Daily Byte
People like us to live in boxes. No, of course I am not talking about cardboard ones but rather socially constructed ones. Fitting people neatly into different types of boxes makes it easier to define them. Knowing exactly what kind of box you fit into makes others feel safer around you.
What we often forget is that Jesus refused to be fitted into any of the boxes of his day. Jesus actively challenged his societies many rules of what it meant to be a good and devoted God-follower. In fact Jesus loved to turn popular ideas of how society should be right on their head. Just one such example is how Jesus challenged our notions of leadership when he said things like ‘if you want to be great you must be a servant’, or the ‘first shall be last, and the last first’ (see Mark 10.44 & 10.31). Jesus often proposed upside down ways of thinking like this. Jesus challenged the hierarchies every society seems to have where a small number of people live comfortably on top while many others are left to languish on the bottom. He spoke against religious tendencies to exclude certain people from our relationships because they don’t fit into our narrow definitions of acceptability. In many ways boxes can limit and confine us. Jesus lived beyond the boxes of his day because he taught that God passionately loved all people, and not just those who place themselves at the top of hierarchies. Anyone who feels uncomfortable with their particular box, or who feels left out and on the outside of society should feel recognised and loved by Jesus.
In the same way we are called to live beyond boxes. To resist many of our societies rules and regulations of what it means to be ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’. Some examples of how we might live out of boxes is by not living as if money is the be all and end all of life, or by embracing and not rejecting society outcasts such as the poor, or by loving and lifting others up rather than pushing them down in the race to get ahead.
Over the next four days we will be looking more closely at four different ways that we can actively seek to live ‘beyond the boxes’ and follow Jesus in his way of radical life and love. But to do that effectively we first need to be prepared to hear Jesus’ words of challenge and to obey Him and move ourselves out into totally new ways of life and being. Are you ready to follow Jesus into a life beyond boxes?
Pray As You Go!
Almighty, Holy God, as we sit back and think about South Africa today, we admit how many boxes do exist in our society. Boxes of what it means to be successful (wealthy), of what it means to be meaningful (popular), of what it means to be important (powerful). Forgive us for those times we allow others to squeeze us into neat little boxes and forgive us for when we reduce others in the same way. We ask O’ God that throughout this week, you would open our eyes and hearts to what is truly important in life. Give us the strength to follow you in living life beyond the boxes. Amen.
Focus Verse
Mark 10:42-45 (NIV)
Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Monday, 6 December 2010
Friday, 3 December 2010
Praying Peacekeepers
DAILY BYTE
My husband and I were driving down the main road in our neighbourhood the other day, and as we drove along, I was unconsciously naming the people whose houses we were passing. Then, I started saying ‘hi’ to them out loud. Hi Avril and Geoff! Hi Lucky and Samuel! Hi Candy and Alan and Stephen and Fiona and Harry and Sharon, and so the list went on. We were smiling as we went, and I leaned over, saying, “Isn’t it wonderful to drive down a street and really know that you are surrounded by love?” Isn’t it wonderful to know that if your car broke down, there’s a good chance that someone would come rescue you? Isn’t it wonderful that if you’re in need of a friend or a quiet respite, the homes of your neighbours can be like sanctuaries? Isn’t it wonderful to feel the peace and support of that community around you?
It is wonderful.
And we must work at shaping more communities to look and feel like that.
But of course, it’s not enough to say hi from the distanced view on the street.
The psalm for this week says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
We must not only step out in faith to get to know our neighbours, but seeking peace requires that we then pray for them. How often do we really pray for our city – our neighbourhoods? Rarely, if ever, right?
We usually pray more about personal issues and family relationships, but what about our local block? What about Durban? What about Jerusalem?
In the verses above, the psalmist is telling the reader what to do – pray, pray, pray.
But then in the last two verses, we hear the psalmist own the need to act for herself. She says, “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.”
We must own this mission for ourselves. We should know by now that we can’t leave peace-keeping up to the police, the security companies, or our high walls. We must pray for the police, pray for members of security companies, and pray for municipalities. But, we are the peacekeepers through developing our relationships and our prayer. It’s time to wake up, join the party, and start taking our life together seriously.
Shalom to you now. Shalom, my friends.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:6-9 (NRSV)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they proper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Prince of Peace, as we begin this Advent season of waiting for your coming at Christmas, teach us what your message of peace means for our lives, our local communities, and our world. Nudge us to pray for the politicians and officials who are charged with the maintenance and life of the cities in which we live. Give all of us greater discernment, selflessness, and compassion, as we learn to be a people who usher in your peace through our relationships, our actions, and our prayer. Help us to be faithful, as we seek your good, through sharing shalom with our neighbors. Amen.
My husband and I were driving down the main road in our neighbourhood the other day, and as we drove along, I was unconsciously naming the people whose houses we were passing. Then, I started saying ‘hi’ to them out loud. Hi Avril and Geoff! Hi Lucky and Samuel! Hi Candy and Alan and Stephen and Fiona and Harry and Sharon, and so the list went on. We were smiling as we went, and I leaned over, saying, “Isn’t it wonderful to drive down a street and really know that you are surrounded by love?” Isn’t it wonderful to know that if your car broke down, there’s a good chance that someone would come rescue you? Isn’t it wonderful that if you’re in need of a friend or a quiet respite, the homes of your neighbours can be like sanctuaries? Isn’t it wonderful to feel the peace and support of that community around you?
It is wonderful.
And we must work at shaping more communities to look and feel like that.
But of course, it’s not enough to say hi from the distanced view on the street.
The psalm for this week says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
We must not only step out in faith to get to know our neighbours, but seeking peace requires that we then pray for them. How often do we really pray for our city – our neighbourhoods? Rarely, if ever, right?
We usually pray more about personal issues and family relationships, but what about our local block? What about Durban? What about Jerusalem?
In the verses above, the psalmist is telling the reader what to do – pray, pray, pray.
But then in the last two verses, we hear the psalmist own the need to act for herself. She says, “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.”
We must own this mission for ourselves. We should know by now that we can’t leave peace-keeping up to the police, the security companies, or our high walls. We must pray for the police, pray for members of security companies, and pray for municipalities. But, we are the peacekeepers through developing our relationships and our prayer. It’s time to wake up, join the party, and start taking our life together seriously.
Shalom to you now. Shalom, my friends.
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:6-9 (NRSV)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they proper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.” For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Prince of Peace, as we begin this Advent season of waiting for your coming at Christmas, teach us what your message of peace means for our lives, our local communities, and our world. Nudge us to pray for the politicians and officials who are charged with the maintenance and life of the cities in which we live. Give all of us greater discernment, selflessness, and compassion, as we learn to be a people who usher in your peace through our relationships, our actions, and our prayer. Help us to be faithful, as we seek your good, through sharing shalom with our neighbors. Amen.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Shalom
DAILY BYTE
Yesterday we discussed the meaning of “passing the peace,” but of course this is only how we make contact with people who already have made the decision to walk through the doors of a church. It is a good practice session, though, for learning to be bringers of peace when we walk back out of the doors to spread “shalom.”
The word for peace from Psalm 122 is “shalom.” And shalom is much bigger than a peace of quiet solitude – Nicholas Wolterstorff says:
“Shalom in the first place incorporates right, harmonious relationships to God and delight in his service... shalom incorporates right harmonious relationships to other human beings and delight in human community. Shalom is absent when a society is a collection of individuals all out to make their own way in the world. Thirdly, shalom incorporates right, harmonious relationships to nature and delight in our physical surroundings” (Wolterstorff in Gornik, 100-101).
So, the peace that the psalm is talking about is a peace between us and God, us and others, and us and our physical surroundings – the city. And within the city, our primary places of peace are our own neighbourhoods.
It’s time for us to wake up and join the party that’s around us – to see the bad with the good – and to get to know who our “neighbours” really are.
The psalm says the “tribes go up” to Jerusalem. We are many tribes, are we not? We are many of us different and many of us surprisingly the same. Sometimes I do look around the neighbourhood and think, these people are not like me. But then, other than the people at church, the till ladies I always go to in Spar, and the three other families in my block of flats, I don’t really know who my neighbours are, actually.
Do you? Who are the tribes around you?
Do you know who lives in the block of flats you live in – or who your next door neighbors are? In the block you live in? In your wider suburb? Do you know who our partners for creating peace are? It seems obvious that we need to get to know our neighbors, and yet we spend such little time finding out about them.
But as we heard in the definition of shalom, we cannot be in right relationship with God, and we cannot be in right relationship with one another, if we don’t seek to understand each other and seek after our collective best interests? What are the reasons in peoples’ hearts for all the division and fear and solitude?
Perhaps you might say – Hey – I know my neighbors, but it’s not my neighbors that are the problem – it’s people who come in from other places and disturb our peace that are the problem...
Well, where do they come from? Who are their neighbors? Eventually, the borders will intertwine, and I think we will find that we cannot place all the blame on people from other neighborhoods. Because if we look closely enough, those people will become our neighbors, too. How can you be a bearer of shalom in your neighborhood?
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:3-4 (NRSV)
Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
Yesterday we discussed the meaning of “passing the peace,” but of course this is only how we make contact with people who already have made the decision to walk through the doors of a church. It is a good practice session, though, for learning to be bringers of peace when we walk back out of the doors to spread “shalom.”
The word for peace from Psalm 122 is “shalom.” And shalom is much bigger than a peace of quiet solitude – Nicholas Wolterstorff says:
“Shalom in the first place incorporates right, harmonious relationships to God and delight in his service... shalom incorporates right harmonious relationships to other human beings and delight in human community. Shalom is absent when a society is a collection of individuals all out to make their own way in the world. Thirdly, shalom incorporates right, harmonious relationships to nature and delight in our physical surroundings” (Wolterstorff in Gornik, 100-101).
So, the peace that the psalm is talking about is a peace between us and God, us and others, and us and our physical surroundings – the city. And within the city, our primary places of peace are our own neighbourhoods.
It’s time for us to wake up and join the party that’s around us – to see the bad with the good – and to get to know who our “neighbours” really are.
The psalm says the “tribes go up” to Jerusalem. We are many tribes, are we not? We are many of us different and many of us surprisingly the same. Sometimes I do look around the neighbourhood and think, these people are not like me. But then, other than the people at church, the till ladies I always go to in Spar, and the three other families in my block of flats, I don’t really know who my neighbours are, actually.
Do you? Who are the tribes around you?
Do you know who lives in the block of flats you live in – or who your next door neighbors are? In the block you live in? In your wider suburb? Do you know who our partners for creating peace are? It seems obvious that we need to get to know our neighbors, and yet we spend such little time finding out about them.
But as we heard in the definition of shalom, we cannot be in right relationship with God, and we cannot be in right relationship with one another, if we don’t seek to understand each other and seek after our collective best interests? What are the reasons in peoples’ hearts for all the division and fear and solitude?
Perhaps you might say – Hey – I know my neighbors, but it’s not my neighbors that are the problem – it’s people who come in from other places and disturb our peace that are the problem...
Well, where do they come from? Who are their neighbors? Eventually, the borders will intertwine, and I think we will find that we cannot place all the blame on people from other neighborhoods. Because if we look closely enough, those people will become our neighbors, too. How can you be a bearer of shalom in your neighborhood?
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:3-4 (NRSV)
Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together. To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Passing the peace
DAILY BYTE
We learned yesterday that “Jerusalem” is connected with the idea of founding ourselves in and possessing peace. So let’s let Psalm 122 guide us, as we think about ways of connecting with God’s foundation of peace and ushering that peace in to our own city and lives.
We hear in the first line of the psalm, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And then it says, “our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” So, this is a psalm of ascent or pilgrimage up to the city on the hill.
And these are not words spoken by a weary traveller but one excited to go on a trip!
Perhaps we can think of these words, as we drive or walk up the streets our own cities and towns. I work on the hill of Moore Road in Durban, so as you climb the hill from the city below, you walk through a street that looks a bit like an inner city itself, but a city that holds not just houses of David, cement blocks built with human hands, but a street that holds the house of the Lord.
God dwells here.
So do you think we could be glad – or rejoicing - to climb this hill – to make this pilgrimage every day?!
Perhaps…and when we are pilgrimaging to and in our cities, we hear the words, “Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.” Foundation of peace – built as a city that is bound firmly together.
This phrase is not talking only about the architecture or city planning – the fact that cities are literally squished together. The foundation of peace is the unity of a community – being bound firmly together.
We cannot have individual peace, church peace, community peace, national peace, or world peace, unless we are seeking to be “bound firmly together.”
That binding is actually something many churches work on each week in worship – when we “pass the peace.” After the prayer of confession I usually say, “Now as people reconciled to God and to one another, would you please stand and share with people the peace of Christ?” When I do this, I’m asking people to do more than greet their neighbour and find out the latest gossip. It’s a time to practice reaching out to someone you may not normally touch, take their hand, and with hearts, mouths, and hands extend to them a sign that they are not alone – that they are part of a community – and because of the protection, the love, the affirmation of God through that community, they can receive and keep a deep inner peace.
Did you know it was possible to do all of that in one handshake? What are other ways you might be able to practice sharing God’s peace in and through your own community of faith?
GUIDING SCRIPTURE
Psalm 122:1-3 (NRSV)
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.
We learned yesterday that “Jerusalem” is connected with the idea of founding ourselves in and possessing peace. So let’s let Psalm 122 guide us, as we think about ways of connecting with God’s foundation of peace and ushering that peace in to our own city and lives.
We hear in the first line of the psalm, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And then it says, “our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” So, this is a psalm of ascent or pilgrimage up to the city on the hill.
And these are not words spoken by a weary traveller but one excited to go on a trip!
Perhaps we can think of these words, as we drive or walk up the streets our own cities and towns. I work on the hill of Moore Road in Durban, so as you climb the hill from the city below, you walk through a street that looks a bit like an inner city itself, but a city that holds not just houses of David, cement blocks built with human hands, but a street that holds the house of the Lord.
God dwells here.
So do you think we could be glad – or rejoicing - to climb this hill – to make this pilgrimage every day?!
Perhaps…and when we are pilgrimaging to and in our cities, we hear the words, “Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.” Foundation of peace – built as a city that is bound firmly together.
This phrase is not talking only about the architecture or city planning – the fact that cities are literally squished together. The foundation of peace is the unity of a community – being bound firmly together.
We cannot have individual peace, church peace, community peace, national peace, or world peace, unless we are seeking to be “bound firmly together.”
That binding is actually something many churches work on each week in worship – when we “pass the peace.” After the prayer of confession I usually say, “Now as people reconciled to God and to one another, would you please stand and share with people the peace of Christ?” When I do this, I’m asking people to do more than greet their neighbour and find out the latest gossip. It’s a time to practice reaching out to someone you may not normally touch, take their hand, and with hearts, mouths, and hands extend to them a sign that they are not alone – that they are part of a community – and because of the protection, the love, the affirmation of God through that community, they can receive and keep a deep inner peace.
Did you know it was possible to do all of that in one handshake? What are other ways you might be able to practice sharing God’s peace in and through your own community of faith?
GUIDING SCRIPTURE
Psalm 122:1-3 (NRSV)
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.
Jerusalem
DAILY BYTE
In the scripture from yesterday, Romans 13 says, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers,” so it’s nearer now than ever before! The apostle, Paul, says the darkness of night time is fading away and the day is coming. Now is the time for us to wake up and notice the miracles happening around us and see if there’s a way we can be a part of it.
How can we be a part of the world around us through fulfilling our calling of being a people of peace?
When we think of peace and of peaceful places, we usually picture serene mountain streams and quiet retreats in the Berg. We picture solitude. And of course, it is the case that we need moments of uninterrupted Sabbath rest to feed our souls and restore us. But those moments of quiet restore our relationships – with God and with other people. We cannot stay hermits forever.
It is interesting to me that in our scripture for today from Psalm 122 that the place of peace described is not a quiet, tucked away place but a city.
Jerusalem, specifically – one of the most conflict-ridden cities in the world.
And of course when we think of such a conflict-filled city, our minds also go to our own homes and our city of Durban. Durban is often a difficult place to live – as we hear of and experience ourselves break-ins and other forms of crime – we can find this place significantly lacking in peace.
So what do we do?
We could say what we often say, which is that Jerusalem – and perhaps Durban and other cities where you live – have always been cities of conflict, and they will always be because people simply cannot agree to live in peace and just get along. We could examine new security measures, pondering if we should put up electric fencing – should we make our walls a little higher, guaranteeing that at least when we’re inside of them, we’ll be safe?
Well there’s no use being naïve about the true complexity and grief of the world in which we live. That would make us foolish.
But in the scriptures, Jerusalem is held up not as a city that is destined for perpetual conflict. It is held up as a vision – According to J. Clinton McCann, Jr. in his commentary on Psalm 122:
“Jerusalem represents in the psalms not just a place but a symbol of God’s presence in space and time.” He says “the city has often been viewed as a place to be possessed rather than a symbol of the concrete presence in the world of a God who cannot ultimately be possessed and whose presence certainly cannot be limited to a particular place. To enter Jerusalem is ultimately to experience the reality of God’s reign and to be transformed to represent God’s just purposes in God’s world.”
In other words, Jerusalem is not just a place – it is a calling for God’s presence and justice amongst us. Scholars think the word, Jerusalem, itself means “possession of peace” or “foundation of peace” (McCann, 1184).
What might that vision of a city of peace mean to us in our communities? How might we be called to wake up, see, and be a part of this vision?
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:6-7 (NRSV)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they proper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
In the scripture from yesterday, Romans 13 says, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers,” so it’s nearer now than ever before! The apostle, Paul, says the darkness of night time is fading away and the day is coming. Now is the time for us to wake up and notice the miracles happening around us and see if there’s a way we can be a part of it.
How can we be a part of the world around us through fulfilling our calling of being a people of peace?
When we think of peace and of peaceful places, we usually picture serene mountain streams and quiet retreats in the Berg. We picture solitude. And of course, it is the case that we need moments of uninterrupted Sabbath rest to feed our souls and restore us. But those moments of quiet restore our relationships – with God and with other people. We cannot stay hermits forever.
It is interesting to me that in our scripture for today from Psalm 122 that the place of peace described is not a quiet, tucked away place but a city.
Jerusalem, specifically – one of the most conflict-ridden cities in the world.
And of course when we think of such a conflict-filled city, our minds also go to our own homes and our city of Durban. Durban is often a difficult place to live – as we hear of and experience ourselves break-ins and other forms of crime – we can find this place significantly lacking in peace.
So what do we do?
We could say what we often say, which is that Jerusalem – and perhaps Durban and other cities where you live – have always been cities of conflict, and they will always be because people simply cannot agree to live in peace and just get along. We could examine new security measures, pondering if we should put up electric fencing – should we make our walls a little higher, guaranteeing that at least when we’re inside of them, we’ll be safe?
Well there’s no use being naïve about the true complexity and grief of the world in which we live. That would make us foolish.
But in the scriptures, Jerusalem is held up not as a city that is destined for perpetual conflict. It is held up as a vision – According to J. Clinton McCann, Jr. in his commentary on Psalm 122:
“Jerusalem represents in the psalms not just a place but a symbol of God’s presence in space and time.” He says “the city has often been viewed as a place to be possessed rather than a symbol of the concrete presence in the world of a God who cannot ultimately be possessed and whose presence certainly cannot be limited to a particular place. To enter Jerusalem is ultimately to experience the reality of God’s reign and to be transformed to represent God’s just purposes in God’s world.”
In other words, Jerusalem is not just a place – it is a calling for God’s presence and justice amongst us. Scholars think the word, Jerusalem, itself means “possession of peace” or “foundation of peace” (McCann, 1184).
What might that vision of a city of peace mean to us in our communities? How might we be called to wake up, see, and be a part of this vision?
FOCUS READING
Psalm 122:6-7 (NRSV)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they proper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
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