New Blog!

Check out my latest postings on my new blog with Arthur. I've been having some fun thinking about Baz Luhrmann's latest movie Australia.

The Shack

I've been writing about Wm Paul Young's The Shack recently and the result has been two short papers which pick up on what seemed to me to be two main themes: Suffering and Relationship with God.

There's so much stuff in The Shack that it seems near impossible for any discussion of the novel to do it justice but I hope there's something helpful here.

On an experience of Christian education

Come of Wycliffe!
Come on Knox!
Come on Taylor!
Pull up your socks!
Carey, Carey
Ra Ra Ra!

Such was one of the cheers we 'Carey kids' were taught for Sports Day at Tyndale Christian School. (The one in Blacktown, NSW, not the one I taught at in Salisbury East.) At one level, there's nothing that remarkable about a school with great community spirit where the house groups cheer against one another and spur on their athletes, though they may be competing in mere sack-races.

And yet, those names - Carey, Taylor, Knox and Wycliffe - are extraordinary. William Carey, Baptist minister and missionary to India. Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission. John Knox, Scottish reformer and founder of Presbyterianism. John Wycliffe, reformer and pioneer Bible translator. What great men to breathe into the fabric of a school!

Well I remember at the 25th anniversary of Tyndale, when I was in year 5, watching a documentary about William Tyndale, for whom the school was named. Hearing of his zeal to see people read the Bible I learned the importance of people being able to access God's words for themselves. My heart stood still as we heard of Tyndale's burning at the stake and his last great prayer, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes" uttered today, 472 years ago. And my heart still warms to remember Tyndale's legacy, which now bears the name of a king of England: the King James Version of the Bible.

While much of this was not always at the forefront of my own thinking as I went through the school, nevertheless I am grateful to those teachers and others who laboured to create such an environment where prefects were called 'Care Kids', because theirs was a position of service and care for those younger than them rather than of superiority. Though I attended another three schools after Tyndale, its motto stays with me. I am so grateful for its shaping and pray that I might continue in all things to 'Serve the Lord with gladness'.

The Bible and the apple seed

Growing up in the Lockery household, saying grace at the start of mealtimes was an Event. I have since learned that in some families, grace consists of a reverent hush followed by a quietly spoken prayer. Which I must say is a far cry from the frivolity and noise that was the sung Lockery grace. There were a number of different graces to choose from but one of our favourites was 'The Lord is good to me'. It went:

The Lord is good to me

And so I thank the Lord

For giving me the things I need

The sun, the rain, the Bible

And the apple seed

The Lord is good to me.

Amen.

Or so we thought. 

I still remember the day my little sister Anna came back from camp absolutely indignant that the rest of the world did not know the words to 'The Lord is good to me'. It was then that we discovered the simple addition my parents had made when they taught us this traditional grace - the Bible. That's right, it should read 'The sun, the rain and the apple seed' or, in some American versions, 'The sun, the rain and Johnny Appleseed'. But only in the Lockery family was 'the Bible' slipped in there.

I do remember as a child wondering why the Bible was in there. After all, it didn't seem to fit with the sun, rain and the apple seed. And yet, every mealtime when we sang that song, we thanked God for the Bible. 

How grateful I am for my parents and the profundity they slipped in with that extra syllable. For we know that 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God' (Matt 4:4). 

To all are given the blessings of sun, rain and apple seed, for God causes them to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Matt 5:45) but to those who know Jesus are given the words of eternal life. We must certainly thank God for the everyday blessings we experience. Saying grace (however raucously!) is a good and right thing. But I am reminded by the example of my lyric-changing parents to thank God each day for that which truly sustains us - his word.

Green Glory

Next week is Jesus Week on the North Terrace uni campuses - our big evangelistic week of the year. This year we're asking the campus 'Is God dead?' on jumpers, posters, cards, chalk on sidewalks, banners, etc and replying at talks, debates, dialogue dinners, in conversations, etc. that Jesus was dead but is now alive. My hope is that God will take our feeble efforts and help us to engage with campus culture in such a way that his name is proclaimed faithfully and that many would give their lives to the living God.

Readers of Facebook will know that a few nights ago I spilled Ice Magic down the Jesus Week jumper I have been wearing for the past week and will be wearing for another week and last night I had a few spillages with the marinade for dinner so before I further maim my jumper I thought I had better record its green 

glory!

Here I am in my oversized green hoodie!

Hopefully this pic gives you a better idea of the front of the jumper. The back is really cool as well but I wasn't co-ordinated enough to get a photo of it! On the back, there are a number of ECGs (yes, I know it's not technically a correct ecg - just about every stickler med student on campus has pointed it out) all placed in different places so that the pointy bits together form the shape of a question mark.

Olympic freedom

I love the Olympics. My family is obsessed with them. Whether it was Anna's conviction that she would one day marry Kieran Perkins or Steph's broken arm, testament to her attempt to be like the Olympic gymnasts, anticipating the opening ceremony, watching the events with awe and experiencing post-game let down have been a part of growing up for me in the Lockery household.

However, this year I have approached the Olympics with more sadness than excitement. While I respect our Australian athletes and their decisions to compete, the ethical issues loom large in my mind as a viewer and threaten to spoil the appeal of this sporting venture. My concern rests largely on the narrative of the host country, China. As we hear Chinese officials speaking of China's acceptance into the rest of the world, on one hand 'One World, One Dream' sounds wonderfully optimistic. However, as I have seen stories over the past few months of the Chinese government's oppression of the Tibetan people, refusal to acknowledge Taiwan, demolition of Chinese people's houses that cluttered the streets and other such atrocities, I have wondered whether it is such a good thing to 'accept' China.

Of course the people of China may not be to blame for such acts and so, the argument could be made that they should not be further punished for the wrongs of their government. That said, one wonders about the Chinese nationalism that has been expressed these games. Is it genuine love of China's people or its government? Or is it another PR job by a Communist regime, another sign of oppression? The ethics of politics, the individual and the state are always complicated and I do not pretend to find easy answers here. But I still wonder whether I should boycott these games, protesting my own unease with the policies of the Chinese government.

I am teaching a course on ethics at the moment and so I feel I ought to hold some kind of strong conviction and take action on it. And yet, when I see Stephanie Rice swimming or hear that the artistic gymnastics are on, the excitement overwhelms me and I feel that I simply must watch! And yet, what an incredible freedom that is - to have the right to protest as well as the liberty to be lazy.

A brother, fallen asleep

On Saturday I received the very sad news that Geoff Morrow had died while on a Wycliffe mission trip in the Philippines. I saw Geoff and his wife Aileen only intermittently, since they did not live in Adelaide, but they have had a profound impact on the way I think about ministry and I respected Geoff greatly as an older brother in the Lord.

Geoff and Aileen ran a course called 'Operation Encounter' which is basic anthropology in terms of helping those who do it to think about others' cultures and how to understand them. This is undergirded by a missiology that sees culture and understanding it as vital to communicating the gospel in such a way that it will 'stick' long after missionary influence is gone. I did their course as a uni student, and I thought it was so good, I asked them to come back to Adelaide to do it with my students last year!

But it wasn't just the course they ran which I learned from. It was the way they did it. I don't think I have ever met people who cared more genuinely about people - whether it be the intricacies of social status for the people of Obo Mnobo or the trials of exams for Australian uni students. Their servant hearts were incredible: as I negotiated for them to come to Adelaide and emails went back and forth, nothing I suggested was too hard for them. Even when they got lost in Adelaide uni trying to find the room, they arrived with graciousness and big smiles. At the same time, they were also a model to Arthur and me of a Christian marriage. I never heard them put each other down, even in jest. Rather, they built each other up, and Geoff would compliment his wife on both her beauty and her intelligence as he went about teaching the course. There was never any mistaking Geoff's passion for Jesus, displayed in both his teaching and his care for others.

So it seems odd to think that Geoff will never return to Adelaide to run his amazing course and to be a model older Christian man to others. What a reminder it is of the unnatural state that death is, how we have been created for so much more! Yet, we know that Geoff is not lost to us who are Christians. Rather, he has fallen asleep and, with us all, will be resurrected on the last day. In the meantime, I imagine that the angels in Heaven are staring in amazement at Geoff's enormous smile and getting a few lessons in what it really means to praise the Lord with enthusiasm!