Part 9 - Is this life boring?

Who called the Fun Police?

Before we go any further I have to kind of balance out what’s going on here. I asked a question in a group of friends not long ago – one of those “off the wall” questions that sometimes rolls around in my confused little mind! The question was “Were the apostles fun at parties?”

I mean, really, the bible talks about the apostles doing amazing works and really hearing from God, and I just did not get the impression that they were the type of people that got invited to parties. To put it bluntly, I started to think that people like Paul, Peter, John etc were nerds!

In fact, you could even be excused for thinking that the bible even backs up this type of thinking.

Acts 5:12-13 Now by the hands of the apostles (special messengers) numerous and startling signs and wonders were being performed among the people. And by common consent they all met together [at the temple] in the covered porch (walk) called Solomon's. And none of those who were not of their number dared to join and associate with them, but the people held them in high regard and praised and made much of them.

Let me put this verse in context – a couple called Ananias and Sapphira had just tried to pull a swifty on the church, and Peter called them on it – the upshot was Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead on the spot. Generally speaking, people don’t drop dead when I speak to them – bored to death maybe, but they don’t fall dead where they stand!

The apostles seemed to have reached a stage in their relationship with God where they became intimidating to those around them – they were respected, and people had a lot of time for them, but they authority of God that they exhibited scared people to death – literally and figuratively.

These people were not boring – they lived a life that was out on the edge – there was always something amazing, confronting and occasionally scary happening around them. You could always count on the extraordinary happening when an apostle was around.

But did they have a fun life?

In saying that the apostles experienced a pretty full-on lifestyle, I still have not answered my own question – did these people have a fun life? Or to put it another way, did they really enjoy life when there was so much going on, so many demands, and a demand to be “in the game” every single day?

Quite frankly, I don’t want to live a life that doesn’t have some fun in it – I want to enjoy my time with friends, listen to my music really, really loud (and yes, my iPod has a “LOUD” playlist), and take joy from life. So if I’m supposed to become this spiritual person, does this mean that the "Fun Police" are going to ensure that I don't enjoy life?

The bible is pretty clear on this front – the life we live is intended to be exciting, fulfilling and edgy. Jesus makes this clear when He says…

John 10:10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).

But it really becomes a matter of perspective. Or to put it another way, what’s “fun”? There are many things that we might consider gratifying, exciting and fun right now. Will that be the case as we become spiritual people?

Then I read what Peter had to say (which at first glance I did not find all that encouraging):

1 Peter 4:1-4 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having the mind of Christ] is done with [intentional] sin [has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God], so that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by [his] human appetites and desires, but [he lives] for what God wills.
For the time that is past already suffices for doing what the Gentiles like to do--living [as you have done] in shameless, insolent wantonness, in lustful desires, drunkenness, reveling, drinking bouts and abominable, lawless idolatries. They are astonished and think it very queer that you do not now run hand in hand with them in the same excesses of dissipation, and they abuse [you].

What an incredibly uncomfortable scripture for us “fun people”!! The fact that Peter is suggesting that we’ve got to be ready to suffer doesn’t seem like much fun. Then Peter goes on to say that it was time to give up their old lifestyle, and he spells out what he’s talking about in no uncertain terms.

Now, I read this, and I didn’t think that I was living “in shameless, insolent wantonness, in lustful desires, drunkenness, revelling, drinking bouts and abominable, lawless idolatries”, and so Peter could not be giving me a lashing, could he? But then I started to think about the people that were living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, and what their lifestyle was and what was important to them.

Something's rotten in Cappadocia

I went back and had a look at what was happening in this region at the time Peter was writing. The first thing I learned was that Peter was writing in about 60 A.D. which is when the fire that burned Rome occurred - the Emperor Nero basically blamed the Christians for this and started down a path of persecuting them.

The next interesting thing I found out was that the Amazon women (think Xena the Warrior Princess!) were reputed to have come from Pontus, which is now part of Turkey and was quite a wild place. Bithynia was right next door, forming part of a dual province. Galatia sat between the two states (the Galatians being pretty big Zeus followers at the time). During Peter’s time, these places were part of the Roman Empire. Cappadocia was a state that had changed it allegiances regularly until Rome got it under control. This region is now in modern day Turkey.

This was a time in Roman history where the focus was on entertainment – games, sport, drinking and eating etc. The people of that time would have been exposed to and encouraged to participate in a fairly reckless and immoral lifestyle – in fact, there are considerable parallels between the activities then and the current Gen Y mentality we see today. There was great emphasis on fun.

On top of that , Nero (despite being as crazy as a cut snake) had opened up trade with many countries and there was increasing wealth. People were focussed on making money.
It was also a time when Nero saw that there was an increasing gap between the “haves” and the “have nots”, and he took at least some steps to try and help the disenfranchised (although some might say it was only to buy votes). Again, there are some parallels with our own point in history.

So the things that were going on at the time that Peter wrote to these churches seem to parallel in many respects the things that are going on now – there is a focus on entertainment and money. There is an all-pervading self-centredness evident in society. Many people are being disenfranchised whilst the rest of society chases after self-gratification.

Put aside the words “drunkenness”, “wantonness” etc for a moment - Peter was encouraging the people in that region to shift from the social norm that existed. Maybe we don’t go out and get drunk every night, and maybe we haven’t been caught sacrificing to some golden idol at a pagan temple, but perhaps we might become a bit uncomfortable when we realise that we are conforming to many inappropriate social norms.

The insidious part of all of this is that, because social norms are socially acceptable, conforming to them is not seen as a bad thing – it’s just what we do in this society! And our frame of reference for what’s “fun” generally fits inside this social norm.

Peter has not called the Fun Police on us to break up our party – what he’s done is confront us with the challenge of non-conformity, and dared us to think about a life that redefines what is fun, gratifying and fulfilling.

Hummingbird Syndrome

You would be forgiven for thinking that God has called us to a life where there is no fun, despite the fact that we are given “life more abundantly” – there seems to be a disconnect between God’s promise of this full life, and the indication the bible gives us that there is going to be suffering in our lives. It appears that God wants us to enjoy life (and not simply “suffer through” it), but how can you be suffering and still have a full life?

The word “enjoy” is based on the word “joy” – this is significant. The dictionary defines joy as the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying, keen pleasure, or elation. Despite sounding like a pretty good thing to have, the concept of joy doesn’t get much attention as a sermon topic, except to say “You’re a Christian, so you should be happy” – which is kind of patronising, since there are a lot of things going on that are particularly “anti-joyful”. Life is not an easy ride, and if we are pushing for the spiritual life being discussed here, life can get even more complicated!

So how do I get this “emotion of great delight or happiness”?

Well, actually, you don’t!

Let me clarify that – what I mean to say is that “emotional” joy is a very fleeting thing – it is, as the definition says, caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying. Going back to some first principles, we talked about the fact that we consist of three separate parts – body, mind and spirit. Emotional joy is something that is experienced in our minds, and our minds are fickle little beasts that can switch from one emotion to another quicker than you can blink. The experience of emotional joy is very much dependant on our environment, most of which we cannot control, so we do one of two things:

• We find an environment where we can find some joy (even if just for a little while);


• We avoid environments where there is likely to be no joy, or what little we have will get sucked out of us

The fact is that people spend their entire lives doing one of these two things, and it’s a full time job. Think about it – what things do you do every day just to grab a moment of joy, and how many of those things are there? They might be weekly events that give you a major “joy kick”, or they might be smaller daily rituals that top up the joy factor. For me, my first cup of coffee in the morning precipitates an emotion of great delight or happiness!

It’s kind of like being a hummingbird. For those of you who have never been a hummingbird, or have no immediate intention of becoming one, here are a few interesting hummingbird facts:

• They are known for their ability to hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings, 15–80 times per second (depending on the species). Capable of sustained hovering, the hummingbird has the ability to fly deliberately backwards (this is the only group of birds able to do so) or vertically, and to maintain position while drinking nectar;


• Their heart rate can reach as high as 1,260 beats per minute;


• Hummingbirds are specialised nectarivores – they feed primarily on nectar from various plants. The problem is that nectar is a poor source of nutrients, so they eat some insects and spiders, but nectar remains their primary food source.


• They typically consume more than their own weight in nectar each day, and to do so they must visit hundreds of flowers daily. At any given moment, they are only hours away from starving;


• They are capable of slowing down their metabolism at night, or any other time food is not readily available. They enter a hibernation-like state known as torpor. During torpor, the heart rate and rate of breathing are both slowed dramatically (the heart rate to roughly 50–180 beats per minute), reducing their need for food.

Why the ornithological detour? Well, the search for joy that the natural man is constantly engaged in is what I’ve termed “Hummingbird Syndrome” – and here’s why:

• Most people spend their entire lives having to strive to keep their heads above water – to maintain at least a moderate level of peace and enjoyment. They are like hummingbirds that beat their wings at a remarkable rate simply to remain in one spot long enough to get a feed;


• It takes a remarkable level of joyful situations and “things” to keep some feeling of enjoyment going in people’s lives – our consumer society is evidence of the need to consume our body weight in “stuff” to do this;


• If people can’t get the joy that they need just be “normal”, they exhibit a range of behaviours, many of which are anti-social.

You see, whilst it is God’s intention that we enjoy life, the joy that we experience is not “normal”. In fact, it’s so abnormal that 1 Peter 4 (see above) indicates that people will be “astonished and think it very queer that you do not now run hand in hand with them in the same excesses of dissipation”, to the point where they might even abuse us.

Abnormal joy

The joy we are talking about here comes from living in the spiritual realm, with a focus on what’s happening in the spiritual realm rather than what’s happening on the natural place. It’s kind of like a passenger jet that flies above the weather – whilst it’s close to the ground, it’s battered by the elements, and has to brave driving wind, rain and turbulence. Once the jet climbs up to 30,000 feet, there is less of this type of nonsense going on. You can see more of what's going on, and what's ahead. You are more "situationally aware".

This joy is an inevitable result of living as a spiritual being – a person that is controlled by the Holy Spirit, and has a constant perception of the issues we raised in the “faith” section. It is not unusual that faith, hope and love get mentioned together on many occasions – these things are inextricably linked. In particular, there is a strong link between “joy” and “hope”.

(MORE TO COME)

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