Golden Parachute

I’ve been reading a fair bit over the last few weeks about Alan Joyce and his golden parachute - a lavish severance package in the order of millions of dollars that he now gets to enjoy as he floats back to earth in retirement.
 
He leaves Qantas in terrible shape – accusations of sales on non-existent flights, an unwillingness to repay the government covid payments and instead enrich shareholders, a high court loss against workers the company illegally retrenched and then offshored their roles.
 
It feels so unjust that Joyce, at the end of his career, would be so enriched when the last few months has demonstrated that the company has taken from every one of us – either in poor service, poor treatment of his workers or by taking government money that could be spent on other things that benefit the community. The practice of giving golden parachutes doesn’t improve the company in any way – after all, it’s received by someone leaving.
 
But all this has also left me pondering just how unlucky you’d be if you jumped from an aeroplane, pulled the cord, and gold came out. All that’s going to do is weigh you down as you approach the dust.
 
I regularly read Psalm 73. I find it calms me down and gives me perspective when things are not right. In it, Asaph, the composer, is incensed at the wealth of the wicked. They seem to be getting away with so much. Pride is like a necklace for them. They seem carefree, while the just seem to struggle along. Asaph climbs higher up the hill in Jerusalem noticing the houses are getting nicer as he goes and he’s getting angrier as he climbs. But then he get’s the house at the top of the hill – God’s house. And as he walks across the threshold his whole countenance changes. The architecture of the Temple was perfectly arranged to help worshippers see the story the world is really in. God hasn’t missed any of the evil, and he will deal with it in the end. Moreover, God hasn’t missed Asaph’s self-righteousness – and he’s dealing with that too.
 
We don’t have access to the same architecture and so we might feel sad about that, but we have something better. Jesus, the new and better temple. He shows us the story we’re in, how he has saved us and gives us a new countenance in the face of injustice.  
 

grace and peace,

Steve

Worm

I want to tell you about a dinner conversation I had this week with my children regarding brain worms and the Holy Spirit.
 
It’s possible you missed hearing about the surgery at Canberra Hospital of a woman who had gone to hospital with pains in her stomach, diarrhoea, a cough, a fever and experiencing forgetfulness and depression. The hospital did a brain scan, noticed something abnormal, then did another one and noticed it’d moved, so they decided to operate. To everyone in the operating theatres’ surprise, they pulled out a very active worm, about 8cm long.
 
I read the Canberra Times story about the surgery to our kids who lit up with delight at how gross the whole thing was and then they asked, “how do we know that we don’t have living things inside us like that?” to which I responded “well – the weird thing is, scientists believe that more than half of the cells in your body are non-human. Part of how God’s made us, as dirt people, is that we need other tiny creatures in us so we can digest food, for example.” There was then some amusing discussion about how our flatulence is actually made up of millions of tiny bacteria farts, which I won’t go into more here.
 
A brief silence set in as everyone ate their pasta, then someone asked. “Wait - how does having the Holy Spirit inside you work? Like, where does he live? Could doctors pull him out?”
 
Now - I studied at theological college for years; have been a pastor for more than a decade; preach, write community group studies and open the scriptures with people pastorally every week – and yet the questions from kids as they strain to put together a coherent view of the world are easily the hardest things I face.
 
Here’s what I said. “Even though the Holy Spirit can’t be seen on a scan, just like in the woman he does produce symptoms, but they’re good symptoms – a love for Jesus, an amazement that he loves us, a ‘want’ to see the world put right by Jesus. The Spirit lives in the core of us, not like an apple core, but in the deepest parts of who we are. And the Bible says that, as well as making us more like Jesus everyday, he’s like a stamp on us to prove that we belong to Jesus. God promises that if we’re stamped by the Spirit then nothing can take him away.”
 
They then shrugged acceptingly, and went back to their pasta.
  
Friends, the opposite of a parasite is a benefactor. If you are in Christ, you have a non-human person at work in you. One person of the Trinity has made his dwelling in your heart. He's graciously filling you with life, helping you to remember the story you’re in and scraping off elements of our character that don’t correspond with life everlasting.
 
And I’m very grateful to that little worm for helping me to remember that this week and prompting small questions. 

grace and peace,

Steve

Roboidolatry

I heard someone say once that every system is perfectly designed to give you the results it gets. The Robodebt Royal Commission report was handed down a week ago, and I’ve had a thumb through the recommendations.
 
In the media reporting around Robodebt, there’s be a lot written about the shonky design of the algorithm, and the consequences that has had for vulnerable people. But what’s fascinating in the report is to consider the kind of permission structures that need to exist for a whole branch of government and several government ministers to think, “yeah – lets unlawfully automate debt assessment and recovery! It’ll be more efficient; it’ll mean we need to employ less APS staff; and we’ll be able to show we’re not being scammed by those pesky bludgers!”
 
We have a theological category to explain this set of permission structures– idolatry. Idolatry is when we take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing. The pursuit of idols makes you tunnel down on the thing you want, which means ignore other goods. It also means you can ignore or rationalise the pain the pursuit of your idol is causing you or other people as “necessary.”
 
So, if, above all else, you want the approval of your boss then you’ll be eager to play down inconvenient information. If, above all else, you want to show you’re tough on crime, you’ll be willing for a few dolphins to be caught in the trawling fishnet. Idolatry is the “why” that sits behind sin. Worshipping the wrong stuff, according to the Bible, isn’t just naughty – it hurts people.
 
Unfortunately, the recommendations in the report to remedy what’s gone wrong with Robodebt only go as far as a government report can – according to the report what’s needed is more clarity, more oversight and better training. But the people who feared giving bad advice to their managers or to government because it might be career limiting didn’t need a “Knowledge College” (yep – one of the actual recommendations) – they need a confidence that, no matter what the outcome is, there is someone who sees the justice of their cause and will look after them for all eternity in the complete safety and joy. Having that kind of confidence means you can be like Daniel’s friends, unwilling to bow to an idol when everyone else will.
 
All of this is usually easier to see and diagnose in the rear-view mirror, but getting that diagnosis sets you up better for the future. So, it being Friday, have a think about the week just gone and have a go at answering any/all of these for yourself.
 
What desires have governed the way you’ve approached your work?   
What goals have you had for the week? How do you define success or failure?
What do you think you need?
Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, and escape?
Whom must you please?
From whom do you desire approval or fear rejection?

Grace and Peace,

Steve.

The Law and the Spirit

The weirdest thing happened this week in Australia and England. Thousands of people on social media, every sports commentator in each respective country and, indeed, both Prime Ministers found themselves having a sharp disagreement over theology. 
 
In case you aren’t a cricket tragic, let me [briefly] explain. Wait! Don’t stop reading… I promise this is going somewhere!
 
What happened was an English chap, Jonny Bairstow, was a bit too casual about the game he’s being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to be good at. He behaved as though the game had briefly paused, as it does after every six balls bowled, before it had actually stopped. This lapse in judgement created an opening for the Australian team to get him out, which they did. 
 
Even though the game is built on taking advantage of people’s lapses of judgement, this particular instance was seen by the English as ungentlemanly, unseemly, and very wrong. Even though England were behind by 178 with 5 already out and didn’t really stand a chance, a narrative has emerged that Australians stole the test match. When it was pointed out that the Australian team did nothing to transgress the Law (what Cricket pompously calls its rules) an appeal was made instead to the Spirit of Cricket which, apparently, the Australian’s were out of step with. 
 
Whether they realise it or not, English fans are adopting the language of 2 Corinthians 3 where Paul insists that the Spirit is far greater than the Law. It’s not that the Law is wrong, but it’s ultimately impotent to make us better people. All the Law can do is tell you when you’re in our out – the Spirit can make you just and generous. 
 
And on this point, they are absolutely right. The Spirit does transform believers. In the language of the Sermon on the Mount, it makes us not “you’ve heard that it was said” people but “but I tell you” people. The Law (Old Testament or Cricket) is weakened by our flesh (Romans 8:3) and what we need is rescue so that we might live according to the Spirit.  

Grace and Peace,

Steve

PS. He was still out. Its a just game

Pass Go

Winning Games, a Hasbro subsidiary, has this week announced that they’ll be releasing a Canberra version of Monopoly. They are presently open to suggestions about what goes on there.

I imagine they’ll go the boring route and major on the institutions (the War Memorial, Questacon, the NGA, etc.) but all of that is too obvious for locals. The figurines should be a Kingsley’s chip, a parked car with two wheels on the curb, an APS lanyard, a bus stop, and a hailstone.

When I think of Monopoly, I think of “house rules” and the Canberra board should include provision for overtaking on a central roundabout, which lets you whip through the board before you have to LANE ONE FORM back on the other side.

The stations should be bus interchanges, the utilities could include Icon water (pay 10% for a new poo recycling centre), and in the top right hand corner it could say “Go to Queanbeyan.”

Here’s what’s a shame though – in many ways Canberra is a perfect fit for a monopoly board. Monopoly, when you step back and look at it, takes life and reduces it down to consumption and exploitation of other’s weakness; what looks like success if more often just luck of the dice; it’s individualistic, it’s cyclical and it’s soulless.

In all kinds of ways, Canberra’s work environment is built to make it easy for you to understand your rank against other players. It gives you the sense that you ought to be going round and round getting more and crafting your reputation and that you should think about nothing else – every other consideration is an externality until it’s time to pop everything back up the box and put it away.  

Being a follower of Jesus frees you from that game. He makes it possible to love this place while resisting its narratives. He makes us not just consumers but builders and gardeners of this city. And above all else, he has declared us winners already, which means we are liberated from being scramblers, or cheaters, or tantrum board flippers. You can take that to the bank.     

grace and peace,

Steve