Do No Harm

This weekend is Easter. The pinacle of the week that we call “Holy”. The day in the year when our minds are meant to be focused, taking all the theology mashed into our heads and thinking about the culmination of these words in the actions of a God-man, 2000 years in the past.

It is a week for us to consider our beliefs. Our faiths.

But what if our faith falters? What if this Easter weekend, our questions outnumber our assurances?

When this happens, it can feel like the still small voice of doubt, always lingering in the back of each of our minds can easily burst its banks to become a raging river, threatening to wash it all away.

In that moment, is there anything that will keep us afloat? What will keep my head above the torrent?

Over the past 8 months I’ve spent my Tuesday evenings on a First Aid course, learning the basics so I can hopefully be of some use in the situations I am preparing for, but hoping never happen. One of the first things we learnt was the principle of “do no harm”. If you stumble upon an accident or someone in need, First Aid teaches to “help, or at least, do no harm”.

Were I discover on my death bed that it was all a lie, that everything was false and nothing about this religion I follow is real, I want to know that my life wasn’t wasted. I want to be able to roll my eyes and think "Aww well, no biggie." To know that even though the words I’ve spoken to a God who maybe isn’t there might have been in vain, my actions were not. That those same actions, which were inspired by this faith, have left this corner of the globe a better place.

To know that with my hands I’ve pulled people up from situations bigger than them, giving them hope in themselves if in nothing else. That with my mouth, I have spoken words of encouragement, love and joy into the lives of those surrounding me, words that helped them on the journey of becoming who they could and want to be. That with my time, I have shared my life with people, showing that they matter above other things that could easily crowd in.

Too often as a church or community, I worry we do more harm than good. Become life-suckers rather than life-bestowers. No more.

It is my hope then, that even if the one to whom we pray is not there at all, that we can have done no harm, leaving this world a better place because of the existence of me and you. Going to our graves with the assurance that we have made a difference, that we changed the world for good, whether it be affecting entire nations, or a living room of children, that the generations who come after us will be better people because we were the best we could be.

For this to come to pass though, we need to be people who stop living our faith solely through our mouths. Yes, it is important to speak our beliefs, but in the world we live in, it is just as, if not more, important for us to become a people who show them with our actions and our lives.

Showing people a love and care for one another that is true and good, whether we ultimately discover they came first from the mouth of God, or not.

A Good Friday.

We pick up the story on Thursday night of Holy week. Jesus has just had a memorable meal with his disciples, one where he unfolds to them them what was to come, and explains how they are going to remember what he's about to do. An action that was started at that moment has continued down through the millennia to today, where we still often celebrate and remember what happened there at our very own dinner table at the front of our church and in churches all over the world, many miles and many years from that first dinner table.

After the dinner, as many of us like to do after filling our stomachs, Jesus headed out to a Garden nearby for a walk and talk with his friends. While there, he decided he wanted some time alone to pray, and separated himself from the group spending some time along with the Father. He struggled through prayer, worried about what was to come, but willing.

After returning from prayer, in a whirlwind of activity, Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest followers, and taken into the custody of the high priests.

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One of Jesus' closest followers and friends followed him and the crowd as he was being taken away, sneaking into the courtyard of the high priest where he was being held. It was a cold night, so Peter huddled as close as he dared to the fire, too cold to stay away, but afraid that someone would recognize him as one of the friends and followers of the man who was just arrested. His fears were not without warrant, and a woman pointed at him from across the fire, saying she recognized his face from the group of people with whom Jesus was associated. Peter was quick to deny this connection, but with his very words, his accent gave him away… all heads now turned to look more closely at the man with the Galilean accent who looked oddly like the same Galilean who followed Jesus. Again, his words denied his Lord. More accusations followed, and Peter with sheer fear swore that he did not know the man. At that point, a cockerel started to crow on the other side of the yard, and Peter remembered the words of Jesus that he would deny him three times before the night was out. Words that he had vehemently rejected at the time, never expecting in a million years to have become truth within a matter of hours.

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Meanwhile, indoors, mere metres away from where Peter denied Him, Jesus sat awaiting trial. Before 24 hours had passed, he would have been juggled from judge to judge, between kings and rulers, trying to make sense of why the Jewish aristocracy so desperately wanted this so called "miracle-worker" dead. There was no evidence to support the accusations that were being hurled at him, at least no evidence that was standing up under any scrutiny…and so he was juggled around, until he landed once again at the feet of Pilate. The people were offered an ultimatum. Free Jesus, or a murderer. The people, whipped up into a state of frenzy by the Jewish leaders, chose the murderer to go free, and the One who had never done anything wrong, was sent to be measured for a cross.

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A cross was put upon Jesus and he was forced to carry it to it's resting place. He struggled through the narrow winding streets of Jerusalem as people looked on, jeering and spitting upon his crushed and whipped body. He collapses, and a man, by the name of Joseph is pulled out of the crowd to take the cross upon himself, to help Jesus in his greatest hour of need. Step by step, side by side, they walked towards the hill where Jesus was going to be crucified.

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On that hill, they put Jesus on the cross, and on that cross, Jesus breathed His last. The breath of God was extinguished for us. An incredible image, that the God who created the universe, who set the stars in their place and dug the furrows and pits of the oceans before filling them with water, hung on a cross for one purpose, for us. There was nothing in it for Him, that is the definition of a sacrifice. But on that hill, God died, and He did all that out of love.

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And for this day. That is where the story ends.

Hate

Mark 13:13

“And everyone will hate you because you are my followers”

Have we used this verse to justify harsh words, tones and actions in communicating the Gospel to those around us?

Our methods are often harsh. The hell, fire and brimstone technique and judgemental overtones of ushering people into the kingdom, in my opinion, have done much more damage to the reputation of the faithful than good. Leaving us (even those of us not ascribing to this methods, there are no shades of grey to those on the ‘outside’) as the object of ridicule, if not hatred for those looking on.

But we give as good as we get. Boy, do we know how to do hating well. Hating those who are different from us, despising anyone or thing we see as a threat to our way of life. And of course, if we hate, we can hardly expect kittens and chocolate croissants in return, and so the cycle continues. We hate because they first hated us.

But why did they hate Jesus? Was it not because of his compassion and love for people when it went against the social norms and acceptabilities of the day? For his dinner dates with prostitutes and tax collectors? For being a person of growing influence who came from the wrong post code? For consistently choosing the lift up the humble and tear down the haughty?

Are the real intentions of this verse not that if we are truly following the invitation to follow Jesus, then we will find ourselves on the same level as the lowest of the low, sharing our social status with the outcast?

Despised by the world for who we love, rather than for who we hate.

The D-Word

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Romans 7:15 (TNIV)

Once we read this sentence through a few times, allowing a bit of the confusion from the first run through to blow away, perhaps we start understanding just a hint of what Paul is trying to say.

We do the things we shouldn’t. We don’t do the things we should.

That’s what it means. Right?

So often we hear these words taken to emphasize the negative. We say that God is a Being who at the root of it all wants us to stop failing and falling short. We make it about the last part of this verse, and yet we forget, or at least play down the bit preceding.

We make this verse about the ‘sins’ that we keep on committing. The things we continue doing that, we are assured, put us squarely on the naughty list.

But the more I discover God, the more I am become assured that the Santa Claus method might not be his method after all. Perhaps He is not as much as I had once thought about the “don’t do that’s”. A lens, I believe, we have used to view this one version of God for too long.

Instead, the God I long to know more, is One who instead of giving me a list of “dont’s”, instead hands me a list of “why not try’s”.

There are none of us who would say we don’t want to pursue things in our lives. There are none who would say we don’t want to be better employees, friends, fathers, mothers, husbands, girlfriends, or bosses. There are none who would say we wouldn’t want to be better to our bodies. Run more. Smoke less. Eat more of the good stuff. There are none who would say we would turn down an opportunity to do more of what we love, what we feel in our deepest selves we were made for. Pick up a pen and finally write the short story we have always promised ourselves we would, the song that has been lingering on the tip of our tongues for a while, or create something of beauty (or at least of meaning) with our hands. None of us who play a sport who don’t want to get better at it. Don’t want to reach the next level. Compete higher. Get faster, bigger, stronger.

There are none of us who don’t want to move forward in our lives.

And yet, almost all of us at one point or another find ourselves stalled. Find ourselves sitting on our sofas as our lives crystallise around us. Suddenly finding the water of our lives that once rushed past us with such speed and youthful exuberance stagnant and staid.

And that brings us back to the part of the verse we love to hate. The realisation that we are people who do things that aren’t good for us, actions, Paul says, that we hate. The problem with these actions though, is that even though we say we hate them, in the moment of truth we find we really do want to do them and are quite content to give in. They are often the easy way out, the shortcut, the way that brings us the most amount of fun and contentment in the short term.

And that’s the problem. These are all about the short term. The now. And it’s only later that we discover the consequences of our decisions on the longer term goals and tasks we planned and set for ourselves.

We allow these things to come between us and whatever relationship we have allowed or are welcoming to blossom between us and our Keeper and Sustainer.

Maybe when thinking about the things that we know God desires for us, the difference comes in seeing that maybe these aren’t a list of “because I said so” things, but “because they are keeping you from being who you are”. Rather than sucking the life FROM us, this is a list of things to restore life TO us.

But living this life require something of us. The D-word.

Discipline.

The word we avoid as much as we can. Discipline to pull ourselves out of the mould we have left in the sofa, to tear ourselves away from the things we know are not helping us live the lives we want, and choosing to start walking in that direction.

It’s not easy. Living life in the real world is much harder than watching it unfold on a television screen. But the question is, 6 months from now, would I rather be more in the know and up to date on the lives of the characters in the latest sitcom to come out of the US (Finally! An explanation for the "Modern Family" photo at the header!), or be 6 months closer on the journey of discovering who I am, why I was made this way and further on the journey of being a better version of the me I am today. Which one will make me feel more alive? More whole?

And that’s what I think this verse is really about.

Not about the rules. But about recapturing the rhythm of life that we once held in our grasp.

Recognising the costs in the short term, in anticipation and expectation of the gains and rewards in the long term.