Radical Reorientation

 My favorite theologian is a 12th-century French Catholic monk named William of St Thierry.  [Yes, my son is named after him, in part.]  Sometime in his 40's, his life was radically reoriented.  He had been an abbot in the Benedictine Order, governing the monastery at St Thierry just outside Rheims in France.  He became a dear friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian prior, and wanted for many years to join the Cistercian order instead, but Bernard forbade it.  Bernard insisted that William remain among the Benedictines in order to reform the order.  However, as William grew older his health grew worse, and he desperately wanted to devote less time to "abbot"-ing and more time to writing.  Finally, in 1135 (sometime in his 40's), Bernard relented.  William resigned his abbacy at St Thierry to become a canon regular (that is, an ordinary monk under the governance of an abbot) at the Cistercian monastery at Signy (also not far from Rheims).

I'm in my 40's, and my life has also undergone a radical reorientation.  In all seriousness, the trajectory of my entire life has utterly and completely changed in the span of three years!  I was married with children, an expatriate American academic owning a home and working in Africa.  Now I'm divorced with children, owning a home in America and working as an engineer (again).  It's like my life took a hard left at Albuquerque (that's a Bugs Bunny joke).  And it's so strange, because I think I was doing before what God purposed me to do, i.e. serving as an advocate for Biblical Hebrew on the continent of Africa, for the continent of Africa.

But just in the last week, I've been reflecting anew on the life of William of St Thierry.  He wanted to write, and God granted him ill health so that he could write.  And now I (and all the world) has his books, because he took the time to write them.  My story is not so different.  For the last twenty years, ever since I was a young seminary student, people have told me that I need to write books.  And frankly, I've never put much time or effort into that because I've always had seemingly better things to do with my time.  But now I can't escape the suspicion that my life is paralleling William's, that God is using my circumstances to indicate that it's time for me to start writing now.  I have a list!  A list of books that I want to write before I die.  Now is the time.  Or at least, I think that's what God might be saying.  I'm afraid to believe that that's really what God is saying, but it feels like it.

I'm afraid because I feel very daunted by the prospect.  I know I can do it.  I know that I have both the skill and talent for it.  And I have things to say!  I just find it incredibly hard to believe that anyone would want to read anything that I write, or that anything I write would actually be worth reading, let alone publishing.  And if I were to publish, I don't particularly care to face the criticism that comes with publishing books (especially in the theological discipline) or the rejection that comes with not-publishing books.  I just want to take care of my children and live my life in peace.

Sigh.

There's a whole lot more to say here, but this will suffice for now.  Everything is just so strange here left of Albuquerque...

Pray for Rain

 "For the land that you are crossing over to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden.  But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky, a land that the LORD your God looks after.  The eyes of the LORD are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."  Deut. 11:10-12

"Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it dod not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest."  James 5:16-17

"Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ... 'And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?  Will he delay long in helping them?  I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.  And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"  Luke 18:1, 7-8

So on our way to church this morning Cassia was talking about the drought that has threatened the water supply of a suburban area of over 5 million people here in the Cape.  [Cape Town's water supply comes entirely from rain-fed dams.]  We chatted for a minute about it, and then I said, "You know what we need to do?  We need to start praying every night that God would send rain."  And Cassia immediately piped up and said, "Why don't we pray right now?"  So we did, right there in the car as we were driving. [I didn't close my eyes.]

This got me thinking today.  In the modern world, we don't have too many instances where our cultural experience exactly mimics that experience of the people who wrote the Bible.  But this year, here in the Cape, we have come to precisely the same situation that the ancient Israelites would have faced often in their culture.  God points out to the people of Israel that the place He was taking them was not a place where growing their staple crops would be easy like it was in Egypt.  The land of Israel depends almost entirely on rainfall in order to grow anything!  In fact, certain aspects of the Old Testament make almost no sense at all unless you (the reader) understand this fundamental meteorological reality of the geographical land being talked about in the Bible.

Then, in our children's class today (I teach 5th and 6th graders) we came to the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand in our journey through the Gospel of Mark.  One of the girls in the class almost immediately made a parallel between the situation in that story and the present water crisis we are experiencing here in the Cape.  I complimented her on seeing the connection, and later asked the class what we should be do in light of what Jesus appears to be teaching his disciples with the whole "twelve baskets" business (12 baskets, 12 disciples ... get it?!?).  After going through all the stereotypical churchy answers that involve thinking but not doing, someone finally said, "We should pray."  I said, "Exactly."  [Of course, by saying this I'm not negating the need to conserve water.  Everyone gets that part already.]

So now I guess I need to put my money where my mouth is.  Lent starts on Wednesday.  So I'm going to start praying for rain, and inviting people on Facebook to join me.  Throughout the ages of the Church, Christians have prayed antiphonally (meaning "call-and-response"), and it works like this:  the leader of the prayer prays and ends either with "Lord, in Your mercy..." or "...we pray to the Lord"; and the people respond by saying either "...hear our prayer" or "Lord, hear our prayer," respectively.  Through Lent I'm going to pray for rain on Facebook, and I invite you to respond daily with your own "...hear our prayer."

Mission to India (in retrospect)

     [I'm writing this during my very long layover in Doha, Qatar while traveling back to South Africa.  I did take photos on the trip as I was able.  Once I get home I will attach some of them to this blog post.]

     First of all, I want to express my deep thankfulness to everyone who has given financially to make this mission possible, and especially to those who have prayed for me this past week while I've been in India.  I've heard certain Christians before say that they could "feel" the prayers of others; I can't say that I've ever been able to "feel" others' prayers for me.  But this week I have experienced in a dramatic way the *result* of others praying specifically for me in accomplishing a specific task.  Thanks be to God, and thanks be to all of you (you know who you are!).  And of course, thanks especially to Allison for her primary sense of support and for bearing the weight of parenting and household management while I have been away.  Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law Andrea who came all the way from the US to be with Allison, William and Cassia in my absence.  And thanks to my host and his family for all their gracious and warmly inviting hospitality they showed me every step of the way.

     This mission to India was by far the most intense cross-cultural trip I've yet taken. It was equal parts hard work and good fun, meaning that I was working extremely hard the whole time and having an inordinate amount of fun doing it. I was hosted by Rev Samuel Jacob, who operates an organization called Harvest India (harvestindia.in) which exists to provide pastoral training and operational support to local church leaders in four Indian states (out of 29 total states in the country). The purpose for the visit was to teach a 3-day pastor's training seminar with the objective that the attendees would acquire further skills in studying/teaching the Scriptures using Gen 1-11 as the sample text. Much, if not most, error in biblical preaching/teaching stems from jumping too quickly to conclusions about what is meant in the biblical text without taking sufficient time and effort to read carefully and observe the text first. [Careful reading and observation are genuine skills; and they are actually quite difficult to develop and master, yet absolutely necessary for sound teaching of the Scriptures.] An additional benefit of using a control text to teach these skills is that the learner, after participating in such a workshop, is then equipped to preach and teach that particular book or section of text. I have found in my experience that this is a very effective teaching method, but it is both difficult and demanding for the teacher. I had taught this material before in 2015, but in a single morning session. This time I was excited to teach the material over a span of three days and give it the time it really needs for maximum effectiveness.


TUESDAY

     After a long layover in Doha, Qatar, I boarded my flight to India right on time only to sit on the airplane for more than an hour waiting for a mechanical repair to be done on the aircraft. [I was very thankful for in-flight movies during that time!] On top of this, after arriving at Bangalore there was a logistical delay in getting my visa to enter the country. My host needed to journey without me to an important meeting in Hyderabad, so he sent his manager to pick me up and take me to his house where I ate breakfast and drank some coffee. Then I went to my rented room for much-needed sleep after two consecutive red-eye flights. I went back to my host family's house for dinner. My host family lives in a four-story building, where they operate a refuge home for vulnerable children. They take care of 15 girls, who live with a house mother on the second level. My host family lives on the third level, and the manager and his family live on the first level. [I never went up to the fourth level, but I think they used it for storage.] Everyone on the premises gathers for an hour every evening for devotions, and they asked me to do the speaking that night. I read (in Hebrew) the story of Isaac on the altar from Gen 22 – interpreting into English, of course – which thoroughly delighted both me and the children! At various points in the story I would stop to comment, explaining how this story offers us a picture, very much like a photograph, of what Jesus did for us on the cross. After that I went back to my own room for the night.

Photo with the girls at the Macheseh Refuge Home

WEDNESDAY

     After traveling for a full 36 hours then sleeping some of the day and all through the night, I was fairly well-adjusted to the new time zone. [3.5 hours ahead of South Africa – yes, you read that right, 3.5 hours. I don't know why India is 30 minutes different than the rest of the world, but it is!] My host was still gone at his meeting, and the rest of my host family was going about their normal weekday activities, so I spent the first part of the day sitting at the table in their house doing some of my schoolwork and getting ready to leave for the conference. Later on, I was very thankful to have this day of down time before starting my work, because I could tell that it really made a difference in my energy levels for the remainder of the trip.  I was able to carry a pretty heavy teaching/preaching workload for several days in a row without getting physically fatigued.  I needed to take a short propeller-plane trip that day from Bangalore to Vijayawada for the conference, which wouldn't have been a problem except that many taxi drivers had gone on strike and my host family didn't know. So we had an interesting hour or so of trying to get a taxi to the airport, wondering if I would be able to make it to the airport on time. We eventually found one, and I got to the airport with time to spare. I had a brief adventure going through security that time – they made me take my umbrella and computer charger cord out of my backpack, and then they sent the bag throughout the scanner a second time. I don't know why. But when it went through the second time, I picked up the umbrella and charger, put them in my bag, then walked off without picking up my computer which was still in the plastic tray! It wasn't any more than a minute or two later that I thought to check my backpack to make sure that I had put my computer in it, then I realized my mistake and ran back to the security checkpoint. My computer was still in the plastic tray, the security person was watching it for me. [Thanks be to God, and to that security guy, for merciful kindnesses!] Once I arrived in Vijayawada, I was picked up at the airport by the family of the woman who pastors the church where the conference was being held. We all went to her house and ate a delicious dinner rice and curry with chicken (which is pretty much what I ate all week long – fantastic!). By this time it was getting quite late, so they took me to my rented room for the night.


THURSDAY

     My host arrived in Vijayawada early the following morning after traveling all night by bus from Hyderabad; he came and got me from my room and drove me to the conference. Most of the churches I saw in India were more-or-less house churches, usually no more than a large room built either on the side or on top of a house. This one was no exception: in fact, in this case the church (or "prayer hall" as they call it in their Hindu-dominated culture) looked bigger than the actual dwelling, which was where the pastor lived. Some people were already there when we arrived, singing praise songs with drums and tambourines.  All three days the group was split about 60% men and 40% women, and by the third day the number of attendees was between 50 and 60 persons.  My host said that it is typical during a multi-day event like this for some people only to attend for one day, but overall the number usually grows over the duration.  The attendees appeared very engaged, although appearances can sometimes be deceiving to a foreigner (like myself) in these kinds of situations.  But I felt like the day went fairly well.  After eating our dinner, a few of us (including my host and my interpreter) went outside the city a bit to attend an evening open-air service held at one of the Harvest India churches.  Most of the streets in India are quite narrow, and it seemed like the whole neighborhood came out.  The improvised a "stage" by hanging a large piece of fabric over a pole stretched across the entire street and then set up mats and chairs for people to sit right there on the street.  [It was in a small neighborhood, so no vehicles were going through!]  At the advice of my host, I preached a relatively simple salvation sermon from John 3.  Afterward, we hung around for a bit to chat with some of the people, then went back into the city to sleep for the night at our various places.

"Church on the Street" in the outskirts of Vijayawada, India

FRIDAY

     This day felt to me like the most impactful of the three.  In the morning session I lectured on the comparisons/contrasts between Noah and Adam in Gen 1-11 and how the stories of the two of them, when juxtaposed (as they are presented in the text), demonstrate vividly the gracious character of God, the nature of His covenant with us as humanity, and the shape of the whole salvation narrative of the entire Bible.  Over the mid-day break, my host encouraged me in my skill at teaching (Praise be to God!) and told me outright that he wanted me to come back again next year to teach the material to theology students at the seminary in Bangalore.  I thanked him for his kind comments and told him that I'd have to think about coming back...but I felt very encouraged by his positive feedback and extended invitation to return.  While we were eating lunch, my interpreter came in from talking with several of the attendees saying that many were talking excitedly about what had been discussed in the morning session.  Several, he said, were "banging their heads" that they had come late and missed the previous day!  In an attempt to help combat the afternoon heat and accompanying drowsiness, the attendees spent the afternoon sessions working in break-out groups, which produced interesting and lively group discussions afterward.  Like the previous day, we spent the entire evening at a church service on the outskirts of the city, and I preached a sermon on the story of Jacob's relationship with God, and how it goes through various stages with its crisis point being his wrestling match with God, where God changes his name to Israel.  Even though the time was quite late by the time I finished (almost 10pm) and no one had eaten dinner yet, I felt like the sermon had been very encouraging to those listening (again, praise be to God!).  Afterwards, my interpreter and I sat down, and I glanced over at him while he took off his glasses and wiped his brow.  I was thinking to myself that he looked kind of tired (interpreting is very difficult work) and that I needed to make a point to encourage him.  Well, the pastor of the church closed the service and everyone stood up to start bringing out the food.  My interpreter, who is Indian and a career missionary within India) came over to me with visible tears in his eyes.  He embraced me in a giant hug and cried.  Between sobs of joy he said, "I'm so happy!  I'm so happy!  God's Holy Spirit is with you, brother.  Thank you!  You must come back to India to keep preaching these things!"  It was one of the greatest expressions of affirmation that I have ever received.  We ate dinner and went back to the city, and I went to bed with an unspeakably profound sense of joy and gratitude to God.

Singing at the evening worship service

SATURDAY

     The third and final day of the conference went very much like the first two, although I could tell that everyone was starting to get fatigued from three straight days of workshop activity.  In the first session, I lectured on the narrative thread of prophecy in the OT starting with Gen 3:15 and illustrating how the Genesis narrator deliberately sets up the Messianic line with each successive generation.  This tension continues throughout the OT, with successive miniature climaxes with each of the covenant recipients – Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and finally, Jesus (of course!).  I then held a long Q&A session and wrapped with some concluding guidelines concerning reading/observing and preaching OT texts.  We finished a little earlier than the other days, and my host and I flew back to Bangalore from Vijayawada that evening.  That concluded three solid days of literally nothing but teaching/preaching, eating, preparing, and sleeping.  Very full days, but very good days.

Pastor's conference in Vijayawada

From left to right:
Pastor Arunah, myself, Israel (my interpreter), one of our drivers (regretfully, I never learned his name)

SUNDAY

     After breakfast on Sunday morning, my host and I visited a church around Bangalore that is part of the Mission India network.  The folks in this particular church were from the northern part of that state who had all migrated into the city to work.  They sang a bit differently than the conference participants, using multiple instruments including drums, tambourines, finger cymbals, and even a hand organ.   I preached a sermon on Exo 17 and the story of water from the rock – another one of the OT 'photographs' of Jesus.  After a three hour church service, the pastor and his family plus my host and I went to the house of one of the parishioners and ate a delicious lunch.  We had a very pleasant visit, although all the conversation was in Kannada (the local language in Bangalore) so I just sat and listened a laughed along when others laughed.  [It's not a bad strategy if you want to enjoy yourself in conversation that you don't understand!]  In mid-afternoon we went back to my host family's house and relaxed for the rest of the day.  My host told me that the youth meetings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday had been cancelled, so there really wasn't any work for me to do those days.  I was able to change my return flight two days earlier to arrive home on Wednesday mid-day rather than late-night Thursday.  I finished the day by reading in Hebrew for devotions that night the same story from Exo 17 that I had preached earlier in the day, which again was a big hit with all the children.

Church service in Bangalore, India

MONDAY

     My host had told me earlier in the week that he wanted to take me to the Biblica office in Bangalore.  [Biblica is the new name of the International Bible Society, and they translate/revise/publish the NIV Bible.]  So on Monday I met and talked extensively with two Indian gentlemen who are currently working in Bible translation in India – one with Biblica and the other with Wycliffe Associates.  Those were extremely productive conversations in which we brainstormed about possible solutions for helping Bible translators in country continue to develop their Hebrew skills in order to make them better translators.  After talking for quite a long time with both of those guys, we decided that there are two next steps to take: first, a similar kind of weekend workshop should be held for those translators who already have some facility with Hebrew so they can learn some more grammar with specific focus on how to most effectively dovetail Hebrew grammatical knowledge with biblical language software that is used in the translation process.  We further decided that such a workshop should be video recorded to distribute and use for Bible translators in country to continue to hone their Hebrew skills.  Lastly, I took an inventory of the Hebrew resources in the libraries in the Biblica office as well as the local evangelical seminary (see photos below).  I suggested a few more resources that would be tremendously helpful for them to have – a total of twelve books between three respective libraries.  It was an extremely exciting day for me, full of wonder and possibilities.  I joked with my host that God had brought me to India to teach the pastor's conference, but really, God had brought me to India to meet those two men.  I hope that God presents a way either for me or someone else to administer the type of workshop that they need and deliver to them the Hebrew resource books that are lacking in their libraries.  That night for devotions I read the story of Moses and the snake on the pole from Num 21.

The South Asian Institute for Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS)

The dedication stone of the library at SAIACS

     Afterward, it was time to get my things together and get ready to go to the airport to catch my red-eye flight out of the country.  Even though it was quite late when we left (about 11pm), I think 5 or 6 of the girls insisted on going along to the airport with my host, his wife, and myself to drop me off there.  Everyone said goodbye, they all went home, and went and got my boarding passes for the long journey home.

     Today (Tuesday) I have been in the airport in Doha for most of the day waiting for my next red-eye home to Cape Town.  Even though I'm eager to get home, it has been nice to have a day of down time to be able to write up this mission report while all the events are still fresh in my mind.  I'm tired now from not having slept very much last night, but I feel quite energized in the reminder that God is always "up to something" in the world, and He continually invites to join Him in His mission work.

     Finally, let us bless the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Dispatch from India

I am in India for a week to teach at a pastor's training conference in Vijayawada. I am writing this message to ask for prayers over the next several days. I have been struggling a lot with feelings of anxiety, shame, and inadequacy while on this trip so far. I don't think this is a terribly unusual phenomenon, but I've been kind of surprised by it on this occasion. Satan really does attack us when we try to do kingdom work for God, and often in the place(s) where we are the most weak.

Please pray for God's comfort for me in the midst of negative feelings, but also please pray for God's Spirit to communicate even through the challenges of a different culture, teaching through an interpreter, physical fatigue, etc. Please also pray that the pastors I am teaching will have their imaginations captured so that they will be motivated to keep applying the material being taught. The material I am teaching focuses specifically on acquiring skills of reading and observing the biblical text. [Most error in biblical teaching stems from too quickly jumping to the process of trying to interpret the text rather than spending sufficient time and effort to read and observe the text first.] I have designed this material such that it very much depends on the initiative of the learner for maximum impact. I am convinced this is the best way to teach, but it also is somewhat scary as a teacher to leave so much up to the learner. Teaching already sometimes feels a bit like shooting arrows into the dark, just hoping to hit a target out there somewhere – but this specific kind of communicative strategy only intensifies those feelings. Pray that God's Holy Spirit will give me the right words to say.

Thanks in advance for your prayers concerning these things. And we give thanks and praise to God, who promises to always hear us when we pray to Him.

A Review of "The First Urban Christians," by Wayne Meeks

Nearly two millenia stand between us (the modern readers) and the authors of the NT, as well as countless social, cultural, and other differences. We cannot assume that we automatically understand the NT text as written without also knowing something about the contextual world in which that text was originally written and received. For example, when Paul offers his magnificent "theology of generosity" in 2 Cor 8:9, is he addressing people who are relatively rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle? Not only does the answer to this question illuminate the text's rhetorical and emotional force, but it directly impacts how the modern reader plausibly interprets the concluding phrase, "so that you ... might become rich."

This book seeks to bridge the gap by articulating a social history of the early Christian communities, especially those founded by the apostle Paul and continued by those he discipled in the fledgling Christian faith. Because Paul travelled extensively throughout his missionary career, these communities formed along prominent trade routes and by-ways in the Roman Empire, which means they developed in cities; hence the book's title. Meeks describes his task: "to discern the texture of life in particular times and particular places," that is, Greco-Roman cities of the 1st century c.e.; and "to describe the life of the ordinary Christian within that environment––not just the ideas or the self-understanding of the leaders and writers" (p.2). Meeks describes his methodology as follows:

In this study the use of theory will be suggestive, rather than generative in the manner of experimental sciences. ... In asking about the social context and social forms of early Christianity, we ... are seeking rather to understand a particular set of phenomena in the second half of the first century. ... Within this general context, this view of religion as a system of communication, as a subset within the multiple systems that make up the culture and subcultures of a particular society, I assume the position of a "moderate functionalist." That is, the sort of questions to be asked about the early Christian movement are those about how it worked. The comprehensive question concerning the texts that are our primary sources is not merely what each one says, but what it does. [p.5-7]

This last point bears emphasizing in order to illustrate its importance. Consider the previous example from 2 Cor 8 – was Paul advocating that Christians strive for upward economic mobility, and was the text appropriated for that specific purpose within the Corinthian church? Or might the textual dynamics operate in the exact opposite direction? Because the texts themselves provide the primary window into the world Meeks is attempting to describe, he affirms the need to understand the text's form and function within that world in order to draw correct conclusions.

Meeks does not develop a specific argument in this work, but rather paints a picture of urban life based on the collection of various data. Roman cities in the first century were not exceptionally large in total geographical area yet had wide public spaces, making the residential areas densely populated – about the same as an urban slum in a modern industrialized city (p.28). News traveled extremely fast, privacy was virtually non-existent, and civil unrest escalated quickly when provoked. Generally, similar tradepersons would clump together in a specific street or area, such as "Linenweaver's Quarter, Leatherworkers' Street, Portico of the Perfumers" (p.29); the same can also be said of residents in general, pertaining to their ethnicity (and language, presumably).

The typical household was a bustle of daily activity, connecting various types of people across all strata of urban society. The house would have been owned by a relatively wealthy family and included: professional rooms and offices for the master; quarters for household servants, and perhaps slaves; shops and/or apartments for rent on the side adjoining the street; and large central spaces for entertaining personal guests, business associates, and all sorts of other visitors. If the master was particularly wealthy or the household exceptionally large, the house might also serve as the meeting place for a social club, professional association, or in the case of the early Christians, a religious community.

Because of this tendency of early Christian churches to convene in private dwellings, they penetrated a wide cross-section of society, perhaps wider than any other spontaneous social grouping of the time. Meeks affirms that these local church gatherings probably did not include the very poorest (i.e. rural peasants) nor the very richest (i.e. royalty or high-level imperial bureaucrats), and they were united by unusually strong cohesive bonds both internally within themselves and externally with each other (although not necessarily with those outside the religious community). Meeks spends a chapter on each of the following topics: the urban environment; the socio-economic make-up of the local community; the proposed social models of early Pauline communities; the governance and rituals practiced by the local churches; and some general patterns of belief and life for Pauline Christians as a whole. He brings all these together in a well-worded correlative summary in the final three pages of the book.

Pauline Christian communities occurred within urban environments, at the intersection of various poles of 1st-century society – rich and poor, foreigners and natives, masters and slaves, men and women, etc. Perhaps this explains (partly) the rapid growth of Christianity in the initial decades of its existence; that is, those who came into these communities were, like Paul himself, people in transition of one kind or another. The leap of religious conversion, with its accompanying reorientation of personal loyalties, would not have seemed as daunting for someone who had already left behind a significant part of their own personal identity and/or encountered ideas drastically different from the milieu of their own background.

Applying the historical insights from this book to our example of Paul's "theology of generosity" in 2 Cor 8, it makes little sense to conclude that Paul is utilizing a theological principle to advocate Christian upward social mobility (for its own sake, at least). Paul appeals to the strong bonds of intimacy within these religious communities, that is, the universal brotherhood/sisterhood of believers, which he claims is ideologically based on the actions of Jesus Himself even as it reaches across lines of division drawn up in ordinary society. The wealth he describes is relational, not monetary, and is engendered by peace – with God, with one's neighbors, even with one's enemies. It is fitting, then, that those within the confessing community at Corinth who have financial resources should share those resources in order to meet the needs of those who are suffering in Jerusalem. After all, Paul says, that's what Jesus did for all of us.

While reading this work I was struck by the obvious organic nature of Christianity in its cultural situation. The early urban Christians did not invent new social forms, per se, but rather integrated their new-found confessional faith into the patterns of life which were already part of their culture (mystery religions, social clubs, etc.). I find this simple principle extremely powerful, especially in my native context (the United States) where many self-identifying Christians overemphasize claiming the public socio-political space for Christianity. We might debate the merits of doing so, either for or against; but Meeks appears to conclude that the early Christians neither did nor taught any such thing. There is an incisive moral lesson here, for all Christians everywhere.



The Gospel transforms, it does not overpower.

Sorrow

There is deep groaning in the earth.


Drawn from the ground in the mists of dawn,
  
distilled in the air, dripping in the water,
  
coming with us from our day of birth
  
until we are grown, and it settles in our bones.


There is deep groaning in the earth,
  
by death alone can be made mirth.



[dedicated to the Christians who died in the Charleston Massacre, 17 June 2015]

Serendipity or Providence?

 ser-en-di-pi-ty: n. -- the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way

pro-vi-dence: n. -- the protective care of God or of nature as a supernatural power


One of my personal pet peeves is when Christians observe serendipity in their lives and equate it with providence -- as if it's a supernatural leading of God, or at least some indication of God’s will. To do so is not wrong in and of itself. [I would argue that the entire point of the story of Esther in the Bible is, essentially, this very thing. The reader is meant to draw the conclusion that Esther’s story is NOT simply a tale of happy chance, but is rather a remarkable example of God’s intervention in human events for the sake of preserving His people from extinction. Ironically enough, I conclude this even though the book never even once mentions God!] Nevertheless, this practice annoys me because of its imbalance compared to other things that the Bible clearly says ARE God’s will for us, like being sanctified (1 Thess. 4:3-7), being thankful in all circumstances (1 Thess. 5:18), submitting to civil authorities (1 Pet. 2:13-17), or suffering for doing good (1 Pet. 3:13-4:6), and others. 

But beyond this, I have a philosophical/theological problem with calling serendipity, "providence," because if we can claim that events of a happy chance are the supernatural will of God, then could we not also claim that events of an unhappy chance are also the supernatural will of God, simply on the basis of the events happening by chance? This is problematic for several reasons, primarily because Jesus Himself directly addresses this very thing on a couple different occasions. For example, Jesus explicitly says that God does not show favoritism with the weather; everyone gets rain sometimes, and everyone gets sunshine sometimes (Matt. 5:45). If it happens to rain on a day when I need it to rain, then by all means I should thank God for the rain, but Jesus’ words hold me back from concluding that the favorable weather is some sort of supernatural occurrence for my personal benefit. Or what might be worse, concluding that an unfavorable chance is somehow the work of God for my personal harm (or the harm of others), which Jesus addresses in Luke 13:1-5. There was a tower in the area of Jerusalem called Siloam that fell and killed 18 people, and Jesus asks a rhetorical question, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” Jesus goes on to say, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” I take it from these words that Jesus is gently rebuking his audience here, that if you conclude that unhappy chances are somehow the judgment of God (as I heard numerous people claim concerning Hurricane Katrina, as a modern example), then you are the one who needs to repent!

To boil it down, we cannot correctly credit “good” fortune to God’s specific supernatural action any more than “bad” fortune simply on the basis of it being “fortune.” God specifically says in Scripture that He doesn’t act that way. Yet, for all my ranting here, there are times in our lives when we experience serendipity and cannot escape the conclusion that it is God’s providence and not mere happenstance. The books of Esther and Ruth are perhaps the clearest examples of this very thing. This has not happened very often in my life, but there are a few specific incidents that genuinely seem this way to me.  

I’ve said all of this as an introduction to telling the story of buying our new vehicle, because the entire story of buying this car has felt so unexpectedly serendipitous that it has sometimes seemed providential. It’s a great story, and it needs to be told. But my conscience demands that I first discuss all of the above before expressing even a glimmer of a hint that it is somehow God’s supernatural will for us to own the vehicle we now own. God doesn’t work that way. We had good fortune to find an amazing bargain for a high quality vehicle, and the story of purchasing this vehicle is simply an awesome story because of the elements of serendipity contained within. So we offer thanks and praise to God, because to do so is both good and right, as the liturgy admonishes us.


And now, the story…

A few weeks ago, I was at my friend Matthew’s house to hang out and play some music. [He plays drums, so we often get together to jam!] Well, we were chatting about our upcoming move, and he asked me what we were going to do with our Honda Civic. I nonchalantly said that we were going to take it to South Africa with us when we moved. He then said, “You know, Joel, you can’t register that vehicle in South Africa, because it’s an import. They won’t register it. You’ll either have to keep it registered here in Swaziland, or sell it and get another car.” I said something like, “Whoa. No, I didn’t know that. I’m really glad you said something.” Well, there’s no way I was going to establish legal residence in South Africa while holding a United States drivers license and driving a Swaziland-registered car. That’s a recipe for disaster anywhere, but even more so in a place like South Africa where encounters with police can be wildly unpredictable. It didn’t take too long to come to the conclusion that we would simply need to sell our Swazi vehicle and get another one. 

This was disappointing to me, because we had paid cash for our Civic, and it’s nowhere near the end of its useful life. [My goal was to drive the Civet (that’s what we call the Honda, because we’ve taken it so many places that it probably shouldn’t be driven — but hey, this is Africa! If you’ve never heard of a civet, it’s a small, African mountain cat) until it died, because car repairs are almost always cheaper than new cars.] But Allison and I had been talking about possibly growing the family, in which case we would need a bigger vehicle anyway. Furthermore, a number of our friends have expressed interest in coming to visit us once we move to Stellenbosch, and we wanted to have room in our vehicle to carry passengers. So in the end, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad time to upgrade our vehicle anyway.

So I began searching for a vehicle in our price range with capacity for at least 6 passengers and less than 200,000 km “on the clock” (that’s what they say here). Specifically, I was hoping to find a Toyota, either a Condor or Avanza, which are medium-sized crossover vehicles that seat either 7 or 8, depending on the specific model. The selection was pretty slim, and there was nothing that really stood out as a terrific value. But there was another problem. As Allison and I continued talking about it, she communicated that she was really worried about driving a manual transmission, and (as far as I could tell) all those vehicles were manual transmission. She really preferred an automatic transmission vehicle if we could find it. So I adjusted the parameters on the Auto Trader search engine for automatic transmission, and it came back with 200+ vehicles in the whole country of South Africa. I began paging through them all. 

This was Monday evening of the week before last. There were some decent candidates, but they were all too far away to make the purchasing practical. Again, nothing was standing out until I saw a 2006 Volvo XC-90 2.5T 7-seater with 184,000 km (about 117,000 miles) which had had one owner and full service record for sale at a dealership in Johannesburg, about a 4 hour drive away. I immediately picked up the phone and called the salesman, even though it was after hours. He answered and told me that the car was still available. I told him that I was interested and would call him back at 8am sharp to discuss the vehicle.

In the meantime, I began researching. Having rebuilt the engine of a Volvo sedan I previously owned, I knew without a doubt that the high mileage would not be a major concern. If taken care of properly, Volvo engines run cleanly for a long time. Their safety record is impeccable, and their cars are both well-designed and well-built. I carefully read all the online review sites I could find on that particular year and model, and while some reviews were mixed, most all commenters were very bullish on the ’06 XC-90 2.5T and included no major mechanical complaints. Normally, we would be priced out of that vehicle, but this particular dealership was trying to get their stock off the lot and was having a massive sale. This particular car was priced in the same range as the Toyotas I was looking at earlier, low enough that we could pay cash for it and not have to finance it. Allison and I talked about it at length that evening, and we decided that if I felt good talking to the salesman about it on the phone, then I would travel to Joburg the next day to look at it and buy it.

Now it just so happened ... that my friend Matthew had just started a new job and needed to drive to Joburg the following day for corporate training to last the remainder of the week. So I called him up and asked if I might be able to catch a ride with him in the morning. He said yes, of course. I phoned the salesman in the morning, and he gave me the whole rundown. It had been previously owned by an employee of the dealership and had blown a gasket, so he traded it in. The dealership had the engine rebuilt and was selling the vehicle nearly at cost because of the amount of cars that they simply needed to get sold. Also, there was a 1-year warranty on the major mechanical engine components following the rebuild. I told him that I was coming to look at it that day and would probably buy it if I liked what I saw.

Within an hour my friend Matthew picked me up, and we had a fantastic drive, just enjoying each other’s company and chatting about everything that 30-somethings men talk about (you know, mostly telling stories of dumb things we did when we were younger). Truthfully, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend a 4-hour commute. The dealership was only a few miles from where he needed to go, so he even dropped me off! I met up with the salesman, and we went out to look at the Volvo. I told him that I wanted to inspect the car thoroughly, and he said that he had to talk to his manager about something anyway, so he let me have at it. I dug my penlight out of my bag, got down on the ground, and started looking over every inch of the undercarriage, starting at the front left corner and working my way around the car counterclockwise. Everything was clean and tight, no body damage, the interior was immaculate, even the tread on the tires looked fairly new. As I came around to the front right corner, I saw some fluid on the bottom side of the plastic shield guarding the engine. I dabbed it with my finger. Motor oil. The salesman came back then, and I told him that I’d found an oil leak. We opened the hood, and I could see oil on the right side motor mounts as well, but it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

I went inside to meet the sales manager and have a chat with him about it. I told him I thought I wanted to buy the vehicle, but that I wanted the oil leak fixed first. He answered that he would have to send the car back to the mechanic who rebuilt the engine, and I was free to go along if I wanted. So the salesman and I hopped in and drove it down to the shop of a very pleasant mechanic named Willie (pronounced “vee-lee”). He and his assistants ran the car up on the lift and started removing guards and covers in an attempt to find the leak. I watched them work for about 15 minutes or so, then Willie decided that there was a good many more parts he would have to remove to find the leak. He said he needed three days to be able to take it down enough to find the leak, fix it, and then test it to ensure that the leak was fixed. I phoned Allison to give her the rundown, and we decided that we would wait the three days for them to fix the leak, and then buy it. So I returned to the sales manager and paid a small deposit for him to hold the car for me, then the salesman dropped me off at my friend Matthew’s hotel.

By this time it was nearly 5pm, much too late for me to catch the bus back to Swaziland, so I needed to stay overnight somewhere. I didn’t want to pay to stay in the ritzy hotel where Matthew was staying, but I remembered a place where I had stayed last year when I came to Joburg to take the GRE exam. It was a backpackers place that rented cabins for less than $20/night. I met up with Matthew and phoned from his room in the hotel. They had space for me! So Matthew and I hopped in his car, and off we went, GPS in hand.

Now Barefoot Backpackers is on Pretorius Rd. in a suburb of Joburg called Midrand. The problem is that there are three different streets in Midrand called Pretorius Rd. [No lie.] It was raining. And it was rush hour. In Joburg. I don’t know how long us it took us to get to Barefoot Backpackers, but it was much longer than it should have been. And we had great fun the whole time. We eventually got there, I checked in, then we drove off in search of victuals. We found a Debonair’s Pizza that was still open, and had a really meaningful chat while eating dinner. All in all, that day turned out to be the most “just pure fun” I’ve had in quite a while. From my cabin later that night, I sent an email to another friend in the States, telling him that the whole day had come so out-of-the-blue that it felt almost providential. The next morning I took the commuter train to the bus station and hopped the bus back to Swaziland.

 Now, it just so happened ... that another one of my friends here, an expat from Sweden named Matz, was flying in from Nepal and headed back to Swaziland on the same bus! So on the 4 hour ride back, Matz and visited for a good long while and had a great time catching up (I hadn’t seen him since coming back from the States).

[Here, an interlude. In the days while I was waiting for the oil lead to be fixed, I had some restless evenings. It’s hard for me to spend a bunch of cash all in one shot anyway (well, it’s hard for me to spend, period), but it’s tougher to spend money on a vehicle (much less a Volvo!) when there are so many physical needs around us. In a way, this emotional reaction is a healthy one. The presence of poverty in our lives and experience rightly prompts us to examine our consciences, especially in regard to decisions with what we do with money. And this is true regardless of where in the world you live. But there is a flip side to this coin as well. The reality of the world is that there is very little that I can physically do to alleviate suffering from the poverty around me. I know, that doesn’t sound like a very pious thing to say; but I think it’s an important reality to accept for someone to be effective in the kind of environment in which we live. There is not just a practical reason for this (burn-out), but also a theological reason. I don’t save people, Jesus saves people. But as I was weighing all these things in my mind, another thought that came in which I think accords with the truth… 

I can’t fix all the money problems in Swaziland, but I can pray and ask God to fix them, and I should do that. And actually, I do do that already. But the lesson for me was deeper than that, I think. The lesson is, when I feel guilty about my position of wealth, the best immediate response is to pray to God. Buying the Volvo is a good use of money: the vehicle will meet our needs for the foreseeable future; it’s a quality vehicle that should last; and we’re not spending any more than we would if we bought a Toyota. And we are actively involved in meeting the physical needs of people around us to the extent that is realistic and (as far as we can tell) mutually beneficial, and even on some occasions, personally sacrificial. I have no reason to feel guilty, and I have every reason to pray. Praying places one’s trust in God, not self. Praying is an action in line with God’s character as the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent Creator of the universe. I can pray for the person I give money to on the street. I can pray for the gogo (i.e. grandmother, or old woman) I pass by whose skin is sun-hardened, her spine permanently bent from labor, her face etched with the creases of life. I can pray for the children I meet in passing. You get the point here; it’s a good lesson.]

Well, it turns out that when the engine was rebuilt some exterior bolts hadn’t been torqued quite up to specs. The mechanic tightened the bolts, cleaned the engine off, and let the thing idle for a day to make sure that the leak was stopped. The following Monday, I got back on the bus to Joburg to test-drive the Volvo. It ran like a dream, and there was no sign of oil anywhere upon returning to the dealership. 

As we were walking around finalizing everything that needed to be done to complete the sale, I walked across the new car showroom and happened to glance up and saw this:

Now, it just so happens ... that this is Charm City, USA -- yep, good ol’ Baltimore. Looking north on Light Street from downtown Inner Harbor, to be exact. I instinctively said, “Hey Alecs!” — that was the salesman’s name — “see that? That’s Baltimore, the city I used to live in. I’ve driven on that very street! Crazy! I’m gonna take a photo!” He said something like, “Yeah man, that is crazy!” Obviously, I was more enthused about it than he was, but he appreciated the moment, too.  

Serendipity?  Providence?  Either way, it’s a great story.

An hour later, I was driving home in our new used Volvo. Thanks be to God!