Friday Note: Deserved Wages vs. Corrupt Practices

Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, 

for the worker deserves his wages. 

-Luke 10:7-

Nairobi Chapel, the church we attend here in Kenya, is currently in the middle of the second part of a series called "MKenya Halisi" - translated "the real/authentic Kenyan".  Earlier this year, they did a month long series on how Kenya - rich in history, resources and potential - is a country of which to be tremendously proud.  Having grown up here for 16 years, I couldn't agree more and it is a message all too rarely heard by many in Africa: that there is so much to take great pride in about where they are from.  This second part, however, takes on the parts of Kenya that are not so pretty: corruption, tribalism, etc. (Sermon series), but it addresses them from the individual's perspective. How do we, as individuals, contribute to the unhealthy aspects of Kenya's culture and society? The second week, Pastor Oscar spoke on "Kitu Kidogo" (a little something) - the phrase used when one is asked for a bribe. Oscar challenged the congregation that by giving that "kitu kidogo", we are contributing to corruption. Similarly, by renting/purchasing pirated DVD's and music, we are engaging in corrupt practices. It was a hard hitting sermon that Oscar did a great job with in speaking truth to an uncomfortable topic.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've found myself thinking along these lines and their application to Jesus' words as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. In this chapter, Jesus is sending out his disciples in pairs to do ministry - to heal the sick, to preach the Good News, etc. - and he tells them to not take anything with them (e.g. extra clothing, food, etc.). Instead, within the culture of the day, they would be invited in by those in the community, sheltered and fed. He tells his disciples to except this cultural hospitality, because the workman deserves his wages. Their work of preaching the Gospel is worthwhile, it has value and should be rewarded accordingly.

What does this have to do with corruption and dishonest practices (e.g. pirated movies/music?)? In the same way that an evangelist or missionary is deserving of wages, so are all who work - who engage in labour, that task God called Adam & Eve to even before the Fall. Hard work is a good thing! The writers, producers, actors, artists - even the  low person on the wrung who holds the boom mic or helps change lights - involved in making a movie or tv show is worth their wages. Every movie is a financial risk, involving the entire group - from the first pitch by the writer/creator to the company choosing to underwrite the production - making a gamble that in the end they will not only recoup their expenses, but will make a profit. They too are deserving of their wages.  And when we buy the 50/- (75¢) pirated DVD off the side of the road, none of those involved in the movie's actual production who took the financial risk will see any of that money. Only the guy who illegally downloaded it from the internet and burned it to a DVD. And while we benefit in enjoying the movie, we have not given the deserving "wages" to those who invested and risked so much for our enjoyment.

The truth is that everyone is deserving of wages for their work.  From the guy/kid who washes our car to our wonderfully sweet house help who comes and cleans our home once a week.  Part of a Christian's calling in their world and society is to pay deserving wages to those who work for them and to work for deserving wages for those being unjustly paid low wages. And when we go for the cheap option, the easy option, we are choosing to engage in unjust conduct and practices. We are choosing to withhold deserving wages from the movie writer who may only ever see 1 or 2 of their screen plays ever made into a movie in their lifetime. We are withholding just pay from the guy who washes our car that has a family to feed. 

Oscar was spot on when he connected the culture of "kitu kidogo" in paying a bribe to a police officer with other areas in our lives where we choose the easy way out. I even think about a PhD. It is hard work, but it is conceivable that someone could get a PhD by paying someone else to do the research for them or skating by on doing a less than thorough job. But either of those choices are unjust. The researcher is presenting their work as thorough and done with integrity, when in fact it was not. They not only undermine their own character, but they undermine the work of others who might - not knowing corners were cut - refer to their poorly done research.

As Christians, we are called to choose the costly, the difficult and the hard. We are not afforded the easy option, because the easy option cheapens ours or others work - that noble God-given calling. We are not afforded the cheap option, because it robs someone of their deserved wages. While Jesus did say his burden was easy and his yoke was light, Paul makes very clear that the Christian walk is still a difficult one that requires perseverance, sacrifices and trials. Our faith calls us to face life and make the right choice - no matter how difficult or costly. We are called to do the hard work involved in a PhD. We are called to pay the full price for a movie or song so that those who have done the work are paid for it. We are called to forego t.v. shows, movies, etc. when they're not legally available to us - even if they are available through illegal means - because it is the right choice, the choice of integrity that involves sacrificing our immediate desires for what's right. We need to be quick to forego our pleasures, if satisfying them would mean cheating another of their well-deserved wages.

We are called to stand against corrupt practices, to refuse to cheapen someone else's hard work and to forego pleasures and desires for righteousness sake.

Friday Notes: On History

"In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God."

~John 1:1~

The opening lines to John's Gospel, in pointing to Christ's eternal presence with God and as part of the Triune Godhead, also provides an illuminating perspective on history.  The Christian faith, the Biblical record, and the Triune God of which it speaks is a faith, a record, and deity that place a tremendous importance on history.  Weaved throughout Scripture and God's interaction of the world are two fundamentals: that history on this earth began at some specific point in time and that history is leading to some point in time - the culmination of all things.  There is a teleology to the Biblical narrative and Christian faith - that is, a direction of movement - that profoundly affects both how Christians should study history, as well as a deep importance Christians ought to place on the study of history (the "why?" of the study of history).

Before I go further, let me explain why this is the train of thought that has been on my mind recently and how it is important to where I am in my life.  One, it's important as I wrestle to understand the eternal significance of my vocational choice - the research, writing and teaching of history.  Second, it's important as I work out how my faith applies to that vocation.  In other words, as we all should be asking, I need to constantly be asking, "How does my faith, which is more important than my vocation, shape my vocation?"  Often times, it seems these two issues are either (a) separated in our practical lives or (b) "created equal" , as it were.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  What we believe, which is foundational to the way we understand ourselves, others, our relationship to those others, and the world around us, shapes how we go about our work.  While our work, in turn, forces us to reevaluate and deepen our beliefs, fundamentally our work flows out of our worldview, not our worldview out of our work.

Part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Ancient manuscripts with a history of
set in time past, both discovered and found in specific locations
and evidence of historical actors and actions. The history of these
scrolls is foundational to understanding their importance.

Returning then, to the practice of history and Christian faith.  Central to the Christian faith is: (1) the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (his Incarnation), (2) the written Word (i.e. the Bible) and (3) the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer in opening their eyes to the significance of Christ's atoning work (the Gospel) and the truth of the Word (the Holy Spirit as Teacher).  History plays a significant role in all of these.  As a result, history is both central to our faith and, thus, our "practice" (whether lay or scholarly) of how we understand this history is vitally important.

The reality and importance of history is at the heart of the Incarnation.  The affirmation of Old Testament prophecies of Christ's coming declare actions in the past, prior to his arrival - but looking forward towards his arrival.  In the same way, the Christian belief that God sent his Son in His timing is indicative of a God who believes that certain points in time - in which things have proceeded and others will follow - play a significant role in shaping the present and preparing for the future.  Christ was not sent at the flip of a coin and did not arrive at a different time, say during the activities of Alexander the Great.  Rather, Christ came at a time in the Roman Empire when the Gospel message could disseminate quickly, when Pontius Pilate and Herod were leaders in Judea.  Luke, the Doctor, opens his Gospel by setting the historical stage: "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zachariah" (Luke 1:5).  Jesus took on the form of a man, was born, lived and died in God's timing.  To borrow a phrase from Paul's epistles, it happened in God's "proper time".  And Christ will return at a specific day and hour - a day and hour Jesus says only the Father knows. The Incarnation - Christ's life, death and the future hope of his return - is central to our faith and exists within a specific and linear concept of history.

Correct understandings of history, the remembering of history and the importance of history are stressed throughout Scripture, not just in the life of Christ.  The presence of the Bible's historical books are evidence of the importance the Hebrews placed on their own history. The stories of David, Samson, Ruth, Esther - these are declared as actual events that can be known and have been written down.  The prophets frequently refer to things which have happened, things which are happening and prophecies of those things which will happen.  The Bible also models the practice of historical writing.  Kings and Chronicles share similar stories, but with the narrative's shaped and details chosen to fit their specific purpose.  A historians limitations of knowledge, space and purpose of their writing continue to require these same editorial choices.  The Bible is also full of detailed and flawed figures - from all walks of life.  From the stories of kings to the story of two widows (Naomi and Ruth) and a businessman (Boaz) with which one of them falls in love.  This is significant - not because it tells the story of either the great or the "history from below" - but because it tells the history of individuals created by God in God's image.  Scripture affirms the historical significance of every life - something practicing historians continually wrestle with and seem to swing from one extreme to the other (biographies of great men vs. history of those who have no voice).  Rather, history indicates that the history of the rich individual, the poor individual, a group of people,  of men, of women, of politicians, of religious men, of thinkers, etc. are all important.  Contrary to some critiques, Scripture provides significant modeling to aid the actual practice of historical research and writing.

And lastly, the work of the Holy Spirit is of historical significance.  Whether in the Old Testament or New Testament, God's people are frequently called to "remember".  To remember what God had done (e.g. the crossing of the Jericho), to remember what they have learned (e.g. Paul's call to not forget what the believers were first taught), and too, in the way that Paul looks back to his Damascus Road experience, to remember that time when our eyes, heart and mind were opened to the reality of the Gospel.  Our Christian life is one framed within history. When we remember the depraved lives we lived before Christ, we remember our history.  When we remember what Christ has done in our life, we remember both our history before him and the history since accepting his atoning sacrifice, and in doing so, we compare two different periods of our history. An active of historical practice.

It's important to realize that at the heart of Christianity is the importance of history.  The affirmation that the Incarnation is a historical reality and occurrence.  The importance of history in the Biblical record.  And the importance of history in our own lives, in light of what the Holy Spirit has done in us and taught us.  

In closing, because history is so vital to our faith, how we understand, approach and understand the "realness" of history impacts our trust in Christ's atoning work, how we go about understanding studying Scripture (that there is a "then/there" in order to apply it to the "here/now" and that we can coe to understand this with a degree of accuracy) and how we understand the Spirit's sanctifying work in our lives.  Because of these things - recognizing this is a brief and quick overview - the study and practice of history is central to our lives as believers and rigorous and solid teaching about history and the skills of historical practice are absolutely essential to the believer's life and to their education.  We are a people of history and Christians ought to be leading the way in the practice and writing of history and Christian universities ought to be declaring to the world the centrality and essential need for the right practice and understanding of history.  History exists outside of ourselves - it points to a firm, knowable reality that is not ego-centric.  This, and so much more, is the response that a Christian perspective of history gives to a world of deconstructionism, postmodernism an doubt (a discussion to follow in a future "Friday Notes").

Friday Notes: Anxious About Nothing

"Do not be anxious about anything, 

but in everything

by prayer and supplication

with thanksgiving

let your requests be known to God."

~Philippians 4:6~

It has been a crazy week for my wife and I.  To kick things off, we worked on our budget and had a sobering - yet helpful - discovery.  After balancing our finances and adding in our upcoming expenses (our baby girl's birth in August, plane tickets to the UK and US for Sep, Nov & Jan, etc.), we realized that we only had 8% in our budget to pay for life's living expenses (food, the car's gas/petrol, etc.).  No wonder we've been feeling so financially tight!

Life's unexpected expenses took us by surprise this year.  Our baby's birth is going to cost twice as much as anticipated (and that's if nothing goes wrong) and our deposit for our apartment in England and our plane tickets set us back over $6,000 (over 20% of our income for the year).  So, that's how our week started off.

Then on Wednesday morning, per my normal routine, I got my morning cup of coffee and sat down in front of the computer to do my bible study and catch up on emails.  What wasn't routine was spilling that entire mug of coffee on our only computer.  Thankfully we probably own the easiest-to-take-apart laptop that Mac has ever made.  I was able to take it all apart, clean every piece - including each individual key - and put it back together. In a huge answer to prayer, it seems to be working fine.

But, all that to say, it's been a hard week and this all on top of preparing for the baby, finishing up my PhD research here in Kenya, getting ready to move back to the UK, and thinking about job applications and interviews this fall.  When Paul writes to the church at Philipi and says, "be anxious about nothing", it's a word for me during this time where I'm anxious about just about everything.  

On top of this, I have the really great opportunity to present a paper at a Cambridge/British Institute conference in just under two weeks time here in Nairobi.  Having been away from the academic community this year, I was feeling well out of my league yesterday.  Then I read this in Philippians this morning:

"I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

~Philippians 4:13~

A word from God for me at this time.  Baby's paperwork? Becoming a father? Finishing my PhD? Applying and interviewing for a job? I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength!

I can't say I now rely on Christ's strength 100% of the time, but I'm learning to.  As much as this is one of the most difficult seasons of my life and a very difficult one for us as a married couple (although we've only been married 2 years), it is a season in which perseverance is building my faith.  So, laying hold of Christ's promise to give me the strength to do all that is on my plate and resting in His ability to accomplish all things, I am committed to persevering.  To keep on keeping on.  And to hold on to a God who is both always faithful and infinitely good to take care of all our needs! (Matthew 6:33)

Friday Notes: Forgiveness & the Future

"For I know the plans I have for you,

declares the Lord,

plans to prosper you to give you a hope and a future." 

~ Jeremiah 29:11 ~

Note: It's been quite some time since I posted, some 4 months. I often have the desire to sit down, to write something that's been ruminating in my mind, but I don't for fear that it would just be one more distraction from my work on a PhD.  I haven't been satisfied with that approach though, so I've decided that the thing to do is to take one day a week to sit down and, during the time I would usually spend studying the Bible, share something I'm learning or thinking about, that I feel like God's teaching me.  So, I'm beginning a new series entitled, "Friday Notes". May they be encouraging, challenging and a blessing in your own journey of faith.

Source: http://www.visitfortaleza.com/

Eight Years Ago: Fortaleza, Brazil

The prophet Jeremiah's words in chapter 29, often quoted and all too frequently taken out of context, were for the Israelites during the 70 years in exile.  This was God's call for them to trust Him even through those dark and hopeless days in a place they didn't want to be.  I would think they felt forsaken and betrayed by God, given up to their enemy, and facing their darkest days in exile.  For me, some of my darkest days came eight years ago during a mission trip to Brazil.  I was part of a leadership team mentoring younger, college-aged leaders who were guiding and discipling a group of 60+ missionary kids from around the world.  

Over the course of that summer, I felt compelled to approach my leaders about some decisions they had been and were making that were affecting myself and my other teammates.  Eight years later, I believe my heart was in the right place, desiring good from the conversations and wanting to see healing in our team.  I held on to the passages throughout Scripture that speak to the Holy Spirit's role in uniting our hearts as believers and leading us into unity. I prayed and hoped for the fruition of those promises.

Then, one night, they confronted me, using Matthew 18 (the passage on confronting a brother or sister in sin), with two other leaders from our team.  I heard that I was the "disease killing our team" and the "splinter tearing it apart".  Those harsh words and the deep feelings of my heart being misunderstood were hard to handle. I left the meeting and took the elevator to the roof of the high-rise hotel we were staying in.  I remember climbing up to the highest part of the building, a smaller roof above the larger one and curling up under a panel of some sort. I remember crying in ways I never had before, asking the Spirit why he had let me down - why disunity had been the outcome rather than the unity I had honestly hoped and prayed for.

My heart broken and disappointed, I walked away from my relationship with the Lord, not feeling like I could trust His Word. The next 6 months were the spiritually driest months of my life.  But in the midst of the desert, I came to realize the way our brokenness - even as believers who are redeemed, made new and being transformed - permeates even our best intentions.  How my brokenness, the hurt I brought into my meetings with my leaders and the ways I failed in communicating, without love over all, contributed, whether I was aware of it or not, to the disunity in our team that summer.  And even the brokenness in my leaders, as they tried to navigate what I was sharing, that lead to the ways in which they responded.  We are broken and sinful - even though we are clothed in Christ - and I realized that our sinful habits work, at times, against the Holy Spirit's desire for unity. Our hurt, our self-protection, our selfishness, our pride, our self-righteousness are all sins that get in the way of the Spirit working.

Source: http://www.kenya-advisor.com/nairobi-life.html

Eight Years Later: Nairobi, Kenya

This month at our church here in Nairobi, Simon Mbevi has been doing a series looking at gratitude, humility, forgiveness and love.  Last week, he spoke on the "Revenge of Forgiveness". An ode to an odd use of "revenge" by Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, Mbevi's sermon on the importance of forgiveness brought to mind that summer eight years ago.  And what struck me is that, had those hard events never taken place, my life would look so different now.  Before the events of that summer, my focus was on international missions and the hopes of working with the ministry, which I had been blessed to work with for 6 years, for the foreseeable future. In fact, I had taken a year out of college to work with them to see if that was, in fact, the direction God wanted me to go.  Out of the brokenness of that summer, came a life I never could have imagined!

I changed my college major and life focus after that summer. Instead of majoring in Cross Cultural Studies and Spanish, I majored in History and Biblical & Theological Studies.  I then went on to do a Masters in Modern History at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Had that not happened, I never would have met the Gilmore's, Meghan, Dale, Melissa, Dave, Jude, Derick and the Fisherwick Presbyterian family.  More importantly, I never would have met Lauren - my future wife - on that St. Patrick's Day, 2009, in Dublin, Ireland. As a result of a great day together, we were married 14 months later.  We've just celebrated our first 2 years together and are looking forward to welcoming our first child, a baby girl, into this world in 2 months time.  Had it not been for my Masters at Queen's, I never would have been in touch with Prof. Dave Anderson at Oxford who invited me to come do a PhD under his supervision: an opportunity I had only ever dreamed of, but never given serious thought to. Had God not opened the doors to Oxford, we never would have met our friends and family in Oxford and at St Andrews Church and wouldn't be finishing up our year of research in Kenya that we've spent with wonderful people like the Mumley's, the Odell's, the Cone's, the Pelts, Miracle House, Gabriella, our Plugged-in Small group, the Nairobi Chapel family and more.  Had it not been for the brokenness, the heartache and the time of wandering through the desert in the summer of 2004, my life would look so different now.  God did answer my prayers for that year.  Through the hurt, the pain and the disappointment He has and continues to guide me into His plans for my life - plans that are far greater and so much more then I would ever imagine on my own.

So Much to Learn...

I have learned and continue to learn so much from the events of 2004.  Looking back, I believe my choice to speak up for my teammates and myself, when we were hurting, was the right thing to do and I know it took courageous. Things didn't go as I had hoped and for my part in letting my brokenness and sinful nature derail that "train", I continue to be grieved and saddened. I learned, the hard way, that right motives don't always lead to right actions, which in turn don't bring the right outcomes. Sin gets in the way. It has broken the way things are and were meant to work in this world.

Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned from that summer is that truly, God knows His plans for us - He knew them for me - and those plans have been for me to prosper in the callings and giftings He has given me (to learn, to teach, to serve), to renew my hope and trust in Him and to give me a future, the future He desires for me.  Truly, He is a good God, trustworthy and great.  Worthy of all our, and my, devotion and obedience.  In our exile, in our deserts, in our wastelands, and in our heartaches, Jeremiah's prophecy is a call to trust God - even if it takes 70 years as it did for the Israelites - that in the midst of and coming out of that time, our Heavenly Father, who loves us so much, has a plan for us: to prosper us, to give us a hope and to give us a future. Sometimes we can't see it until 8 years later, but in the midst of those difficult times, let's hold on to Him!