Free Radical

"You think you're radical. But you're not so radical. In fact, you're fanatical, fanatical" 

As you might have gathered from my lack of creative output, the last few months have taken their toll on me. Al my energy seems to be sucked into planning a wedding, sorting out council tax bills, finding a house to rent, buying flat pack furniture, making a new house for my wife and I to settle down into, along with working as much as possible in order to keep up with my own spending. 

Rarely is there time to stop and contemplate anything significant, let alone have time to write about it. But today as I take a much needed day of doing nothing I am struck by how strong my desire is to this 'stuff' I am accumulating. I love to make a home, to have a well stacked spice drawer, to have a nice looking living room, to get that superficial fuzzy feeling you get when you look at how nice all your books look on that bookshelf. I have recently discovered the euphoria of the John Lewis Wedding List. What happens is that you upload stuff that you really want but could never afford to buy, and people buy it for you. People are so generous and it feels so good. As I build up metaphorical and literal walls around my life I am aware at how consuming it is. 

However, my greatest fear is to get to thirty and be normal. I am terrified of  having a nice house with nice stuff, fairly pleasant children, and an ageing but still beautiful wife, to make little impact, to justify my lack of radicalism on everything else, to be living in the comfortable prison I have built around myself, filled with responsibility and no way out. Maybe it's just a part of growing up. Maybe I need to become a man and face up to my choices. But it scares me. 

I am perpetually plagued by my own desire to be more radical than I am. I know that Ellie would sell everything and move to the other side of the world in an instant if I asked her so I can't even blame her. She is far less attached than I am to this world we are building. She often mocks me for being like this, but the truth that we both know is that I crave the comfort and stability that normality brings, I lack the courage to cut loose and run to the other side of the world. I am haunted by the words of Jesus every time I open my Bible and my own failure to match up: 

 "When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” "

The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. I have Hungarian goose feather pillows from John Lewis. Foxes have dens, birds have nests. I have a leather chair and a bookcase full of books about following Jesus. I sometimes wonder how comfortable 'normality' really is. Maybe one day in a few years I will make the leap into living like this. Western Christians are convinced they can live with all of the nice stuff, nice houses, comfortable living and still be radical in faith. Perhaps others can manage it, I certainly cannot, or at least I haven't worked out how it is done. It is much easier to play down the radicalism of faith, to water it down into palatable chunks.

 Often I wonder how much of a slave to my own life I am. Sartre was convinced that organised religion was a quashing of man's freedom, a restriction and denial of his true self. Perhaps so. However, Jesus only ever seems to whisper to me- "You are freer than this Josh, there is more for you than this Josh. Let go, and trust me instead". The truth is that following Jesus costs everything: my goose feather pillows, my £200 coffee machine, my beautiful Korg, my ambition, my comfort, my stability, my engraved hip flasks and my ego. However, it offers in return a truly free way of living. It is only in abandoning myself totally to something else that I truly know freedom.

The longer I leave it, the harder it seems to be truly radical.

It Ain't Me Babe

With risk of sounding like a broken record, there's something I feel the church desperately needs to embody. I've written about 50% of my blogs on here about the big picture of the gospel. But I find it so frustrating and I think that now
more than ever it is important to realise this.

Jesus speaks to his people right at the beginning of his ministry and tells them: "you're the light of the world! A city can't be hidden if it's on top of a hill....you must shine your light in front of people! Then they will see the wonderful things you do, and they'll give glory to your father in heaven."

Throughout history this has been the case with the most famous growth in the church- they offer something bright, something distinctive. The church today however, is seen as behind the times, struggling to keep up with post modern, relative culture. I sincerely believe we have a message which is the light of the world.

My knowledge of politics and economics is pretty bad. But it's pretty clear to me that capitalism is in a bit of a mess.
The crash of western economy, mass unemployment, the awful riots that have emerged up and down the UK. Something isn't working.

Capitalist culture is all about me. It's all about the consumer; what I can get. I want an out of season vegetable grown in north africa; I've got tesco. I earn my money, I work hard, I'm entitled to spend it on what I want. I can get pretty much anything I want and get it now. We are very independent but not very self sufficient. If every supermarket shut tomorrow- the UK would be in crisis. We have no community; I cannot pop down the road to my mate bob who grows carrots and my uncle gregg who can get me some milk from his cows. We depend largely on the global market.

And to some extent the church has followed suit. Whilst we might have reformed away from dependence on priests and rituals, we've pretty much replaced them with preachers who know their theology. I wonder what would happen if every church leader dropped down dead tomorrow. What would our churches look like? Who would do the preach? Who would lead the meeting? We've made church into part of our consumer culture. The number of times we say things like "that's not the kind of worship I enjoy" or the number of churches that are filled with pew fillers who come in, hear the talk and then go their merry way. We are consumers of Christianity, not participants.

To me this is sad. It's not the way I think the church was intended and it reflects a deeper truth we need to hear: You are not the light of the world, I am not the light of the world.

The gospel doesn't revolve around my salvation and my relationship at all. It revolves around Gods plan for humanity of which I'm a part, of which you're a part.

Tom Wright claims: " 'you mean I don't have to do anything ? God loves me and accepts me as I am, just because Jesus died for me' ought to give once to a deeper realisation down exactly the same line 'you mean it isn't about ME after all? I'm not the centre of the universe? It's all about God and his purposes?' "

Thats it- he totally hits the nail
on the head I think. It's not about me- it never has been. The church needs to learn this lesson- because if it does, I really think it has the potential to be light in an awfully dark world. Society doesn't need something 'relevant' right now, it needs something different. We are longing for it, society is longing for it- the truth that actually, it's not about me at all.

The world teaches the very opposite- it's all about me. Why do you think it's called the iPhone? Marketing is tailored around making the individual happy, fulfilling the individual needs. But we know it's a lie. Its not about me, it's about us. We are part of something much bigger.

The church needs to find a way to embody this- to become true communities, that stray away from consumerism and to focus on the big picture. We need to start figuring out how.