Geoff’s Storytime

“What Jesus Meant” - A (reposted) Train Story

(Originally posted on my regular blog - TheGeoffRe(y)port)

This story begins in the home of many great stories: Borders. One fine day, the hero of our story was casually wandering through Borders on his lunchbreak, and stumbled across a book entitled “What Jesus Meant“. (Not literally of course, what with the book being on a table to stumble over it would have required an acrobatic feat of significant proportions). The aforementioned title was emblazoned boldly across the cover of this particular book, only obscured slightly by the price sticker pronouncing that this book could be purchased for the very reasonable price of eight dollars and ninety five cents.

Impressed by the audacity of the title, the abundant praise offered by intellectuals on the dust jacket, as well as the thriftiness of the potential purchase; our hero made an inspired decision to purchase “What Jesus Meant”, and went back to work. While the rest of his afternoon work was a little dull, he was rejuvenated by the prospect of discovering the treasures found between the covers of his new book, and so the hours went past at quite a reasonable pace until it was finally time for our hero to head off home. He strolled off towards Melbourne Central station, and let a very full train go past in order that he might be able to enjoy his literary expedition whilst resting his derriere at the accommodation of Connex trains.

Once he was comfortably seated by the window of his train, our hero immersed himself in the theological ruminations and exegetical insights of the writings of Mr Garry Wills, all the while with the relaxing tones of Glen Hansard ringing in his ears, courtesy of his portable music device. Althought the carriage was gradually emptying as commuters reached their destinations, our hero barely noticed as the passengers were exiting. As the train sidled up to Nunawading station, and the relevant travellers got up to leave their seats, he noticed a woman gesticulating in his direction, pointing towards the adjacent seat to that which he had perched his posterior. As our hero removed an earbud, he realised that the middle aged lady was in actual fact hoping to strike up a conversation about his book - the title of which was still boldly proclaiming to hold the key to “What Jesus Meant”.

“Fascinating title,” the lady probed. Our hero was caught a little off guard, but unflustered himself enough from the embarrassment of misunderstanding the woman’s intentions enough to reply truthfully:

“Yes, it’s a ripper”. He smiled quietly to himself as he prepared for an evangelistic retort which would leave him (were he not already washed by the blood of the lamb) and his fellow commuters earnestly seeking repentance and making their way to the nearest Billy Graham crusade at the earliest possible convenience. Our hero was a little unprepared for the answer he actually received:

“Have you heard of speaking in tongues? You should look it up”

I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant.

Missional Example from Chuck Colson

OK - a title like that’s just asking for it. But like him or not (and there’s no doubt I’d disagree with him on a bunch of things), I can’t help but feel Chuck Colson is speaking some of God’s heart into the Blagojevich scandal, in this piece for CNN:

“If anyone knows how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich feels right now, I do….”

“Like me, Blagojevich grew up in a culture that taught the great goal of life was material success, power and influence. I grew up during the Great Depression; I thought if a smart guy like me earned a law degree and accumulated academic honors, they would enable me to find power, fulfillment and meaning in life.

I made a lot of money in my law practice and accepted a White House job. But by then, I had became very self-righteous; I was absolutely certain that no one could corrupt me. All my investments went into a blind trust. Whenever someone gave me a gift, I immediately turned it over to my chauffeur. And yet I ended up going to prison.

I now realize that every human being has an infinite capacity for self-rationalization and self-delusion. Those who serve in public life are faced with enormous peer pressure and don’t always take time to stop and think carefully about what they’re doing.”

“If Blagojevich is guilty, the best thing that could happen to him is to be tried and convicted. He’s going to have to reach rock bottom — just as I did — before he will be able to escape his own prison of pride, self-delusion and self-righteousness. But that’s a transformation we can never accomplish on our own. I can vouch for the fact that human pride is simply too strong.”

Commentary: I know just what Illinois governor feels like now - CNN.com

I like this “missional tribe” thing, and I think it’s got a chance to really inspire and encourage as we try desperately to do this mission thing right. But I think we have to be ready to hear the heart of God, whether that’s in Mclaren, Colson or Dawkins.

(Article flogged from Don Heatley - and you should read his post on interactions with Colson too!)

Hello world!

Hi everyone, Geoff here with an uncertain start to my missional tribe experience. Unsure of exactly what this blog will turn into (if anything), but I’d really like to think that I might be able to buy into the whole mindset behind “Missional Tribe” and post stories here of wonderful adventures in missional experiments. Either way, we’ll just have to wait and see. If you’re running into me for the first time through here, you’ll want to check out my “real” blog - over at TheGeoffRe(y)port. It’s been running for a while and so has a ridiculously large amount of meaningless waffle to sort through. Good luck with that!

Anyway, I figure I’d best keep the original post, and go from there!