WALL•E and idealisation of labour

We watched WALL•E at a Jam movie night tonight. It was notable not for its cute char­ac­ters or the bizarre char­ac­ter devel­op­ment of robots with AI who fol­low orders, against the back­drop of recent dystopian visions of AI as spawn­ing Skynet-like futures, but rather in its por­trayal of a future human­ity wherein con­sumer cul­ture and obesity/space-induced osteope­nia have led to an overly pam­pered human­ity, locked in rep­e­ti­tious existence.

Yet, despite this, the Cap­tain comes to a real­i­sa­tion that human­ity has a duty to care for the earth, regard­less of whether or not that is a pleas­ant propo­si­tion. It would, the ship’s com­puter says, be much eas­ier to leave things as they are… but that, to the Cap­tain, is not the point. Humanity’s duty to sub­due the earth (Gen­e­sis 1:28 – 31) is almost in accord with this idea that it is our respon­si­bil­ity to care for the earth because that’s what God has given to us as our duty. That was in very-good cre­ation before our world was even remotely sin­ful. How­ever, we see the curse of sin at work as our rebel­lion against God leads to hard work: “By the sweat of your face will you eat bread, till you return to the ground” (Gen­e­sis 3:19)

“Return to the ground” there means death, by the way — it’s not talk­ing about a return from inter­galac­tic exile! Wikipedia informs us that, in 2007 screen­ings, “Stan­ton (lead writer) felt half the audi­ence at the screen­ing believed the humans would be unable to cope with liv­ing on Earth and died out after the film’s end.” Cer­tainly the opti­mism at grow­ing “pizza plants” is mis­guided and such illu­sions are likely to be quickly reme­died! How­ever, the right state of human­ity, accord­ing to the the first instruc­tion received, is to ‘sub­due’ the earth and depend upon it for our sus­te­nance. Even rebel­lion against God, the one who gives all life on earth, does not change this intrin­sic human need for work.

It is not enough to exist as con­sump­tive, pas­sive beings. We are made for work. Indeed, we are made for wor­ship, which is a kind of work (and all work, rightly enacted, serves also as wor­ship of the Cre­ator and King of the world). To sug­gest that utopia is per­sonal trans­porta­tion, liq­uid meals, rapidly change­able fash­ions, per­sonal ser­vants, and even the abo­li­tion of eco­nomic con­cerns, is to ignore an impor­tant part of our nature as humans. Sin has cor­rupted this, and we now idol­ize work to the detri­ment of other things more impor­tant, and embrace lazi­ness (not rest) as a social norm and even an aspi­ra­tion. The earth, upon which we were set as care­tak­ers, groans under the curse of our rebel­lion (Gen­e­sis 3:17), and yet still the hunger of bil­lions is not satisfied.

Thank God that because of Jesus we can hope for a future that is much greater than space travel, liq­uid lunches, free­dom from finan­cial con­cerns, and robotic assis­tants and per­son­al­i­ties! Because of what Jesus has done on the Cross, we’re able to come freely to our cre­ator, sus­tainer, and king, with­out fear and with a hope for eternity.

# by Josh on June 26th, 2009 Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Erasure

many of these things will not last, should not be expected to last. the lack of per­ma­nence is char­ac­ter­is­tic of volatile infor­ma­tion, pre­served only fleet­ingly even at a minus 25 degree boil­ing point.

we for­get.

some­times not soon enough, pain­lessly enough, loudly enough. as though our protest will make it sooner, eas­ier, clearer. clear­ing these clouds to what end? dis­pelling an illu­sion alone? con­cen­trat­ing pre­cip­i­ta­tion at some other time, in some other place? seed­ing rain­fall is an impre­cise sci­ence, you know. bei­jing would like to think oth­er­wise — will have the world think oth­er­wise, but we will have to wait until the eighth hour of the eighth day to learn — or at least observe the cul­mi­na­tion of many fac­tors not totally understood.

our con­trol is at best imprecise.

rumours of tesla weapons and unheeded seis­mol­o­gists and toads are one thing, but the bur­ial of thou­sands and grief to fam­i­lies and sub­se­quent sui­cides and infer­til­i­ties and aban­don­ments are quite another. as, too, are res­cues and out­pour­ings of com­pas­sion and global relief efforts and prayers of thou­sands, at least some of which are being heard.

the oppor­tunists? the profiteers?

“no man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death” (Ecc 8:8) — so let them lie and cheat. let the cheaters lie. they are dig­ging their own pit.

why do good things hap­pen to evil people?

it was not always like this. it will not remain like this.

“he [Jesus of Nazareth] is the one appointed by God to be judge of the liv­ing and the dead” (Acts 10:42)

but he, too, makes us at peace with him through pay­ing the price for us on the cross. “[God] rec­on­ciles to him­self all things, whether on earth or in heaven, mak­ing peace by the blood of his cross.” (Col 1:20)

“Surely I am com­ing soon.” (Rev 22:20)

come, Lord Jesus!

# by Josh on June 3rd, 2008 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Some reflections on John 16

His dis­ci­ples said, “Ah, now you are speak­ing plainly and not using fig­u­ra­tive speech!”– John 16:29

Yay for clar­ity! You can find the full­text of John 16 here. Apolo­gies for the slight ram­bling­ness of this post. It gains clar­ity towards the end… twas some­what shaped off a Skype con­ver­sa­tion that I haven’t the time nor energy to prop­erly edit at this point :)

John 8:14 is pretty funny in its por­trayal of the sheer incor­rect­ness of the Phar­isees’ asser­tion of the pas­sage prior: It’s like… you can’t speak truth because you’re speak­ing truth about your­self (!!)… and then, fast­for­ward back to 16:30  –  “We know that you know all things and don’t need any­one to ques­tion you; this is why we believe that you came from God” – then, in verse 31, Jesus — “oh, so NOW you get it…”

Verse 32 — “But, seri­ously… yeah, right. Even if you say you do you’re all about to piss­bolt… Oh, that’s now, btw.”

33 — “but I’ve said this stuff so that”… You’ll know after the res­ur­rec­tion what’s going on… The res­ur­rec­tion is the act that will make sense of all of this; there will be no fig­ures of speech because it’s a con­crete demon­stra­tion of what the Christ is achiev­ing — “over­com­ing the world” and bring­ing peace for those who are in him — kinda like way the Father is with Him even when all oth­ers desert

Verse 23 is con­fus­ing… “You won’t ask me any­thing” vs. “My father will give you what­ever you ask in my name”… are they both talk­ing about prayer or is the first talk­ing about information/knowing stuff about Christ’s iden­tity and rela­tion­ship to the Father and the sec­ond talk­ing about prayer?’

Per­haps its about the per­fect suf­fi­ciency of the cross — read­ing 22 AND 23 together:

(Para­phrase of Jesus:) You will be sor­row­ful til I’m back, and then I basi­cally won life (lit­er­ally! haha) and you have a joy that can’t be taken away from you and what you’re ask­ing the Father will be asked in my name!

You’re not try­ing to ask it directly of Him (the Father) any­more. You won’t need to, because you have the Spirit of Christ once Jesus has con­quered death and returned to His Father. What I think that means, in the con­text of the “Spirit of truth” from ear­lier in the pas­sage, is that the things you ASK for are asked as Jesus would (i.e. you’re not stand­ing alone before the father with an impaired rela­tion­ship ask­ing things for your­self once Jesus has con­quered and we’ve received the spirit of truth that speaks what He hears from the Father and Son. Our hearts will desire dif­fer­ent things, and we’ll have a com­plete joy that can’t be taken from us in Christ.

We don’t get the Spirit so we can ask for crap, but so that He can declare what he hears (from the Father) — AND — in verse 14 – 15, His pur­pose is to glo­rify the son, who is King over every­thing that is the Father’s; the Spirit will declare the things of Jesus to his peo­ple. So, ask­ing of the Father “in my name” is about ask­ing to receive joy in full…

“I am not say­ing that I will ask the Father on your behalf” — Does this mean Jesus ISN’T an inter­me­di­ary (as in Hebrews 7:25)? And Romans 8:26 says that the Holy Spirit inter­cedes for us when we don’t know what or how to pray. But this pas­sage (John 16) says that the Holy Spirit will speak only what He hears from the Father and Son: there­fore, His inter­ces­sory prayer for us will nec­es­sar­ily take the shape of prayer for things that God desires. And that should be our prayer always.

Christ needn’t ask the Father on our behalf because His act of death and resurrection/victory OVER death means that our sins have been paid for if we trust in Jesus and call him our Lord. When our sins are paid for, we can be in rela­tion­ship with God the Father and pray to Him; the High Priest that Hebrews 7 talks about is pre­sent­ing us blame­lessly in unblem­ished rela­tion­ship again with God, so we can approach Him. When Christ’s per­fect sac­ri­fice was made, we are able to and should do as the writer of Hebrews says we should in chap­ter 10 of that let­ter: Where there is for­give­ness of sins and law­less­ness, there is no longer any offer­ing for sin. There­fore… let us draw near with a true heart in full assur­ance of faith, with our hearts sprin­kled clean from an evil con­science and our bod­ies washed with pure water.

We are able to draw near to God. Right now this is in the form of prayer to Him and for His pur­poses; that He might achieve them and use His peo­ple to this end in His ser­vice. We don’t need to pray in a church or tem­ple, we don’t need to burn incense or hear music to uplift us — though these things are not intrin­si­cally bad. We have free­dom as we are saved by Christ’s sac­ri­fice for us; we have a new Spirit which He has put in His peo­ple to allow them to draw near to God with­out imped­i­ment or con­stric­tion. We needn’t pray to Christ, because He has opened a new way to the Father for us, hav­ing ful­filled the law of the scrip­tures and mak­ing per­fect that which we (His peo­ple) could not.

God’s pres­ence used to dwell in the holi­est place of the Tem­ple; now, He dwells in the hearts of His peo­ple as Christ has made us His own.

When Jesus says “It is to your advan­tage that I go away”, he means it. If Christ hadn’t gone away from His fol­low­ers to the bru­tal Roman cross to pay for our sins, we would not have peace with God, and there’s no way He could say “I have over­come the world” with­out lying through his teeth unless He faced death and came out the other side, open­ing a new way to God for His people.

# by Josh on April 14th, 2008 Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Study camp rawks

Crusaders Winter Study Camp #1 2007 leaders photo

Our lead­ers were all fan­tas­tic, Andrew was used so pow­er­fully by God to speak to peo­ple who fol­low Jesus and those who don’t alike, and there were more engag­ing dis­cus­sions had than at… some­where that would have a lot of them. So many peo­ple seek­ing some­thing, and so many who seem close to find­ing, but that’s all out­side of our power. To God alone be the glory.

# by Josh on July 2nd, 2007 Tags: , , , , ,
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Easter Sunday

From Mark 16, NIV translation

The Res­ur­rec­tion

1When the Sab­bath was over, Mary Mag­da­lene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sun­rise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sit­ting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are look­ing for Jesus the Nazarene, who was cru­ci­fied. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his dis­ci­ples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”

# by Josh on March 27th, 2005 Tags: , , , , , ,
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Good Friday

From Mark 15, NIV translation

Jesus Before Pilate

1Very early in the morn­ing, the chief priests, with the elders, the teach­ers of the law and the whole San­hedrin, reached a deci­sion. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

2“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate.

“Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied.

3The chief priests accused him of many things. 4So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accus­ing you of.”

5But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.

6Now it was the cus­tom at the Feast to release a pris­oner whom the peo­ple requested. 7A man called Barab­bas was in prison with the insur­rec­tion­ists who had com­mit­ted mur­der in the upris­ing. 8The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usu­ally did.

9“Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate, 10know­ing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barab­bas instead.

12“What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked them.

13“Cru­cify him!” they shouted.

14“Why? What crime has he com­mit­ted?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Cru­cify him!”

15Want­ing to sat­isfy the crowd, Pilate released Barab­bas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

The Sol­diers Mock Jesus

16The sol­diers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Prae­to­rium) and called together the whole com­pany of sol­diers. 17They put a pur­ple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20And when they had mocked him, they took off the pur­ple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to cru­cify him.

The Cru­ci­fix­ion

21A cer­tain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexan­der and Rufus, was pass­ing by on his way in from the coun­try, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22They brought Jesus to the place called Gol­go­tha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24And they cru­ci­fied him. Divid­ing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

25It was the third hour when they cru­ci­fied him. 26The writ­ten notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27They cru­ci­fied two rob­bers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shak­ing their heads and say­ing, “So! You who are going to destroy the tem­ple and build it in three days, 30come down from the cross and save yourself!”

31In the same way the chief priests and the teach­ers of the law mocked him among them­selves. “He saved oth­ers,” they said, “but he can’t save him­self! 32Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those cru­ci­fied with him also heaped insults on him.

The Death of Jesus

33At the sixth hour dark­ness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you for­saken me?”

35When some of those stand­ing near heard this, they said, “Lis­ten, he’s call­ing Elijah.”

36One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vine­gar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Eli­jah comes to take him down,” he said.

37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

38The cur­tain of the tem­ple was torn in two from top to bot­tom. 39And when the cen­tu­rion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

# by Josh on March 25th, 2005 Tags: , , , , , , ,
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