Category: Writings

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Echoing Silence: God’s One Word

What intimate companionship with God while driving home yesterday. Four hours of solitude and silence. This ‘Creedal Meditation’ poem is an echo of that silence.

Echoing Silence:  God’s One Word

From Eternity to Eternity
Infinite Silence
Impenetrable Mystery
Father, Son and Spirit
Trinitarian Community
One God
By Breath Speaks
One Word

LOVE

The Echo of Silence
The Eternal Word
The Living Word
The Incarnate Word

JESUS

Enfleshed Love  (Bethlehem)
Growing Love  (Nazareth)
Baptised Love  (Jordon)
Empowered Love  (the Spirit)
Ministering Love  (Israel and beyond)
Suffering Love  (compassion)
Crucified Love  (Calvary)
Buried Love  (the tomb)
Resurrected Love  (the garden)
Ascended Love  (the heavens)
Reigning Love  (the Father’s right hand)
Returning Love  (the Second Coming)
Consummated Love  (the Marriage Feast)
Everlasting Love  (New Heavens & New Earth)

Enter The Mystery
Silence
Be The Echo
God’s One Word
By Empowering Breath
Enfleshed in your Life

LOVE

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Repentant Reflections on Jean Vanier

For those who know (of) Jean Vanier, the recent disclosures by six women of his alleged sexual relationship with them, is profoundly distressing, to say the least. For those who don’t know of him, it might not be a big issue. It is, however, a HUGE issue. Especially for the women. And sadly, once again, for all spiritual leadership and God’s integrity in the eyes of the world.

My reflections explore WHY? What can we learn from this?

Yesterday morning before leaving for our church service I read a tweet about this breaking news, which led me to the statement released by L’Arche International, reported in The Guardian. Read L’Arche’s official report of its credible investigation. It is harrowing.

What a shock! I felt so grieved and gutted that I could hardly sing. My worship was an inner lament, “O God! O God! Have mercy! Christ have mercy!” The whole day of Sunday I felt a heaviness of spirit, a dark mourning in my soul. It took me another day to get to the point of reflecting and processing in writing before God.

I repeatedly asked why I felt so strongly about this? So broken and repentant? Was it for Jean Vanier, a (now) fallen hero of the faith? Was it for the shattering of my own deep respect for him? Or was it for the women who were abused by him, spiritually manipulated into a sexual relationship with him? They are the ones for whom God weeps – they carry this shame. Probably more will come out into the light of truth, as always happens in such cases.

The brief story.

Jean Vanier was founder-leader of L’Arche (The Ark). Started in 1964. He died 7 May 2019. It was a ministry to care for folk with (develop)mental disabilities. This remarkable charity has communities in 38 countries that care for thousands of people. I heard about Vanier while reading Henri Nouwen – who, in his later years, went to live and work in a L’Arche community. I read all I could of Vanier’s life, work, and writings. A profound lived “reality of love” in selfless service, intentional community, healing and spirituality.[1] Vanier and Nouwen, among others, were formative for me in my years in Soweto, as we worked for Kingdom reconciliation under Apartheid, and set up an intentional inter-racial Christian community. I held Vanier in as high regard as Henri Nouwen. Many who knew him in his Catholic circles considered him “a living saint” – as Mother Teresa. He was a layman, not an ordained priest. He never married.

After investigating the women’s accusations, L’Arche International reports: “Evidence shows that Jean Vanier engaged in ‘manipulative sexual relationships’ from 1970 to 2005, usually with a ‘psychological hold’ over the alleged victims.” They came to him for spiritual direction. His pattern was similar to that of Rev Thomas Philippe, a Catholic priest Vanier called his “spiritual father”. Philippe, who died in 1993, was banned from exercising any public or private ministry in a trial led by the Catholic Church in 1956, for his theories and the sexual practices that stemmed from them. Several women accused him of sexual abuse.

Why is this such a big issue? What can we learn from it?

Here is my repentant reflection before God:  

Why is this disclosure about yet another respected spiritual leader so dismaying for me?
Is it a time for sackcloth and ashes?
Who knows the (dark) thoughts and (devious) motivations of the human heart?
Ultimately only you, Lord.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is ANY offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Our hearts seduce and deceive us in its slow but sure moral corruption.
If we allow it.
Only ruthless self-honesty with God and significant others, to our own hurt (even death), will save us from ourselves.
S/he who thinks they stand, TAKE HEED, lest you fall.
It’s the little foxes that destroy the vine.
Each little temptation, deviant thought, “white lie”, corrupted appetite, self-justifying belief, must immediately be brought to the light of community with God and significant others.
It’s called confession, living a fully disclosed life.

If left unattended, or excused, malformation of moral character sets in.
Corruption of sexual character – in fact, the Big Three: Money, Sex and Power.
It gives power to evil in self-deception, in the silent prison of guilt and shame.
The lie of self-preservation: “whatever happens, don’t let anyone know, don’t be caught out”
So, we progressively live a double life, sworn to secrecy.
We are as sick as the (dark) secrets we keep.
It remains unseen for years till the fruit pops out in certain attitudes, words and behaviour.
Often when we least expect it. Others see and notice it.
Disintegrates our integrity of being into other “selfs”, sick “parts” that we compartmentalise and accommodate and live with – for 35 years in Vanier’s case.
These “identities” then drive us, eventually with tormenting demonic energy.
Which seek to deceive and destroy – through us – those around us, those to whom we minister.

Who we really are, our true character, is known ultimately only to God.
Will be fully revealed when we die and appear before The Judgement Seat of Christ.
Then all will be known.
Lord, have mercy!
Better to come clean NOW, disclose our dark secrets and devious thoughts.
And get help, so that we don’t deceive ourselves and destroy others.

Paul says: watch your life – your believing, teaching and behaviour – very closely, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers (1 Timothy 4:15-16)
What will it profit you to gain the whole world’s respect by admirable selfless service in the Name of Jesus, and yet lose your own integrity and personhood while doing so?      

This might appear selfish. It’s not.
The real concern is the women and others, “the hearers” who were left spiritually manipulated, sexually abused, deeply damaged.
At the hands of a male Christian spiritual leader… again. Again. Again. Again.
When will it ever end? Only in the age to come.
As part of this spurious specie of (male) pastors/leaders, all I can say is, “God forgive us! Women and children, please forgive us!”  

Do I now disrespect and throw out all Jean Vanier has done? No, not at all. Do I discount what he’s written? Not at all. I now read it with clearer discerning lenses. We honour the good work that has been done – God uses broken people, we’re all wounded healers – while honestly facing the loss of integrity that has now tarnished his legacy (the first sexual abuse he engaged in, if disclosed at the time, should’ve disqualified him from leadership). Above all, however, we pray for the healing restoration of these women.

What can we learn?
 

Be radically honest with yourself. Be in touch with your needs, with your brokenness. With what drives you in certain contexts with certain people. And get help.

Do not remain unmarried if you are not “gifted” with celibacy, as Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 7:1-7. The doctrine and practice of celibacy of the priesthood has caused untold pain for many victims of abuse. It should be re-examined, even abandoned.

Do not over-react with generalisations (“don’t trust leaders”, “Catholics are bad”, “mystical spirituality is spurious”). Don’t under-react with excusing or minimising it all in the name of “love” or “mercy” or “good works” (that enhances the pain of the abused. We forgive sin, even patterns of immoral character, but that doesn’t mean the perpetrator must not be held accountable).

Be careful of (exclusive) one-on-one relationships in spiritual companionship or direction, in discipling, mentoring, fathering and mothering.

Be discerning of any spiritual manipulation, of any emotional pressure, relational dependence, deceptive beliefs, character failure.

Never idolise human leaders. We only have one human-God, Messiah Jesus. The rest of us are merely servant leaders in recovery all the way to heaven!

Don’t follow or entrust yourself to leaders who are not in touch with their brokenness. Who are not led or do not allow themselves to be led. Who are not genuinely accountable to others. Who do not work in team. They are dangerous.

Above all else, guard your heart, keep your integrity, grow your character, for it’s the fountain from which we all live, whether we know it or not, for better or for worse, with eternal consequence.
In other words, model the real deal of life to the full, due to godly character formation before the audience of One – Who sees all, knows all, and gives us the grace we need when we need it.

[1] “L’Arche is founded on love for people with mental disabilities. If we keep our eyes fixed on them, if we are faithful to them, we will always find our path. We are constantly called to draw this love from the heart of God, and from God’s mysterious presence at the heart of poor people.” Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community (Paulist Press, 1992), p.7.

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Is God on our side? Does God take sides?

Meditation on Joshua 5:13-15 (New International Version)

Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.
Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.”
Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.”
And Joshua did so.

Personal and socio-political issues arise and easily polarize and divide people into: “Are you for me/us or against me/us?” It happens in marriages and families. In communities and nations. Including The Church. Theologians, pastors and local churches are painfully divided from time to time by personal-social-economic-political-ethical issues like land expropriation without compensation, poverty & wealth, women in church leadership, gender dysphoria & LGBTIQ, mass (im)migrants, environmental issues, EU & Brexit, terrorism, war, abortion, death penalty. These, and more, reveal how divided Christians are, let alone general society. We are more a copy of society than a model of God’s Kingdom come in Jesus Christ. We are more “evangelized” and “discipled” in our thinking and acting by the dominant consciousness of partisan ideology than by the Good news of God’s Kingdom.

We quickly appeal to God to give legitimacy and authority to our viewpoint. God is on our side because we are simply doing what is right, what God’s Word says (so we believe). Thus “the other side” is wrong. They are against God, thus our enemies. This is how we domesticate and co-opt God to serve our agenda – “knowing” it is “God’s” agenda!  

Presidents and politicians infamously do that, often co-opting God and the Church to get (and keep) them in power, as Hitler did with the German Lutheran Church in the name of “Christian” national socialism. As in WWII, here in South Africa under Apartheid, Christian fought against Christian. Some white Christians said God was on the side of our “Christian nation”, our “Christian” Nationalist Government, and God was against the “communist hoards” that want to destroy our “Christian civilization”. While black theologians and leaders proclaimed, “God is on the side of the oppressed, to overthrow the enemy oppressor, this evil Apartheid regime”. Both sides prayed to the same God. Or god?

Whose side is God on? Does God take sides? Whether with persons, leaders or nations?

When Joshua saw a man with his sword drawn, ready to fight, he challenged: “are you for us or against us?” That’s often our mindset: We accept or reject (even attack) people on the basis of their answer, “us” or “them”. We “other” people, then label them, to secure ourselves. Because we are unable to think through and respond to polarizing ethical issues from a genuine biblical worldview, from Jesus’ Kingdom of God mindset. Are you for us or against us is more a conformation to the pattern of this world than a transformation, by the renewing of our mind, into God’s thinking and acting in Jesus.    

The man’s answer was decisive: Neither!

Instead, “As Commander of God’s army I have now come”. I am God’s Warrior-King, the leader of God’s army, of God’s agenda. This was a “theophany” (manifestation) of God, of God’s “angel” – the pre-incarnate Christ?   

The implication was immediately clear to Joshua: Who’s side am I on? Am I on God’s side? It’s NOT a matter of God being on my side, and thus against my enemy.  

Putting aside the technicalities of interpretation and “holy war” in the destruction of Jericho and all its people (except Rahab and her family), the point is simple:

Do we see God for who God is? Or do we project onto God who we think God is, or want him to be (for us)?

God comes to us, encounters us, in various ways – even in the form of our (supposed) enemy! Why? To provoke our fear. To see our reaction. To reveal our heart. For us to see ourselves more accurately in light of “the stranger”, who turns out to be God with human flesh. How do you respond to “the stranger” among us?


And, do we choose to bow down to God (revealed in Jesus)? Do we let GOD be God? Or do we make a human being our god? Or do we unconsciously (even consciously) use God “on our side” to make us (look) right, to fight our battles, to defeat those with whom we disagree? This, in effect, is making God bow down to us. Then we play God. We become (G)god – the ultimate deception of evil.

Be like Joshua. Fall facedown to the ground in reverence before God, surrendering to God’s Warrior King. He is the true Joshua (Jesus, meaning “Yahweh Saves”) who leads us into the fullness of God’s Promised Kingdom. The only adequate response to seeing and knowing Jesus for who he really is, is to kneel in full surrender to HIS rule and reign: “let YOUR Kingdom come, let YOUR will be done, on this piece of earth, here and now, as it is in heaven”. Not MY Kingdom, MY will, MY turf, MY truth, MY rightness, MY rights, MY church, MY people, MY culture, MY (Christian) nation.

Joshua embodies the posture of all true followers of Jesus: bowing the knee ONLY to God in Jesus Christ – to no other human being – no matter how Christian they say they are. They can turn out to be anti-Christ, the opposite of the “the stranger” who turned out to be God’s representative. The posture of humility, reverence and surrender is: “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” We are nothing more than God’s servants who find their identity, meaning and purpose, in Jesus, in serving HIS Kingdom. We wait at his feet for his directive in the social context of us and them, of painful polarization, of deep division.   

“Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” The response from the Commander in Chief! Wherever God is, THAT place is “holy” (meaning “set apart, belonging to God for his Kingdom purposes”). And God is everywhere! God is “the Lord of ALL the earth” (Joshua 3:11,13). “The EARTH is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24:1). Plus, wherever you’re standing – like Joshua – THAT piece of earth belongs to God and his purposes. And you take your stand on the side of The Commander in Chief and become his instrument to bring GOD’s Kingdom where you are, right now.

The Commander’s reply anticipates the New Covenant that the Hebrew prophets said Messiah would institute. Messiah Jesus has fulfilled and transcended holy war, holy nation (ethnic Jews), holy city (Jerusalem), holy land (Israel), holy temple. From Jesus’ water baptism, through his ministry of the Kingdom, to his death and resurrection, the heavens AND the massive curtain in the Temple were “torn open” (Mark 1:10, 15:38), signifying heaven come to earth. God is out and about on every street, everywhere, meeting people as Jesus did – now through Christ-followers – no longer “locked up” in heaven or the “Holy of Holies”. Every separating barrier and dividing wall (spiritual, political, economic, social, cultural, geographic) is torn down in Messiah, who creates “one new humanity” that is trans-ethnic, trans-cultural, trans-national, trans-territorial. That is Christ’s Church, God’s true holy nation, God’s new living temple, where ALL are welcome – even our enemies, whom we love as Jesus loved. “Blessed are the meek (Jesus referred to his followers), for they will inherit the earth” – not a slice “holy land” in the middle east. Israel today is no more holy than any other nation, no more holy than they were 2000 years ago in the Promised Land when they rejected their Messiah and his perfect Peace Plan – “the best deal” not only of the centuries, but of all human history – still available to Israel and the nations today.   

“And Joshua did so” – he obeyed. He took off his sandals as Moses did when encountering God in the burning bush. As God was with Moses so he was with Joshua. God being “with us” (Immanuel) does not mean that God is on our side. No. God graced Israel with his manifest presence as long as they were on God’s side, fulfilling God’s purposes. But God withdrew from them, even turned against them – became their enemy, sent them into exile – when they repeatedly presumed on God by worshipping idols. They used God as their servant for their convenience, when they needed him, as many Christians do today.  

A final thought: Obedience in small things leads to faith and obedience in big things. “What message does my Lord have for his servant” was answered in two steps. The first was a small act of obedience, “take off your sandals”. A simple symbolic act that acknowledged,
a) God as the owner and ruler of the earth, who makes all of created reality holy;
b) that we are God’s surrendered servants, humbling fulfilling God’s purpose in the place where we stand and live with God, on God’s side.

There was a second response and instruction that immediately follows in chapter 6 (there should be no chapter division). A far greater obedience, a much bigger risk of faith, of life and death: “Advance… march… for I have delivered Jericho into your hands”. That was huge! (I plan to write a meditation on this story) The lesson is: if we do not do the “small obediences” – a long obedience in the same direction – we will not have the character, the moral muscle and faith capacity, to do the big obediences, to win the big (spiritual) battles, when God requires them of us. This includes not taking sides, but making sure we’re on God’s side, whatever it may mean or cost us. Then God’s Warrior-King fights HIS battles for, with, and through us, to advance his Kingdom for human salvation!

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Reflection on Significant Personal Shifts 2019/2020

In January I decided to start a long slow journey to meditatively read the Bible cover to cover. This morning, 30 December 2019, I finished Deuteronomy. The end of Torah/Pentateuch, the five Books of Moses. It’s been rich! I enter 2020 reading the next book in the Bible, Joshua, going into ‘The Promised Land’. How significant is that? Unplanned on my part. End of an era, beginning of a new year, a new decade, a new season to ‘inherit God’s promises’.

What makes this shift more symbolic is that Gill and I came to Johannesburg – independently of one another – in January 1980 (we met in 1984, got married in 1987). And we relocate to Salt Rock on the South African north coast, to a brand new house, on my birthday 14 January 2020! We both, in other words, have lived in Johannesburg exactly 40 years, planting and pastoring churches. Not that they have been a ‘wandering in the wilderness’ like Israel – at least not all of the time! But I do see God’s sovereignty in the timing of things. Has it been ‘training for reigning’, as in Israel’s formation and preparation in the wilderness, to rule with God in the new land?

Briefly, three years ago we started a succession process to hand over our local church. Two years later, on 13 January 2019, we laid hands on a younger couple to lead the church (when I began reading Genesis, ‘new beginnings’). We took the big step of faith to trust God month by month for ministry and finances, making ourselves available to the broader church to travel, consult with leaders, teach conferences, lead spiritual retreats, and write more books. Not that the last one has happened yet! And we decided, with a sense of leading from God, to relocate to the coast – north of Durban, where I was born in 1955. God has encouraged us with prophetic words that speak of a whole new season in our lives. We’ve been stretched in our faith like never before. Without going into detail, here’s one example: due to SA’s economic recession we’ve not yet sold our Johannesburg house, which we really need to sell (if there’s anyone out there who wants to buy it, let me know!)

I have learnt that the longer we faithfully journey with God in life, leadership and ministry, things do not get easier. Faith is further tested and seriously stretched for the finishing work of God in us, and through us, in his preordained plan for us. Jesus’ biggest test was toward the end of his life – Gethsemane – ‘Father, if it’s possible, take this cup from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will’. Greater faith is need for the greater and final things God wants to do in our lives. It’s ultimately training for reigning with Jesus in our resurrected bodies on the new earth, in the coming age(s). God has personally come through for us, reassuring us, providing, making a way, working miracles, keeping promises, being our light in darkness – ‘My God, that’s who you are!’

I conclude by grounding this brief 2019/2020 reflection in my year’s scripture reading. What amazed me is that the five books of Moses are named, in the Hebrew Bible, by the opening phrase of each book. They constitute an overview of headline lessons, a story told backwards from Deuteronomy to Genesis:

  • From ‘the words’
  • That ‘the Lord speaks’
  • Based on ‘the Lord’s calling’ on our lives
  • Calling us ‘by name’ to ‘exodus’ out of slavery to sin into God’s Promised Kingdom
  • Which is ‘the beginning’ of (a new) creation.

Deuteronomy is essentially the repetition of ‘These are the words’ (1:1, the Hebrew name for Deuteronomy) of God’s covenant, to prepare Israel to enter The Promised Land. They are literally “the words” (debarim) from God that give us faith and life (Romans 10:8-17), that equip us to inherit God’s promises, to enter the rule and reign of God’s Kingdom come.

These ‘words’ (Deuteronomy) follow on, and come from ‘The Lord spoke’ – Hebrew name for the book of Numbers (1:1; the Hebrew Bible also uses “in the desert/wilderness”, 1:1). Did you know that ‘the Lord spoke/said’, and its related phrases, occur 150 times in Numbers? Astonishing! In other words, the message of Numbers is that life’s wilderness is all about learning to hear God’s voice again and again in each and every situation – to receive God’s words, to be guided and trained by them for life. For 40 years in the desert, whenever Israel was tested, facing trials and temptations, Moses prayed and listened, heard and obeyed God. Israel, in contrast, moaned and groaned, reacted and rebelled. To the degree we learn to live and lead by listening and obeying, we exercise God’s authority to rule and reign, demonstrating the signs and wonders of the Kingdom, as Moses did.

‘The Lord said’ (Numbers) is based on ‘The Lord called’ (Leviticus 1:1) – the Hebrew name for the book of Leviticus. The Greek Septuagint name, Leviticus, means ‘relating to the Levites’. The Hebrew message of Leviticus is: because God has called us, therefore we hear God’s Word. It’s all about our calling and identity as God’s redeemed and holy people. The Lord’s Word – recorded in scripture, incarnated in Jesus, revealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit in each life situation – equips us to rule and reign with Christ on the basis of God calling and identifying us as his own. God calls us by name, sets us apart, makes us holy by the blood of the Lamb for his Kingdom purposes.

Our calling (Leviticus), in turn, comes from our Exodus – miraculous deliverance, departure, exit – from our life of slavery to sin, sickness, demons and death. The Hebrew name for the book of Exodus is ‘These are the names of” (1:1). God personally calls each of us out from under Satan’s rule by name, as members of his great diverse family, into a (new) covenant of love, in training for reigning to inherit the Kingdom. Exodus is all about God’s personalised love, fighting for us, freeing us from evil.

Lastly, this exodus – in fact, all four above – is based on, and constitutes, ‘the beginning’ (Genesis) of God’s creation. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (1:1). The book of Genesis is about God bringing order out of chaos, making all things new in a Garden of Delight (the meaning of Eden). God mandated his human image-bearers to take that Garden, that glory and abundance of God’s Shalom-Kingdom, to the ends of the earth.

Therefore, to move from Deuteronomy to Joshua – which I do on 1 January 2020 in my Bible reading; and, symbolically, we will do when we move to Salt Rock after 40 years in Johannesburg – is to come full circle back to the beginning: a new Genesis, a new birth. To move from Deuteronomy to Joshua is to move from Moses to Jesus (Hebrew Yeshuah, Yahweh Saves). Jesus leads us into the Promised Kingdom, to live in and advance God’s new creation – the new heavens and new earth – to the ends of this old, broken, chaotic creation, for the redemption and renewal of all things.

It’s a new year, a new season, a new start.
In Christ, you are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come. Take heart! Turn to God, listen for his voice, receive his word, hear his call. God calls you by name!
Follow Jesus and he will lead you into the Promised Land.

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TRUTH OR LIES – WHAT’S THE COST?

I watched the Chernobyl series of 5 episodes and was deeply struck by the words of the  courageous Russian nuclear scientist Valery Legasov,

“As scientists we are naive.  We are so focused on our search for truth we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it.  Truth is always there whether we seek it or not, whether we choose to see it or not, whether we care for it or not.  Truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants.  It doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions.  It will lie in wait for all time. It will hold us accountable.  This at last is the gift of Chernobyl.  Though I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask:  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES?”

Chernobyl: The Cost

Valery Legasov was assigned by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to lead the resolving of the Chernobyl disaster of 26 April 1986.  The cause was human error and negligence, but more importantly, the design flaws of the RBMK nuclear reactor.  Unthinkable in Russia. Viciously denied and suppressed by the USSR Politburo and KGB. 

Legasov told the truth and paid for it dearly. He committed suicide two years after the nuclear reactor exploded. However, the cost of the lies of the political leaders was paid for by thousands of people who died over the years – to this day the official death toll in Russia is 31; unofficially it’s between 4500 and 90000. And nature itself paid the price:  the 2600 square km exclusion zone of radioactive death.  

In 2006 Mikhail Gorbachev wrote that Chernobyl was probably the true cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, not perestroika and glasnost.  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES?

Post-Truth World: Lying Leaders

“That’s Russia! The West is different!” Another lie!  We are in a life and death battle of truth and untruth, of honesty and lies, of moral integrity and amoral corruption, of ethical character and ‘fake it till you make it’ performance.  We live in a post-truth world where lies are the norm. They are seen as the truth and truth is seen as lies. It’s the perverse form of the ‘politics of truth’. Power games for personal and national gain. Spiritual and political leaders are especially culpable in this regard, and the people suffer for it. 

Presidents who routinely lie with predictable ease give permission and power to their leaders, to the entire nation, to lie. It’s a spiritual reality: an evil ‘principality and power’ takes over and thousands and millions of people follow such leaders with gullible worship in ideological blindness, thinking they are heroes.

A sure sign of a spiritual power, of ideological capture, is the irrational emotional defensiveness – even violent threats – when confronted. There is no ability to reason with rational and psycho-emotional objectivity. These leaders use their power, by lies and coverups (propaganda), to make truth the enemy of the people. The nation picks up the tab and pays the price.  WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES? 

South Africa: National & Personal

The price we have paid in South African for the decade of lies from Jacob Zuma and his network of patronage has been like a nuclear fallout. It will take years to recover. Now under pressure from the Zondo Commission on State Capture Zuma has agreed to come in July to answer questions. The spider of the national web of corruption is appearing. Pray for his deception to be defeated and for the truth to prevail.

It’s a serious spiritual battle. It’s not just Zuma and political and spiritual leaders – it’s each and every one of us. “The human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things – who can know it?  I, the LORD, examine and know the heart…” and will hold it accountable (Jeremiah 17:9). Indeed, God “hates… a lying tongue” because of the destruction it brings (Proverbs 6:16-17).

Legasov once feared the cost of truth, but now asks: WHAT IS THE COST OF LIES? Or we can ask: What is the cost of NOT standing up for the truth?  What is the cost of keeping quiet? Do we love the truth enough – and the victims who pay the price of untruth – to confront and unmask the politics of truth? Do we call out people around us when they lie? Do we call out the lies of leaders? Do we drive back the suffocating darkness of lies by a relentless shining of the light of truth – not matter what it may cost us.

Some of our investigative journalists in South Africa are courageous heroes in this regard, such as Jacques Pauw in The President’s Keepers (on Zuma’s corruption) and Pieter-Louis Myburgh in Gangster State (on Ace Magashule’s corruption).

Defeating the Evil of Untruth

However, let me be clear: we cannot defeat the evil behind this darkness unless we are ruthless with ourselves. Unless you are radically self-honest and forsake any and every temptation to lie – even a ‘white lie’ to spin the truth, exaggerate, give half the truth, cover up – you have little or no power to defeat the power of untruth that is covering the land, the globe, like a suffocating blanket. You cannot challenge others if you yourself lie. 

Whether we know it or not, like it or not, THE TRUTH will always eventually triumph.  It will hold us accountable personally and nationally, sooner or later, in this life and/or in the life to come. If we are always utterly truthful, even to our own hurt, God will stand by us and will vindicate us in this life and/or in the life to come.

Then darkness will be driven back and light will rule in human society. The reign of the ‘politics of truth and love’ (love of the truth). The economy will prosper and nature itself will explode with fruitful life.

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Father’s Day Message

Think about your father – dead or alive – or imagine him if you never knew him. What feeling does it evoke in you? What word(s) comes to mind?

Last Sunday, 9 June, was Pentecost in the Christian calendar: to celebrate the coming of God’s Spirit. Fifty days earlier was Passover, to remember Jesus The Lamb of God – God’s Son – who led a new Exodus out of the slavery of sin and death into the Kingdom of God. This Sunday, 16 June, is the Feast of the Trinity to celebrate the mystery of God as Trinity – The Eternal Community – with special focus on The Father. And this Sunday is also Father’s Day, to remember and celebrate our fathers. There is an intrinsic link between the two, our heavenly Father and earthly fatherhood.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:14-21, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith… being rooted and established in love… “

“The reason” for Paul’s kneeling before God the Father is the astonishing vision of the plan and execution of salvation that he describes from chapters 1 to 3. It is a vision of full Trinitarian participation, as in the reference in the above text to the Father, Son and Spirit.

Paul, a Jewish monotheist rabbi, had a phrase to communicate his revised Messianic view of God: “God our Father and the Lord Jesus… the God and Father of our Lord Jesus” (Ephesians 1:2,3). God is both Father and Jesus – and Spirit. We know God as the Father through the Son, Messiah Jesus, by the Spirit. Jesus came to reveal God: we know God as Father in relation to the Son. In other words, to know Jesus in his earthly and historical relationship to God as (his) Father, by the Spirit, is to know God The Father. The way the Father and Son love and relate reveal who they are. The Trinity is a beautiful mystery of Three Persons in the most intimate relational life of love that we can ever imagine, so much so that They are one nature and substance. And the essence of that reality is LOVE.

“I kneel before the Pater, from whom all patria derives its name”:  Pater (God the Father) defines patria (family, more accurately, fatherhood). “Derives its name” means that fatherhood and thus family derives its nature and character from God’s Fatherhood – the fountain of all reality within the Trinity and in creation. The question is: where do we derive the nature and character of human fathering? For Paul, God’s fatherhood is the standard AND the source of all earthly fathering. It is not only the measure but also the means of all fatherhood and family in heaven and on earth. This is profound. It has serious implications.

The meaning of ‘Father’ in relation to God is human language to describe a Self-revealing Mystery we call God. Though inadequate, it’s a category we can relate to, a shadow of the glorious Reality of which it speaks. The Biblical revelation of God as Father was a polemic against the matriarchal gods and cultures of the Ancient Near East – a theological word for the Jewish experience of the Self-revealing Creator-God. Thus ‘Father’ does NOT mean God is a man. It speaks of God’s characteristics of fathering, and of mothering (Hebrew Ruach, God’s Spirit, is a feminine noun; there are many feminine images of God as mother, nurturer and comforter in the Hebrew Testament). God has masculine and feminine traits – and infinitely more characteristics – seen in his human image as male and female. Thus we can say that, in terms of God’s nature and character in relation to the Trinity and creation, God is experienced as a Father who is also a Mother.

We experience the Father, Paul says, through the Son, Messiah Jesus, who “dwells in our hearts by faith”, through “the power of his Spirit in our inner being”, who transforms us from inside out into the Father’s nature and character. Then we live a life of LOVE: “being rooted and established in (the) LOVE” of the Father and Son by the Spirit.

What does this mean for Father’s Day, for earthly fathers?  My answer:

  1. Uphold a high vision of fatherhood and culture of fathering as in the Biblical revelation of God as Father. Earthly fathers (and mothers) are enabled by The Father, through the Son by the Spirit, to live the following characteristics (among others)

    A Compassionate and Protective Father:  Psalm 68:5-6
    A Welcoming, Forgiving and Celebrating Father:  Luke 15:20-24
    A Loving and Disciplining Father:  Hebrews 12:5-11
    A Generous and Good Father:  James 1:17, Luke 11:9-13
    A Blessing and Providing Father:  Ephesians 1:3f, Matthew 6:26 (vv.25-34)

  2. Give thanks to God for our earthly fathers, though they fall short of God’s standard in their sinfulness and broken masculinity.

     
  3. Forgive our fathers for their failures – even their abdication and abandonment, their abusive fathering and toxic masculinity – because God forgives us of our sin. And God forgives them, and God heals us of our deepest hurts.

  4. Celebrate the good we find in our fathers. Think about the good things, that which is a reflection of God our Father, no matter how faint it may be.

  5. Pray for, bless and honor our fathers (and mothers). They need us more than we realize. Let us obey God’s first commandment that came with a promise: “honor your father and mother so that you may live long…”    

  6. Seek for and connect to our fathers. The unfinished business of manhood (and daughterhood) is to seek our fathers, to not only make peace, but to love and relate.

  7. Receive God’s re-fathering of us. God is our real and true Father – much more than we realize! Jesus taught us to relate and pray to God as our “Abba”, Daddy. God is a Father to us in a way that our fathers are/were unable to be, in all their needs and limitations. We can receive God’s personal re-fathering and healing love for our growth to wholeness.

Happy Father’s Day!

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Who to vote for in the South African (SA) Elections?

Folk have asked for my view on who and how to vote in the SA national and provincial elections on 8 May. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts. I write in my personal capacity.

As a nation, in terms of our political-economic situation, we’re in a mess, the lowest point since the (miraculous) change in 1994. The past ten and more years of systematic corruption, now revealed in the Zondo commission, has devastated the nation. There is a crisis of broken public trust, a credibility vacuum that many new political parties are seeking to be fill (there are 48 on the ballot paper). This is beside the lack of just and equitable resolution of outstanding issues like the land, economic empowerment for the poor, unemployment, unresolved racism – among others

How do we decide for whom to vote in the above context? By evaluating the political parties and their key leaders on the following order of (biblical) criteria. In short, we must pray, vote and work for “just and righteous” rulers; i.e. for credible, accountable, competent governance for the sake of peace and prosperity in society, as Paul taught in 1 Timothy 2:1-6. See 1 Samuel 8, Psalm 72 & 82, Isaiah 28:6, 32:1-2 for leader/ruler criteria (righteous rule and justice for the poor feature highly) and for God’s judgement on those leaders who fail. God holds all authority accountable.

Character:

Most important. Jesus said what’s in the heart, what has formed the character, predictably comes out the mouth. It’s seen in what people routinely say and do. The fruit of a person’s (and party’s) life and leadership shows who they are, for better or for worse. The ‘Big Three’ tests of character for leaders are ‘money, sex and power’. Are they safe and trustworthy with material resources, with people (relating with integrity, or in use and abuse), and with political power (re their unmet ego needs)? Evaluate the top-tier leaders of the political parties in terms of their character in this regard.

The Zondo commission shows beyond doubt the ANC is morally bankrupt. It’s not just a few rotten Zupta apples as they claim. It’s who the organisation has become (their ethos), confirmed in their list of candidates: many are implicated in wrong doing and corruption and the ANC unashamedly puts them forward to hold public office! What an insult! They have not only allowed but have presided over corruption, lies, cheating and stealing. It has become endemic at all levels of political, civic, business and societal leadership and institutions. I cannot in all good conscience vote for the ANC. The biblical view is that spiritual powers work in and through leaders and parties via broken character for evil, or ethical character for good – and via their ideology and power structures. We must discern the powers, for better or worse, behind leaders & parties, and vote accordingly.

Beliefs, Values & Policies:

It’s NOT what leaders SAY their policies are, it’s what they actually DO – their track record. What they give time, energy and money to reveals what they believe & value. Don’t be deceived by all the right sounding ideology: most of it is populist rhetoric to win votes. Go behind to ask what the leader and party actually believe and value, as heard and seen in their lifestyles and track-record of public policy and its implementation, or lack thereof. Many, if not most parties mouth similar policies and promise the same ‘things’ that our nation needs. It comes down to balancing the weight of trust and credibility, track record and implementation, against the degree of ideological loyalty we give to leaders and their values and policies. No one party will have all the ‘right’ values and policies – it’s a mixed bag of compromise with the lessor of evils.

On this point, I don’t believe in a “Christian” political party. They make their interpretation of biblical ethics national policy. It’s like an Islamic party wanting to impose Sharia Law, or a Jewish or Hindu party. The Nationalist Party was a ‘Christian Government’ creating a ‘Christian Nation’ with ‘Christian Education’, and it produced Apartheid in all sincerity, BUT in all its misery for the majority of SA. Any failure on their part brings Christ’s name and Christian credibility into public disrepute. Jesus taught the separation of Church and State, meaning, as Christians and Church we are “salt and light” (Matt 5:13-16) in society, in the political arena. I.e. we neither seek to “take over the government and nation for Jesus”, nor abdicate our political responsibility in the name of being “apolitical”.

Rather, we influence as “salt… light… leaven” with righteous ethical values, justice advocacy, dialogical policy formation. As the conscience of government and society, we prophetically speak truth to power. If need be, we do civil disobedience in non-violent resistance against unjust/unethical policies. Individual Christians called by God to work in politics, who choose party political participation, have a grave responsibility under God to be salt and light in their party. They must influence policies and implementation for justice and righteousness, for the genuine good of society and NOT for the party vote. This includes exposing any and every lie or cover-up or corruption in their party and circles of influence – for their Christian integrity and good of the nation – or they come under God’s judgement with their party.     

Skill & Competence:
 
It goes without saying that each party and its leadership must also be evaluated on the level and depth of skill and competence in governance. This is seen in terms of track record of actual delivery on policy and promises and more. The crisis of corrupt character in leadership and lazy incompetence in management is choking SA to death. And the poor suffer the most while those in power continue to enrich themselves. The answer? PRAY AND VOTE THEM OUT OF POWER! It’s simple: if national, and especially local government (where we feel it the most) is incompetent and corrupt, don’t just curse them at dinner tables, don’t just protest in the streets by burning tyres, libraries, schools and trains, but VOTE THEM OUT OF POWER. Vote for the next most likely competent and least corrupt party.    

A strategic vote:

This is not a biblical criterion, it’s being “cunning as serpents” (Matt 10:16) in my evaluation. After all is said and done, and taking the above into account, the ANC will most certainly win the election. That’s not prophetic, it’s common analysis. Though I pray for Cyril Ramaphosa and trust God for the best, I doubt he will root out corruption and rebuild the ethical ethos, competency and delivery that is needed to turn this nation around for the good of all, especially for the poor. I pray God proves me wrong!

Therefore, our multiparty parliamentary democracy needs a strong vigorous opposition to hold the ruling party accountable and to work constructively on issues of common good for SA. We need far greater balance of power. The EFF will probably gain votes due to their populism but they will certainly be more of a disaster – by the above criteria – as the main opposition party (let alone the ruling party) than the DA. This is despite the DA’s failings on many fronts, including the perception they are a party of white privilege, which on balance is more oppositional rhetoric than the full weight of truth in my view.

There are no serious challengers in the other 45 parties contesting the elections that come even close to a sizeable influential opposition. And to spoil your vote or abstain from voting is unacceptable in light of all we’ve been through to get the vote in SA. So, I’m reluctantly voting DA at national and provisional level, on the basis of a strategic vote, in this current compromised morass of South African politics and failure of character leadership and statesmanship. There will, of course, be reason to disagree with me (including my ‘whiteness’), but taking all the above into account, my view is simply a pragmatic strategic approach for these elections.

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Living The Life God Intended – Intro 1

Follow me in this new teaching series in both audio and ‘sermon notes’.
For the audio of these notes click on
http://followingjesus.org.za/sermons/jesus-sermon-on-the-mount-1-intro-to-living-life-as-god-intended/
 

Title of the Series
How do we live life today? How can we live ‘the good life’ in all the pressures and challenges of daily life? How can we not only survive, but thrive? In this series I go through Jesus’ unique view on living life as God intended – to live The Life that God intends – the eternal kind of life of God’s Kingdom of Heaven. That means, living life under God’s rule & reign, as found in Jesus’ body of teaching called ‘The Sermon on the Mount’, in Matthew 5 to 7.

Matthew as biographer of Jesus
Matthew was also called Levi. He was a tax-collector, a most despised sinner who exploited his own Jewish people (collecting taxes for the Romans) and partied with really ‘bad’ people! Responding to Jesus’ call – God’s Kingdom had come and he must follow Jesus – Matthew became Jesus’ disciple (Matt 9:9-13). He lived with Jesus and his Kingdom community for three years. After Jesus’ death and resurrection (in 30 or 31 AD) Matthew was a leader in the Early Church. He wrote his carefully constructed biography of Jesus (called a ‘Gospel’) from Antioch in early to mid 60s CE. He wrote for Greek-speaking Jewish readers, hence his emphasis on the Hebrew scriptures and all things Jewish!

He presents Jesus of Nazareth as the Jewish King, the long-awaited Messiah (The Anointed), in fulfillment of God’s promises in the scriptures. A key word in Matthew is ‘fulfill’. Jesus is not only King of the Jews but of ALL who receive him as such, Gentiles included! As God’s King, his message was to announce, and his mission was to offer, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven’ (KOH) to Israel. Matthew uses this phrase in contrast to Mark and Luke’s ‘Kingdom of God’, in keeping with the Jewish usage of ‘heaven’ in place of ‘God’, in respect of ‘The Holy One’. But this King, and the coming of his Kingdom, was also presented as the fulfillment and climax of Israel’s story, the promised new Moses leading a new Exodus to a new land – the KOH.

Jesus as the New Moses
The way Matthew writes his story of Jesus, how he constructs his gospel shows Jesus as the ‘one like unto Moses’ promised in Deuteronomy 18:14-19 (read it). When God sends that greater prophet, God will give him words to teach – the living (Messianic) Torah – and all who do not listen to him will suffer the consequences of their rejection of him. To show Jesus as the new Moses, Matthew does the following…

  1. Moses was born, and hidden, under Pharaoh’s oppressive rule. Jesus was born under King Herod and then hidden in Egypt because Herod killed the male babies (Matt 2:13-18)
  2. Moses led Israel, God’s son, out of Egypt. So Jesus, God’s son, came out of Egypt (Matt 2:21).
  3. Moses led Israel through the waters of Exodus, so Jesus was baptized in water to symbolize a new Exodus for a (re)new(ed) Israel as God’s affirmed beloved son (Matt 3:13-17).
  4. As the Fiery Cloud led Israel through the wilderness for 40 years of testing, so the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days, symbolizing Jesus as the obedient son in place of Israel’s disobedience and rebellion (Matt 4:1-10).
  5. Jesus came out of the wilderness temptations into the Promised Land (Israel) in the power of the Spirit, exercising the authority of the KOH, offering the KOH (Matt 4:17).

Moses is the author and giver of Torah – God’s Word/Law – the first five books of the Bible. Matthew structures his Gospel around five teaching sections (each preceded by stories), to show that Jesus is the new Moses giving the Messianic Torah:
1. Matt 5 to 7: Teaching on The Life of the KOH, or Living Life in the KOH.
2. Matt 10: Teaching on the Ministry & Mission of the KOH.
3. Matt 13: Teaching on the Mystery & Nature of the KOH (‘already and not yet’).
4. Matt 18: Teaching on the Community of the KOH.
5. Matt 23 to 25: Teaching on the Coming Judgment & Salvation of the KOH.

Next week I do a further introduction to Living The Life God Intended, in preparation for Jesus’ teaching in ‘The Sermon on the Mount’.

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Racist Polarisation in SA – Four Types of Racists

I want to comment on the recent social media storm generated by a certain Penny Sparrow (who called black people monkeys) and the retaliatory racist comments by journalist Zama Khumalo and a certain Velaphi Khumalo (who said blacks should do to whites what Hitler did to the Jews).

If we don’t break our denial as to our deep racial conditioning and prejudice in this country, we will never address, heal, or be free from the racism in our hearts and minds, in our nation.  We must face what is within us in order to renew our minds and attitudes in the truth of the equality and dignity of every person created as God’s image on earth, no matter what race. Otherwise, given the right situation or incident, our buttons will be pressed and our unresolved racist conditioning will overflow in words and actions. If you were born in SA, no matter if you are white, black, coloured or Indian, you are subconsciously racially conditioned. You need to consciously face it and turn from it daily. If we don’t proactively do this, actually doing reconciliation, we will continually be reactively dealing with racist outbursts – from within us and around us – as mirrored in the white Sparrows and the black Khumalos, who both verbalised what many in both constituencies secretly think.

I worked for justice and reconciliation in SA under apartheid in Soweto from 1984-1996, and wrote a book about that life changing journey. Published in 2004, I speak of  four kinds of racists in post apartheid SA… Which one are you?

What follows is from pp.124-125 in Doing Reconciliation – Racism, Reconciliation and Transformation in Church and World.  https://alexanderventer.com/product/bundle-doing-reconciliation/ Continue reading Racist Polarisation in SA – Four Types of Racists

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Christmas: A Revolution of Mercy and Tenderness

The essence of Christmas is GOD’s coming into the world – the greatest gift known to humanity – the hope of planet earth!

God who is so great, the Creator of our ever-expanding universe, became so small, to be one of us, so that we who are so small can know him, and become so great in him. Christmas is the mystery of God’s coming into this harsh and cruel world, not to add to human pain by killing others to set up his Kingdom; but he came as humble love and tender mercy in a vulnerable baby, to save the world.

In keeping with Pope Francis’ declaration of an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (begun 8 December 2015), God’s coming into our world in the little baby of Bethlehem was the Jubilee of all Jubilees, “The Year of the Lord’s favour” (Luke 4:18), The Day of Salvation, The Moment of Mercy that changed history forever. Francis said, in light of the harsh realities of our cruel world – the Syrian civil war with 300 000 killed and millions of migrants on the march, the horrendous massacres by Jihadist terrorists, and the many other sources and forms of human pain and tragedy – we need mercy! We need to show mercy, to receive mercy. We need a revolution of tenderness, to be kind and gentle with others. There is no more tender and merciful story than Christmas: God’s coming into our world as a little baby, to begin a revolution of tenderness – that we must join!

Read Luke 1:26-38. Gabriel announced to the teenage Mary that God’s coming into the world would be through her – her young body. Paul “spiritualizes” that same reality: God comes into this world again and again in and through every believer, as “Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). The early church fathers used Mary as model for all believers in Christ. As Messiah was physically born in her, so he is spiritually born in us who believe. Just as Mary’s life, body and relationships took the shape of the Christ formed within her, so our lives, bodies and relationships, take the shape of Christ being formed in us. And the purpose is to literally save the world around us!

In the Luke text we find four characteristics in Mary that facilitated God’s tender and merciful coming into the world as the baby of Bethlehem. Continue reading Christmas: A Revolution of Mercy and Tenderness