Rules from the Playground: Nice only goes so far

Recently I offered my spare time to a neighborhood youth soccer coach. I have been looking for opportunities to get involved somewhere and I enjoy the game immensely even though I am not good at it. But I suppose it depends on how you measure the quality of one's play. Anyways, I decided I would help coach soccer even though I have never coached at all. Coach David was cool though and just glad someone from the community cares. Immediately, I was caught off guard by two things, how well coached the under-10 team was; as well as how underprepared I was for the under-14 kids. At some point they went from being hard working angels to kids who are unmotivated and lack discipline in more ways than one. My only aim is to be humble, learn, and make some connections in the community all for the sake of Jesus.

Being a part of this world clearly demonstrates to me that I am truly in an alien world. I am a white guy who grew in Colorado, hasn't spoke spanish since High School. I had a career as a engineer, when they see my bike they know its expensive, guess the price and are not even on the same planet. They have played soccer since they were kids and I haven't played since I was kid. How in the world am I supposed to do this?

So here is the scenario: The regular coach is out of town for a month. The other assistant coach works with the U-10 team. I, by default, get the U-14 team. Since coach is gone, they just do a scrimmage and I don't know what to do. We scrimmage and one of the kids, who is the most difficult because he is mouthy and has ball skills, finally finds out I am not a good soccer player. So practice ends with him saying to me, "You suck." I play nice, just like I did as a kid on the playground. He basically leaves shortly thereafter blaming his team's performance on my goal keeping (which I do suck at) instead of his refusal to play defense and play on a team.

What is truly revealed in all of this is that playing nice only goes so far. Playing nice does make you a better coach and it sure doesn't make anyone else a better player. Playing nice might not offend anyone and it might make a few friends, but it is powerless against all kinds of sin, whether individual or systematic. What was highlighted in this practice was not my inferior ball skills but my sin of playing nice.

The truth is Jesus didn't play nice. Jesus loved people they way they needed to be loved and he calls his disciples to love like he does. "A disciple is not above his teacher. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant his master." (Matt 10:24-25, ESV). In this passage, Jesus tells his disciples to proclaiming that the "kingdom is at hand." He says that when they do so they will be persecuted but they must persist. He says they will be flogged, the will be ridiculed, they will be told, "You suck." This is what Jesus and all the prophets of God before him went through. It is what the apostles went through. It is to be expected the way of life for the disciple of Jesus, for the Christian. Nice people don't get persecuted. People who have the guts to point out the real sin, the real savior, and the real kingdom get persecuted. Nice people don't keep the peace either. Nice people just make sure they are at peace while others continue to be affected by sins of omissions and passivism.

The truth is I do not suck at soccer. The truth is we got scored on a lot because no one played defense and the kid with all the ball skills never ever passed and never got back on defense when a player took the ball from him. The truth is the biggest mouth with best ball skills is the worst player on the field. But how will he know unless someone tells him? How will he know unless someone has the guts, the gall, to dish out some tough love? On the playground, the nice kid continues to get pushed around and watches his friends get pushed around. The nice kid, this nice kid, needs to repent of cowardice. Jesus didn't always play nice, though he was always humble and always loving, but he wasn't always nice. It is His kingdom and he alone reigns over it. His reign demonstrates the weakness and the powerlessness of the arrogant, the powerful, the bullies, and transforms the weak into the courageous and the prideful into the humble.

The Real St. Patrick

St. Patrick's day is no doubt one of the most popular holidays for partying during the entire year. I have always had an affinity for this day because the strongest roots I have are Irish since my Great Grandpa was Irish. Yet that is about the depth of my appreciation earlier in life. I remember once in college going to a pub in Boulder, CO to participate in having a pint of Guinness with millions of others to break some Guinness World Record or something. It has become an excuse to get drunk, drink terrible green beer (its gross trust me) and get stupid. Ironically, this probably resembles Ireland prior to St. Patrick than after him.

In Seminary years after the Guinness incident, I had to read two books on St. Patrick of Ireland. I was inspired and he became a new hero. His letters Confessions and Letters to the Soldiers of Coroticus are the earliest documents in Ireland, amazingly humble and exalting of God's work in Jesus Christ. In these letters we find a man of real faith who was rebellious as a teenager, endured oppression through enslavement by an Irish tribe (Patrick was a Roman-Briton), and courage in following God's voice to flee back home. Despite all this, and the general impression that Ireland was the edge of the civilized world, full of marauding lunatics and half-human barbarians, he responded to God's call to go preach the gospel to the very people who enslaved him. Amazing, most cry for justice and destruction, yet Patrick cried for mercy in Jesus Christ.

He was likely a contemporary of St. Augustine at the time of late 300's to early 400's. St. Patrick's day is supposedly the day he died. Patrick was not the first to go to Ireland as a missionary, it was Palladius of Gaul who failed and died after a year and said the "wild men of Ireland wound not listen to him." Patrick responded to God's call to return voluntarily to Ireland and spent the rest of his life where he reached 30-40 of over 100 Irish tribes and planted 700 churches. The legend of him driving out snakes in Ireland is actually a symbolic story of him driving out the pagan Celtic beliefs and practices that would make even San Francisco blush.

As a result of Patrick, the Irish became the leaders in sending missionaries for the several hundred years later. They planted churches in even Palladius home of Gaul (France) and beyond. They became leaders in Christian art and music and are still quite influential to this day. "Be Thou My Vision" is a classic Celtic Hymn and perhaps why I like it so much. Some argue it was the Celtic missionaries who saved Europe in the Dark Ages.

Above all, we see that St. Patrick and his Irish disciples were not about drinking beer into a stupor, but recognized their fallen humanity and their great savior Jesus Christ.

Here is Patrick in his own words, this is the first section of his letter, Confessions. Immediately you see his heart, I encourage you to read it here or his denunciation of slavery long before anyone else through the condemnation of Coroticus's actions.

I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners. And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son. Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven. For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name. He himself said through the prophet: ‘Call upon me in the day of’ trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.’ And again: ‘It is right to reveal and publish abroad the works of God.’ I am imperfect in many things, nevertheless I want my brethren and kinsfolk to know my nature so that they may be able to perceive my soul’s desire. I am not ignorant of what is said of my Lord in the Psalm: ‘You destroy those who speak a lie.’ And again: ‘A lying mouth deals death to the soul.’ And likewise the Lord says in the Gospel: ‘On the day of judgment men shall render account for every idle word they utter.’ So it is that I should mightily fear, with terror and trembling, this judgment on the day when no one shall be able to steal away or hide, but each and all shall render account for even our smallest sins before the judgment seat of Christ the Lord.

Also check out my fellow Irish-American's blog, O'Driscoll...

Happy St. Patrick's day from one sinner turned saint by the grace of God to another.

Avatar, a Theological Review

My wife and I saw Avatar last night. A much hyped movie from one of Hollywood’s most successful producers and directors, James Cameron. It was entertaining and as advertised quite a visual display. Unfortunately, too many movies are praised for their appearance and not their substance. On the former, visual graphics have gotten to a point that whatever monumental advances they made one hardly notices. The law of diminishing returns is beginning to infiltrate technology. On the later, Avatar had a recycled plot of which my wife thought was a combination of Pocahontas, Ferngully, and Dances with Wolves. I, being a closet geek, thought it was like half the plots in the infamous Final Fantasy Series.

There are several things that must be noted for the discerning. It was a combination of New Age, Animism, and Hinduism. This is the worldview of Hollywood. Everything is connected to the divine we just have to “realize” it and tap into its spiritual powers. We are all “one” with nature. God, nature, human beings are all distinct things in separate categories. God is not connected to his creation. His creation reflects who he is in the same way that a person’s work reflects their skill and personality. God is present everywhere but he is not spatial “in” everywhere nor is relationally present everywhere. God is not present with sin and is not relationally “connected” to the sinner apart from repentance and faith in Christ. Believers are united in Christ and united by the Holy Spirit but we still obtain individuality. We are one body of many different parts.

One thing I have recently been pondering is the relationship between environmentalism and technology. Movies like Avatar seem to be saying that harmony is achieved by oneness with nature and not technology. Industrialism and technology caused Earth to “die”. There is sort of a naivety and hypocrisy in Hollywood about this. How much did Cameron have to rely on technology to create this movie? How big was its carbon footprint? How big is his? Surely magnitudes greater than mine. As much talk as there is about reducing our reliance on modern conveniences, how far are people willing to go? Are they willing to return to the dark ages with the short life spans, infertility, disease, etc.? I doubt it. Perhaps a more environmental approach would be to do the movie on Broadway instead of the Big Screen. The truth, modern excess and abuse are the result of greed and coveting, that is, sin. Technology is a manipulation of the environment. Things are shaped into a manner that is useful for us. This can be done for the greater good or the greater evil. There is nothing inherently wrong with using resources organic or otherwise. It is wrong if they are used sinfully. More could be said about that issue but we will save it for later.

There are two ways of interacting in a culture that is modeled in this movie. One is the corporation and the other is the “Avatar”. Since I am inspired by Augustine’s “City of God”, where he rejected the blame placed on Christianity for the fall of Rome and argued vigorously for the blame to be on the false ideals of Rome itself. So many movies in America explore the theme of destroying indigenous cultures with ones more powerful ones, reminiscent of our sins against Africans and Native Americans. One thing Hollywood does not recognize is the effect their movies have worldwide. My wife commented that when you hear of a foreign movie its usually always good. It had to be to make it here, but the rest of the world gets to watch whatever garbage we produce. Hollywood is a global force that is influencing people worldwide. It contributes to the rejection of the indigenous culture one grew up with for the culture promoted within Hollywood. The rise of fundamentalism globally is like the rebellion of the Navi in the movie, fighting back against things considered in affront to traditional values.

A whole post could be written about the Avatar and distinguishing it from Jesus’ Incarnation in Christianity. The two are different though there are some parallels. Parallels are with respect to missionary efforts to learn the language and culture and communicate from one culture to another. Those are good things. However, Jesus was born as a human and Son of God. He was fully human and fully divine. He was not a human posing as a God or a God posing as a human. He did not ascend to full humanity or deity at a later point. This is unlike the Hindu notion of an Avatar and the one represented in the movie.

We must move beyond surface level reviews of things in our culture. We must move beyond the external and move to the internal. This is the role of Theology, to see things as God sees them. This is the role a missionaries, to understand and learn the culture and its differences, similarities, and tensions with Christianity.