God, Help Me To Be Irrelevant…
I think I’ve said it a lot of times, and you probably heard it many more times within the Church…in my PKV (varsity christian fellowship) days, the question we asked ourselves and one another was, how can we be “relevant”, especially to the society we live and work in.
I still operate by that question, but I believe at another level, that standard changes. Recently, while surfing on Father Henri Nouwen, I came across a quote from him:
“I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.” -In the Name of Jesus, 1989
In a time when we are all so easily drawn into the status quo, when even the Church may be tempted to do what everyone else is doing, to advocate the popular cause – not that all these is wrong in themselves – perhaps, we will be wise to check ourselves and our actions against Father Nouwen’s advise.
At the end of the day, we are not saviours of the world nor are we called to be. The truth is, whatever we do, the example of god is not the offer of little ideas or services to the world. They may be but incidental.
But god offered himself, that’s incarnational, to use a big christian word. And when he did that, offering himself, he did not purposely go against culture or pro-culture. He gave himself totally to the people, meeting their “self”, which included their culture (or subculture). It was counter culture only in the sense of god in Jesus reversed the “rejection of others” which permeated our global humanity. And the reversal was the loving offering of himself.
I think we may need to realize that we are worth far more than the ideas and programs we can offer. Yes, even our frail, vulnerable self. That’s not trying to be presumptuous, only putting the real value back into our humanity.
God, help us, me, to be irrelevant and to say with Paul;
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
I am a true-blood Penang "kia" (son of Penang) who love everything about my beautiful home-state, well, almost everything. :)
Formerly I served as the Special Assistant to the Penang State Executive Councillor (State-level ministerial post) in charge of Youth and Sports. I am now pursuing an MA in Philosophy at a local university.
I am also the Executive Secretary of the Network of Social Democracy in Asia (www.socdem.asia) and sit on the committee of the State-sponsored Good Governance and Gender Equality Society (3Gs). Since 2007, I also served in various capacities in the office of the Hon' Madam Chong Eng, a leading Malaysian woman Parliamentarian.
Politically, I had the privilege to help manage four successful political campaigns since 2007 and was involved in planning, campaigning and monitoring of eight state and federal level elections in Malaysia.
I am engaged with the love of my life, Jorin. Both of us worship at the Bukit Mertajam Gospel Centre.
October 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Amen!
And congrats! You’re taken the first step to include a picture that was totally irrelevant… ;P
JR
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
This is my second time reading this post. When i read it a few days back, didn’t thought of its “relevance” with the activities at CHC.
I like the way you draw the attention to the life-giving life of Jesus, putting him between the anti-culture and the pro-culture. Drawing from Barth, Christ is so explosive that none of these two attitudes towards culture is adequate and radical and powerful enough.
The giving of the Son by the Father, through the Spirit is the Trinitarian manifestation that explodes and shuttered all of our cultural baggage and contexts. Now and ever more we have to re-work and re-think as attempt to pick up the pieces left from the massive explosion and piece them together. To the Critical Social theorist like Habermas, this will be the critical attempt to critique oneself and others yet without giving up the positive effect and purpose of such critique.
To Joreen,
The picture might not be as irrelevant as you think. Perhaps you are the life-giving presence that shutters Steven’s cultural baggage (there is a reason why he is known as “chi ko pek”) and hence through you, he learned to reflect upon the life-givingness of Jesus to him, and through that, Steven’s own life-givingness to others.
JW