Get on your boots

"The future needs a big kiss…"

That’s the opening phrase on U2’s new single… yeah - that's got to be the hope for people who pray 'Your kingdom come'! And of course, the future is a big kiss!
Listen to it at: http://www.last.fm/music/U2/_/Get+On+Your+Boots

U2's new album No line on the Horizon comes out in early March

kingdom of God

I was talking about the kingdom of God with the youth group the other night... I suggested that the kingdom way is more often seen when you are on the way, living into its way, than seen for what it is by a wondering bystander (and of course as soon as you begin to see it it turns out to be bigger than you could ever imagine and thus something you will never really get).



I shared some little examples of how I live in the kingdom way... like my attitude at the supermarket. Quite often when I'm walking through the car park, if I see a trolley left where it souldn't be, I walk it in and put it away even if I have no use of it myself. No one sees this, no one cares whether I do this or not... I don't do it to score points with people, to feel good or even think that God will treat me any differently than God already treats me... I do it primarily because I live into another reality where I treat people as I have been treated by God in Christ... Someone might need that parking space and a trolley is in the way...

someone has to collect the trolleys, at times in some pretty horrible weather, and I imagine that that person having to go and get a trolley from some obscure corner of the car park might feel resentment towards others and might find whatever job satisfaction they have harder to find on that day...

so I serve...

I try to live this way in all facets of my life and fail on most fronts most days... but God is not finished with me yet...

You've got to live it to get it

Yesterday I made a comment regarding Colin McCahon's elusive art... and Jesus' Kingdom being similarly elusive...
Anne found the following quote from the dancer Anna Pavlova: when asked "What do you say when you dance?"she replied "If I could tell you I wouldn't dance."

For me the Kingdom of God can't be grasped by any other means than being immersed in it... you've got to live it to get it.

And another U2 lyric just to introduce a bit of Kingdom paradox... from the song City Of Blinding Lights:
"The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now."

So to conclude... you can't grasp the Kingdom except by jumping in, and once you jump in you find you can't grasp it... so jump!

one has to believe to see

I've just spent half an hour reading William McCahon's article about his father's art in A Question of Faith. (Colin McCahon is New Zealand's foremost modernist artist.) The article made a very good point about the difficulty most people have had interpreting McCahon's paintings and the artist's unwillingness to explain the art for them - McCahon seemingly took seriously the notion that if people have eyes then let them see. In other words - one has to believe to see . There's a U2 line from the song Walk On that goes - You're packing a suitcase for a place none of has been, a place that has to be believed to be seen.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about Jesus' Kingdom of God of late. I like the way that Jesus alludes to its nature but refrains from giving explicit detail - he paints a picture of it, but one will only get the dimensions of it by entering through the narrow gate (him).

It strikes me that people's attempts to break 'entering Jesus' Kingdom of God' into easy steps, clear pictures and formulations is misguided.

This of course presents an ongoing challenge to the preacher - to respect the mystery and not play with the listeners by suggesting that they can easily get what Jesus is on about. I like that Jesus sidestepped those who tried to pin him down. I like the way that as soon as you try to box Jesus he slips away and pops up somewhere else.

I like that McCahon, committed to the way of Jesus, left his art to do its own talking.


Here are a few McCahon paintings... one of my favourites is Otago Peninsula (1946) it is in the Dunedin City Library... I walked in one day and asked one of the staff if she could point out the Colin McCahon piece - she didn't know there was one there, nor did she know of the brilliant Ralph Hotere and Nigel Brown works. I found it soon enough. If you stand in the stairwell and look up it stares you in the face. (It was approximately 8 metres from where the woman worked!)

Another I have included is simply titled One. It has McCahon's trademark triangle in the corner - the Trinity... hinted at in the Scriptures but not easily understood... but the nature of God nevertheless - the truth despite us.


See more McCahon works at http://www.mccahon.co.nz/browse.asp