill always aspired to the status of gentry and worked hard to establish himself, eventually securing land on the Hawkesbury River.  The story explores early relationships with the indigenous people and the conflict and massacres that occurred out of a failure to understand different cultures and ways of living.  At one point, Thornhill, on his way to fulfilling his dream of being "gentry" in his new land, observes that the indigenous people already behave like gentry.  They have all they need and appear to be at ease,  without having to work hard to be content.

At the same time, I was skim reading Mark Virkler's Dialogue with God and came across this quote from Oswald Chambers: "Christian service is the greatest enemy of the Christian life."  We need to be aware of our tendency to assume so much responsibility for accomplishing God's work that we begin to lose our peace and rest in Him.

Is it possible that our pace of life, our drivenness to achieve, and the role of technology and complex communication systems all conspire to take us away from the simplicity of contentment that comes from relationships in the midst of the natural rhythms of life?

Ignoring History

By Guest Author, Stephen, a frequent contributor to this blog. His most recent comment was on David's previous post, "Ken Judge, ex-Hawk". Stephen, amongst other things, is a high school history teacher.

* * *

While it is clearly true that the past significantly affects the reality of the present, we tend to perceive ourselves and our world according to the present. Indeed, the way we act in the present often suggests that we must have, as the federal Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, declared during his rock star days, ‘a short memory’. This human predilection is a problematic one that leads to unfortunate situations in all areas of life. Thus the old adage, ‘Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it’, acts as a proverb of which we would do well to take heed.

Back in the days when I frequented the local video shop, it was not uncommon for me to pick up a movie case and say to my wife ‘this looks alright, what do you think?’ The answer, far too often and with an ever increasing tone of frustration, was ‘we’ve already seen that!’ Yet, the issue of course is that the problem of having a short memory does not only impact upon the more trivial aspects of life. This is made clear by Midnight Oil in ‘Short Memory’ as they sing about hundreds of years of powerful nations’ exploitation of the weak, before stating bluntly ‘If you read the history books you’ll see the same things happen again and again’. The song’s despair at the repetition of history’s failing is in need of an eschatological hope.

Ken Judge, ex-Hawk

I haven't written about my beloved Hawks at all this season.  After all, what's to write about?  Hawthorn has been middle of the road - not playing very well but not terrible either.  An OK week followed by a not so OK week.  The only remarkable aspect so far has been how even the season is.  Our percentage is 100; we have kicked 869 points and have had 869 points kicked against us.  Nothing much to write about.

That is, until ex-Hawthorn player and coach Ken Judge opened his...

Revival & Renewal

Because I've been thinking, reflecting, and praying about revival and renewal, I read once again John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching.  Most of the book centres around Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), a preacher who has much influenced Piper.  Revival is thoroughly supernatural in that it cannot be manufactured, systematised or controlled.  But it is nearly always birthed through prayer and a focus upon the glory of God.

Jonathan Edwards spent most of his time in his study.  He disliked conversation and rarely visited people.  In fact, when approached to be President of Princeton he wrote, "[I have] a disagreeable dullness and stiffness, much unfitting me for conversation, but more especially for the governance of a college."  While Pastor at Northamption "There were unusual seasons of revival, especially in the years 1734 to 1735 and 1740 to 1742."  Despite this, Edwards was dismissed from his pastorate because of a controversy over who could partake of The Lord's Supper.