I wrote the below last year 2007 for FES's World Students' Day...

-----------------------------

“Sleeves Rolled Up”

Again and again, during my times in PKV (Persaudaraan Kristian Varsiti - UM's CF) we were challenged with these strong words: The Church is becoming irrelevant. It was as though the statement was hammered hard into my head, making me ask myself, that whatever I do, can I be part of the solution?

Isaiah is one of my best loved prophet. Not least because the meditation in the book were written during some of the most difficult times of Israel. It is one of those scriptures which seemed to tell us that, hey, "god understand lah...see, some have seen worst problems".

And of course not least because the theme of one of the most dramatic musicals ever produced by the Church, George Handel's Messiah were taken from Isaiah. Handel managed to embody in often tunes of risk and suspense the audacious expectation of hope even as the people of god were facing worst times.

Not least because Isaiah taught my what sort of a god I follow:

"YAHWEH has rolled up his sleeves and got down to work on his global rescue operation" (Isa 52:12)

What god is this! This is a vision of a god who was determined to get personal, who got down into the mud, who got his hands dirty, who insisted on doing it himself to right the wrongs, or to be part of the solution to the wrongs in the world.

And I think a lot of times, to follow the example of the god of Isaiah is precisely that, a determination to be part of the solution and going down all the way where this determination leads us to.

Going home was the first step of my journey. Leaving the promises of KL after my graduation seemed irrational to many people then, but I kept reminding myself, just do it. After all, a migration to seemly land of impossibility has got many biblical precedents, and as we can see, most of the time it works, probably for the fact that these places were not overcrowded with people who cared enough, if not because of god's gracious hand making it work.

Second phase, forgoing or postponing the desire to go to a seminary. I have come to believe, through very very long contemplations after graduation that theology on its own is meaningless.

I mean don't get me wrong, with due respect to many theologians and pastors and seminarians whom I honour and whom I personally know and fellowshipped with now and then, I believe that god did not meant for us "to do church". Instead we are called to "live life". And this involve interacting with all the complexity of human living, in all the areas of our experience, conveniently grouped into the science and the arts.

I believe the study of "pure theology", the study of apologetics, critical as they are, do not present to us the vital tools to engage in such complexity.

But I do not at all despise a good theological education, which I would encourage everyone who is able to embark on it. It's just that, I believe theology must not be seen as a complete field of its own, but rather, like the medieval church, the crown of man's life experience, to be embraced together, not independant of the other areas of our experience. In another word, we must realized the place of theology, including its value and limitations

For this reason, I would encourage Christians who consider taking up a theological degree to consider working on a non-theological degree first or later at a post graduate level.

Theological study on its own is meaningless.

Third, I experimented with "the things we said" in CF and in Church. We talked about being the salt and light. We talked about market place ministry. We talked about being relevant. All within the safe compound of the University. Although those of us in UM (and perhaps some of you elsewhere) knew for sure that even within the University, it was a challenge to live a counterculture Christian life.

I have come to learn since that making Jesus the company's CEO and having little christian meetings within the company (like an office cg or a company cg) are not exactly marketplace ministry.

In my present company, I have worked for two years now, in a junior level of management, heading a team of 5 executives from various departments in the factory.

It was here, I received the rude awakening of a "real world" promised to us beyond the walls of the University. What rat race and what dog-eats-dog world; I found that the sort of Christian living which we talked about - to float above the worldly stuff - can never be successfully embraced unless we become a schizophrenic person, our "real life" on one hand and our "church life" on the other. And this was to be the truth to many of the people we know. Church, with all that she represented on the pulpit become a sort of Sunday thereaputic escapade from the grudges of the grunt jobs throughout the week.

I realized that more than to convert my colleagues and friends at work, my main task is to declare with words and deeds the good news of the renewed Creation.

I chose to see my work as a vocation and realizing that in the newness of life, Jesus the Gardener of Mary (John 20:15) has healed the garden so that our labour is not like that on the old cursed ground. As I show enthusiasm and passion into my work, I am encouraging a sort of awe, "how come work is never toil?"

Step by step, I encourage a more humane management and dealings with the people I worked with - colleagues, clients, vendors. There are many times I came across as strict or uncompassionate by others, but again and again, when my group members came and tell me that it's refreshing working in our team and we are a unique team, I know that there is something different and commendable in what we have done together. It is obvious to everyone at the end of the day, even to the bosses, that our working manners and our team strength are revolutionary within a work environment which has been inculcated for more than a decade.

So you see, within our team, we managed to be as competitive within the industry as possible without negotiating on the real and important thing in life, life itself. I realized the importance to encourage and expand the quality of being a real human being, with a balance in work and play.

Everyone will have work related stress, two persons I know recently suffered from some sort of a work-related nervous breakdown. How then we create a balance one may ask? We did this by bringing in compassion and love and kindness and kinship into our team, making sure work although may be a grudge, no one is without a human support and affirmation and at the end of the day, life is what matters; it is never "the end of the world" at work. You see, I want to encourage the reality of life in the Kingdom of god, life where there is never "the end of the world".

I think in all these, Isaiah's vision of a "god who rolled up his sleeves and got down into the mud" became my vision to spur me on at handling all things with a personal passion. Passion is very important to our religion and I believe that is the force which fuel me, from my journeying back to my hometown to my work place to my whole life. And this Passion can never be more powerful than the passion shown by Jesus, who on the cross, his bleeding and bare naked arm (bare naked arm - that's Isaiah 52:10 isn't it?) stretched across the wood, demonstrated more than ever, the "god who rolled up his sleeves and got down into the mud".

My friends, receive the passion as you gaze on Jesus and receive his Spirit; and start your journey today.

 

 

The Cross, Power and Wisdom

 

First a few words about epistles, or rather letters, in the Bible.

 

In many ways, they appear to us as one-sided documents. In other words, we only hear half the stories when we look into say the Pauline or Johannine letters. All of them, of course including the one we are studying right now, were written in response to a specific issue, intended for a specific audience in a specific time and situation.

 

Without the benefits of knowing the context of the letters, we will not have the pleasure of understanding fully what Paul or John or Peter meant in their letters. Some of you are right to think that that was a call to Bible Study - Friday 8.30pm.

 

Back to our passage, how did Paul ended up talking about the Cross, about Power and about Wisdom?

 

If you would read again from v10 up to v17, you will notice that Paul was making comments about, of all thing, the terrible and dreaded church politics, within the Corinth congregation. People were showing off to one another who their "sifu" was, they were grouping into camps, I follow this "tai loh" and you follow that "tai loh", they were quarelling, they were jealous of one another, they were "competiting spiritualness", they were comparing, they were trying to outsmart one another- I am from the Paul-gang (the 13th apostle!), someone else will said I am from the Apollos-gang (the great professor of NT theology!), and someone else came and say, away all of you, I am from the Christ-gang.

 

This quarrel and power play were to be the dominant concern of Paul's letter, appearing again and again, first here in chapter 1 and then again in Chap 3 and again in Chap 12.

 

It was within this context of quarrel and power-play that Paul began to invite the church to contemplate about Jesus on the Cross as the exemplar of real Power and Wisdom.

 

 

If I ask today, What sort of idea comes to your mind when you think about the Cross? From a different perspective I may receive a different answer:

 

A christian may perhaps say, The Cross is a symbol of christianity. Some place it prominently in the church as an icon, some wear it around the neck and yet some others will say that the cross is the sort of god-ordained burden we need to carry as we follow Jesus. But overall, it has a religious connotation.

 

A youngster, especially those from the rapping and hip-hop community, may wear a huge cross as some sort of accessory or fashion statement. It has a cultural connotation

 

And to a muslim, especially to those the likes of YB Syed Hood Syed Edros, UMNO MP for Parit Sulong, the cross in a former missionary school is at best the symbol of western domination, a reminder of our colonial days and at worst the symbol of a corrupted religion. Again it has a religious and perhaps socio-historical connotation.

 

But what does the symbol of the Cross evoke during Jesus' time in Palestine?

 

First of all, it was definitely not a fashion statement and definitely no one in her sane mind would wear a cross pendant around her neck. Why? Because whether to a Jew or to a Roman, and more especially so to a Jew, the Cross was a symbol of vulgarity. It was an offensive thing. In fact one historian even went to the extent to say that "you don't mention the word "stauros" in polite company" - it's not the sort of words you wanna say in front of your grandmother. It's like a curse word, a foul word in Jesus' time.

 

The Cross was an execution device, perhaps one of the cruelest, because the victim was nailed alive to a stake and left to a slow and painful death, sometimes for days before he actually dies - not because of the nailing but because of exhaustion and mental anguish.

 

But it was the pride of Caesar of Rome. To Rome, the sole and unchallenged superpower of the 1th century world, the cross is the symbol of her power. It was Rome telling to the world, We are in charge. If you don't accept our peace the Pax Romania, if you don't accept Caesar the Lord and King and curiously, the Saviour, we'll give you hell - the Cross.

 

Josephus recorded that about two centuries before Jesus' time, Rome staged a mass crucifixion of about 800 Pharisees, all nailed and left to die before their wives and children.

 

While the Jews' revered Jerusalem stood solemnly on the high grounds of ancient Palestine, the shadows of hundreds and hundreds of crucifix loomed over the great city of kings, as if taking Jerusalem and with her the Temple as hostage. Rome was saying to Jerusalem, We are in Charge. And they did it not least with the Cross, the symbol of their Power.

 

And then Paul said, the word of the cross, the message "Christ Crucified", is the power of god!

 

huh? How come the power of Rome became the power of god?

 

Many of us are familiar with the John Gospel where Jesus was brought before Pilate, Jesus in response to Pilate's cynicism famously anwered in our NIVs "my kingdom is not of this world". We were taught to read the passage as if Jesus was saying "I want nothing to do with this world". I think that is not only a great misunderstanding but also a great misfortune.

 

My kingdom is not [out] of this world (the greek word is “ek”). Jesus' kingdom is not like earthly political kingdoms and empires, built by politicians, political scientists, kings. Jesus' kingdom does not have its origin on earth, it has a divine origin, from god. But it does not at all mean Jesus' kingdom does not operate here on earth. Jesus was tremendously interested in the world, he taught us to pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven". Instead of "I want nothing to do with this world", John's Jesus was more like saying "I don't play the sort of political games you play".

 

God's definition of power is not a corrupted and cruel display of muscles. God's definition of power is not the empty promises of peace and prosperity, our nearest examples are those politicians who are quick to make empty promises especially during election seasons. God's definition power is not the bullying sort, where we reject, condemn and oppress those who are weaker, those who are minorities, those who are different from us. God's definition of power is not the sort of idolatrous, self-serving political power play of Rome.

 

What was god's definition of power? Paul said it, in verses 23-24, we preach Christ crucified, Christ the power of god, the wisdom of god.

 

I always imagined myself what would I have done if I were Jesus. I believe all of us will sometimes ask ourselves questions like this, what it would be like if I were god or if I had my way.

 

1^st century Palestinian Jews believed that god had promised in the ancient prophets that he will himself come back to his temple, defeat evil and become king finally.

 

During Jesus time, although they have returned from the Babylonian exiles long ago, things were not like what the ancient prophets told about. Remember what i said about Jerusalem and the hundreds of crosses. Rome still had the real power - not the Jews, not the Temple, not God.

 

So the Jews, Jesus' disciples, they were looking for a revolution, they were expecting Jesus the Jewish Messiah to be like the great king Solomon, to ride a grand stallion into Jerusalem and lead the rebels to overcome Rome's dark and cruel domination and rebuild or at least restore the magnificent Temple. To them, god HAD to work this way to liberate his people from foreign powers. That's our sort of wisdom - god logically had to work this way. 

 

But what did Jesus do? Instead of a horse, Jesus rode a donkey. Instead of inciting the crowd to violent revolution, he called them to repentance and criticized them for rejecting the things that made for peace. Instead of picking up swords, he told Peter to put down his swords because he who lives by violent means will die by violent means. Instead of rebuilding the temple, Jesus said, "away with your temple system". Instead of injuring his enemies, Jesus took on himself the blows of Rome, the punches and kicks and spitting and flogging. He turned the other cheeks, that's god's wisdom. He went the extra mile, that's god's subversive wisdom. He did not repay evil for evil, that's god's wisdom. He gave himself to the bullying of his enemies, that's god's wisdom. He did not retaliate, he let his enemies do their worst on him, that's god's subversive, counter culture, counter instinctive wisdom.

 

Jesus took on the worst that Rome, representing the kingdom of this world, can inflict on her enemies. The symbol of Rome's bullying power, the Cross. And that was god's wisdom, St. Paul was utterly aware of it. Christ Crucified, that's our message, the power of god, the wisdom of god.

 

Jesus Christ single handedly, while refusing to play the sort of political games the world plays, embodied the kind of wisdom, the kind of subversive, counter culture wisdom which God intended us to follow, a sort of life which do not seek to defeat our enemies by means of violent conquest but by means of becoming lowly servants, serving with passionate love even for our enemies. It is no accident that the climax of 1 Corinthians talks about love in chapter 13. God's wisdom cannot be detached from his nature of being Love. If you are looking for the right sort of actions today, and you don't know what to do, the best and safest bet is to do it with love and in love. James told us that however great our theology is, love ought to be the undergirding principles for actions in real life. That's not too far from Paul in 1 Cor 13. He said, while we put our trust in god and await in hope for the final Summing Up, to love should be our highest priority now.

 

To continue, Jesus embodying god's subversive Wisdom had turned the table against Rome. The symbol of Rome's greatness, the symbol of the overwhelming power of Rome became the symbol of the power of god. In Jesus conversation with Pilate, Pilate said he has the power to release him or kill him. But Jesus knew and told Pilate that the real power was not in Pilate, it was not in Caesar. Jesus gave himself freely out of a passionate love for Israel and the world. He had the power to lay down his life and take it again. How can we be sure? Because on Easter, Jesus came back to life bodily. In his resurrection, he totally emptied the Roman power from the cross. Rome the symbol of dark and cruel power play - evil itself - lost its most powerful symbol that day on the first Easter. Jesus' suprising and powerful act of coming back to life had invested the Cross with the power of new life in god.

 

You have to work this out more thoroughly yourselves in your prayers and meditations.

 

But to help you I end with a very similar story from the gospel:

 

(Mark 10:35-45)

35James and John, Zebedee's sons, came up to him. "Teacher, we have something we want you to do for us."

 36"What is it? I'll see what I can do."

 37"Arrange it," they said, "so that we will be awarded the highest places of honor in your glory—one of us at your right, the other at your left."

 38Jesus said, "You have no idea what you're asking. 

Fast forward to vs 41:

 41-45When the other ten heard of this conversation, they lost their tempers with James and John.

(That’s church politics and worldly power-play – cronyism, nepotism, jealousy, quarrel, division)
Jesus got them together to settle things down. "You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage."

James and John wanted Jesus to place them on his right and left when he becomes king. All of us know who actually was on Jesus' right and left when he was proclaimed King of the Jews - it was the robbers.

Lord have mercy...

...Goh Keat Peng thundered the newly renovated auditorium of PJ Gospel Hall yesterday with strong indictments against the Church of Malaysia: We have chosen to close an ear to socio-political agenda! And even if we are political, we are selfishly selective in our political concern. Do we only care about religious freedom when we cannot get permits for our new church building? Do we only care about religious freedom when a Christian cannot change her religious status in her identity card? What about the freedom of religion for the Buddhists? the Hindus? the Muslims? Orang Asli? What about the immigrants' plights? The oppression of labourers? Gender equality? We are living in the 21st century and only now we ask, "Was Jesus political?"!!    more »

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. (Jn 14:2-3) John 14:1-14 is part of the larger text traditionally known as the farewell discourse which begins at the Last Supper event up to his arrest in the garden. My essay here focuses on Jn 14:2-3 where Jesus talked about the Father's house having many rooms and him going to prepare a place for the disciples and coming back to take them to himself.   more »

Through the dark night in the garden, To the kangaroo courts Through the abuses and scorns To the cross Through the darkness of the tomb To a new morning tomorow Through suffering and death, To life and a whole new world My lord and my god, my soul cries to thee! The poem below is dedicated to Bishop Tom Wright who never fail to impress me with the newness of resurrected life; and to my dearest friends, Leon, Joshua, Dave, Jan, JP, JR, Agora, YACHT - you made life bearable this side of heaven.   more »

We often hear Christians say, we must "spread the gospel", or "share the gospel" (I would personally use the more pompous words "proclaim or declare the gospel"). But as with the usage of other words in any languages, familarity breeds contempt, or rather familarity breeds complacency. Christians may take it for granted that we know and understand this term well. And often, the meaning of words may be diluted in our over-usage.   more »

Even though i am not from a christian family and was not a christian then, my sisters and I used to look forward to christmas. We were not from a rich family, but on christmas eve, the three of us (now there are four of us - latest addition was about ten years ago) will put up socks in our rooms, eargerly expecting a wonderful surprise from old santa claus.   more »

Far from the prying of the pious, and occasionally polite, Church in the East, and in a time still further from our own, Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694 – 1768; Hamburg, Germany) was conjuring quite a storm in the cauldron of New Testament scholarship. He was a curious man, but one of his most curious works   more »