Will You See God??

Last night I preached (prought??) at a church on Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

I had soooo much fun; there was laughing, I pretended to be a sneaky Jesus, and there was even reference to the Trinity doing a Jewish dance with one of them held up on a chair. Nearly heretical but not quite and that makes all the difference :p

Anyways, here is the transcript. Have a ready if you would like :)

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Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

I know you have been looking at the beatitudes for the last few weeks, which I think is great! I love the beatitudes, they make me feel pretty good when I am in pretty bad places. Like knowing that I am blessed when I mourn, when I am persecuted, when I am struggling to make ends meet with money. It makes me feel good, makes me happy to know that God has an eye out for the weak and suffering.

Like I have this friend Albert who is a homeless guy. He lives in the city and use to sit outside where I would work. I got to know him pretty well as I would sit and share my lunch with him and it made me feel good that God had his eye on this young man whose life had been so hard. I would walk away each day knowing I left him in the best hands possible – God’s.

But this one, this verse, I find harder to talk about, harder to feel good about.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Being poor or mourning or persecuted are easy to see, easy to feel that those people deserve their blessing.

But who of us are pure in heart??

I mean really? Can any of you say that during an average day you don’t have naughty thoughts? That you don’t think of that guy or girl in a way that you would be embarrassed to share about? That you don’t think nasty thoughts about teachers or people who pick on you? Can you honestly say that those thoughts don’t sneak up on you in a ninja attack in such a way that you hope no one can read your mind?

Being pure in heart is a really big ask, and how can anyone actually be pure or even know that they are? 

Does that mean none of us will see God?

Maybe looking closer at what Jesus was saying will help us. Maybe if we step into 1^st century Israel there will be a loop hole or something.

So let’s go back in time a little.

We are standing on a hill by the sea. The air is warm with the multitude of bodies that surround us and press into us. Everything is dusty, dust hangs in the air and clings to our clothes. The smell of salt and body odour fills your nostrils and all around you is the noise of people murmuring and being shushed, bodies shifting their weight from foot to foot, children crying, and above it all, the sound of a lone male voice calling out that those that are pure in their hearts will see God.

His statement shocks you. You look around and see your own shock on the faces of those around you. You have been a good Jew for years, gone to the temple to atone for your sins, prayed and given tithes. And you know with certainty that no one at the temple or synagogue preaches like this. The holy men that you get out of the way for in the street are pure because they keep the hundreds of purity rituals. But you can’t do that, you have to work, you have to get your hands dirty and sometimes you break the rules a bit even though you try not to. You know you aren’t pure.

And this claim that people like you could see God is laughable!!! Not even the priests get to see God, because seeing the face of God, as every good Jew knows, means death. It is because no one is pure that God cannot be seen. So what this preacher man is saying doesn’t make sense. He makes it sound like that there are people who are pure in heart and, even more astoundingly, that people can see God!

What Jesus said that day in front of the crowd wasn’t just nice sayings that made people feel good. They were radical statements about the nature of humanity and the person of God. He effectively was turning the religious teaching of the day on its head. He couldn’t have been more radical!

But since then we have had 2000 years of people explaining Jesus’ words to us so the impact has worn off a little bit. Now his words seem like nice, feel good sayings to remind us that everyone is valuable.

But what if it meant something much much more? What if this simple saying could changes lives?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Many of the things I read around this passage went something like this: “Live life seeking purity, living well and holy, and you will end up seeing God when you die.” Nice sentiment, but I think this is really off the mark.

For example, has anyone thought about how totally ironic Jesus is being here?! Think about it. There he stands, God incarnate, telling people who are sinners, who are broken, that the pure in heart will see God. Yet he is God! The very people who are impure are looking at God! What seems impossible is happening that very day!

How is this possible? The thousands that came to hear him are not all pure in heart! And yet there they stand looking at the face of God.

There must be something that they, that we, are missing, some vital link that Jesus forgot to explain.

Jesus, as he often does, is drawing on a story that is much bigger than the time and place which he finds himself in at that moment. Underlying all his words is the great story of God and his people. We can see that throughout the Bible story people try to see God.

They build a tower at Babel and get scattered over the earth.

The wrestle with a man from heaven and are given a lifelong limp.

They ask to see God’s face and are given only a glimpse of God’s back.

They try to be pure through their actions, their laws, their words when the temple is rebuilt.

 And they fail over and over and over again.

They are like us.

We try hard to do our “Sunday best”.

We try not to swear, to think badly about others.

We try to forgive and to love.

And yet we fail, repeatedly and often in a spectacular fashion! No one has managed to get it right, to live pure.

We are so good at trying to make rules and laws about how we should live in order to be pure that we miss the bigger picture. We forget that no matter how hard we try we will fall down. We forget that to love is much more important than to follow social conventions. We forget that it is not about keeping up appearances before each other.

We forget Jesus.

God took the initiative in something that he knew we would never accomplish. God stepped down into our history as a man that told people that it wasn’t about their actions, it was never about the actions, it is about their hearts.

And because we will never get our hearts right, Jesus sorted that out to. It is through him that we are made pure. It his through his life, death and resurrection that our broken sinful nature is made clean. Paul tells us that we are now holy, yet still being made holy. We have been proclaimed pure, and yet still striving for purity.

It is the miraculous and wondrousness of God that through his Son he sees us as sinless though we are still sinful!

Wow! That sounds totally complicated and ridiculous. At best it sounds like I am talking in circles, at worst that I am a crazy person!

I spent ages trying to figure out how to explain this better, and really I can’t do it by telling you all the theological who-ha, but more through examples.

The Message Bible states this verse like this: “You are blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in your outside world.”

There is the story of Princess Catherine of Hungary who took pity on those who were poor and dying and so gave up her life of luxurious wealth to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and wash the dead in preparation of burial. She believed in Jesus as the Christ and his message changed her heart. And through that change she started to see God in the faces of the poor and starving that lived in her country.

Then there is the story of the black woman in South Africa whose son was killed during the years of apartheid by a young white man. At the trial later she asked not for retribution but rather that the young white man would come live with her and receive the love that she would have given her son. She said that the message of Christ changed her heart towards the young man.

See, she had let God s message of love and forgiveness change her heart and as a result she saw God in the face of the man who killed her child. Forgiveness for the senseless act that ripped her family apart meant that her heart and her mind weren’t filled with hate and anger. She had forgiven those who had hurt her and, though the hurt was still there, saw that everyone, even the man who had hurt her the most, was a child of God, someone whom she could love and who could learn to receive that love.

She saw reconciliation where others saw retribution.

She saw God where most people would see despair and death.

She saw love where others saw hate.

Or even my own story, one that has been filled with anger and hate to the point where I was at the point of drinking myself to death. And then I decided to give Jesus a go to see what he could make of me. I am no longer angry, no longer hate filled, and I have learnt to love those that I meet and see around me.

When the message of Jesus and the Spirit enter your life change just happens. When you let go of the need to be in control and let a man who loved and who forgives get inside your head with his ideas then your heart starts to change; towards God, towards others and towards yourself.  When you begin to accept the idea that God has proclaimed you pure, your actions begin to reflect that purity.

Although it is impossible for us to have a pure heart in and of ourselves, we can have a pure heart by the grace of God. What is impossible for man is possible for God. A pure heart is a gift from God, and it comes by a new birth, by a new creation, and by the Spirit living in us. We will never be perfect. But the message that Jesus gives us isn’t that we have to live to a strict set of rules to makes us perfect.

The greatest blessing and the noblest goal of the Christian life is to know God, to experience His presence in our daily life, and to live for His glory. Paul made this the goal for his life, as he said:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him … I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:7-10).

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are you, for Christ died to make you pure, and through him, you can see God.

Blessed are you for accepting Christ, for it will change the way you view your world.

Blessed are you for acting out of the faith in your heart and seeing the image of God on the faces of others.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Let’s pray

May God help us to strive for a purity of heart that transcends the division between interior and exterior that we so readily construct in order to guard our true selves from others and to appear different than we really are.  May God help us to live honestly and transparently before others.  Most of all, may God help us to acknowledge and depend upon him as the only one who is truly pure, the one in whom we place our trust and in whom our hope is found.

Act of Murder

I just walked out of a movie.

I don't do this often, as I usually am interested in what a movie has to say, even if I don't agree with it.

The one I walked out of however made me so angry that I couldn't stand to watch it anymore.

The movie is called "Act of Valor" and is about real life situations that the Navy Seals have found themselves in. Though I respect the fact that the Seals are the elite of the elite and they have fine tuned their craft until it is an artwork, the fact that their artwork is that of death is something that I find hard to swallow.

In the movie one of the situations is an extraction of a CIA agent that has been captured and is being tortured. The agent is a young woman and will no doubt be tortured until death. The Seals have to infiltrate and extract the woman.

They efficiently get the woman out but in doing so kill many of the workers on the other side. Do I agree with the fact that they were torturing a woman? No at all! But do I think that somehow the Seals are justified in killing people for one of their own people? No!

I find war, or violence between countries, the height of hypocrisy. We tell someone that they are not right in hurting our people so we spy on them. They say we have no right to spy on them so they capture the spy. We say they have no right to capture our spy so we kill untold numbers of their people to get our spy back. They retaliate to the killing of their people...and so it goes on.

Martin Luther King Jnr said once that you cannot murder murder, you cannot stop violence with violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness, only light can do that. 

Too often the ideas of 'an eye for an eye' are taken to the extreme on a world stage to the point where even Christians think that it is noble and right to fight and kill others for the sake of the ones they love and protect?

What about the family of the person you are killing? What about the fear/anger/passion they are fighting with/for? How can you justify their death if it means saving your own?

Jesus taught us to forgive our enemies. If we take that from not just in our own lives but to a global stage, then forgiveness and love cannot lead to violence! They cannot co-exist! How can you shoot someone whom you love and whom you have forgiven? Even if it means the death of those you love? Even if it means your own life?

No one life is better than another, even if that life has been used to hurt and manipulate and destroy. Even if that person's actions are evil, who are we to judge whether or not they should die? Is that not for God to decide? Is it not good enough to live out of Jesus' words to love and to forgive?

As I watched the movie I was struck by the amount of money and effort that is put into making machines that sole purpose is to seek and kill people. It made me think about how that money could be used to support countries where most terrorists are made. If there was nutrition, schooling, safety then maybe less children would grow up with so much hate that they needed to kill. Maybe their parents would teach them to hate others but to love those that helped them.

I see no justification for money and people to be used to kill others. I see no justification for war of any kind. I see no correlation between the story of the Bible and violence. I would give my life to stop others being hurt, but I would never take another's or kid myself that by doing so somehow I would achieve peace through violence.

God has left the Temple

When I was a young girl, maybe around ten, I started what can only be called an obsession. I don't know what triggered it but I can say that every time from that age on when I saw articles or pictures about this topic I would collect them. My mother worried about my fascination, thinking it wasn't healthy for a young girl to be so interested in something so complex, and at times dark, but I kept going. To this day I follow what I can. My obsession is with

The Israel/Palestine Conflict.

I know, not really a usual interest for a young child but something about the fact that no one could agree on what was happening or who was right capture my mind and I have found it only more interesting as I have aged (though I am now aware of the fact that propaganda plays a major part).

The thing that I never really understood was the rest of the world getting so involved in the issues of this small country. America was the mediator (many times) between the two states and tried to help them come to peace. I always have thought, what business is it of theirs?? It isn't their land so why do they butt in an expected the two warring countries to listen.

The thing is, this conflict is so much bigger than just the war within it's boundaries. It has everything to do with Zionism, or the belief that Israel is still the Holy Land, Jerusalem is still the Holy City, and as good Christian countries (so the thinking goes in America) we need to protect the land of God from the heathen Arabs, or at least stop it imploding. There is also a direct correlation for Zionists between the return of Israel to the Jews and the return of Christ. To speed up one is to speed up the other.

I have simplified this somewhat as Zionism is far bigger than just this issue, but I am surprised at how many people I met who don't even realise that they are Zionists! There are so many Christians that seem to just accept as fact that the Israelites are in the right and the Palestinians are evil and deserved to be corralled in concentration camps on the Gaza strip.

There are also many who have sympathy for the Israelites after what they went through in WWII. Granted, the making of a Jewish state on the same soil that their religion comes from seemed to make sense after the senseless slaughter of millions of innocents. The world was trying to do the right thing by a people who had been left to die by the very same people. The problem was, in their guilt, the West didn't ask permission from the people who were living there happily; namely the Palestinians. As a result of their land being taken over and the borders continuously shifting against their favour, the Palestinians fought back.

Were they right to? I don't know. I don't agree with war in any case but if someone came into your home and told you you had to clear out because people who hadn't lived there for centuries were coming back to take over, I might be a little put out too.

But putting aside the rightness or not of fighting back, I want to look at the reasons as to why the West generally supports Israel and vilifies the Palestinians.

The idea that the return of Jerusalem to the Jews and the return of Christ are linked is from Revelation. Now I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone since Revelation was written that truly understands what it is talking about in full. Jerusalem can look like a heavenly city, the renewed earth, and at times a bride (!!), and so taking what it says literally without any proper understanding of the text is dangerous.

The Jews themselves tried to hurry along the Messiah. After their temple was destroyed and they were taken to Babylon in exile (at the end of the OT before the NT), they were allowed to return to Israel and rebuild their temple. This they did but the Messiah did not come. So they tried to be ultra Holy and keep all the Sabbath's because somehow that would get the Messiah to show up. When Jesus finally did come (400 years later) he proceeded to tell off those people that had helped evil doers by thinking that their actions made them holy while they did not love or care for people. I look at Palestine now and ask, is the West trying to bring back Christ through their actions in Israel but by doing so are not loving or caring for the Palestinians and letting evil happen??

I believe that the promises that God made to the Jews are true and still stand. But I believe that they are fulfilled in Christ and have also gone out to the ends of the earth. At the death of Christ, the temple curtain that separated God from the people was ripped. This signified that God left the Temple to dwell in them. This in affect means that Jerusalem, while holy from a historical and biblical view, is as holy today as any piece of land where believers stand. The city itself will always be significant to believers but it is not somehow more Godly than anywhere else.

I am sickened by what happened to the Jews in WWII. Nothing will rectify how most of the world stood back and let that happen. But building walls around slums to keep the Palestinians and Jews separate, or putting fences up and making Palestinians walk through check points, or putting them in massive camps where disease spreads, is not justifiable just because this happened to them. Two wrongs do not make the past ok.

I had a friend go to Israel last year and when they came back they told me that they saw "no holiness in the holy land." There was only fear and hatred, pain and anger.

Bombing people who you believe have done you wrong isn't going to stop their actions. It is going to breed a new generation of children who grow up in fear and who are taught to hate. As they grow older they are going to want answers, revenge, meaning to their lives. And they will take it out on the people who they see to have caused the suffering.

People, if you are Christian or not, there is no justification for anything that is happening over there. There is no one who is acting well, there are none that can claim that they are acting more holy. As people who love others, Christians should be the last to try and justify or support a war where the victims are children and innocents.

God has left the Temple, let's all stop fighting for an empty house.

Meet Thomas

For those of you who don't know Thomas let me quickly introduce him. He is one of Jesus' followers who gets a bit of stick because he has the audacity to say that he won't believe Jesus has risen until he sees it for himself. Ever since he uttered those words, anyone for the last 2000 years who has voiced their doubts has run the risk of being called a "Doubting Thomas".

Talk about a name sticking like mud!

It seems to be a bad thing to be a Doubting Thomas and yet I think I, and many others, would react exactly the same way.

Imagine if you had just been told that someone you knew and loved had got up and walked out of their grave after you had witnessed their brutal torture and murder. Are you gonna start hollering and praising God or are you gonna say "really guys? That seems a bit far fetched, I may have to see it to believe it"?

The thing I love about Jesus in this story is that he shows up to do exactly what Thomas said he needed. While all the other disciples where standing round telling Tom he needed more faith, or he should just believe, or that doubt is from the devil (come on, we've all been told these things!), Jesus walks in and says "hey bro, heard you needed some proof".

Love it!

I think Tommy boy gets a bad name.

Because we all doubt.

We all have moments when we ask ourselves if our faith is really what we make it out to be or if it is simply a really good hoax.

We all question why we are living as Christians, or why we are living at all!

We all ask for proof, for something that would undeniably prove to us once and for all that this is everything it promises it is.

We doubt God, we doubt our faith, we doubt ourselves.

We are all Thomas.

Except in the fact that Thomas doubted one massive thing, whereas I for one everything.

I am always seconded guessing myself and wondering if I made the right decision. I am constantly worried that I am gonna make a wrong turn and ruin my life. Maybe it comes from being divorced so young. But I have another theory.

My sister calls it 'procrastinating perfectionism'.

Being a perfectionist means that you have to do everything perfectly, you want it to be right first time. By procrastinating though you usually don't end up with enough time to do that. Put these two together and you have someone who fears getting it wrong so you put it off til the last minute to when you are bound to not be able to get it right and then you don't disappoint yourself.

Yeah, I am messed up.

See disappointing people is where my biggest fear lies. I am worried that, if I take the wrong path, I will disappoint my friends, family and, worst of all, God.

I know that this isn't right. I know that God is with me in all things and that nothing I can do is going to drive God away  but somehow that doesn't translate into how I feel.

And so I become afraid, and then stressed, and then I begin to doubt.

It's a vicious cycle.

It is moments when I am beginning to fear that I remember a bible verse that I memorised as a child in Sunday school:

"God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a Spirit of power, love and soundness of mind" (2 Tim 1:7)

See, God doesn't operate by wielding fear over our heads. In fact fear is the opposite of love, and God is love, so there is no fear when you live in the love of God.

So those moments when I am afraid, I tell myself that if I just step over that line, cross that bridge, jump that hurdle, then I will have defeated the fear of the thing itself.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Because faith is about the unknown. It is about hearing a life giving word and, despite the doubt, despite the fear, deciding that you can't live without it. And then, equipped with that faith, you then face all of lives other challenges, still with fear and trepidation, but with strength and determination.

And then when you face death, the biggest fear of all, it can be with peace, knowing that to die is the biggest step of faith there is (idea stolen from Sam Burrows) as it is in death that we find out if what we lived for is really true or not.

For it is when we die that we will see Jesus, just as Thomas did, smiling and saying "Now, about those doubts you had...."

Bread and Circuses

Anyone who has ever been in a class with me knows that I like to ask questions. Lots of questions.

I have tried, honestly I have, to just shut up and not put my hand up and not ask questions that I know will make half the class groan because I am taking up time. I try not to put my hand up with the answer every time the teacher asks a questions. I try really hard!! But something happens to me when I try and restrain myself. My insides get all fluttery, my hands can shake, I start to get nervous for the teacher standing up the front in silence because no one is answering, I feel physically ill. So, without fail, I will put my hand up.

It's an illness.

What surprises me every time are the number of people for whom this is not the case! For so many people they put their heads down, try and appear invisible, pray that their name won't be called, and sigh with relief when it is all over.

My brain doesn't compute this.

Because I see it as inherently important to be brave enough to ask questions. I see it as a fundamental part of life to challenge those that have the power/knowledge, to learn from them as much as possible, and to share when I think I have knowledge that someone may need. It may be annoying as all heck when you are in the class with me, but later on in life I think the fear of putting one's hand up can becoming crippling to society.

The Romans use to have a saying that goes like this:

Panem et Circenses

In English that translates to "Bread and Circuses".

It was a saying used to indicate that a society of people with full bellies and enough entertainment will give up any responsibility they have in politics and therefore their power. It is a saying full of cynicism and, scarily, not just a little truth. My take on it today would be "Meals and Movies".

This giving up of the power to speak into society and change things didn't end when the Roman Empire fell. Today, in the United States, the voting for the person who will be the most powerful man (or woman) in the world is taking place. And a lot of people won't vote. They won't vote for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones among the 20 year old's will be that they can't be bothered because how does it relate to them?

During the election on Parliament in New Zealand in the last couple of years there was a decrease, yet again, of people in certain age groups who didn't vote. Talking to my friends who didn't choose to vote, one of the common lines was that neither of the main political parties will change much about "my" life so why bother?

We don't vote because we don't care. We are happy, with full tummies and enough money to entertain ourselves, why does it matter who is in charge. We have given up our power by ignoring our political responsibilities.

It goes further though.

This giving up of the power to speak out is rampant throughout our communities.

You go into schools and children are too afraid of bullying to act too smart or speak up in class with something intelligent. 

In churches people are more concerned about the quality of the coffee and chat afterwards than really paying attention to the sermon, challenging or questioning the pastor on their points, or even calling out answers if a speaker asks a question.

You go into work places and people are asked to lie to their bosses or make up figures, or they see work place bullying or sexual harassment and they are too embarrassed to put their neck out and draw attention to something that may result in them being fired.

We have become complacent, happy with what we have to the point that rocking the boat would be disastrous and costly and uncomfortable.

I believe this is true especially for Christians who don't want to appear 'Bible bashy' so they avoid talking to their mates or colleagues about their faith, about their doubts, or about their religion.  

We are afraid to speak out, believing that our actions will suffice. That if we act as a good Christian then words are unnecessary as surely our example will compel others to not only recognise Jesus in us but also to then accept him as Lord and Saviour.

All I ask is how?

How is someone suppose to know what they have not heard?

Our God is a talkative God. 

The universe was spoken into existence.

Moses was compelled to march up to Pharaoh by nothing more than a spoken promise. 

Abraham left his homeland on the back of a spoken promise too. 

Prophets left, right and centre were called with words and then went with words.

Jesus was tortured and killed for doing nothing more than preaching words.

The first thing that happened at Pentecost was the preaching of words.

The gospel spread through the passing on of words.

And now we are called into that conversation.

And it requires a lot of balls-iness to speak within the conversation.

It will mean people won't like what you have to say.

It will mean some people may not read my blog again.

It may mean you lose friends.

It may mean you shrink your church.

It may mean that people think you're a tad nuts.

But how will they hear if there is no one to speak?

Everyone of us is being called by God into a conversation that brings death and life. Death of the old and life in the new. And the words that are spoken to us should be so challenging, so changing, that we are compelled to share them in our broken and halting speech.

Don't be afraid of being responsible for speaking in God's power and changing the political, sociological, and societal landscapes of our world.

Throw away the bread, pack up the circuses, and be moved by the power that is the Word.

Gaming, Gamers and God

Gaming.

It's a mysterious world to me.

My husband is a gamer, albeit only to relax, but I know a few more 'hardcore' gamers and people who have addictions to gaming.

For those of you who are unsure what gaming is, it is the act of playing an Xbox, Playstation, or online game that usually involves more than one character and/or you playing a particular character. For example, playing Halo is gaming, playing Tetris is not. A 'gamer' is someone who participates in these character games on a regular basis. A problem gamer is someone who spends more time on the game than they do in real life.

If someone has a better definition please share.

The extent of games I play are things like bubble pop and Tetris games. I don't play other games for one main reason:

I am psycho.

The one and only time I played a game called Counter Strike I proved to myself I could never play a shoot-em-up game again. Counter Strike is a multi-player game where each player is trying to kill all of the others. I was playing with about ten guys and by the end of it I was so close to the screen my eyes were going fuzzy, my palms were sweating, and I was reciting "kill him, kill him quickly!".

I know, I scare even myself sometimes.

I get waaaaaay to involved if I am playing. And if I am not and I am just watching then I am getting upset for the fake computer characters that die and start wondering about how their families will survive without them. 

It's a problem. So I avoid games.

(On a side note, I also have to avoid board games because I tend to get ultra competitive, start yelling at people, and have been known to injure people with cutlery when I think they are cheating. I recently broke my 15 year ban on myself and played two board games. I am now back on a ban....).

It seems that others do not have these issues when it comes to gaming. My hubby can play and watch pretty much any game without so much as a tiny spike in his heart rate when he is trying to kill something. He can quite happily play Grand Theft Auto and kill people and steal their cars and beat up prostitutes without a flicker of emotion.

Maybe he is the psycho?

This is the issue though, that I find I cannot let go of. Luke and I are polar opposites on the gaming front and display this issue nicely. The issue I wonder about is:

How much does gaming and real life intersect?

For Luke, playing a game is exactly that, it is a game. There don't have to be morals or ethics because it isn't real and so therefore it doesn't matter. For me, my morals and ethics cannot be switched off while gaming and I either feel guilty for ignoring them or my 'bad' side comes out to the detriment of all or I spend the whole game trying to be the hero and saving all the characters that are there just to fill in space.

So is it ok to switch off our morals and ethics or should we be avoiding games, like I have to, because our morals and ethics come into everything?

I know a guy (who will know who he is as soon as he reads this) who is very much like me in personality. He is a BIG time gamer, not as much as he use to be but still a lot more than most people I know. He has very strong ethics and morals in his real life, and he even tries to keep those in games. He will only play good characters, not the bad ones, and he tries not to let his character act in a way that he wouldn't act in real life. But he says that games don't affect him.

I would argue that they must be.

If you are acting in a certain way in a game because of what your ethics are in life, then it could follow that if you acted contrary to your ethics and morals then it would affect you in some way. If it didn't then you wouldn't care.

It is like a story my husband told me recently which goes something like this:

World of Warcraft is a huge multi-player game that is played simultaneously by people all over the world. One of these gamers died in real life so his WoW friends decided to hold a memorial service on the game to honour him. During the memorial service, which a lot of characters attended, another group of people got their characters to attack the memorial service and kill all the people there. There was outrage that they had done this when the others were trying to honour their friend. Their response was "it's a game, we were playing it".

As you can see this is a far more complex situation than just deciding whether or not games affect us. It seems that there now have to be ethics for within games that may have no correlation to ethics within the world. 

Is this ok?

When I look at Jesus I find it hard to figure out whether or not he would be for or against gaming. There isn't a section on ethics in gaming in the Bible!

But we are exhorted to focus on what is noble, pure, holy and right. What goes into our heads and hearts will inevitably come out of our mouth and in our actions. And I really don't know if going around killing things and living another 'cyber' life is noble, pure, holy or right.

I have no answers to this and I am really trying to start a discussion on it so please either comment here or on the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/EmbracingTheTension?ref=hl.

At this point in time I am almost decided that I think my friend who puts his ethics into what he plays is perhaps more ok than my husband just playing for the sake of playing. Should our ethics be in everything we do, even in what we play (or read or watch for that matter too)?

Open to comments, please share your thoughts.

Where You Go, We Go

I know a young woman who grieves
Who has lost what everyone needs.
She feels like she will never be whole
That there is a part missing from her soul.
Alone a night she cries
And screams at God, wondering why.
Though she laughs and smiles
The pain eats away at her all the while.

Grief isn't only about pain,
It isn't just tears, anger, and shame.
It is the contradictions that mess with your head,
When you want people there, but gone instead.
The feeling that you are all alone
That no one wants to sit at home
With you every night and hear you talk
That in the face of your grief your friends will balk.

We as humans don't know how to grieve
For a long time without wanting to leave.
We are the visitors that drift away
Or the griever who doesn't want to stay
Anywhere that they are reminded
Of the pain that is there even when we don't want it.
It never really leaves, but we don't want it
To become the thing that makes our lives rancid.

So how do we comfort this girl that is searching
What do we bring her for her own nurturing?
How do we help those that have lost
The closest thing to them, at such great a cost?
Perhaps silence is the answer, to just sit with her
Instead of any answers that that attempt to fix her.
Jesus wept, Job's friend's were wrong in talking
My beautiful friend, we are going wherever you're walking.

Not Like You (A Reflection on Racism)

You say they are not like you.

Why is that?

Is it because of skin colour

That they are not black?

Or because they aren't white it must mean they are poor

And you cannot relate to those people which

Struggle to provide everyday

For their families and children

Or those with no pay?

Does it make a difference to you

To know they have struggled?

That they have been brought low,

Financially humbled?

Does it matter if you're Caucasian,

Not Black, brown or Asian?

Can we not be family if we are not the same colouring?

That Indian woman in the diary I see every morning

Se is my sister, struggling

To feed her family though she works seven days

Treated like a machine because of her race.

That mid twenties Polynesian male on the tv

Who stole, fought, or some other stupidity

He is my brother, hurting

For lack of education and parenting

Treated like another statistic of our society.

A young teenage mum on the bus

Who we look down our noses at,

She is my sister, working

At being a child and a mum

Treated like a stupid ignorant bum.

Then there is the Asian couple

That get screamed at in the street

They are my family, lonely

Needing friends for their second daughter, that they refused to abort,

Treated like invaders who should be fought.

They may not be white but they are the same

They cry and they bleed and they carry their shame

Deep inside and act tough on the exterior

While we white folk act all superior

Because we aren't the minority

We 'belong' here

And secretly wish they, and their problems, would disappear.

You say they are not like you,

In some ways that is true

But I hold a truth that I want to share with you.

In Christ there is no black, white, Christian or Jew

There is only salvation and blessing too.

I am like you, I am human

I just look in a different direction.

Turn your eyes with me to behold him

And you will see

We are not that different.

Swimming in the Gay Debate

I had a comment on my post 'Wadding Into the Gay Debate' that I felt needed it's own blog in order to respond well to it.

The comment went like this:

I'm no theological student and there is still a lot I have to learn. I do know that Jesus called us to love our neighbor. This is a hard issue to tackle. At the end of the day, these people are people who, like anybody else, need GOD. We, Christians are supposed to be His representatives on earth. And I feel what you were saying about them being judged by the very group of people who should be showing them love.. In saying that, I do have a curious question. How would the church teach then in this area and still show love? For people outside of a religious organization, we show love by listening to their stories, by being friends, etc and never really necessarily being put in an uncomfortable spot because we sometimes don't address it. We give them really the freedom to be who they are as friends do. But in a church set-up, how do you think would that look like say for those who think that its alright to carry on or those who have no intentions of changing? Who, like in that blog I have shared with you consider gay christianity an ok thing? What do you think?:)

This person obviously can recognise a sucker for a debate when they see one! I have been thinking about this question since it was raised, to the point where I couldn't write another blog until this one had been formulated and then created. 

The answer to writer's block = find someone who will give you a difficult question that calls to be answered.

First of all, Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Anonymous, to answer your question I am gonna have to break it down into several different areas (can anyone spot an essay geek?).

First: How do we, as the church, respond to people who are openly LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual)?

The way I worded that is crucial I think for your question about how the church addresses this. You make a distinction in your question between the way we react outside of church and the way we should teach inside of church. This distinction is a wrong and is, I am sad to say, is the way the majority of Christians I know think. There should be NO difference between how we react inside or outside of the building we call our church as it is US who ARE the church and the way we react on the street is teaching people about Christ just as much as the sermon from the pulpit is, if not more so. It is the fact that Christians can act one way and teach another that confuses a lot of people and makes them say that our arguments, whether right or not, are groundless.

However, if you are talking about those that aren't Christian outside of church and how they react with friendship etc then ignore everything I just said haha.

But really, in all seriousness, it is about friendship and love and understanding. It is astounding how much people will let you disagree with them when you actually know them and show them that you care. For example, I have a lesbian couple I know (I have referred to them before, because they are awesome!) that are fully aware that I am not sure where I stand on the whole thing sometimes. They have been known to discuss it with me, joke about it with me, and we even have nicknames for each other based around it (one of them is BD (big dyke) and I am BB (bible basher) lol) and it is all good natured and friendly and helpful! Because I didn't meet them by going "hey, you two lesbians, will you be my friends because I am a Christian trying to convert you", and really we can sound like that sometimes. I don't think it even came up for weeks! They were just who they were and I was who I was and that was that.

The way church should teach is the same way. Just as when you meet an alcoholic (bad analogy but work with me here) you don't say "right, action plan on how to target the alcoholic in the congregation with our sermon so they sober up", neither should we be thinking "how do we subtly convert the lesbians with our words?". Instead think, "hey, newbies at church! Let's make them feel welcome and loved". 

And that leads to the second point: How does the church actually teach on this if there are people following this lifestyle in the congregation?

Harden up.

Seriously.

If churches are willing to preach on lying and gossip and adultery (and no doubt there is some of those going on in any congregation), and the preacher thinks that homosexuality is an important, worthwhile topic that needs addressing, then suck it up, face the fear and preach about it. You will always offend somebody. Jesus didn't get crucified because he made everyone happy.

But that said, is it really a) that big of a deal for your church and b) said in grace and love? 

Sermons and teaching need to be relevant to the congregation in which it is taking place. For example, a sermon on the gospels view of slavery is going to have remarkably different reactions in New Zealand, Afrikaans, and American churches. Known your people. If this is a topic that is coming up over and over again in your congregation then you should address it. If you have a gay couple in your church though and no one else is gay, then would you write a whole sermon to target one other couples perceived issues/sin? No, you wouldn't (or you shouldn't!) because that is basically a form of naming and shaming and how stink is that!

Perhaps it would be wise to take the couple aside (if you are in a position to do so, like being the pastor) and ask them their views, tell them yours (and the churches if there is a unanimous statement) and ask how you can best serve them in this congregation when they may face opposing, and sometimes angry, opinions. Ask if they are prepared for that, if they aware of the stance. And do this all with LOVE and GRACE and a genuine desire to reach out and help them.

Ask if there are children involved, if this is a family situation, and how you can support their children in their faith as well. Remember, if you are willing to do a sermon on why they shouldn't be gay, then you better follow up on one about divorce because that is what you may essentially be asking them to do and so where do you stand on that? What will you do if it means tearing apart their family and the impact that it will have on children?

Be wise. Always be loving. Don't name and shame, and think about the consequences of your words.

Thirdly: How do we react if there is no desire to change?

I have a question to ask you first:

Are you willing to change everything that God might not like about what you do?

Everything?

Even the things you like to do?

I can't say I am! It was kicking and screaming that I gave up drinking, pre-marital sex and smoking! It is not easy!

But the wonderful thing, the amazing thing, is that this isn't your responsibility!!

Let me say that again:

Them changing is not your responsibility.

God is the one who created them.

God is the one who knows them.

God was there when they first decided to come out and the reasons for that.

God knows the love they have for each other.

God knows what is in their hearts.

God knows their hurts and fears.

God died for them.

God loves them.

God SAVED them.

It is GOD who will work in them and (if necessary)

It is God who will change them.

Not you.

Never you.

All God asks us to do is to love. To love deeply and honestly and openly. And out of that love, who knows! But that is not your call. It never was.

The church should not be in the business of changing people. It is just in the business of pointing people to the one who can. 

And that person is pretty on to it.

I think it is safe in their hands.

Wadding into the Gay Debate

Maybe I am stupid, or just love controversy, but I cannot let this new bill on gay marriage come and go without saying my piece on it.

Just to qualify my knowledge on this subject (because you shouldn't give your opinion without first doing the research) I have studied the Biblical reference for/against homosexuality. I also have gay friends, single and in relationships, christian and not, that I have asked very open and searching questions of. I have also had my own struggles with sexuality and have struggled/experienced (depending on your viewpoint) various bisexual tendencies for years. I have made the choice not to act on those desires (and in my case they were not strong enough for me to feel I didn't have that choice) but I cannot deny that they are there and they are something that I actively pray about and talk to my husband about.

I have at different times hated my desires and wanted to embrace them.

I chose not to follow through due to my understanding of where they are came from for me (direct link to my fear of men due to sexual abuse) and because of my understanding of God's word.

However, I acknowledge for many people it is not just as simple as deciding not to. For many people this is a heartbreaking issue. To them, if they are Christian, it can mean directly going against what you believe God teaches, or facing not having a close intimate relationship ever, EVER, in your life.

I am lucky. I have a husband who loves me, who I can be honest with, and who I get to share life with. If someone now told me that I couldn't have what is the most amazing love I have ever experienced in person (barring God of course) because somehow what it beautiful is actually sinful, I would be confused, hurt, angry and devastated. I would fight against them with all my being to keep the person closest to me next to me.

I admit that I very rarely admit to my sexual desires to many people as in my circles there tends to be awkward silences and confusion that follows. But I feel I must speak out on behalf of those who can't, who feel to judged to.

This issue is really hard for me and my husband to figure out. 

We are both theological students and love God and the Bible and are prepared to follow it's statutes and example. But with this one it is so difficult when there is so little clear discussion. 

We have a lesbian couple that are friends of mine, who love Jesus (but don't go to church as they get looked down upon and get a lot of crap) and, when you hear their stories, it is totally understandable why they are with each other and not with men. 

They are so excited about getting married in the eyes of God and showing the decade long love they have had for each other publicly. 

They have supported and loved each other through so much and been so strong for each other.  How do I then stand for something that would tell them that their love is wrong (when it is beautiful) that if they want to be with each other then they can't get married, or that they can't do it within their faith? 

To be frank, I am so confused by the issue that this is raising in NZ at the moment.

I know that the bill that is before parliament is to change the definition of marriage (1 man and 1 woman) to be more inclusive of those who are in LG relationships (1 adult with another consenting adult).

I understand that this has caused a huge amount of consternation within churches as they struggle to come up with agreements as a whole denomination as to where they stand on marrying LG couples in their churches.

I get that this is an issue for Christians as they try to figure out where they stand and what they will do with the bible verses that are opposed to homosexuality in any form. And I agree that this is something that we need to grapple with, question and research as it is helpful for our faith and understanding. Maybe this will drive Christians back to actually reading their bibles!

What I don't understand is how we, as a minority in NZ, can have the audacity to try and dictate to the rest of the NZ public how they should practice and define marriage!

Sure, don't marry homosexual couples in your church if you don't agree with it! There is still that option in the NZ law.

Sure, don't have homosexual friends or go to their weddings if you are that opposed, that is your right and choice.

But how can we say that people who may not even BELIEVE in God must live by the statutes of God. Even Paul says that those who live outside the law are not to be judged by the standards of the law.

And are we meant to be living by the law anyway? Are not couples who feel ostracized and alienated from the religious in churches the very people that Jesus would have sat with, eaten with, and gone to the marriage celebrations of?

Would he not have walked with them in their demonstrations to be recognized?

Would he have agreed with them? I don't know. What I do know is he didn't agree with the prostitutes, tax collectors, and others that he hung out with everyday.

He extravagantly loved those that were put down and hurt, even when out of that hurt continued to hurt themselves and others.

We are facing a choice on how we act towards this situation and I have to say that my heart is breaking for both sides as I know that all parties in this debate are trying to do what it best. But maybe it is time for Christians to accept that this is not a Christian nation and we cannot make it that by trying to impose how we believe others should or should not live.

Please feel free to disagree but be warned, any response that is not directed in grace and love towards others will not be tolerated on this blog.