Liberation

... you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor ...

We can hear words like these from Isaiah chapter 9 perhaps in a Christmas carol service, with everything orderly, good singing, nice atmosphere and so on. And yet hearing it in this way might miss the raw exuberance and jubilation that is felt when a yoke is truly shattered, the weighty bar at last removed, and the harsh rod of an oppressor is finally broken leaving the people free after years of struggle.

The recent scenes in Syria have been of mass jubilation among a diverse population celebrating a freedom after decades of cruel oppression. The leaders behind the liberation even made a proclamation, calling for a special time of celebration for all, to declare the newly achieved liberty.

Perhaps it is those kind of scenes, the overflow of emotion, the visceral mix of both tears and joy, that we would do well to have in mind when reading the classic Christmas readings such as Isaiah 9.

With the birth of a new King - with Jesus - years of oppression, struggle, and harsh regime will come to an end truly setting people free. The future will be theirs, to reform and rebuild a new life with the possibility of flourishing for all. So get out and celebrate - let all the emotion come out, take to the streets!!

Jesus sets us free from a tyrannical regime that keeps each person enslaved, locked in patterns that de-humanise both themselves and those around them. A regime that you cannot negotiate or buy your way out of. One that will strike no bargain, and will demand total allegiance. From this you are now set free!

Watch the recent scenes in Syria, and then listen to the Christmas readings again ...!

Don't take the King out of Kingdom

Nowadays many Christians have a healthy 'Kingdom mentality'. This is good news: typically leading to better to better practices. For example greater respect and cooperation between churches and their leaders (we are all working together for His Kingdom); and also seeing positive community work by other organisations (perhaps secular or not Christian faith-based) as contributing to a healthy community rather than somehow a kind of enemy. The outcomes of the work by another organisation can be understood as positive or 'Kingdom-esque' when they resonate with the Kingdom outcomes we would hope for in an area or community.

There is still a tension however, that we need to keep in mind. Jesus is Lord of the areas and ultimately over all people groups, therefore including those we work alongside - the resurrection puts that beyond doubt. Yet that Lordship yearns for and invites a response from each and every individual - that they may recognise Christ as King. In the Christmas story the learned travellers present their gifts and worship Jesus whilst he is still a baby ... how much more a response is due now he is risen Lord!

The bottom line is that a Kingdom needs a King (there is a clue in the word!), and that King rightly should be recognised as such deep in each and every heart. The great rebellion depicted in Genesis 3 is about people choosing to be self-kings, which trends in the opposite direction to God's loving order for creation.

So whilst we can definitely affirm friends and colleagues working positively for the community - each helping to outcomes that we would recognise as being Jesus Kingdom attributes - we still want to work out how best we can point individuals to Jesus as The King who has a Kingdom that will always transform these good outcomes to even greater levels, not resting until transformation into God's original desire is complete. For sure we can affirm people and the good work being done, but that cannot mean surrendering our belief that Jesus is Lord and thus taking the 'King' out of 'Kingdom'.

It is up to us to maintain our witness to Jesus as King even as we work together and collaborate ... all the while in the hope that others discover Him too and make Him their Lord and King.

My Life is not Mine to have Absolute Rights Over

With a house of commons debate and vote scheduled, 'Assisted Dying' is very much a current topic of news and discussion. A key theme that comes through the arguments in favour of changing the law (i.e. to allow circumstances for assisted dying) is an individual's 'Right to Choose'. Above all the arguments in favour or against, this assertion of 'Right to Choose' is very important for us to understand from a mission perspective.

The problem with this 'Right', alongside the many other 'Rights' (or 'Human Rights') that we assert or talk about in contemporary society, is the implicit assumption that we should have them without any consideration of why we should have them. Where do these rights actually come from? What is their basis?

That is not to say that we humans don't or should not have any rights ... but from a Christian perspective we need to think more deeply of their basis. The right to change religion, for example, can be traced (with a Christian perspective) to God giving people free-will.

Some rights should come about because 'world society' (i.e. nations agreeing collectively) agrees that each individual should be accorded that right. In other words some rights are humans conferring them on each other ... agreeing that life (& society) is better for all if we all try and respect such rights. The rights of refugees are an example of this.

The problem with the 'Right to Choose' concerning one's death, is that from a Christian perspective (and likely various other faith perspectives) the life of each individual is a gift of God, along with a sense that the 'on-earth' beginning point is up to God, and the corresponding end-point is also up to God. If a life 'is taken' by actions of others, an accounting of their actions is required of them (e.g. see Genesis 4 Cain & Abel). This means that in a Christian understanding, my life is not mine to have absolute rights over, but is instead given to me by God, with the timing of that gift best left to God's hands.

The push to assert a 'Right to Choose' is part of the relentless cultural trend of individualism: each individual is a person with rights of their own without any external claims. In that sense it is the natural outworking of secularism: 'I feel ... therefore I am', without need for reference to God. Put another way, it is another resonance with the assertion made in Genesis 3: 'I can grab this on my own - I don't need God'.

Christians in mission will want to counter this cultural trend, but that needs to be done compassionately. It is no use saying "You do not have such a right - tough luck"! Person by person, individual by individual, we would want to lovingly encourage them to see that life is a gift, even when things go wrong (be it medically or by tragedy). That life-gift sits in a context that is way bigger than any one of us, and so there is a call to lift our eyes to a greater perspective - through which we might be able to see our circumstances differently.

The life-gift from God implies certain rights, and as people living this life-gift together we can (and should) collectively confer rights on each other ... but all in the context of life-gift from God, and therefore each understanding (and accepting the understanding) that our own life is not ours to have absolute rights over.

Praying into the Flow

A key aspect of the strategy that we are pursuing is to work out who among the people we meet and talk to is spiritually open. Who is the person where the Spirit is already working, leading them to have a curiosity and spiritual hunger to discover?

A Biblical example of someone very open is Cornelius in Acts 10: a Roman centurion who is already fervently praying and seeking ... so much so that God arranges to fetch Peter to come and preach directly to his household. Lydia in Acts 16 is another. Of course not everyone is already seeking as clearly as Cornelius, and some maybe don't even know that deep down they are searching - perhaps they will only realise much later.

A clear principle we adhere to is to only invite people to some kind of Discovery Bible Study when we sense that a person is spiritually open and potentially interested enough that they might sit down with us. That is based on us gauging the conversations and level of interest (praying of course in the background!). For those that do say "yes" to our invitation, we then find that the preliminary sessions give indications of a person's inner hunger. The simple test is in scheduling the next session - the more open & hungry the person is, the easier it will be to schedule and hold to it. Of course it is not an exact science - things happen, arrangements fall foul of circumstances and so on.

The people who are open to spiritual conversations from time to time, but not really so hungry to explore Jesus, tend to be the ones who let discovery sessions be missed and seem to be hard to follow up. Again there is no exact calculation: circumstances, personality types, and a host of other factors can be a part. We should also pinch ourselves and remember that for a person it may simply not be the right time for them at the moment. Perhaps there will be a different link in the chain of witness that will stir their hunger later.

These observations should feed into our spiritual discernment - discerning who Jesus is calling us to concentrate our own personal finite resources on. We cannot pray intensively for everyone we ever meet, and our limited time & energy means we cannot continue to the nth degree trying to meet up with someone who in reality is not in an open & hungry place to want to meet up. Put another way: it can be okay to let someone drop off our personal prayer list, and it could be the right thing to do to not follow up someone yet again to re-schedule. This can be coupled with an ongoing trust in the Spirit: if the Spirit is intending you to be part of their journey, He will arrange something - be it a meeting out of the blue, the person messaging you, etc.

All this means learning to Pray into the Flow - praying with the direction and flow of the Spirit so that your thread of praying for people, chatting with people, inviting them to discovery sessions, becomes ever more resonant with what the Spirit is doing in people's lives out there in the community. Hitting that resonance will involve bumping into the person the Spirit has already prepared for you (e.g. like Lydia). Those occurrences will seem relatively easy and not a struggle compared to the many others that we interact with. That is not to say that every session will always be easily scheduled or go perfectly well, but a God-given momentum will be established that leaves us concluding: 'This must be God!'.