Morons!
Paul Mayers posted this parable over at Deep Church. I am reposting it here with his kind permission because it is brilliant and I want it to launch me back into writing more about abundance culture.
I can almost hear Jesus saying…
‘A man and women walk into starbucks, pay £8 to sip their skinny latte and chi tea. They leave feeling less thirsty and more virtuous having discussed their spiritual journeys and resolve that in this space they can be truly free. Before parting they agree to meet back there at the same time next week where they will this time discuss how to resolve world hunger over a chocolate muffin and a piece of blueberry cheesecake. Who do you think is richer for this experience, the economy of God or the economy of the market?’
At once Peter spoke up, ‘Guru, you have made me think that if we offer free muffins and better coffee we will be able to attract more followers, for as you have said men and women need more than just Dunkin Donuts alone.’
‘No, no,’ said Judas, who managed the on-line bank account and charitable donations, ‘We should buy shares in this starbucks. It would seem its business model is most profitable.’
The disciples began to bicker amongst themselves, one saying for the coffee plan and another for the investments, still a third argued that they should set up their own coffee shop chain and a fourth that maybe it would be better and edgier to run a pub or a tattoo parlour. Each one saying that their idea was more radical and counter cultral than the last.
Finally Jesus spoke again, ‘Oh you and your consumer ways! Do you not realise that you seek to take on the forms of this world rather than embody the values of my Father? For it is not about the coffee blend or the pastries that you consume but rather what it is that consumes you and gives your identity. Broad is the market and many who find it easy to be sold their identity from amongst its counter cultural niches. Morons! You are being consumer sheep not radical rebels. But I tell you, narrow is the way of true self formation, denying your right to your rights and instead following me.’
The disciples wondered at his words as they entered into the McDonald’s drive through…
21 March 2010 Jeff Gill
tags: abundance,
kingdom of god,
stories
One way to practice abundance
From Telegraph.co.uk
‘For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness,’ he said. ‘I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years,’ said Mr Rabeder.
But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling.
‘More and more I heard the words: “Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life”,’ he said. ‘I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.”
Be sure to read all the way to the end.
16 February 2010 Jeff Gill
tags: abundance,
stories
I made another film
This one is a parable about the meaning of Christmas and incarnation.
11 January 2010 Jeff Gill
tags: films,
jesus,
stories,
video
Faith like a child
Since Easter, in my Sunday School class we have been talking about the garden of Eden.
Yes, that is a long time to talk about a garden, maybe. But… God’s plan for the world, for people, for animals – I found it quite amazing and I’m glad the kids seemed to feel the same way, but, So many questions!
Jesus said,“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”
I have been told that the meaning of this is that you have to have un-questioning faith. That you just accept.
Ummm… Have you ever spent any time around children? Starting at toddler-hood a favourite word is ‘why’.
The ball is round
Why?
Because in order for it to roll smoothly and in the direction that you want it to roll it needs to be.
Why?
Because, if it wasn’t round then when you kick it it would just go a way that you didn’t mean for it to.
Why?
Umm – I just told you why. Twice!
Why?
Because you asked me to
Why?
Because you are very curious.
Why?
Because you are a child, you want to know all there is to know and you want to know it right now and apparently you want me to tell you!
Why?
I don’t know, But I don’t have all the answers.
Why?
Cos… I’m not God!
My own kids, and my church kids have so many questions. Often I just don’t have the answers, and I won’t pretend to either. But I will do my best to encourage them to keep asking questions, keep looking for answers.
Whoever seeks shall find. They will know so much more than I do. Thank Goodness.
Maybe also Jesus was talking about the enthusiasm of a child. I watched their faces light up as they learned about this perfect place before sin. I showed them a drawing of the garden, one child piped up, ‘That’s silly! there’s a fox lying down beside a rabbit. That wouldn’t happen.’
‘There was no death in the Garden of Eden, the rabbit was perfectly safe to lie with the fox.’
‘Wow!’
The rest of our short lesson consisted of the kids talking about which animals they would put together if life was like it was then. Their imaginations were going nuts!
We came back to that many, many times over the next few weeks. I shared stories of the exploits of my cat Max, whose favourite thing ever is to devour small animals, and I have heard many stories of their own pets and the blood and gore they get into!
If only life could be as it was at the beginning. You can see the longing in them – for perfection, for freedom, for that ability to walk in the garden with God.
Last Sunday we talked about how the people were sent from the garden, we talked about bloodshed and shame and him blaming her and… it was very quiet in the room.
At craft time we had clay Snakes and pictures of Adam and Eve sad and shameful with their leaves and furs. One boy just looked at his paper and said, ‘I want to draw but I don’t know what to draw’
‘What part of the story sticks in your mind from today?’
‘I don’t know’
‘Okay, just take a little time and go over the story in your mind and as you are doing that, ask yourself how you feel and try to see if you can get that feeling onto the paper.’
This is his picture:
15 July 2009 Christine Gill
tags: children,
faith,
kingdom of god,
non-violence,
shame,
stories
Hooray for 678
In my group of kids in years six, seven and eight we are studying the parables of Jesus. Obviously, the thing to do is to write a parable. I gave them three ideas to choose from. They picked one and wrote a story. Two weeks ago we filmed it. Today is it’s worldwide premier.
I proudly present a story about the way people view God and the way God actually is and the reason God gives us commands: Daniel and the Lions.
1 March 2009 Jeff Gill
tags: children,
drama,
silly,
stories,
video
Escaping from the pit of pronunciation to the farm
My first year in school, a short fattish four year old, and I was to be an elf in the Christmas play. We were going to practice the Christmas play in the school hall. If you are from the South Wales valleys and you say ‘hall’ it sounds like this ‘aaaaaaawl’ and if you are from the South Wales valleys and you say ‘hole’ it sounds like this ‘aaaaaaawl’
I never really knew what was going on in school but I remember there was lots of excitement and we were lining up in the corridor outside the classroom and for some reason I had a green cap on with jingly bells and everyone was talking about the school aaaaaaawl and I was petrified. Here I was, dressed stupidly and they were taking me to some giant black pit that was in the bit of the school I’d never been in before. Would I be made to go into the aaaaaaawl, or would they just let me stand on the edge and look down into it? So scary!
The aaaaaaawl looked like any normal school hall and I think that I must have felt some relief when we went down three steps and opened up some double doors and the ground didn’t suddenly disappear, but – so Big! Too big for me, and just inside the double doors was a piano and behind that I hid and would not come out to practice being an elf with the other jingly kids. I sat behind the piano facing the wall until it was time to go back to the safe classroom.
Well, safe-ish. I spent a lot of my time in that room lying on the rug playing with a toy farm under a shelf, but sometimes I was made to sit on a chair and Mrs. Monday would point to some strange symbols and pictures that were stuck up above the blackboard, there was a picture of a queen and a picture of a gate and there was a picture of a kite and some other pictures but if you said ‘queen’ or ‘gate’ or ‘kite’ when she pointed to the pictures you would get shouted at.
It seemed like we did this thing over and over in that first year of school. It was so puzzling, sitting there while the children said ‘A B C D E F…’ and the teacher would say, ‘Come on, Christine!’ and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and what those weird marks were that went along with each picture and why all the other children would do weird, not normal talking whenever we sat in those chairs and looked at those pictures and what did this have to do with anything? Couldn’t I go back to playing with the farm?
I didn’t like infant school.
6 October 2008 Christine Gill
tags: children,
stories
Traveller
There is a wasteland not far from here that is more like the desert around the Land of Oz than anything in the real world. It just starts. There is a straight line as far as the eye can see. On one side is plenty of nice green grass. On the other is black wasteland where nothing grows. There is no dirt for anything to grow in, just hard black ground and rocks.
When the traveller comes to this wasteland there is no question about what to do…
Keep reading
9 September 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: stories,
writing
We ate apples and oranges for breakfast four days a week
My mother believed in eating healthful food. When I was a boy I fantasized about having my tonsils removed because they gave you ice cream after the operation.
19 June 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: parenting,
stories
Insomnia
Sometimes, when I was 14, I would tell my mother that I was going to sleep at Shiree’s house that night. And Shiree would tell her mother that she was going to sleep at my house. And we would wander the streets of our little village for hours when everyone else was sleeping and sometimes we’d try and get some sleep in the stairway in the flats (but it smelled like pee in there) and sometimes we’d wrap ourselves in my coat (she didn’t have one) and try and get warm and to sleep in the doorway of the community centre. And finally, 5 am would come, and daylight, and we’d wander around the streets again, waiting for the milkman to come and leave us some milk (and sometimes, if we were lucky, yogurt!) on someone’s doorstep. And we’d drink our milk and continue to wander and wonder why we decided to stay out all night anyway, and let’s not do it again, is it?
But we did.
13 May 2008 Christine Gill
tags: stories
The good Samaritan goes home
Inspired by this sketch I wrote a sketch which avoids the wife-hating and features a ninja:
Joanna: Where is he? He should have been home ages ago. She gasps. What if he was the one they attacked! No, they said he was a Jew. But Nathan looks like a Jew sometimes when the light is low…
Keep reading
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: drama,
silly,
stories
That's well neighbourly! - updated
This weekend our church is looking at the story of the good Samaritan. I want to rewrite it for my class of 10-13 year-olds and set it in high school. (For those of you outside the UK secondary education starts at age 11 here.) I found some interesting retellings laying around the internet: here (scroll down), here and here, but none of them are really what I need. How do you think I should update the cast?
Who are the attackers?
Who is the victim?
The priest?
The levite?
The Samaritan?
The innkeeper?
If all goes well, I shall put a working draft story online in a day or two for your further comments and sugestions.
Thanks!
UPDATE
I ended up not rewriting the story beforehand. Instead, I did it live as a mad lib with my class. They loved it. And they heard the story three times, once proper and twice silly. AND they all asked for a copy of their own. Here is their story with a little help from the TNIV:
Once a footballer slide tackled Jesus to test him. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit fantastic life?’
‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’
He answered, ‘‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’‘
‘You have answered Jeffly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’
But he wanted to sit himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’
In reply Jesus said: ‘Conor was going down from Tesco to i61, when he fell into the hands of terrorists. They stripped him of his table, karate chopped him and went away, leaving him half hairy. A referee happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side of the Aston Martin. So too, a fit, sporty girl when she came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side of the elephant. But a nerd, as he read, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on 7up and lemon juice Then he put the man on his own ferret, brought him to Jamaica and took care of him. The next day he took out two dollars and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will paint you for any extra expense you may have.’
‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the terrorists?’
The footballer replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’
Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: children,
i61,
silly,
stories,
writing
That Floor
2 years ago, Jeff was downstairs in his office graphically designing to his heart’s content. The little daughter was at playgroup and the son was at school and I was upstairs in the little daughter’s room scrubbing away at her floor which used to be shiny and white but had lately been a bit dingy and needing a new coat of paint…
So there I was, scrubbing-brush in hand, scrubbing at the floor with everything I had when… (dun-dun-dun) the phone rang (which is more of a brrrrrrrrrng than a dun-dun-dun really, though a dun-dun-dun phone would really be kinda cool dontcha think?)
Jeff is the phone answering person in our house and so Jeff answered the phone.
He paced the living room (because Jeff has a hard time praying or talking on the phone without pacing) and I kept hearing him saying “o-o-okay!” not with a nervous stammer but with his happy stammer, he doesn’t really have a stammer but it was a bit like “o-o-okay” and I have a hard time describing it any differently than that.
He was happy. We hadn’t been very happy in the past couple of weeks, our dreams of doing church in a different way, in a way that people who didn’t like church could connect with… we felt those dreams had been taken away from us… but we really felt that those dreams we had for a new way of doing it – were from God.
But Jeff sounded happy on the phone and I was dying to hear the other side of the conversation.
I went downstairs “Jeff, who is it?”, I mouthed at him, as sharply as mouthing would allow me to.
He mouthed back “Steve” and turned to pace the other way.
Steve and Gill were a couple at our church who we had always thought would be our pastors. They had connected with us as no one had before, they had shared with the church a vision that we were just so sure was from God for a way of doing church that was just not terrifying to people who were coming through those church doors for the first time. We had thought they were going to be our pastors… but some people didn’t agree that they were right for the church that we were in… The dream was… over?
Well, I wasn’t getting any hints from Jeff as to what this phone call was about (other than it was something exciting), so I went back upstairs and resumed my work of getting that floor ready for a coat of paint.
He FINALLY got off the dang phone and I swear was up those stairs in 3 strides.
“We are starting a church… in a pub”
We jumped. Up and Down. On that floor.
i61 was born a few weeks later. Our first meeting was on Easter Sunday 2006 and… It’s now Easter 2008, and that floor still hasn’t been painted. It’s been a busy 2 years. But so SO worth it.
More fun than anything. Happy Happy Easter!
23 March 2008 Christine Gill
tags: i61,
stories
Stupid, evil credit cards 2
I wrote before that our two iMacs were on a 12 MONTHS INTEREST-FREE ON BALANCE TRANSFERS credit card from MBNA. Those twelve months ended near the beginning of March. Because I am working hard on managing our money, I set a date two weeks before the 12 months ended, and I paid off the card on that date.
I was obviously not pleased then when I opened my latest statement to find that I have been charged enough interest to wipe out half the interest I earned by the smart thing I did.
When I called MBNA to ask them to clear up the obvious mistake they had made, I was informed that ‘12 months’ doesn’t actually mean 12 months. In my case it turns out that ‘12 months’ meant 11 months and two days.
I said to the call centre person, Doesn’t it seem little dishonest to offer me 12 months with no interest but only give me 11 months and two days? And they said, and I quote: Blah blah blah blah policy blah blah clearly stated blah blah blah nothing I can do blah blah get off of our free phone line, you worthless piece of lichen.
The moral of this story is that credit card companies (and, even more so, insurance companies but you knew that already) are Evil.
Always assume the headline is a lie.
Always read the fine print.
21 March 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: debt,
money,
stories
Jesus's job interview
I wrote and Christine and I performed this sketch at our church on Sunday. Christine would be a brilliant HR person.
Welcome to Saviours PLC, Jesus. Is it okay for me to call you Jesus?
Yes, that’s fine.
So you would like to become a saviour?
That’s right.
Keep reading
17 March 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: drama,
stories
What's Your Condition?
My favourite wife has despression. She’s also a happy person. She’s also a brilliant speaker. She told the story of her journey into happiness at our church on Sunday. It is a story worth hearing. I promise I’m not saying that just because I am married to her. Have a listen (23 minutes)
Also, you might enjoy checking out Christine’s related project on Flickr, Room 37
25 February 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: church,
depression,
grief,
stories
Frantic five minutes
I had to leave. It was time to go. The daughter would be getting out of school in less than 15 minutes and I couldn’t find the stupid car keys. Where were they?
Where were they?
There weren’t in there and they weren’t under there and they weren’t behind there and they were completely gone and had ceased to exist and I was gonna have to get a taxi or something and I’d be so so incredibly late and the teacher would give me that look again. And I’d feel ashamed. I am a rotten mother because I do not put my keys away properly in a place where I can find them and my children suffer because of it. There she would be, the 4 year old daughter, standing in the cold and not knowing if I would ever come. A stiff wind would blow to dry the tears that fell…
I said to God, “Father!”, I said, “Help me find the keys, please, I need to know where they are or there will be much suffering” (this is the extended version of what I said)
And in desperation I raised my hand to my head like a damsel in one of those old, silent movies… and the keys were in my hand.
Now. What have we learned today ?
22 February 2008 Christine Gill
tags: parenting,
prayer,
shame,
silly,
stories
Hooray for fables
Here is another poem that I wrote. It is a riff on Æsop’s Tortoise and the Hare. Christine and I read it this morning at our church. Today’s theme was Run to Win, the third in a new year series called Born to Run. If you can stand a lot of rhyming couplets, read on.
Keep reading
20 January 2008 Jeff Gill
tags: poems,
silly,
stories