Patsy Way: Jim Carrey and Me

Ok so he’s a man and I’m a woman;  he’s a movie star and I’m not; he lives in America and I live in New Zealand but really Jim Carrey and I, we’re the same. He plays characters and I do too. Bruce Almighty and I, we both often think we can do one heck of a better job at being God than God can do. We both play Truman Burbank, ( I think my Truman is slightly more feminine!) certain that there is a God way up there controlling and conniving, limiting us and enjoying raining suffering upon us purely for His entertainment. Are you shocked that I, a good Christian girl, can think like that?  Me too! In fact I spent most of my life warily watching the sky for that inevitable lightning to head straight for me and strike me down for having such heathen thoughts. But I’m still standing, I’m still questioning and I’m still searching, still grappling for answers to the question who am I, why am I here and who am I to God?

Jim Carrey and I, our characters are both on a quest to find who God is and hoping to find ourselves along the way. As I go through life trying to find my identity I try on different hats, I do a bit of this and a bit of that, yet I come up empty, unfulfilled. I want to be me, I cry out in frustration to God to give me an easy answer to who I am, a guide book, “Patsy for Dummies” that I can order from Book Depository – free shipping included. And as I’m crying out to God, frustrated and impatient, I hear His whisper, “how can you be you when you don’t like who you are, when you don’t know you like I know you?” And that right there is the crux of it all isn’t it? I don’t like me, I’m unsatisfied with who I am and I constantly compare myself to others, always coming out stone last in the very competition I myself created. Most importantly I don’t know the me God knows.

So how do I go about this terrifying journey of discovering who I am, and then liking, I dare say even loving, what I discover along the way? Could it be that the little cartoon boy on the poster in my Second Grade class room all those years ago, had it right when he proudly proclaimed, “God don’t make no junk!” (I’ll ignore the double negative if you will)? What if I were to start treating myself like I treat those around me, what if I build myself up instead of tearing myself down, what if I could encounter myself with unconditional positive regard, what if I loved myself, flaws and all? What if I could finally take the advice given to me time and again to be kinder to myself? I guess the very wise King Solomon got it right when he said in Proverbs that ‘Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel’. Could it be that finding my identity, loving myself comes down to listening to the words Jesus speaks over me rather than the cruel, harsh words I use? Can I lay aside my fiercely independent self, can this wounded healer find the courage to surrender to the Great Physician and allow Him to bring healing to my image of myself? Will I allow Jesus to show me the me He sees, will I believe that me is the real me?

Dr Suess is a pretty smart guy – he is a doctor after all – and he says, “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you”. Here, once again, I am confronted with a Jesus who says He created me to be me, who says he loves this me, this me, not the me I strive to be, not the me I see, but the me I am in His eyes, His beloved, worth dying for. As I go out on this journey of self-in-Jesus-discovery I know that E.E Cummings is right in saying that, “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle and never stop fighting.” I am determined to take off the character masks I wear, I am committing to saying farewell to the cynical Bruce Almighty and the helpless Truman Burbank I have played for too long. I will learn, I will listen, I will make mistakes; and I will change as I grow, as I learn, and as I experience and this is a good thing. I am on a journey to do as Brennan Manning challenges, to reclaim my core identity as Abba’s Child. So whilst I was  Truman, stuck in a false world image of me, created for me and by me, I have come to the end of this world ; I am banging my fist against this ‘self and other’ created boundary and I am breaking out of this limited world. Lisa Bevere reminds me that, the limitless God didn’t create me to be limited. So today I’m going to try be me, to listen to my Jesus when He whispers truth and love to me; and tomorrow I’m going to have to start all over again, then when the next day comes, still I will fight to hear Jesus voiceover my own and I will never stop fighting because, - as L’Oreal and Jesus say “I’m Worth It”.

Suffering, trials and joy. What the...

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

I’m going to have a good hard look here at this particular line in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, three verses that have brought believers a lot of comfort and assurance of God’s love, but have also brought a heck of a lot of debate and controversy. Because of possible significant repercussions for other theology to be built from, this verse should be treated with care and understood in light of what Paul is saying throughout the letter’s argument to avoid nauseating and never ending conversations about predestination and making God sound like a bit of an idiot.

At the centre of all of Paul’s thought is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is mentioned 35 times throughout and is undoubtedly the focus of much of Paul’s attention to God’s working in the world. This is particularly important for interpreting the text in hand with 21 of those appearances in chapter 8 alone. So it would probably be sensible to read this passage with this focus in mind as we try to get into Paul’s head on this one!

It is said that a prominent preacher during the first World War was said to have claimed that Romans 8:28 was “the hardest verse in the Bible to believe.” Paul seems confident that  despite evidence that might suggest otherwise, God is in the midst of the world working for its good. But obviously this raises very difficult questions about the nature of God’s work within the world and the issue of ultimate responsibility of suffering.

It would be a mistake to interpret this in two (perhaps understandable) ways that lead to further problems. The first is to read that Paul is saying ‘It will all come right in the end’ in some sort of universal optimism, and that Paul is simply encouraging people to wait until everything is good at some future moment. The second would be to read that Paul is suggesting that all things, although often negative, are working to achieve a positive goal in a cosmic “the end justifies the means” scenario. But this is not a case of the universe working together for ultimate good in some utilitarian sense, like God is manipulating cosmic events to teach us a lesson or something. We have big problems then when we look at actual (not just theoretical) suffering, events like divorce, death, abuse, genocide and rejection. If we want to argue that God is somehow behind all that then we’ve got a bit of a task on our hands!

In context of the chapter so far with a strong emphasis on God in control of working within creation to bring about His redemptive purposes, and acknowledging very real present sufferings, I would probably suggest that the most coherent way of understanding Paul’s argument would be to read this as “God is working in all things, including seriously crap situations, to bring about good for those who love Him.”

It is to say that God is involved within situations working for good, rather than just using an optimistic and very general bumper-sticker phrase to encourage positivity. Present sufferings are very real for Paul and so he is being very careful to focus on God’s goodness. He continues to do this in the following verses, but as we will see, this ‘goodness’ is really talking about God conforming believers into the image of His Son, not a general remark about having good fortune. Working for good is to made more like Jesus – the trials and sufferings are still just as crappy, but God wastes none of it!

After this, Paul embarks on a description of what God has done for the believer in Christ, reminding us that we lack nothing, we have every spiritual blessing now. Pretty amazing stuff.

I would also suggest that Romans 8:28-30 also helps us to reframe our ideas around suffering. Paul makes it clear in all his letters that real suffering is inevitable, but goes on to explain that although suffering is a very real and serious reality, it is not a hopeless reality. In fact it would seem that it is central to imaging God and being ‘conformed to the image of His Son.’ It is in connection with an acknowledgement of suffering that Paul writes these verses and there it is within suffering that the Holy Spirit is working within these things “for the good of those who love Him.”

Totsengard says it this way: “That is the journey on which the sovereign God is taking us, a cruciform journey for Christ’s sake and in Christ’s image, where the itinerary is by no means only on the heights, but rather in the everyday depths near which we always find ourselves.”

God doesn’t leave us. God turns the crud into gold. We’re made more like Jesus in our sufferings when we allow the Spirit to guide us through it.

Mean.

If anyone wants the full essay hit me up. Here's Sunday's talk on this in engaging with James 1:

Mark McConnell - The Gospel, The Trinity and All of Life

This man is Mark McConnell. He teaches theology at Laidlaw College (the better college). He is from Scotland and was subjected to racism on Sunday night because of this. He's a good guy and brought to us a great discussion of the Trinity and all of life, talking about the mythological god that we create in our distrust of God himself.

Well worth the listen, an well worth checking out the theologians he mentions too.

Included at the beginning is a bit of a story from Sarah Davidson who is part of our community, and we really appreciate her sharing too - some really insightful stuff in there!

Ben Wilson: Pride

I love this church, but there are issues I wish it dealt with better. We talk about nurturing the beaten, the hopeless and the weak. We never give thought to those on the other side. What about those who are just plain awesome - too awesome for their own good? You think life's easy for us too.

Imagine how we feel. We burst at the seams with intellect but we cry ourselves to sleep because most cannot even comprehend our thoughts. We're despised for the good looks we were born with - segregated from the commoners and left to fend alone. We're idealised and placed on pulpits, but when we recognise ourselves we're told it's 'narcissism'. We sacrifice parties and get-togethers in the pursuit of perfect aesthetics so you people have something to look at. Being an adonis is hard...

Lols.

Pride is one of those things people can tell I struggle with, but probably wouldn't tell to my face. According to Catholicism and the 'seven deadly sins,' it's the one vice where all others originate. Needless to say I wouldn't have made a very good Catholic (though apparently I was meant to be). You don't see many people eager to share about their pride, probably 'cause it sounds a bit like, 'I'm a cocky bastard who thinks he's better than you'. Maybe it's time we gave this some limelight. Maybe it's time we blow our trumpets a little and confess our theatrics.

Well, I’m a cocky bastard - and I probably thought I was better than you.

My endeavours on the U.S.S Jackass began at the end of high school. I had been working-out for two years. The double Ds on the chest were developing nicely and I realised something - I was quite good-looking. It came with a feeling of power, confidence and security - and I liked it. I'd strut down public places wearing one of many small-sized shirts feeling like a king. No one was gonna take this away from me, I could call on it any time and it seemed to be magnetizing people.

I enjoyed my childhood. I was well-loved, had many friends and had a lot of things going for me. I always felt clumsy however. Somehow I got the idea in my head that I didn't know anything, or couldn't do anything properly. Much of the time I felt a spectator to life than an active participant. It was a mental block that stopped me from initiating, from trying and being generally productive. I felt like things always had to be done for me.

With a myriad of insecurities, pride gave me power. It numbed many of the feelings I had conjured and gave me a reason to lift my head. People started to notice. My friends started calling me, 'Ben Wilson', like I was a famous person who'd achieved some Hollywood milestone. I saw no reason to give it up, I saw no reason to stop. I wasn't hurting anyone.

You start feeling sorry for people. Sorry because they don't have the aura of limitless achievement. Sorry because they hold their heads to the ground. Sorry as if they'd be lesser for it.

After a few humbling experiences, I began to realise the foolishness of my hubris. What reasons did I have for thinking I was better? None. There weren't any. It was a front. I was trying to make myself feel good. We all try to make ourselves happy - this was my way. There no was legitimate logic behind it.

In retrospect, I suppose I was trying to avoid measuring myself against people. If I was always better I wouldn't be tempted to compare myself and therefore couldn't be disappointed - and I wouldn't have to feel like that little boy who didn't know what he was doing.

Nowadays my pride remains mostly in remnants. It lives on in cute quips made for the greater good of comedy. I still make overtly arrogant comments as a throwback to yesteryear - like a strange in-joke with myself. I'm know where I'm from. I can smile and poke fun at it. I can look back on Pride Rock and laugh at myself.

I don't need to compare anymore. I'm given worth by a maximally-great being who juggles stars and reads the laws of physics like a children's book. If that Person sees me as I am and finds it to be valuable - there's no need to look further.

I have qualities you don't have, and you have qualities I don't have. We're entirely different beasts. I'll help you where I'm strong and you do likewise. You have every reason to love yourself, and love me.

I believe I'm intelligent. I believe I'm capable. I believe I look great. I believe any woman would be lucky to have me. I believe I'm lovable.

But that doesn't make me better than you.

Interview with Fraser Browne

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fraser Browne. Fraser came to speak to us about his experiences with cancer, anxiety, depression and the way that God has continued to be with him. We also got to hear two of his amazing songs. Give him a listen!

More on Suffering: Who is God?

Do these questions feel familiar?

“There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and withal, most just, and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 2.1)

The god described in this passage of writing is essentially the god of classical philosophy. God becomes the idea of perfection, separate from creation in the way he is so different, so impenetrable, so transcendent above us and so impossible to comprehend. And all this is true of course, but not in the sense that there is no way of knowing him beyond an idea of absolute perfection. Getting there somehow by reason and talking lots about ideals tests the limits of our imagination and helps us to sort of conceive of a divine, but it doesn’t help us to know that divine being.

The cross has always been the central symbol for Christianity to draw attention to the sacrifice Christ made on the behalf of human beings, and a reminder of God’s grace. However, to have chosen to communicate His love and grace through this particular sacrifice says much more about the nature of God. However, in most popular writing around this, it does not go beyond the sentimental or symbolic. In his book, Drops Like Stars, Rob Bell muses "Perhaps that's why people... continue to identify with the cross. It speaks to our longing to know that we're not alone, that there's someone else "screaming alongside us." Is the cross God's way of saying "I know how you feel"?”  Even self-confessed atheist theologian, John Shelby Spong sees it as the ultimate expression of who God is, saying “"...the cross is not a place of torture and death; it is the portrait of the love of God seen when one can give all that one is and all that one has away. The cross thus becomes the symbol of a God presence that calls us to live, to love and to be."

But if we are to formulate a more complete understanding of the relationship of Jesus within the Godhead in suffering, we must go beyond divine empathy and using symbolic language around the cross. How is God Himself located within the suffering of Christ and the crucifixion? Nicholas Wolterstorff briefly explores this tension in saying:

"God is not only the God of the sufferers, but the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity have entered into his heart... Though I confessed that the man of sorrows was God himself, I never saw the God of sorrows. Though I confessed that the man bleeding on the cross was the redeeming God, I never saw God himself on the cross, blood from sword and thorn and nail dripping healing into the world's wounds."

How exactly is one to see God suffering in Jesus? This becomes a highly problematic task when God is understood primarily in terms of transcendence, impassibility and distinctiveness without a strong appreciation for His immanence.

What does the cross actually say?

God dies an excruciating, shameful, humiliating, painful and bloody death. What do we even do with that?

Have we become used to the idea of the cross?

Has it become an empty symbol, a shallow trinket?

Why does it not shock us anymore?

How is this God Himself?

some popular ideas about suffering

"God must have needed another angel to stand at his side, ‘cause it's the only reason I have to explain this." These of the words of a relative in the wake of a horrific crash in Helensville last week. It’s amazing how regularly people turn to their own theology of suffering for some sort of comfort. Have a think about what this idea would actually say about God though. This speaks of a God very removed from the experience of human beings and how they respond to tragedy. A selfish God. Perhaps shallow.

The problem with suffering is that all too often the only answers we have to give are in fact unhelpful. They can be shallow, or patronising or get communicated with a “suck it up” attitude. The answers have been sought out by many great thinkers throughout history who have worked hard to develop systems of thought to help us frame our painful experiences.

The questions remain: what does our suffering mean, and what does the suffering on the cross mean for us?

Perhaps the heaviest of these is from the prosperity camp. Read a Joyce Meyer book, hear a Joel Osteen sermon or watch T.D. Jakes and you will hear a message about triumph that actually results in pressure. According to the prosperity gospel, what Jesus achieved on the cross was triumph over all sin and all suffering once and for all. This means that being a Christian is about walking in the Word of God to overcome anything by faith. It also means that if you experience suffering, then it is probably because of your lack of faith, and by obtaining more faith, you’ll overcome it. Of course, this points the finger back on us if we experience pain or discomfort. We’re supposed to live in “total victory”. In a suit.

There’s a tragic story of a pastor in America who believed that if you got sick, it was because you didn’t have enough faith. And then his wife got cancer. This guy was faced with a choice: change his doctrine and rethink his views on suffering, or actually believe his wife somehow brought it on herself. Unfortunately he chose the latter and publicly rebuked his wife. This is not a good framework to work from.

On a different wave length, the Catholic church has traditionally believed that suffering itself is redemptive. That Christ’s actual pain and suffering on the cross is what brings redemption. Think back to the Passion of the Christ movie, a very catholic piece of film making. In one scene, Jesus is carrying his cross through the middle of Jerusalem and falls in exhaustion. Mary the mother of Jesus runs to his aid in amongst flashbacks of Jesus falling as a child. What the film is depicting is quite deliberate. Jesus speaks the words “Behold, I make all things new” (something taken by the script writers from the end of Revelation) and is in communion with those that share his suffering. Very clearly we see the mentality that the suffering itself is what is making things new, and those that suffer with him are counted as friends.

This has led many from within the Catholic faith at different points in history to develop practices of self-harm or at least hold a view that suffering in itself joins us with Christ and redeems. Suffering is a way to draw close to God in very simple terms.

Our Protestant Reformational tradition says that Jesus’s suffering was redemptive from a more transactional point of view, that sure, he endured physical pain, but the real suffering was about His separation from the Father. The cross was redemptive because of the transaction of sin and for what it teaches us about God. It says that suffering is the means that God uses for His good ends. It is often joined with views that God is sovereign and therefore in somehow behind all pain we endure in order to teach us something or to build character. Preachers like John Piper are strong advocates of this view and in their desire to emphasise the sovereignty of God, stress that in some way God is behind all suffering.

So who’s got it right? There is certainly some truth in every view. In order to hold a reliable system to go from we need to have a firm understanding of the nature of God and how it is that unchanging God can be affected and therefore changed by reality.

How can God suffer and still be God?

what is up with suffering?

Over the past few years, I have become near obsessed with the issue of suffering. It's strange really, because it's not like I've experienced huge amounts of tribulation or pain myself. I guess what I have begun to realise is that God so closely associates himself with suffering, and I find this intriguing. I have begun to ask myself the question: what if there is more to suffering than just trying to avoid it? It seems that it is not something that God is interested in simply getting rid of, but an important part of the way He reveals Himself.

Suffering is a significant roadblock for a lot of people, and it is no surprise. How is a human being supposed to reconcile a supposedly loving and all powerful being with the fact that a family member is suffering from a debilitating disease and is in huge amounts of pain? How can He just watch rape, genocide, starvation and terrorism and apparently sit on His hands? This problem is not to be analysed under the microscope of the ivory laboratories of theological debate, but in the messy, excruciating, desperate realities of real existence on this risk laden planet.

The problem of suffering is referred to in theological spheres as “theodicy”, meaning the ‘justice of God’. Discussion usually centres around this age-old conundrum: If God is good then he can’t be all powerful if He lets people suffer. But if He is all powerful then He can’t be good if He lets people suffer. Therefore God cannot be both good and all-powerful at the same time. Consequently, the God of the Bible that claims to be both of these things is nothing more than a revered fairy tale and a cause for tribalism.

But then there’s Jesus. Jesus who actually was good – goodness in the flesh. God Himself. But instead of preventing suffering and exercising some sort of divine control and separation from pain, Jesus enters into pain, social isolation and extreme physical suffering. He chooses to. If Jesus is truly God (and if you’re a Christian, then that’s you my friend) then Jesus is revealing who God really is, and God’s stance to the problem of pain. God enters into it; he doesn’t put an end to it. What on earth do we do with that? All our theology needs to begin with Jesus, and if our theology of suffering does too, we need to begin all our discussions from the cross.

Unfortunately, our tradition has offered some less than helpful answers to the issue, looking to defend God in what seems to be some sort of pious Stockholm Syndrome. Some of these thinkers sound a lot like Job’s friends offering suggestions that seem reasonable explanations to them, often blaming the sufferer or appealing to some sort of “the ends justifies the means” argument. I heard the story of a woman who suffered a miscarriage and while in hospital recovering, her well-meaning friend suggested that the reason her baby had been taken away from her was because “God looked around Heaven and decided that He needed something to brighten the place up.” The woman had to use every ounce of self-control to not say something nasty back to such a ridiculous response. We must do some good thinking around here since it is a place that so many people fall off.

John Newton suggested that we suffer so that we don’t become too attached to this world and keep our eyes on Heaven. John Piper thinks that our suffering is a means to greater glory and is evidence with your union with Christ (why non-Christians suffer too then, is a mystery). James Boyce wrote it is necessary because there is no other way to build character. While there is truth in these statements, they are flimsy and shallow once applied to real situations, like a road worker shot down senselessly in south Waikato this week. The question remains: What is God up to?!

Over the next little while I’ll be looking at this whole topic in more detail, but for now, perhaps we need to change our perspectives around this. Instead of framing suffering around ideas of injustice, how do we frame all suffering in light of the cross? God suffers. How does that even work? And what does that mean for the suffering of human beings?