I just moved house to a more central location just near the beach and I’ve committed to riding my bike everywhere (where possible and weather permitting).
Here are some great reasons to give bike riding a go…
Following up on my post: “Ugly Kids Get Chosen Last“, I thought I’d talk a bit more about our culture’s unhealthy obsession with outward beauty. I hope to continue to explore the broader topic of image throughout future blogs. Lets start by attempting to understand the physical countenance of Jesus and why I believe it to have been purposely plain, or as some might say….ugly.
When Jesus came to earth as the incarnation of God himself, it was the ultimate act of humility. In fact, it is often argued that humility is the fundamental lesson of the incarnation. The purpose of this humility through the Incarnation is a demonstration of the love of God for us through redemption.
In 1 Corinthians 13 we learn that love…”does not boast.” So what does this mean in the context of the incarnation? How does this relate to Jesus? First of all, it’s interesting how we tend to always describe Jesus in His “greatness” and His “glory” but rarely describe the humble Christ.
Augustine once said: “What we must learn of Christ is not that He has formed the world, created all things visible and invisible, that He ….has worked miracles and raised the dead to life …. but what He wants us especially to learn of Him is that He is ‘meek and humble of heart’ those virtues of self-effacement and silence, virtues disdained and unseen by men.”
An unhealthy obsession with outward beauty has been drummed into us since childhood and continues to dominate popular culture. The most famous people in the world are the best looking, distinguished in no way by their intelligence or accomplishments, but by the simple fact of their physical attractiveness. You see this with people like Paris Hilton, arguably the most famous woman in America, someone who’s done nothing but be attractive and dumb simultaneously and in equal measure.
For some reason, we have come to view attractiveness with a sense of awe. Those who are physically desirable are listened to, respected, admired and adored. But what also forms is an unwarranted sense of entitlement, that in some way an attractive person feels they deserve to only be in the presence of other attractive people, that they are in some way better than those who are less attractive. That’s pride.
Do you remember in high school how the cute girls all sat together and the good-looking boys all sat together, and how they used to make fun of the ugly kids? That’s how it played out. You see, I believe that God understood our strange pre-occupation with physical attractiveness and knew how it fuelled our pride.
The incarnation teaches us to look beyond physical appearance to see deep within the heart of a person, and that’s what people had to do with Jesus. That’s the lesson the disciples and people of their day would have had to learn, and that requires humility. In order for us to see Jesus, we must humble ourselves. We must strip away the superficial lens through which we view other human beings, and learn to see greatness within the most unlikely of characters, regardless of their physical appearance.
I believe the countenance of Jesus was purposely plain, that He did it just to challenge us, just so that we must learn to see through what the world may view as unworthy, and see a great king. The expectation of the Jews for their messiah was for a powerful king who would overpower their enemies and would sit upon a throne of glory and rule His people. What the incarnation of Jesus did was completely and utterly destroy all of our preconceptions of what we consider a king.
Jesus became the antithesis of what we expected of a king, he became the opposite of everything that our image-based culture expected and desired. This was not because He wanted to surprise us, but because of the simple fact that everything our culture cherishes and respects (attractiveness, wealth, power) just happens to be contrary to the things that God cherishes and respects (meekness, humility, kindness).
Another reason why I believe in the plain countenance of Jesus, is that in Christ, God became nothing (Phil 2:7) for the purpose of true intimacy with humanity. God became a lowly human, a servant of men who died a criminal’s death on the cross. One of the last acts of Jesus was getting on his hands and knees and washing the dirty feet of his disciples. Love cannot boast and Jesus Christ is God not boasting!
If love cannot boast, then Jesus likely had nothing to boast about in regards to His physical appearance. The incarnation was a demonstration of the highest form of humility; everything about Jesus therefore challenged our image-oriented culture and was an affront to how we see and understand God. In Jesus, God became a little lower than you in order to lift you up.
In humble love, we do not see how we are better, or bigger, or stronger, or richer, or better looking than others. We bring ourselves alongside one another, we lower ourselves in order to lift each other up. Love engenders humility in us, rejecting the idea of being better than someone else. If Jesus was humility in its ultimate form, his entire person had to demonstrate this.
Bruce R. McConkie writes that “We suppose he was similar in appearance to other Abrahamic Orientals of his day and that he was recognized by those who knew him and went unheeded in the crowds by those unacquainted with him. A Judas was needed to identify him to the arresting officers; people spoke of him as though he were the carpenter’s son; and he seemingly appeared as other men do.”
My conclusion: Jesus was ugly.
“He grew up like a young plant and like a root out of the dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by all, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53)
“We are now only 2 days away from the opening of Call and Response at cinemas across Australia (Oct 22). You may be interested to know, Justin Dillon (Call and Response Producer/Director) is appearing on a number of media outlets this week. Confirmed interviews are with: Today Show (Channel 9) Tuesday 20th October, 9am (Channel 10) Friday 23rd October, plus other interviews on radio and newspapers etc.
We now have up on the Call and Response website an updated list of cinemas who are showing this film publicly. Although none of these cinemas may be suitable for you to go and see this film, we have had discussions with other cinemas around the country and currently negotiating with them to get to screen it. You can help make this happen by contacting your local cinema and asking if they are prepared to show Call and Response. Also if you are involved in a church or any other group, over the coming weeks we’d love to try and get as many people as possible together to see Call and Response. All I’d ask is you email me with the number of people you could get together, this would help us to show individual cinemas the interest in this film.
To keep up to date on all information about this exceptional film, I’d encourage you to regularly visit: www.callandresponse.com.au
For those of you in Brisbane or the Gold Coast, there is a ‘Modern Day Slavery’ forum and screening of ‘Call + Response‘ tomorrow (Saturday).
‘Modern Day Slavery’ forum has been carefully developed to be an engaging, inspiring and meaningful experience. It will focus specifically on trafficking in persons within the Asia Pacific region. Trafficking in persons (TIP), as the 2nd largest criminal activity, is a complex problem. This forum will give you a greater awareness of TIP and its multi-faceted nature, yet leave you equipped with how to progress change and combat this huge problem.
The forum includes plenary sessions, workshops, stalls, a photo exhibition and the pre-screening of Call and Response. The forum is packed full of interactive learning opportunities, with workshops designed to give you the chance to delve in more depth into issues and topics of interest to you. More info: http://www.moderndayslavery.net.au/
‘Call + Response’ is a first of its kind feature documentary film that reveals the world’s 27 million dirtiest secrets: there are more slaves today than ever before in human history. CALL+RESPONSE goes deep undercover where slavery is thriving from the child brothels of Cambodia to the slave brick kilns of rural India to reveal that in 2007, Slave Traders made more money than Google, Nike and Starbucks combined. A pre-screening of ‘Call and Response’ will follow the conclusion of the forum. More info: http://www.callandresponse.com.au/
This week (11-17 Oct) is Enviroweek, an exciting awareness, behaviour change and fundraising week of action that’s all about changing your habits to reduce your impact on the environment.
To raise funds for various environmental charities and organisations, Cool Australia is urging all Australians to get sponsored and take on an environmental challenge or dare for one week. Challenges will include everything from starting a compost bin, ditching the car and walking, planting some trees, going vegetarian and anything in between.
Following on from yesterday’s post about Michael Moore’s new documentary, I found this article that he wrote on Oct 4 on Christianity & Capitalism. Very interesting, what do you think?:
For Those of You on Your Way to Church This Morning…
Friends,
I’d like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I’m sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).
In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one’s religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we’ve heard enough yammerin’ in the past three decades about how one should “behave,” and I have to say I’m pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation that invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.
I’m also against any proselytizing; I certainly don’t want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I’ll leave that for another day (or movie).
Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in Capitalism: A Love Story, I pose a simple question in the movie: “Is capitalism a sin?” I go on to ask, “Would Jesus be a capitalist?” Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1 percent to have more financial wealth than the 95 percent under them combined?
I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what’s left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother’s and sister’s keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you’d have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.
I guess that’s bad news for us Americans. Here’s how we define “Blessed Are the Poor”: We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There’s a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.
At the same time, Wall Street bankers (“Blessed Are the Wealthy”?) are amassing more and more loot — and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs’ tax rate was a mere 1 percent!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn’t seem you can call yourself a Capitalist and a Christian — because you cannot love your money and love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That’s called “immoral” — and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.
When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your “better angels” to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil — and I hope you’ll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.
Thanks for listening. I’m off to Mass in a few hours. I’ll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must’ve been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.
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