Everyday Matters

By Wayne Kirkland

In spite of how it is often treated, the everyday does matter to God. And if we're a follower of Jesus, it should matter to us. Everyday Matters argues the case for taking ordinary activities seriously enough so that our faith shapes and changes the very ways we eat, work, inhabit houses and neighbourhoods, drive, shop, connect with others through hi tech devices, and play and watch sport. All these arenas of life (among others) are opportunities for both worship and transformation. Instead of just unthinkingly treating such activities as inconsequential to our faith, the gospel calls us to evaluate and redeem them in quite distinctive ways. In order to do this we need to develop a robust and practical theology for everyday life. This book will help individuals and communities of faith to begin this journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Kirkland
• Release date: Jun 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463107904

Book preview

Everyday Matters

Wayne Kirkland

Copyright © 2018 Wayne Kirkland

Published by CPT Publications

The author may be contacted at: [e-mail]

Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are from THE MESSAGE.

Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995.

Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version*.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of International Bible Society.

NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark office by International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations from The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

E-book formatting by www.gopublished.com

CONTENTS

1. WHAT’S GOD GOT TO DO WITH EVERYDAY LIFE?

EATING

2. LOVING FOOD

3. EATING WELL

4. EATING GENEROUSLY

5. JUST FOOD

6. EATING RESPONSIBLY

RESIDING

7. A PLACE CALLED HOME

8. MY HOME, MY CASTLE

9. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

10. RESOURCEFUL LIVING

CONNECTING

11. TECHNOLOGY RULES

12. CAN TECHNOLOGY SAVE US?

13. DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION

14. ALONE TOGETHER

PLAYING

15. SPORTS MAD

16. A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH

17. SOLIDARITY AT THE STADIUM

18. THE COMPETITIVE SPIRIT

EPILOGUE

ENDNOTES

1. WHAT’S GOD GOT TO DO WITH EVERYDAY LIFE?

Some years ago I wrote an article attempting to develop a Christian view – or theology – of cars. (I was younger then. Rashness is the weakness of youth!)

My bold article led to all sorts of fascinating questions. But what was most intriguing – and more than a little disturbing – was to discover people’s reactions when I told them what I was doing. Responses varied, but mainly over the level of consternation and mirth my subject produced. I had apparently become the comic act of the month. A theology of cars? What on earth is that about? I might as well have been from another planet.

I was not the least bit offended by these reactions. In fact, it soon became a bit of a game to me, to try and pick how loud a person would laugh. However, one thing did trouble me: clearly the idea that Christianity might have something to say about cars seemed as foreign to most people as an Easter egg on a Christmas tree.

I never inquired too deeply into why people thought writing an article on God and cars was so hilarious. Perhaps they imagined that I was going to suggest we all buy a particular type of car. Did God have a favorite model in mind for us?

Or maybe they just couldn’t get their heads around the idea that even though the Bible was written well before the advent of the motor vehicle, it might have something to say to our current, twenty-first century issues?

Whatever the reason for the laughter, my project must have sounded very odd. And yet, is God not interested in the routine parts of our days? Don't we claim that our Christian faith applies to all areas of our lives? Are we just giving lip service to that belief?

The good news (for my peace of mind) is that I've discovered a companion in my deviant theology. The bad news is that he's dead. However, he has left a record of his thoughts to reassure me that my conviction is not wholly off-the-wall. John Baillie is his name. He's a Scottish author who many years ago wrote this:

My subject is the theology of sleep. It is an unusual subject, but I make no apology for it. I think we hear far too few sermons about sleep. After all, we spend a very large share of our lives sleeping. … Don’t you agree then the Christian gospel should have something to say about the sleeping third of our lives as well as the waking two-thirds of them?[1]

Laugh at that if you dare!

So what about all manner of everyday activities we undertake, such as eating, working, buying a house, driving, using the internet, playing sports, shopping, going on holiday ... generally without so much as a thought about whether our faith should affect how we do these things? Is God simply uninterested in such matters? Does God have better things to do than bother about what part of the city I live in, whether I snore in my sleep, which team I support, how much coffee I drink, when I get up in the morning...?

I believe that all of us need to develop a theology that encompasses all of our lives.

There’s that word – theology

Hullo? Anyone there?

Ah. So you're still with me. I was hoping I hadn't lost you already. If I had, it would perhaps have been because of that word I used again – theology. You may remember, it's back there in my very first sentence.

Try this: Which of the following words do you think of when you hear theology? Academic, abstract, stodgy, dogmatic, boring, irrelevant, all of the above?

Many Christians switch off at the first hint of theology. And to be honest, I can understand why. It’s a conversation stopper, guaranteed to bring on a yawn and a blank look. (At least I was smart enough not to put it into the title of this book.) Here is a good example you could quote in support of your yawn: Dwight L. Moody – the popular American evangelist of the nineteenth century – when once asked by someone, Mr. Moody, what is your theology? replied, I don’t have one!

Ah, but these are just games. To be sure, like Mr. Moody, we could easily assume that because we haven’t studied theology, we don’t have one. (It’s just not relevant or necessary for following Jesus.) But a theology is like the expression you wear on your face. It's there even when you don't think about it. Actually, it's especially there when you don't think about it. In the various interactions of life the distracted expression on your face proclaims more about the real you than when you carefully dress it up.

In the same way your theology – whether you are aware of it or not – gives a clear message about the sort of person you are. For theology is just a fancy word for the way we think about and understand God – and therefore for the way we make our choices (usually unthinkingly) on a hundred little things throughout the course of every day.

Given that all of us have developed some view of who God is and what God is into, we all have a theology. We may not be able to easily identify it or put it into words, but we still have that theology. It's an internal construct of who God is – and therefore of what matters to us in every situation of life.

All of us. We cannot live without a theology.

In this book I am going to take the risk of regularly using the word theology. If, in spite of all I have argued so far, you still struggle with its use, then perhaps this short definition might help remind you of its relevance and purpose:

theology, noun. Thinking and understanding about God that directly shapes our attitudes, lifestyle, relationships and behavior in every area of our lives.

It’s worth noting briefly that our struggle to connect God with everyday matters was not a struggle to all Christians throughout history. For many, and perhaps most, it came easily.

Kitchen theology

Brother Lawrence was a seventeenth century monk, most well known for his book, The Practice of the Presence of God. For fifteen years, Bro. Lawrence worked as a cook in the kitchen of his monastery and when his body was unable to continue in this role, he lived out the remainder of his life making sandals.

At first he was deeply frustrated with the apparent insignificance of his role. But Lawrence eventually came to develop a deep spirituality of the ordinary, viewing every menial task as an opportunity to perform little acts of communion with God. He developed practices that enabled him to experience God’s presence and use every task and conversation as an opportunity for service and worship. Lawrence wrote that...

The times of activity are not at all different from the hours of prayer … for I possess God as peacefully in the commotion of my kitchen, where often enough several people are asking me for different things at the same time, as I do when kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament.[2]

His attitude was: We must never tire of doing little things for the love of God, who considers not the magnitude of the work, but the love.[3]

Whole-of-life theology

Brother Lawrence stumbled on a very important truth: our theology is not an end in itself. It is what shapes the way we live in the everyday business of life. That everyday life – the real life and not just the times we put on our Christianity like the suit we wear when we go to church – is our ultimate target. Renewing that is the very purpose of theology.

Theology is for getting to know our neighbors. Theology is for choosing the house we buy. And yes, theology is for how we work, and for how we drive our cars.

You see, ultimately, real faith and real theology must make a real difference to the way we live. If it can’t be lived and breathed then it is dead and useless.

That’s why Paul writes the way he does in Romans 12. After spending the first two-thirds of the letter laying out a new way of thinking about God, Christ and Israel, he then goes on to explain what thinking this way will mean for everyday living:

Therefore, offer yourselves as a living sacrifice... This is a pivotal point in Paul’s argument to the Romans. And he uses one of his favorite words – Therefore. It’s there to alert the hearer/reader that what Paul has said and what he is about to say are thoroughly linked. He's tying it all together: Taking everything I’ve said up to now into account, here’s what I want you to do … here is what it means for living … here’s how you work it out in your day-to-day lives.

I love the way Eugene Peterson captures this (using so instead of therefore):

So here’s what I want you to do. God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.[4]

"So..." For it’s only as we begin to think Christianly about eating, sleeping, working and yes, playing and watching sport, that we can genuinely give our whole lives as a living sacrifice or offering to God. This is an act of worship that is for the home and the marketplace – not just inside the church building. When Paul so deliberately located worship in the physical business of living he would have shocked some of his Greek hearers who tended to despise the material aspects of life, thinking that God (and spirituality) was only concerned with ethereal, airy-fairy matters.

Paul disagrees. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture. In other translations "not conforming to the present age is used. It’s a phrase Paul uses to contrast with the age to come", where God’s priorities and values rule.

Paul is urging us not to let the present age – our surrounding culture – dictate terms. Not to presume that how it expects us to think and be motivated, to work and relate, to live and behave, is necessarily how God wants it to be.

In a sense we’re called to be counter-cultural. Which is not to say that absolutely everything will be different. But much will.

So rather than automatically accepting that we should eat, drink, work, play, relax – and shop, and drive – like everyone else in our culture, how about we ask ourselves some questions... We're aiming to follow Jesus, right? Could that mean we might do those everyday things … differently?

Differently? How? For Paul, it is a changing from the inside out. The Greek verb he uses is metamorpho. Notice the resemblance to our English word metamorphosis – the radical change of an animal from one form to another – like the caterpillar turning into the beautiful butterfly.

Paul is suggesting that this is what God wants to do in our lives. However, our metamorphosis doesn’t just happen by autopilot. It requires careful and disciplined thought. That’s why most English translations use the phrase, by the renewing of your minds. We need to apply ourselves to the business of thinking Christianly. Otherwise, our surrounding culture will simply squeeze us into its mold.[5]

As our whole thinking and belief systems are renewed, this works its way out in very tangible, visible changes regarding the way we act, live and relate.

So, Paul says that we are to offer our lives as a living sacrifice. In other words, all of our lives – our eating, sleeping, playing and working – are to be used to worship God.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

1. Discuss your own reactions to that word theology. Are they largely negative, positive or neutral? What experiences have shaped your impressions of what theology is and how useful it can be?

2. I suggest that, Theology is for getting to know our neighbors. Theology is for choosing the house we buy. And yes, theology is for how we work, and for how we drive our cars. Do you agree or disagree? In what ways do you think theology is relevant to these everyday matters?

3. Spend some time reading and reflecting on Romans 12:1-2. Read it in several translations and if you’re doing this in a group, allow time for people to share a phrase or word that particularly impacts them. (If you’re familiar with Lectio Divina, then you may like to use this format to reflect on the passage.)

4. Given that we’re going to explore everyday matters over these next few chapters, take some time to think about how you anticipate following Jesus might affect the way we think about and undertake our daily lives. What kinds of things might look different if we allow our faith to transform our days?

EATING

2. LOVING FOOD

Fast Food

Slow down Wayne, you’re not going to a fire! It’s a line I can remember my parents saying to me more than once at the dinner table. I was gobbling my food. Again!

I’m not sure when I first gained the reputation of eating too fast but it’s something that has remained with me to this day. Occasionally I catch myself doing it and gently suggest I slow down. But invariably some minutes later I’m at it again – shoveling food into my mouth quicker than you can say rice pud!

Yes, I know all the theory – if you chew your food well it is better for your digestion; eating slowly means you’re less likely to overeat; the joy of food is in the taking of time – particularly when in the company of others…

Unfortunately these fine sentiments haven’t made a lot of difference to my speed setting. At least, not consistently. If fast food means quickly consumed food, then I’m definitely an addict. The habit runs deep.

Which makes me wonder: what does God think about the fact that I’m almost always the first person at the table to finish my plate? Perhaps he just laughs and calls me Motor mouth behind my back? Or maybe he shrugs his shoulders and dismisses it as an irrelevant, if somewhat idiosyncratic feature of his son, Wayne? There again, it just might something that bothers him?

Let’s face it. Food is a huge part of all our lives. It’s as natural as breathing or sleeping. So when it comes to how our faith might affect what we eat, how we eat, and who we eat with, none of us is particularly well prepared to make the connections.

You see, it’s precisely because eating is such second nature to us that it’s rare for us to give much conscious and deliberate thought to what we are doing when we eat. Like my habit of eating too fast. Theologian Shannon Jung puts it this way:

Food is so embedded in our everyday experience that we can easily remain unconscious about the beliefs, values and practices in which we are engaged. We are largely oblivious to our food patterns because they are so much with us.[6]

My hope is that these next few chapters on eating will help each of us get below the layer of assumptions all of us have, so we can explore with greater awareness