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.

Helplessness Blues

I'm wondering recently if at times our view of 'the gospel' is inherently selfish and individualistic. I wonder if concentrating on my own salvation and restoration as the full extent of God's rescue that we miss something astounding.

My 'shift' in thinking is summarized really poignantly by a song I've obsessively listened to since it was released. Occasionally you find a piece of music which speaks exactly where you are at, as if you'd written it yourself- the opening line of 'Helplessness Blues' by the Fleet foxes is:

"I was raised up believing, I was somehow unique like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather by a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me. "

I don't think that Robin Pecknold is singing about the majesty of God's rescue plan for humanity for a second. But for me it epitomizes something that's been running round my head for a while; what if our focus on my redemption from sin is at times an unhealthy one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not for a second saying that Jesus didn't die for me, that he didn't forgive my sin or that the gospel isn't about freedom from sin.

Let me put it this way. Suppose someone creates the most beautiful jigsaw puzzle that's ever been created. It's a unique work of art, carefully crafted; each piece individually molded and shaped to fit the other. Each piece carefully and intricately detailed, painted and beautifully glazed. Now suppose there's billions of pieces to this jigsaw, and each human being is allotted a piece of the jigsaw. I could marvel at the beauty of my piece in the jigsaw, how sublime it was, how detailed and how I am so blessed to receive it. I might even spend my time trying to tell those around me how beautiful their pieces were, and help them to see.

In my mind, if I only do this, I have the risk of missing the beauty of the jigsaw as a whole; my beautiful piece of jigsaw is tiny, you wouldn't even really notice if it was missing. And despite it's beauty, it just doesn't compare to the beauty of the whole jigsaw.

Maybe we have a tendency to do this with 'the gospel'. It is breathtaking that God loves me, Josh Cockayne, so much that he would die for my sins. But how much more breathtaking is the full picture than that? So much of the imagery in the New Testament is about the Church, about the restoration of Israel, about the Bride of Christ. At the end of the day, if I was missing from the Bride of Christ, it wouldn't look much different, it wouldn't be that much less beautiful. I'm humbled to be a cog, a speck, a jigsaw piece in the redemption of humanity.

At the end of the day, God came to rescue us not me. It's not that I'm denying that God cares for me, or that I matter to him, but rather that focusing on me and how great it is that I've been forgiven is dull compared to the majesty of God's saving plan for humanity.

The 'me centered' gospel not only misses something majestic, it also makes us incredibly blind in some ways. It becomes all about each individual, and creates a one-up-man-ship evangelism. I remember a guy I once met who tallied how many souls he'd saved in the front of his bible, like medals on an army uniform. At the end of the day, his work might be impressive, but compared to the body of Christ, it's pathetic. Although we never say it, there is sometimes an underlying competitiveness about Christianity, who can reach the most people, who can pray the best prayers, who can make the most profound point in cell group.

I wonder when I'll realize that it's not really about me. That God never intended to save 'Josh Cockayne'. I've heard people say that "if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would have still died for you". I'm not sure if that's actually true to be honest. The 'gospel' in its richness and its fullness is about humanity and not about humans. It's about the Bride and not about her dress, it's not about how good she's done her hair or how nice her shoes are. Whether you like it or not, we come as a whole, we come as a Church, and as a bride. We need to start thinking a bit more like one.

And at the end of the day, it's true, I would actually much rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.

The Graduate

Jesus says "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food, and the body more important than clothes....Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own"

I think that's a bit mental.

I've never really understood the potency of those words until now. I was born, brought up, went to two different primary schools from the age of five until I was ten. Then I left to go secondary school. At the age of fifteen I moved to Wigan and joined another secondary until I was sixteen, then started at a six form college. After that I applied to study philosophy at York University, and have studied here until now, aged twenty one. Since I was five years old my vocation has been set in stone. Sure, I've had choices to make along the way, which college, which a levels, which university. But on the whole I've pretty much had my path set before me. I've studied as a full time thing- it has been what I do with the majority of my time for the past sixteen years. Last Friday I handed in two essays. And now that's it. I am no longer a 'student'. I am no longer defined by that little word, I no longer spend all my time studying. At the moment, I'm not really sure what I am instead. Nothing defines me.

So what now?

I am left with an uncertain future, I don't have a clue where I will be, what I will do, who I will be.

One of my favourite films is the Graduate, the character Benjamin has just graduated from University and is experiencing the same anguish that I'm talking about. He ends up having an affair with an older woman, and then falling in love with her daughter. In the end he runs away with the daughter. At the end there's this absolutely brilliant shot of him sat on the back of the bus with the bride he's just stolen from another man. And the look on his face is still the same discontent- he doesn't really want this. He doesn't really know what he really wants. He just kind of jumps at what takes his fancy. But ultimately he doesn't have a clue who he is, what he's living for, or what he will be.

Benjamin Braddock says "I don't have a clue who I am, what I want from life" Jesus says- "Don't worry". I say to Jesus "I don't have a clue who I am, what I will be, where I'll go". Jesus says- "don't worry Josh".

Until now I haven't realised how astounding advice that actually is. When I'm facing such an unknown, when I have no stability, when I have nothing that defines my every day Jesus simply says: "do not worry about your life". I can't even begin to take what Jesus says seriously. Trusting God when I have a plan is really easy. Trusting God to help me with my a levels, point me towards the right university, help me be a Christian on my course- not worrying about those things has been pretty easy. But trusting God now is so hard.

I have to tell myself those words every day. I have to begin being defined by a life living for Jesus. Because now it's about the only stability I have left. I don't want to be like Benjamin Braddock, who jumps at whatever makes him feel alive, who is never really content with his decisions, who uses people to define his life. Because he isn't satisfied and ultimately, he's still probably pretty worried. I want to be the person with enough faith to say, I don't worry about tomorrow because I know God will provide, I know God will direct me. I want to be defined by Christ, and I want to say "I will not worry about my life".

That's pretty hard. Maybe I'll get better at it eventually. At the moment I'm still having difficulty really shaking worry.

Downfall

I took my girlfriend to her first ever football game this weekend. It was dire. Sheffield Wednesday vs Notts County- Wednesday lost 1-0 to a penalty. The rest of the game was just lobbing the ball from one end of the field to the other, with barely a chance on goal. I grew up a Wednesday fan, I remember watching them take on Premier league giants like Chelsea at Hillsborough. I remember the late nineties stars- DiCanio, Carbone, Kevin Pressman, Des Walker. It's got pretty bad since then. I remember the relegation from the premier league, then the relegation from the Championship. The nail in coffin was losing 3-2 to Crystal Palace on the last game of last season and sinking back down to League 1. This season we've lost a manager, half of the squad, half of the fans, and are sitting comfortably in 17th place. Brilliant.

I've never seen Hillsborough as empty as it was on Saturday. I was taken aback a bit when the announcer said that the attendance had been nearly 17,000. That's pretty low for Hillsborough. That felt pretty empty. That's a sign of how bad things have got.

Let's not get delusional about the state of the Church. It is exciting when you get 80 people along to an Alpha course. It's brilliant. It's 80 more people that might get a chance to hear that God can transform them. I don't want to belittle that.

But we need to realise how serious this is. My Church is way above average for Church attendance in the UK- about 150 people come along on a Sunday. That might seem a lot. But it's not. 17,000 people are willing to watch an awful game of football. About 1% of that are coming along to my Church. What's going wrong?

People just don't want it. If you asked the majority of the people at Hillsborough on Saturday they would tell you that Church is dull, it's irrelevant, they don't need it. Are they right? Part of me looks at those numbers and is tempted to give up to agree with them. Let's just let this thing die out and stop clinging on to the dying remains of an irrelevant world view that has no place in our culture.

But if we really believe that this is true, that Jesus can transform people and save them, we can't just keep plodding along. We can't give up either. This is desperate. There is no room for complacency and half heartedness in the Church any more. If we really believe this we need to step up, and get on with it. If we don't, we need to stop clinging onto this for the sake of security, attention and something to do on a Sunday. Because there isn't any room for that. The stakes are too high.

We belong in the Premier league- Jesus Christ is Lord of all. At the moment we're playing Sunday league football. There's a long way to go.

Takeover

I was sat in a Merleau-Ponty lecture this morning and my mind wandered from the topic of an phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds (as it does...) and I started thinking about this weekend. I went away with a bunch of blokes from our Church and I was really challenged that we need to step up, we need to reignite the sleeping Church, to start reaching men and showing them what it means to be followers of Jesus. But I'm not entirely sure how much of a 'follower of Jesus' I really am. I need to figure this out before I can model it properly to other people. And so I wrote this prayer on my notes: Jesus, be part of my study, be part of my imagination, be part of my concentration, my reading, my lectures, Amen.

I am starting to realise how important it is to make following Jesus not just about praying more, reading more of the Bible more, going to Church more but starting to let Jesus transform the mundane. Being part of Crunchy nut cornflakes and belgium beers. Being a part of 15minute showers and 2hour lectures on consciousness. It's easy to write prayers like that, it's not easy to see what that looks like in actuality.

I have a mate who told me that he had a conversation with some friends the other day who said to him "you always bring Jesus into every conversation don't you" to which he replied "that's kind of the point isn't it?". The point of being a follower of Jesus is not that we live enhanced, that we live 'better' like we're living on a kind of upgraded life to everyone else. Jesus says (matt 16:25): "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."

Living a life focused on following Jesus is about living every part of our lives for him. The exciting, the mundane, the Churchy, the cheeky kiss with the girlfriend, the coffee with your friend, the phonecall with your mum, the bank account, the DVD collection, the degree. God is interested in all of it. And unless we learn to know what making God a part of all of that, unless we learn how to 'lose our lives' for Christ, we won't ever find our real lives, our Christ centred lives.

We can reinvent Church a million times over, have a preach in a pub, preach in a coffee shop, sing coldplay instead of matt redman, have interesting table discussions, we can pioneer all the forms of fresh expressions we like, grow as many cell groups and clusters as we can. But unless we start modelling real discipleship, real following in every aspect of our lives, we won't grow.

We might have more people in meetings, more 'converts'. But I think there's a definite difference between converts and disciples. I'm not satisfied being a person who turns up to Church every Sunday and cell group every Thursday just to go on living and acting like everyone else. I want Christ and the kingdom movement to infest every aspect of my life. Otherwise I will lose my life.

I don't know entirely what it looks like to be honest, but I think it starts with realising that we cannot segment our spiritual and normal lives. If we've given up our entire live to follow Jesus- the pint in the pub with my mate is just as much living a life focused on Jesus as the two hour sermon on Sunday. The reading a great novel, listening to a great album is just as much worshipful (or at least should be) as singing Tim Hughes songs on a Sunday. We need to start seeing God in more things rather than less things. Otherwise it's going to be impossible to live devoted, Christ centred lives. I'm not suggesting that we all stop meeting in Church meetings, that we stop preaching sermons, stop writing crap worship songs (ok maybe I am suggesting we should stop this...) But rather that it just isn't enough. It's not enough for a Christ centred life to just do these things more.

We need to stop the attitude which says the only things that are of value, the only things that are worshipful and the only things which are focused on Christ are the things of organised 'Church'. I'm challenged to rethink what 'Church' is, what following Jesus means and how I can make that prayer I wrote on my lecture notes an outworking in my life. That's what I'm striving for.