AT an underground Bible College that protects its covert identity with great care, I got the right to take a picture only after making promises it would never reach the internet. The place of this school is in one of the many umpteen cities in China with over 1m population (it’s projected that 12yrs there will be 200 Chinese cities exceeding 1m). A factory owner became mysteriously convinced that the building he was operating in was haunted and bringing him bad luck. He promptly sold it at a ridiculously low price and the school bought it. It’s in the middle of this giant city up against a little hillside and scarcely anyone knows it exists. Students must not leave the building and even I could not walk around outside the school (which looks like a closed factory from the outside.) Over 100 students live for months on end inside this transformed factory where they eat, sleep, study and worship. In late September I was in the bowels of this place, that reminded me of the catacombs in Rome. Luther’s refurbished Pauline ideas of how to live were given an airing …”the just shall live by faith”. Has any one graduated from this school? Is this faith a piece of cake as we say? Luther would argue we’re all in kindergarten and anyone that says he has mastered this way has likely either forgotten it or never known it. The natural and broken elements lodged in the human heart cause us to recoil from trusting this unseen foundation of grace the Father has put under our lives, in Christ. Mere Apostolic words preached and heard, and the subtlety of the Spirit urge us beyond our comfort zone to rest our lives on the Invisible. These subjects and others replaced the buzz, grinding and fitting of metal gears and parts. Surely the neighbors must be saying to each other “something’s happening over there but I don’t know what it is”
Monthly Archives: September 2012
My Cambodian experience– A Mekong Meditation
A Mekong Meditation
My last day in Phnom Penh was Saturday September 8. That evening I was flying out at midnight to Shanghai in route to Wenzhou China. My class had gone well and the students wanted to celebrate and send me on my way with a special gesture of good will and gratitude. At 6 o’clock in the evening we drove into the city center and parked along the great Mekong River. They had struck a deal with a boatman for a 2-hour cruise. Lugging chests of food and soft drink and a guitar to the upper deck we began to sing, play games and visit. Its was a perfect evening. As twilight cast its shadows the fading sunlight and the city lights began a magic dance with the water. I was feeling really good – so happy I had been invited to Cambodia. And I knew it had gone well. Students had told me. And one student herself a teacher – the young leader of the City Church had prayed at the conclusion of the final class thanking the Lord that to them – a new generation of Christian leaders in Asia the way forward, the way the Gospel could now be taught and preached had made its debut and “Lord please don’t let what we have learned slip from our grasp”. Whilst I was basking in these thoughts enjoying the verve and energy of these beautiful youth a sliver of angst crept into my mind. I was disturbed with a little twitter in my mind that refused to dissipate – I began to realize almost surely I was going to be called on to speak one more time. After all this was not only a going away party but a mission out reach. All of their celebrations and gatherings are! They had invited a few non-Christians – Phnom Penh up and comers.
Little by little more and more young people are distinguishing themselves developing their talents and starting businesses. Cambodia is changing and a middle class is emerging. Phnom Penh is a robust bustling city emerging from the shadows of its dark past. The long hoped for future is entering the present. English is well within their grasp more than in Thailand or Lao and new creative economic opportunities are irrupting left and right.
Sure enough teacher Mackal, leader of the City Church, a Malaysian, herself a wonderful force to be reckoned with, glanced over at me and I new instantly I had to leave the dream moment and if possible deliver words to my new friends one more time. The following are the gist of my thoughts spoken on the deck of our tour boat on great Mekong River around 8:30 pm September 8. I wanted to keep it clear and simple.
Crawling Out From Under the Down Side of Trouble:
Look and Live
The difference between good religion and bad religion is very simple and clear. The former directs the attention to the self – its plights and pleasures, its short fall and /or its gains. The latter directs the attention to something bigger than the self, something outside and above the self. David felt the power of good religion slipping out of his grasp and he cried out “lead me to the Rock that is higher than I”. This prayer is akin to a popular refrain “Love lift us up where we belong, on the mountains high where the eagles fly”. Its really this simple! The vicissitudes as well as the victories in life mix with a bent lodged deep in our natures and turns our minds inward so that we become self focused. Inside our subjectivity our experience of life whether good, bad or ugly become enchanted and magnified. Bad religion intensifies this proclivity and capitalizes on it. The feats and defeats of life become infused with an emotional weight causing us to lose our balance. The inward preoccupation is like a toxic romance we cannot extricate ourselves from.
Follow me as I play with this idea. Consider Luther who was caught in the grip of bad religion which wonderfully focused his mind on himself and his failures. Once he turned inward there was no coming back. He went further and further inward searching after not only right action but purity of motive, what Scripture calls ‘the thoughts and intents of the heart” [Hebrews 4:11]. And try as he may he couldn’t get it right, couldn’t wrest any peace from his cycle of confession, absolution and acts of penance. No peace, scarcely a moment –why? Because he was looking in the wrong direction -to the church and to his struggle not only to do right but be right through and through heart and hand, body and spirit. Then something unexpected and ecstatic occurred. Because his job was to be a Biblical Scholar [rare even at that time Luther possessed an earned doctorate degree in Biblical Exegesis – a calling he did not chose but was saddled with by his superiors] he had to study and lecture on the sacred text. In doing so while at the same time caught in this religious quagmire just escribed he bumped into something bigger, something gracious, something outside, above and beyond himself.The name of this something was the “righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel” Romans 1:16-17. In time he came to realize this righteousness wasn’t in him but for him, wasn’t on earth but in heaven, wasn’t spun from the webs of his goodness nor destroyed by his badness but derived root and branch from God’s passion in Christ. Nor did the church possess and mediate this saving righteousness requiring poor sinners to look to them. Looking away from himself and the church to this bigger thing set him free – free from the inward gaze and free from the toxic religion that intensified and capitalized on the subordination of his spirit. Later Luther came to describe sin as “man curved in on himself”.
Consider Israel, a band of runaway slaves in the wilderness making that ugly trek from Egypt to Canaan. In one moment they witnessed the power of their new God Yahweh delivering them and were drawn out in praise [Exodus 15:1ff], lost in awe and wonder and in the next moment they turned down ward and inward and focused on the drudgery and scarcity of their journey. Follow me here because the retell you are about to read takes a surprising twist. If you have read the story as its scripted in Exodus you will recall the people fell under the grip of the downward inward gaze.
Loosing sight of the wonder of what had happened in the Exodus deliverance and the sustaining miracles that followed they began to focus on their deprivations. Self pity overcame them. Everything they didn’t have grew in their minds eye until they became toxic and ugly. Literally they got right up in Moses’ and God’s face and belly ached about all that was wrong with their lives and all that was lacking and all that was unbearably hard in their journey. Their dark downward and inward gaze heated up and over took them and seduced them into ugly self centered ingrates. At this moment poisonous snakes slithered out from every rock and bush in the valley and faster than grease lightening came on them and latched hold of their fleshy parts sending deadly venom surging through their veins. All this you most likely know full well but here is a fitting irony in this story most often overlooked. Their deadly plight now turned their minds even further inward. If they thought they had problems before now their problems were multiplied thousand fold. If they were focused on their problems before now they were wonderfully obsessed with themselves.
Staggering, eyes blurry, tongue bloated they were brought right to the brink of death. The experience sucked them inward so far that their minds were bursting with fear and trembling. And what was the cure? Mind you it was the same cure they needed an hour earlier swimming in their pity like a deer caught in a swamp. Before they needed to get out of themselves and the negative inward and downward spiral that they were caught but could not break because they would not. Now they were driven a thousand times deeper into themselves where dread and fear fuse into a nightmare. Crying out to Moses for help God instructed the cure.
Mind you the problem indeed was inside them. Poison was coursing through their veins. Surely the medicine would be in kind – a powerful potion cooked up from bitter roots and bark ingested? If we cannot see the surprise and riddle of true religion in this antidote that God called for what hope is there to help us! God told Moses to put a serpent on a pole and lift it up and instruct the people to “look and live”! They were invited to look away from themselves and their problem (s), look away from their dying bodies. Look away from their diseases no matter their magnitude real or imagined. We are not going to get it right by going inward and a religion that proposes to go inward and clean us up and cure us will founder as well. All that God is to us and all that God does for us revolves on the axis of getting us out of ourselves by turning our attention to something bigger. This something is a gracious loving God that in Christ damned all that damns us releasing blessing and life forever more. “If I be lifted up”, lifted up like the serpent on the poll that Moses raised high above the people Jesus tells Nicodemus “I will draw all men unto me”. When we are drawn to trust something- some one bigger than ourselves – namely the God who has come into view in Christ this is called faith, and faith climaxes in doxology. .
One further consideration is required to bring this meditation to fulfillment. Not only the bad in and around us can subvert us but the good as well. The Pharisee that went into the temple to pray was seduced by the good of his life [ at least what seemed so good to him]. Looking upon and seeing it in his imagination, feeling it, comparing it with other’s paltry righteousness he was seduced – thrown of balance, pulled out of dependence on something higher and out of compassion and brotherhood with his neighbor [the one near by]. “I thank you God I am not like other men especially this degenerate tax fraud across the aisle. The Publican on the other had launched out into the deep in a wonderful attempt to rescue his soul. He was on a rescue mission in search of something bigger, higher and more merciful than anything found within his accusing conscience or his damning fellows. He needed a God size mercy to out reach and trump the damning voices within and around him.
Anything can suck us into the downward inward spiral. It can be the threat of poverty and want which baits anxiety and stirs up frantic all consuming attempts to get our material physical needs secure. It can be our solitude that at one moment we enjoy but then turning a corner in life stirs up feelings of loneliness and tempts us into a spiral of self pity and beyond to desert places where angels themselves fear to tread. It can be our love life gone bad. Life has a thousand tricks up its sleeve to subvert our doxology and turn us into miserable inward looking naves and ingrates oscillating between pride and despair, between anxiety and presumption. Thankfully the Gospel brings into view something bigger – something outside and above us. Without this bigger thing to trust in that has secured and will secure our lives in merciful love our predicament would be hopeless.
Balance a long broom on your index finger whilst looking downward at your navel or the finger on which the butt rests – it is nigh unto impossible but change your focus and look out and up to the broom’s head and its easy. So it is with life and religion. Bad religion takes you on an endless journey inward but good religion draws you out to something bigger where the freedom to trust, worship and serve become possible.
These preceding words are dedicated to my students Cambodian, Chinese and Malaysian:
Kuaxuan Jian (Daniel)
Lim
Nhean Sungi (Pastor John)
Kim Chi
Lun Seng
Loh ming Luan (Michal)
Ir Chhay Hout (Joshua)
Chee siew fen ( Natalie)
Sok Tha
Catherine
Xiao yan ( Ruth)
Yang lei (Mark)
And also to their friends like Anis who I morphed into Natalie, to Judges Joshua’s brother whose name isn’t Judges and other beautiful young people and whose names escape me but also last but not least the young designer who is seeking. [For the anyone seeking to mediate on the above devotion the following are a few verses from scripture to reflect on Hebrews 12:1-3, Philippians 3:17-21 (Especially vs 19&20) John 3:14-16 and 2 Corinthians 4:18]
Cross Cultural Mission School, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
A couple days before I was to start lecturing I arrived in Phnom Penh. I wanted to see the city before I checked in with t
he mission school so I took a room a near the Mekong rented a bicycle and peddled around for a couple days.
This is the first thing I learned and anyone from the West who has been to Cambodia will attest to this fact. Before venturing onto the streets either on foot but more so on a bicycle one should complete and sign a last will and testament. Phnom Penh is every woman and man for himself and it is impossible to look in every direction a vehicle is approaching. Traffic is like the nest of billiard balls just after the first player breaks the set. Miraculously none of the balls collide except when they do. I survived. I have been to Calcutta, Thailand and Lao they do not compete.
The first morning I peddled to a restaurant that served an American breakfast with free wifi. While seated outside on the veranda Europeans and a few Americans came and went. CNN was on covering the Republican conventions. In the two hours I sat eating and reviewing my lecture notes western guys showed up with Cambodian women for breakfast. One guy came with a tribe of three Cambodian girls in tow. The youngest was between 14 maybe 16. Another European fellow also brought three. I think poverty and wealth often create an ugly synergy. I had read about this now I had seen. I think at a certain level of poverty most people will do almost anything for money and at a certain level of economic power many people will do almost anything they can get away with. Economic power and economic weakness both present temptations and my experience and belief teach me that human beings are fundamentally weak. This might be why the wise man writing in Proverbs asks God for neither riches nor poverty. Both, he asserts, present forces which can potentially jeopardize the soul. With more and more in Asian societies getting a piece of the pie I think it is harder for the poor to survive the psychological social effects of poverty let alone the physical burden. In fact NGO’s are playing a big role in Cambodia among other things to crack down on the sexual exploitation of young people. Probably because I do not dress like a back packer more like a teacher the European guy with the especially young girls cancelled his order and took his tribe and abruptly left. Times are changing.
I have now traveled in several South Asian countries and more than any other Cambodians are able to handle English and not a few are proficient. It seems Cambodians are entering the modern world perhaps with less baggage than other developing countries. Their monarchy is not top heavy. The dark chapters in the country’s recent past while inflicting a terrible price has also rendered them leaner more open to the future and with less political and cultural structures to impede their advance. They are not the least bit apologetic for using the American dollar as a second currency and English as a second language. No heavy nationalistic fiction compromises their interest in entering the modern world but this does not mean they are lacking in pride for their land. Great ancient cultures thrived in Cambodia and amazing cultural landmarks are to be found unrivaled by their neighbors.
The fabric industry feeding western corporations – the giant clothing chains we all know so well are to be found in Cambodia and Vietnam. It is possible for a Vietnamese or Cambodian to work 28 out of 30 days a month and earn 80 dollars. But 80 dollars is enough to live on and save 20 or maybe 30 dollars. My impression is that this work is not viewed negatively here. The people are grateful for any economic branch they can grasp hold of to lift them if only a little.
The Cross Cultural Mission School is a small potent endeavor backed and organized by Chinese reaching out to Cambodians. Everything of this nature no matter how small takes organization and financial backing – in this instance China has provided these. The Koreans are the primary leaders in mission Asia but now the China is building mission cells in more and more countries. My class was a cultural cross section of Cambodians, Chinese and Malay. There were 11 students in all each one working out their own mission project and set on advancing their education. All the students were in there 20’s except a couple who were in their early thirties. They were pastors, teachers and missionaries. The course they requested was “ Luther’s Evangelical Breakthrough and its Implications for the Reformation of the Church –Then and There & Here and Now” The plot of the course was to first show Luther’s seminal Breakthrough [which the reknown German theologian Gerhard Ebleling once summarized in a single theological phrase (..) and then show how this one insight of necessity changes how church is understood and practiced. By the time the class ended we had given this goal a fair run with many applications to the present time. Sheneequa Mackal, a Malay and leader – teacher of the City Church prayed at the conclusion of the course and her prayer was my reward. Confident the Lord had showed them the way the gospel could be taught and preached by the new generation in Cambodia she gave thanks and prayed that nothing would be lost as time slipped by. I am now loved in Cambodia by a potent small group of young up and coming Christian leaders who with me look forward to my return. My supporters are thanked by 11 sturdy young leaders in Cambodia.
existence and faith 