In the news we have recently been confronted with the harsh reality of our world. A few weeks back we had the situation in Gaza which just reminded us of the complexity of that situation – the state of Israel against the Palestinian people; one side seeking security and the other side seeking justice. But neither side experiencing peace. And then, over the past week or so, the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut – 20 school children and 6 school staff.

Last weekend my family and I gathered with nearly 10,000 people at the Vector Arena to participate in the Glow carol service put on by St. Paul’s Anglican Church for the people of Auckland. It was an incredible event: an amazing colourful event (each person had a glow stick with different colours) with great music, adult and children’s choirs, and carols. All of this to celebrate the coming of “the new born King”. And I was this, twirling my glow stick as enthusiastic as anyone.

But what moved me most was a video. A film crew from St Paul’s went to Bethlehem to do some interviewing in the town of Bethlehem itself. This was not the romantic version of Bethlehem we find of Christmas cards. This was the reality of people’s lives; a hard realty, not unlike the realty that Jesus entered into 2000 years ago.

It was the video that brought home to me the need to bring together the reality of Incarnation and the realities of our world. So much of our Christian celebrating seems to disconnect the two. It’s like we use these Christmas celebrations to escape the sometimes difficult realities of life – the tinsel, the colours, the romantic  images of the stable with the mystical light shining on it, the carols we love so well, allow us to escape the stuff that we don’t want to face up to – globally and in our own lives.

But the Christmas story is about a God who enters in to our reality. The Word becomes flesh and moves into our neighbourhood (as Eugene Peterson translates John 1:14). In this story, this central truth of the Christian faith, we have the coming together of God’s reality and ours. Jesus, the one who brings salvation, submits himself to our reality, born into the ordinariness of his day – violence, military oppression and becoming a refugee.

Here’s the video…

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The good news of Jesus Christ cannot allow us to escape the realities of our world and even our own lives. If it does, then all we will be left with inauthenticity – a shallow faith and shallow lives. But yet, I often feel that this is what we do at church on a Sunday in our search for some kind of “worship high”. We don’t like living in the tension.

And we don’t like waiting, which is why most of our evangelical churches are uncomfortable with practising “Advent” – the 4 week period of “waiting” before Christmas itself. We rush too quickly to celebration. I don’t want to sing “Yeah Lord we greet thee born this happy morning” too soon. But this practice of Advent waiting allows us to stop and name the sin which in our own lives and in the world – whether the realities of current day Bethlehem or the realities of our lives. And then we are able to voice our cry, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel”. It is here that the connection takes place. It is here we need our imaginations renewed.

A few days ago I stumbled across a video on youtube – images from the shooting at Newtown, Connecticut set alongside images of the nativity set Rosie Thomas’ amazing rendition “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” The video captures the connection I’m taking about and portrays this sense of waiting in the midst of human pain and tragedy for God’s salvation and redemption.

In the Incarnation we meet a God who enters in to our reality. Christianity therefore, does not offer an escape from reality of this world. It doesn’t allow us to ignore. It doesn’t allow us to whitewash over. Instead, as Christians, we enter in to our world with Jesus Christ who has gone before us – without fear and with a sense of hope. But not a fairy tale hope. Instead, a hope that yearns for God’s kingdom to come, and his will to be done on earth as its is in heaven. And a hope that ultimately takes us to the cross.

Here is the Rosie Thomas video…

This post originally appeared in the July edition of The Garden.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by The Hunger Games (which came out on DVD in mid August). Don’t most dystopian post-apocalyptic movies explore the deep issues that confront humanity?

The story takes place in a country called Penam, which is ruled by the Capitol with 12 surrounding districts. Every year the Hunger Games are organised by the Capitol. In each district two teenagers, one boy and one girl, are picked by lottery to represent their district as “tributes”. Originally organised in response to a rebellion by a now destroyed 13^th district, the Games are meant to represent an act of atonement on the part of the remaining districts, as well as a means of control by the Capitol. However, all of this is now caught up in a media-driven frenzy with every piece of the action and death broadcast to the masses.

In an interview Suzanne Collins, the author of the original book, has told of how the inspiration for the story came to her one evening when she was channel surfing between reality TV programmes and actual war coverage. Feeling tired, the two started to blur in a very unsettling way. She also confirms that the story line is based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, in which the King of Athens is obligated to the king of Crete to send in tribute each year seven young men and seven young women to Crete, where they were thrown into the labyrinth and devoured by the Minotaur.

There are also other resonances. For example, the famous American short story “The Lottery” in which one villager is chosen to die each year by stoning for the sake of a good harvest; the Aztec practice of choosing a handsome warrior from an enemy tribe, who is wined and dined for a year and then sacrificed to the Gods; and the Roman gladiators fighting in the Coliseum – being used by the political establishment to control the people through deathly entertainment. What all these “stories” have in common is the need for some kind of human sacrifice.

Rene Girard, the French literary critic and philosopher, talks about the scapegoat mechanism at work in many cultures. According to Girard, this mechanism is used to deal with certain tensions within society. In order to deal with these tensions the community chooses someone to blame, isolate and punish and thus discharge their fears and anxieties onto that person or group. In this way a certain peace is achieved and thus it is often sanctioned by the state or by religion.

For Girard, the mechanism can be seen in Christianity with Jesus being the scapegoat. However, rather than sanctioning the violence like the religious authorities do, God can be thought of as identifying with the victim. In this act, the real injustice and violence of the scapegoat mechanism is unveiled and disempowered and a new vision of life emerges.  Not one based on violence, but rather one based on love, forgiveness, compassion and identification with the victim. In other words – a way out of the cycle of violence.

Something similar happens at the end of the movie. The two main characters, who remain alive (both tributes from the same district), are not willing to kill one another and give the Capitol the satisfaction it wants. They challenge the system by both agreeing to take their own lives by eating poisonous berries, thus taking away the possibility of a successful Games. They are vindicated when at the last moment the rules are changed. Ironically, it is through the willingness to give up life, that the system that seeks to control through death, is subverted. A new vision of life emerges.

I recently asked my friend Dave Tims to come and talk to one of my classes at Laidlaw College about the work that he does among the “urban poor” in Manurewa, South Auckland. Dave has given more that 20 years of his life to working with the poor and the marginalized, so I knew that what he would say would be both real and challenging. But what most surprised me was the link that Dave made between friendship and poverty.

Dave is part of an organisation called Urban Neighbours of Hope which believes in transforming communities, not primarily through social programs and structures, but through individuals relocating into these communities to be present with the poor, living alongside them, serving them in practical, life-giving ways. In other words, for Dave, communities and people are transformed through neighbours who are willing to share life and build healthy relationships.

Such a strategy, though, challenges our understanding of poverty. Most of us, living in our leafy rich suburbs would probably define poverty in terms of “lack of” – a lack of money, a lack of housing, a lack of jobs etc. Claudio Oliver, a poverty activist in Brazil, disputes this notion. He asks those who are “not poor”, what if one day you received the news that you had lost all your money, savings, house, job, etc? What if one day everything was taken from you, and you found yourself basically homeless? And then he asks, how much time would it take to find something to eat… a place to sleep… some kind of work? Most of us, through our friendships with others, could find something to eat in a matter of minutes; a place to sleep in a matter of hours; and some kind of work in a matter of weeks.

And so, Claudio Oliver argues that lack of friendship is the key factor in defining poverty. We give billions to the poor, but no-one has been transformed by giving away just money. What we, the rich really need to give away, is ourselves and our friendship with all the associated risk and complication which that would involve. This is the most important thing that the rich can do for the poor – on a global as well as a local scale.

Such insight speaks to what it means to be human. In the original Garden of Eden story in the Hebrew Scriptures there was one thing that was not good about God’s original creation… which was that man was alone. And so God makes an “other” for Adam – someone else to share life and friendship with. The story (however we understand it) suggests that we are not meant to be alone; we are not created for isolation. And so, arguably, it is this “lack of humanness” that is at the root of poverty. The way to deal with poverty is therefore for all of us to actually become more human.

This way of seeing things also speaks to the poverty which is present even in the richer suburbs where homes are built for individual space and to be cocoons of privacy. For many of us the garage door goes up, the car goes in, the door shuts. We can live isolated lives, not knowing more than a handful of our neighbours (if that). Although taking very different forms with different consequences, poverty can be as much an issue for “the rich” as well as “the poor”.

The following are my top ten (in no particular order)…

1. The opening scene in which an alien humanoid drinks from a cup, thus sacrificing his life, in order to bring about what would appear to be creation on earth. There is some similarity with Jesus’ own reference to drinking from the “cup” and thus giving his life. See Luke 22:42.

2. The space-ship “Prometheus” lands on the planet on Christmas day.

3. The name of the planet is LV-223 which would seem to be reference of Leviticus 22:3 “Say to them: ‘For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the Lord, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the Lord.’” The message of the movie would seem to be about the uncleanness of humanity.

4. The large hill-like structure on the planet has what looks like a skull on top. Kind of like Golgotha… “the place of the skull”.

5. The main character Elizabeth who is barren ends up “giving birth”, even though it is a very unconventional birth, with David making the angelic announcement. See Luke 1:36.

6. Some bad happened 2000 years ago – just about the same time that humanity was crucifying Jesus. (We won’t get into the “space-Jesus” theories here.)

7. David washed Peter Weyland’s feet in a scene which reminds us of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples in John 13:1-17.

8. The Captain of Prometheus (Janek, meaning “God is gracious”) with two crew members at either side of him sacrifice themselves to save humanity. Before they die all three raise their hands in the form of a cross. The scene is very reminiscent of the crucifixion.

9. The cross that Elizabeth wears is obvious. It is arguably one of the central themes in the whole movie… and in fact has its own story arch. Elizabeth is a professing Christian grappling with the bigger questions. What I found interesting was how David insisted on taking the cross from her. Why was this? So that she wouldn’t be protected? In the end, after her survival she reclaims her cross to continue, not only her fight for survival… but also her quest for answers.

10. The whole movie seems to be based around the theme of giving life away for the sake of the other as opposed to keeping life one’s own ends or one’s own needs. In the end Peter Weyland would seem to be judged by the last remaining “engineer” because his chief desire is to prolong his own life. The black goo, in the hands of these who are prepared to freely give their lives away (as in the first scene), leads to more life. In the hands of those who want to greedily keep hold of life (humanity) it leads to death. This, I would think, is the ultimate Christian theme.

Life, Above All, a 

As the movie proceeds we find out that her little sister has most likely died of “the bug” – a euphemism for AIDS. In fact, both her mother (Lillian) and her step-father also have “the bug”. And in this rural South African context such a condition brings condemnation and shame, justified by both religious (pseudo-Christian) and spiritual (animist) belief. Lillian believes that her suffering has been brought on because she married against her parents’ advice and outside her own village. She has therefore brought a curse on her family.

The tragedy of the situation is compounded when Chanda’s step-father disappears – not being able to cope with the shame… and with what his wife has done to his daughter. He returns a few months later, clearly physically wrecked by the effects of AIDS. On his arrival back the village come out to show their condemnation (even his former sexual-partner). That night he once again disappears… but this time permanently. Later, his body is found down manhole – apparently pushed in by his fellow villagers.

The village is represented by a seemingly well-meaning neighbour – Mrs. Tafa whose own son has died – apparently killed by a gang. Mrs. Tafa acts of kindness, however, are ultimately motivated by her desire for Lillian to leave the village. This she eventually achieves with the help of a witch-doctor who tells Lillian she needs to return to her family and her home village so as to reverse the curse. And so Lillian, obviously ill and in much pain, leaves her other remaining younger children under the care of Chanda.

Meanwhile Chanda has befriended Esther, another 12 year old, whose own parents have died of AIDS. The result of this is that Esther has been abandoned by her extended family, living in isolation in a small corrugated iron hut. Esther has dropped out of school and has turned to prostitution. Chanda on the basis of her friendship tries to convince Esther not continue, but without any success. The friendship is not strong enough. One evening, however, Esther turns up at Chanda’s – having being severely beaten by one her “clients’. The police had found her in a ditch, but to them she was just a “whore”. She had been taken to the hospital, but, because of her “whore” status, she was not able even to see a doctor. And so a nurse had patched her up and then sent her on her way. In contrast to the rest of sciety, Chanda takes Esther in, not afraid of what her community, and Mrs Tafa, might say… and also despite the rupture of their friendship.

Chanda refuses to give up on Esther. She also refuses to give up on her own mother. And so she sets off on her own to bring her back. She eventually finds her Aunt and her own Grandmother who tell Chanda that her mother’s condition is the result of judgment. But, Chanda challenges them – Why is AIDS judgement and not her Aunt’s club foot. And who has the right to make statements about judgement? Chanda eventually finds Lillian alone in the ruins of an old village, close to death. “I am lost” her mother tells her. But now Chanda has found her and, in perhaps the most touching scene of the movie, moistens her mother’s parched lips with some water.

Chanda manages to arrange for an ambulance to bring her mother home. And there Chanda meets again the anger of the community who, reminiscent of the “woman caught in adult story” threaten to stone her. But it is here that perhaps the greatest redemption of the movie takes place. As Chanda returns with her dying mother Mrs. Tafa remembers her own son, who was not killed by a gang, but rather killed by AIDS. In turning her back on Lillian she has actually turned her back on her son. In this realization she comes out her house and stands with Chanda before the crowd with stones in their hands. Here is life in the midst of shame and suffering and condemnation. And as the movie comes to end, we here the same song, “Open the gates”. This time though, it is not Chanda who is singing… it is the crowd, transformed by the actions of this 12 year old girl and her once condemning neighbour.

The more I ponder Chanda, this brave 12 year old South African girl, the more I ponder Jesus – the one who did not come to condemn, but rather, the one who came to seek and to save the lost; the one who embraced sinners and whores; the one who travels to the far country in order to seek the lost; the one who enters into our shame and suffering; the one who bathes our wounds and gives living water to the thirsty the one who stands with us; the one who has come to share his life with is; the one who brings the open gates of heaven to us.

It is not surprising that when screened at the Cannes Film Festival the audience gave it a 10 minute standing ovation. Here is the recognition of the truth of the human condition, and the sense that this is the kind of life we need to experience – in the midst of shame, suffering and condemnation.

So… the following would constitute my top ten currently on my media player…

1. Fort Atlantic Sampler

A sweet blend of acoustic anthemic folkish rock. The fifth song, “We May Swim” is a classic.

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2. Denison Witmer Are You a Dreamer

Mainly acoustic, but somehow a few melodic grades above the normal… and featuring guest performances by Sufjan Stevens.

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3. Welcome Wagon Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing

Classic Sufjan Stevens produced EP by the Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique. Gospel music like you have never heard it before. “I am not Skilled to Understand” is such an amazing rendering of an old classic.

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4. Josh Garells Love & War & The Sea In Between

Such an amazing creative and robust alternative to the usual bland Contemporary Christian Music.

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5. Rosie Thomas These Friends of Mine

Cute female acoustic sound with the help of appearances by friends Sufjan Stevens, Damien Jurado, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), and Denison Witmer.

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6. Jars of Clay A Collection

These guys always surprise me with their breadth of musical skill and ability and the depth of their wisdom and muturity contained in their lyrics.

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7. The Vespers 3 Brand New Ones, 2 Older Ones, 1 Like ‘Un

Young and talented, often quirky foot-tapping sweet harmonies mixed with banjo but yet with a touch of melancholy.

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8. On Joyful Wings Seven Swans Reimagined Sampler

For fans of Sufjan Stevens – some interesting re-imagining going on.

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9. The Civil Wars Live at Eddies Attic

Grammie winning dou with a great intimate live album.

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10. Andrew Rose Gregory The Song of Songs

A fantastic musical tour through one of the most amazingly poetic books of the Hebrew Bible.

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This is the key message in the Oscar-nominated movie Moneyball which is out on DVD this month. In this somewhat fictionalized account of true events, Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. The movie opens with Oakland (with a $40 million payroll) losing to the New York Yankees (with a $120 million payroll). Beane knows the game is unfair and therefore knows that if he continues to compete according to the accepted rules, he will continue to lose.

The accepted “rules” state that players are chosen by the gut instinct of scouts on the basis of a certain athletic look and particular combination of skills. This is the way it has been for 130 years. And it is this way of “seeing” that Beane sets out to change. Rather than players winning games, it is actually runs that win games. And so it doesn’t matter what a player looks like or what combination of skills they have – what matters is how many runs they can get. This, says Beane to his own backroom team, requires looking at the game differently than they have ever looked at it before. It requires them to pull at a thread that might unravel their whole world.

And of course, this is hard to do. One of the scouts admits that he just doesn’t see it. Beane’s response is simple: “That’s okay [but] we won’t be victimized by what we see anymore.” So, in the long history of baseball, why hasn’t anyone thought like this before? As Beane’s co-conspirator (a young economics graduate from Yale) answers, “High functioning people can live under the spell of an inexplicable mental lapse when they think as a group.” To see things differently requires what feels like a step of faith. Taking this kind of risk, Beane assembles of team of players that most of the other teams would have rejected, and with these players goes on to win a record 20 consecutive games.

The movie ends with Breane driving home from a meeting at the Boston Red Sox who have just offered him a $12.5 million salary. However, Breane is able to see beyond the accepted rules of life so that he does not need to accept a salary which would have made him the highest-paid general manager in sports history. To do this might make him a loser in the eyes of some, but as his daughter reminds him in a beautifully poignant bringing-back-down-to-earth song at the end of the movie, “You’re such a loser Dad, so just enjoy the show”.

In our increasingly competitive culture where we so quickly evaluate our own lives on the basis of the apparent lives of other, we need a new way of seeing… even if it means questioning traditionally held convention which in the end might unravel our whole world. It is not about competing according to the rules. Rather, it is all about changing the nature of the game.

I love his insights, humour and perhaps especially… his humility.

So why did he agree to let his his music be used for a whiskey commercial? Answer: because his dad likes whiskey.

Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, in one of her acclaimed TED talks, makes the point that we live in a culture that tells us there is never enough: that we are not good enough, safe enough, perfect enough or extraordinary enough. And so, much of our lives are lived striving to have “enough”. The result of this striving is that an ordinary life has become synonymous with a meaningless life. We miss out on what is truly important because we are on a quest for what is extraordinary; failing to realize that joy is to be found in the ordinary moments of life. It is these same themes that contribute to the power and beauty of Bon Iver’s Grammy nominated song Holocene.

Bon Iver is the band/project of indie master-craftsman Justin Vernon and if you haven’t listened to his latest album, Bon Iver Bon Iver, you should. (Yes, the weird self-titled repetition is intentional). And if there is just one track to listen to on this incredible album it is Holocene. However, be warned. Holocene, like the rest of the album, is meant to be felt rather than simply listened to. Both the music and language is textured, haunting and evocative; poetry rather than prose; expression rather than idea. It is music that hits you in the gut – calling for an emotional rather than simply a cognitive response.

With Holocene the focus of such response is the repeated line from the chorus, “…and at once I knew I was not magnificent”. Just look at some of the online discussion sites and you will find repeated testimony to listeners being reduced to tears. And this too has been my experience when in the midst of the pressures of my ordinary life, feeling overwhelmed, I have turned to this piece of music for some kind of release. Confessing the inevitable failure of my quest for extraordinariness somehow allows me, like Vernon, to “see for miles, miles, miles”. And in doing so, the joy of the ordinary comes back into view.

And this is exactly what we find in the verses of Holocene which surround this confession. Three verses, each highlighting particular moments in time: the aftermath of drinking too much in Milwaukee; a house at third and Lake burning down; and Christmas with his brother during an ice-storm. The term “Holocene” actually refers to the current geological epoch which began around 12,000 years ago. But it is also a bar in Portland, Oregon. It is in the context of a greater reality that these ordinary moments now take on their real significance. As Vernon states in an interview, “Our lives feel like these epochs, but really we are dust in the wind. But I think there’s a significance in that insignificance…”

For Vernon this is where redemption is to be found – realizing in our lack of extraordinariness that we, and the moments of our lives, are nevertheless worth something; that we are both special and not special at the same time. Rather than run from this sense of vulnerability, it is here according to Brené Brown that we not only find joy, but the birthplace of love, belonging, creativity and faith.

And here is the song… (Note: there is one instance of strong language)…

The other motivating factor is that I have been asked to write a regular column in a new community (Mt Eden) news magazine “The Garden”. It’s edited and published by my good friend David Williams who used to be on faculty at Laidlaw College. This new column will give me the chance to “interpret culture in the light of the bigger human themes” – the sort of stuff I have been trying to, and would want to do, here anyways. So now seems an excellent time for a re-boot… and new title “Four Opinion”.  Fourth Opinion is a word play on the term “Fourth Estate” which refers to ”a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized” …and nowadays most commonly the news media. Rather than news this blog is opinion, and its influence is definitely not consistently or officially recognized.

So… here goes. My next post will be my first column for “The Garden”. Watch this space. And as always… feedback, comments and interaction are most welcome.