Has your flesh become Word?

If you haven’t yet read the story of Nigel and Trish and their five children who moved into Hillbrow in South Africa to do life, then you are one of the few. That story has been blowing up on my blog with over 2000 views [that’s ‘blowing up’ on my blog] and 350 Facebook shares.

People are resonating with the story. There is something about it that just reaches out and grabs you [and i imagine makes a lot of people uneasy or nervous in a kind of wait-a-minute-do-i-need-to-now-go-do-that kind of way].

I want to suggest that it is the idea of incarnation. 

One dictionary definition i looked up for incarnation described it as ‘the action of incarnating’ which was not so helpful. Another said it was ‘the bodily manifestation of a spiritual being’ which at least starts to give us something to work with.

It has been given as a description of what Jesus did which is well described in Philippians 2:

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Basically, God, in the form and person of Jesus, came close.

After years of sending messengers is the form of leaders and angels and prophets, God took a step further and came to deliver the message and demonstrate the way to live Himself. He came and lived it amongst us. And forever took away our ability to say, ‘God doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what I’m going through.’ Well yes He does, because He was here. He gets it.

It’s about not so much looking to your interests as to the interests of others [which Jesus strongly called us to in His ‘Deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Me’ speech of Luke 9.23]

Now as followers of Jesus we have the Holy Spirit living in us and so everywhere we go there should theoretically be ‘the bodily manifestation of a spiritual being’ – but the question that needs to be asked on that is how often do we end up looking like us and how often do we end up looking like Jesus?

Here is another story i read about a South African family who look to be at least trying to ‘get’ this to some extent. Although their experiment definitely led to mixed responses from those around them:

‘Some condemned it as a “stupid experiment” and exploitative, calling for them to be “burned in their shack” by locals. Others applauded their courage in bridging South Africa’s massive wealth divide.’

And the same kind of story resonates in this American family, the Albrechts, who have lived in the UK since 1992 and have taken in around 250 homeless people over the last 7 years.

I would say that is one of the strongest lessons we have learnt or observed from our time over here. That moving in to the area ad building relationships with the people around you is one of the most effective ways to really get the chance to share your message [because the loudest sharing of it comes from the day to day of how they see you live life]

It is what resonated with me in my favourite book of all time, ‘No Compromise: The Keith Green story’ where Keith and his wife started taking people into their home within a few months of being married and they ended up on a farm with a community of many people [a lot of whom started out from a place of being down and out]. It wasn’t comfortable or cool or hipster or anything like that. It just felt like the word of God and so they did it.

i love how the word ‘nation’ is present in the word ‘incarnation‘ as well as the word ‘in’

do i think everyone is called to move into a poor, broken-down neighborhood to help bridge the gap between rich and poor and incarnationally make a difference around them? absolutely not. but i do think a lot more people are called to than are presently doing it. i also know that it would be a lot easier if people did it in greater numbers – so groups of friends moving into the same neighborhood [and i would thoroughly encourage the need for some form of relationship to be present before just deciding to move into a rough neighborhood]

i also think this is powerfully linked to the concept of stability – committing to an area, a community, a workplace for a considerable length of time.

maybe the question each of us should be asking is, ‘Why should i not go?’ and then, if there is an answer, stay where you are. there are a growing number of us who believe that poverty will end when the rich meet and get to know the poor. when they move in as neighbors and become some measure of friends.

are you being called? and what scares you about this most? [because i imagine this scares some of you a lot]

in Jesus, the Word became flesh

for most of us the challenge is seeing our flesh become Word…

the parable of the pizza crust

A father had seven children of which two were step-children from his second marriage.

He decided to take them out for a meal and so they went down to the local restaurant. He told his oldest son that he could pick anything off the menu. His son decided to go for a giant steak with a baked potato on the side. He ordered it and they watched him thoroughly enjoy himself wolfing down his meal.

Then the father invited his oldest daughter to do the same and she chose a seafood platter. Again, they all watched as she really enjoyed her food.

This continued down the line until his five children had all eaten. 

Instead of turning to his step-children, the father then turned back to his oldest son and invited him to choose something else off the menu. The son chose a steak kebab this time with a gourmet salad on the side. His daughter went for a three meat pizza. And so it continued down the line.

After the five children had eaten, the father turned to his children and asked them if they wanted dessert. His two step-children were looking a little hungry as well and so he made sure that their water glasses were replenished so that they had something in front of them. He then proceeded to buy ice-cream and cake for his five children. 

As they were about to leave, one of his step-children asked if they too could get something to eat. Moved by compassion the father asked his daughter if it would be okay with her if the two of them shared the bits of pizza crust she had left behind on her plate? She enthusiastically agreed and so everyone left having eaten something. A great night out.

THE IMMORAL OF THE STORY

I mean that would be fine, right? You would have no problem with that if it was an actual story? We would be able to make statements like ‘Well the five are his real children and the two should be glad that they got something, right?’

Or not? Would we be absolutely disgusted that five of the children got to pig out and two were left with the remains of the meal? Would it not be okay that there was enough money and resources to give everyone a good meal and yet the decision was made to give some people a great meal while some had hardly any meal at all? 

I think if this story was an actual situation where you knew the people, it might be a lot different. The reality of the world where rich and poor live very much like this is a lot easier to turn a blind eye to or even celebrate sometimes, perhaps because the situation of the poor seems so metaphorical [until we actually start to meet them and they become ‘real people’] that it isn’t actually real [as long as we can keep them out of sight, right?]

‘The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’ [Gandhi]

I can’t do anything personally about sports and movie stars ludicrous salaries. But maybe I can start with my own greed. And that of those who I am in close relationship with. Through conversation [it’s not guilt that is going to win this battle, but imaginative creativity might get us places] and wrestling over these things. Mutual accountability. Goal setting and experimentation. Living better.

For people in America in particular, one way of starting to align yourselves to something better might be joining a Common Change group and, together with a group of friends, start meeting some of the needs in the lives of the people you know.

For others of us it might be taking on board the stories of people around us who are doing inspirational and creative things like the Albrecht family in the UK, or Nigel and Trish and their family in Hillbrow, South Africa and asking how that might look for us in our context. For parents of young children, it might be reading some of these stories and seeing if there is anything in there we might be able to take on or whether they inspire us to figure out how our story might look.

It might require us taking a moment to stop and do a stock take of our lives and ask if we are currently living out the values that we profess to have or should we be taking a leaf out of Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s book and simply walking away from the place we currently find ourselves to have landed and being more intentional about choosing the place where we decide to set up camp.

Maybe a small part of not feeling overwhelmed by what is happening in Syria right now could be by being intentional about the things I have the ability to change in my life and context right now?

I mean it’s just step-kids right? They’re not even his real children… 

How to raise your children as world changers: Meet Nigel and Trish Branken and their family

I have already shared an article on my blog about Nigel and Trish before and how they moved into what is known as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods with their family and how some of that has played out. Val and i managed to have a Skype call with Nigel a few weeks ago and it was truly inspiring hearing some of the story of how they got to where they are and how it has been playing out. Nigel takes some time here to share about some of the ways in which their decisions and actions have influenced their children in growing up as World Changers…

Nigel,Trish,Hannah,Rachel,Jordan,Daniel,Sarah

Reflections on parenting: Choosing to put God first

When my wife and I moved into Hillbrow, Johannesburg over a year and a half ago, the main concern expressed by many of our loving friends was for our children. People literally asked questions like “What if one of them is kidnapped, raped or murdered?”. Hillbrow is just one of those communities which seem to invoke fear.

We were however convinced that God had spoken to us about moving into the neighbourhood, about downward mobility, and about standing in solidarity with our urban poor neighbours. Trish and I had long discussions about the call of God on our lives, and in fact the potential suffering that following Jesus may cost any believer, and therefore also us. The question we had to answer was whose voice would be louder… the voice of God or the voice of fear.

We searched the Scriptures and were convinced that if Jesus were alive today, He would be spending his life not in comfort and convenience, but rather in places like Hillbrow as friends of prostitutes, drug dealers and the homeless. The more I studied Scriptures, the more I became aware of the dangers of greed, individualism and consumerism.

We drew courage from reframing the question as this: what is more dangerous for our children, given the realities of eternity – to grow up in a society and culture which teaches you to worship the unholy trinity of “me, myself and I” or to be in a potentially physically dangerous place where you can learn the values of Jesus of justice, compassion and love?  Jesus said “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Matthew 16:26). An important reflection.

We started to dream of a new world, the kind of world we would want to leave to our children.

“We want to see a world in which the rich do not tolerate extreme poverty and inequality. We want to see many people actually laying down their lives of comfort and convenience for the sake of bettering the lives of others. Seeing people freed from poverty, inequality, racism and exploitation is more important than fulfilling our lust for more things! We want to be part of a society in which people are valued more than things. We want to see the god of consumerism in South Africa bowing its knee to a love motivated revolution which results in freedom from oppression and exploitation. We want to see this for all people, regardless of class, citizenship, race or religion. We dream of equality in every sector of society. We believe that if the education system is not OK for a rich kid, it is not OK for a poor kid. The same goes with healthcare, housing, security. The same goes for rural kids and inner city kids. The same for black kids and white kids. We are not more valuable than the least valued in our society. We are doing our lives in a new way. We are going to live our dream and see this reality briefly described above happening around us. We hope others will join us and this will happen around them too. Who knows, very soon, the world can be a different place!”

As we weighed up God’s Word, His call and his promises, we finally came to the decision to move regardless of the cost. As a side reflection, I have subsequently found that the time God gives you grace to do something often coincides with the moment of your decision to obey His Word to you. Grace comes through faith and faith comes from putting the Word of God into practice in your life.

So fast forward a few years from when we made this decision, and here we are living in what many describe as one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in the world. As responsible parents, we do all we can to protect our children. They know the rules and the risks and we are always close by to protect them. What we have found is that rather than restrictions, we are now in the most spacious place in our lives and the move has in my opinion been the best thing we could have done for our children. So often we think doing radical things for Jesus will harm our children, when in fact the opposite happens – they grow and develop.

I am so often overwhelmed by the things my children do in response to the poverty they now see in the lives of their friends who they love. My son Jordan, aged 8, has spent very little of his pocket money on himself since we have lived here. A little while after we moved in he came to me with his savings and said “Dad, you give me everything I need, I don’t need this money, who do you think we should give it to?” Needless to say my chest swelled as I held back tears of gratitude at the work God was doing in my boy’s heart. He has since done this again and again. His little brother, Daniel, aged 6, also loves to give his pocket money away or to buy food for the homeless with it.

In our block of flats, one of our children’s friends is a little boy named Sipho. Sipho lives with his 4 year old brother, Thabo, and his two year old baby sister, Princess, (not their real names)and single mother in a single room that they sub-let as a family. The room is barely big enough to fit the double bed which they all share. His father is legally not allowed to see him after he tried about 2 years ago to poison the two little boys and himself in an attempted family suicide. Their mom works at night and so the boys are often chased out the flat during the day so she can sleep. They are often hungry and so our two older girls love making them food. Sipho recently turned 8 years old. It was obvious that his mom was not going to throw him a birthday party or buy him any presents. Enter my children! All by themselves they conspired to bless this boy with a birthday party. They all pooled their pocked money together. Hannah, our 12 year old and Rachel, our 10 year old baked the cake. Jordan bought the presents. It was an amazing event. Through these and other similar stories I have become convinced that you cannot teach your children how to love and show compassion through  your words, you have to demonstrate it as a parent and create opportunities for them to take the initiative. Living among the urban poor and standing in solidarity with our neighbours constantly presents opportunities for acts of love.

I have so many more stories to tell, like how Hannah, our 12 year old has become a real advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Our children have had opportunities to speak on radio and television and to many journalists about how society should be helping their friends. Hannah often comes to me and asks me to help a friend get back into school or to get some form of assistance for someone, whether adult or child. We have often involved friends who are lawyers to help her friends and have even taken cases to the Constitutional Court (South Africa’s highest court) on behalf of Hannah’s friends. God is not only doing a work in their hearts, He is giving them a voice to the world.

Moving into Hillbrow has been the best thing we could have done for our children. When we put God first in our lives, He takes care of all the details of our lives. He really does love us and wants the best for us and we can trust Him with our children as we pursue Him and His call with all of our lives. We should never let our children set the agenda in our lives, as precious as they are. We believe they are more precious to God than to us and that He will work in their hearts and do things in them we could not even dream of if we allow Him to really be on the throne of our lives completely.

So in conclusion, let me quote Jesus who said, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” We have found this verse to be true in our new life and Hillbrow and know that Jesus can be trusted!

To follow their story a little more closely, check out www.transforming.org.za or connect with Nigel on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/nigel.branken

[For the next inspiring story, with a similiar flavour, in this series on raising world changers, read this one on Lara Harler Lahr and family in Philly]

if Jesus lived anywhere, it would be here… from Hillbrow, South Africa.

“I think the church has lost its path, you know. It is so entertainment-focused. The true place of the church is here, where Jesus would be and we are trying to bring that back. We are motivated by convictions around justice, and looking at the life of Jesus, and the book of Matthew in which we learn to love our enemies. The job of the church is to be a sign of hope for a community and the greatest weapon we have as Christians, is love. At the end of the day Christianity is about sacrifice and the cross.” [Nigel Branken from this article by Jessica Eaton titled, ‘Hope in Hillbrow: ‘If Jesus lived anywhere, it would be here.’]

The Two Cents blog I help put together [conversations on the intersections between FAITH and FINANCES with some JUSTICE thrown in for good measure] recently ran a deeply challenging article by Nigel looking at the difference between minimum wage and a living wage in terms of how we pay those who work for us. So not too much surprise that I discover that him and his family are practicing what they preach having moved into one of the worst trouble spots in South Africa.

In the midst of everything that has happened around us in Americaland such as the whole Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman shooting case which brought a lot of issues of colour to the fore], this feels like a timely word and example. As church leaders, families and individuals wrestle with trying to find an appropriate response and to journey with those who would return violence for violence [understandably to an extent as this is not an isolated incident but rather one more to add to a history of fear and prejudice] the example of this middle class South Africa family might have something to say:

Nigel takes me out to the balcony overlooking Kapteijn Street and points at all the people he knows. “The best way to keep safe around here is to know as many people as you can. If you know people, they won’t hurt you.”

This all sounds too familiar to my own journey of reading Acts 2 and 3 and looking at the early church and sensing something different from what it has become and the line about church being entertainment-focused does not sound too far from the truth for a large number of them at least. Having moved into Kayamandi township for 18 months and then spent some time at the Simple Way in Philadelphia, although I didn’t quite find the answers and resonance I was searching for there I certainly was introduced to some of the deeper questions and made connection with a variety of different people who are seeking out this Truth in very different contexts and ways.

Like Bono, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, but I feel like I’m getting closer. Looking at Nigel’s motivation there are some similiar echoes and a call for me to head back to Matthew:

“I had been going through a bit of a journey myself … now obviously we are doing this as a result of our Christian faith and we looked at Matthew 5,6 and 7, huge scriptures for us, all about Jesus’s beatitudes and the same text that inspired Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King and all of those significant leaders.

“They have all looked at those teachings of Jesus and have felt that their lives were totally different from how we live our Christian faith. And when I looked at those scriptures again five years ago, I was shocked because I realised my Christianity looked nothing like it.

So take the time to read this article and try and hear and see the sounds and smells of Jesus in their story and ask the difficult questions about your own life, the church you are part of, the mission Jesus really called us to. And if there is something that needs to change, then be bold enough to step out – start small if you must, but do something, because this status quo is starting to smell…

Pome: On Behalf Of The Human Race…

I thank You, God

For granting an audience

To someone as weak and insignificant as me

I kneel before You

In a futile attempt

To right a millenia of wrongs committed against You

I represent a group of people

Totally unworthy, fully undeserving

Completely unaware and oblivious of their need for me to be here

If the court stenographer will read back the testimony

It will be made clear

That time and time again You have born the brunt

Of false testimony, claiming You were the guilty party

For all manner of unspeakable acts of evil

Disease, Death, War and Famine

All thrown accusingly at You

Accompanied by a menacing, pointing finger

And the strangled screams of, “Why?”

In fact, how often have I been there

Part of the crowd

Adding my voice to the throng?

Or even just the lack of it?

A silent accusation off to the side

Taking it all in

But making no real attempt to voice an objection

Or run to Your defence

“Sometimes the cries were just SO loud.”

But taking out some time

To build up a case

I have been forced into an encounter

Coming face to face with who You really are

Looking beyond the weak Hollywood interpretations

Cartoon caricatures; comical characterisations

Even moving past the weak and off-putting representatives

You have dirtying Your name here down on earth

I finally start to catch a glimpse of the You behind the scenes…

And I know!

September 11 – You were there!

WWII Nazi death camps – You were there!

And in Ethiopia where a vulture picks at a rotting child!

And in Hillbrow as another mugging takes place!

In the belly of the Titanic!

In the local AIDS clinic as yet another baby dies!

Your alibi is shattered!

I have seen Your character. I have tasted who You are.

There is conclusive, overwhelming proof

That YOU, WERE, THERE!!!

…and finally, I see it…

…something I should have known all along…

You couldn’t not be there!!

When that fatal shot is fired; at the moment of impact;

another suicide bomber snatching the lives of those around him.

So You stand in the midst of it all

Taking it all in…

Taking it all on!

You hurt…

You bleed…

Your heart breaks even before the family and the friends whose will follow…

You picked up the battered and twisted bodies

Welcoming some of them home.

You screamed at the horror

The violence!

The pure, unadulterated evil of it all.

You screamed!!!

You wept…

You weep!

And as I stand by the grave side

And watch as they lay my person to rest

And ask, “How could you, God, how could you?”

“How could you take this person from me?”

Suddenly it sinks in

Finally hits home

I start to ‘get’ it

One person I loved with all my heart

One more person You love with all Yours

Another one.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And one more.

Because You have to stand here every day.

And another.

Watching the ultimate consequence of sin.

And another.

Something that should never have happened.

And another.

Who do You get to shout at?

And another.

Where do You point Your accusing finger?

And one more.

God…

“I am sorry!”

I know that can’t mean much.

Doesn’t even begin to start.

But, “I’m Sorry..!”

It’s been true all along,

I know not what I do…