The Freedom Generation

What defines a generation? Is it the way that we have lived and the legacy we leave behind or is it in what we do in the present? Is it what we are willing to invest our energies in or what we will spend our money on? John Wimber used to say “Show me where you spend your time, money and energy and I’ll tell you what you worship…” What we are willing to give praise to, and give money to, is often a reflection of what we have engaged with on a spiritual level. We might not recognise it as such because our emotions are often swayed by many different aspects to our lives but underneath the obvious, there is a desire for our hearts and minds to make connections with immaterial objects, in order to form metaphysical moments of joy.

For example, when we taste food that is ‘divine’, we connect our desire for the food we are eating with our senses, in a delirious symphony of flavour, texture and aroma. The food becomes more than just a way to replenish the energy that our bodies have burned off. Rather it becomes something ‘more’ - we might even describe it as being heavenly. We can often have a physical reaction to food when we see a picture of some delicious food, or an advert shown on the television that awakens a craving for something to eat, at usually the wrong time in the evening.

Music is another esoteric experience that helps us to make connections with our souls. In the church, we use music to help focus our mind, body and spirit in the worship of God. In more secular music, we use a good tune or a poetic set of lyrics, to reflect on the lives we have lived or are living so that we can have a good time; we use music to relax to; to soothe away the tension of the day or to celebrate our good fortune. There is a song out there for every emotion that we might feel; when we are feeling blue, that favourite song that we always remember at those times, can lift our hearts where nothing else quite reaches, even chocolate! We have so many memories captured in song that when we hear our favourite tracks being played on the radio, we are instantly transported back to the experience we had in the emotion and memories we have associated with it.

There are unfortunately some aspects to life that we adopt, which are not so useful to our sense of well-being. Identifying what we want to experience in life always brings us up against rules or expectations that are derived from a set of ethics that pre-determine our behaviours. As people, we always try to push against restrictions that we feel are limiting. Even if there are legitimate reasons for those restrictions being enforced, humanity always wants to break them…. It seems that it is in our nature to do so – ‘Who is this person, group or institution wanting to stop me from enjoying myself?’

Food can become a psychological comfort with both obesity and anorexia being the opposite ends of the scale of extreme behaviours that move beyond the simple enjoyment of food. As a consequence of these and other actions, diabetes and other medical conditions are on the rise as they can be directly attributable to our diet and health. These issues unearth a wide range of social ills that no amount of public health information could help to dissipate. I see children walking to school with two litres of ‘self-styled’ energy drink laced with caffeine in one hand and a bag of confectionary in the other. We haven’t even explored alcohol abuse, drug abuse, nicotine addictions and the like…

Why is it that the excesses of what is good and wholesome in society can so often lead to so much damage? At each level of society, be they a sportsman (Lance Armstrong), a politician (Toronto Mayor Rob Ford) or indeed in any public vocation, there always appears to be scandal; we have all heard of someone who has lived to excess or abused their position. Each incident has its own level of fall-out in their public lives and indeed within their private lives. Due to these types of fears, teachers in the UK for example, are forbidden to make connections with their students on Facebook because of the access the young person may have to being exposed to the teachers adult behaviour… some teachers have had their conduct questioned by parents when visiting their ‘page’; finding content that would be reasonably normal for most people, to be a bit 'close-to-the-mark' of their internal moral barometer, for a person they want teaching their child. The parent’s perception of what they witness of their child’s apparent miss-conduct within their social media page, could be considered to bring them and their school into disrepute, so all use of any social media page is frowned upon. 

Yet from another perspective, I am often left appalled at the quality of health education that young people receive, particularly as there does not seem to be any formal boundaries to what is acceptable and what would be forbidden. I have listened to young people's drug and alcohol counsellors tell the children in the audience that they can have a drink in public at any particular age, as long as it is bought with a meal or if it is bought for them by an adult for personal use at home. Why are we saying things like this to children when the legal age for purchasing alcohol in the UK is 18?  Surely there is an implied assumption that you wouldn’t want to encourage drinking in young people until they are able to buy it?

I have even been in safeguarding training where it is suggested that for children having consensual sex at 12 years of age, where both young people are of the same age, that it is considered a concern but not necessarily an issue that would be needed to be brought to the attention of the authorities. Again in the UK, the age that young people are considered mature enough to engage in sexual activity is 16, so I am perturbed by the logic of these types of arguments. It is only where one party is 16 or over and is having sexual relations with a minor that it does become a legal matter. At this point, as the 16 year old is responsible for their own actions, it is assumed that the minor has been coerced into sexual intimacy before they are deemed to be emotionally mature enough... this just seems confused.

Why has society pulled back from informing young people of their obligations (or their parents obligation to inform their children for that matter), in favour of what we offer young people in the current climate of simply stating the dangers of excess? Why is it that we seem to leave young people 'out-in-the-cold' when it comes to actually helping them make the right decisions surrounding the lifestyle choices that they could make.  Surely, to keep our young people stay safe, we need to introduce more specific guidance –boundaries are there to protect everyone involved aren’t they? I know that many parents seem to drift into a lax attitude towards monitoring their children because they believe that as their children get older, they haven't got the moral authority to stop them from doing so as they might get stroppy and argumentative if you tell the child, 'No'. Why do parents absolve themselves of the responsibility they have in educating and guiding their children through their adolescence?

We know for example, that alcohol consumption continues to rise, with many young people following the adult pattern of drinking to excess, with parents seemingly condoning this type of behaviour. So why not give young people boundaries, rather than just informing them of the consequences of excessive drinking or inappropriate drug use? Alcohol can be a stimulant, but quickly turns into a depressant when an individual reaches their limit. As a teacher of young people aged 11 to 18, I have heard a wide number of stories that were probably part half-truth and part urban myth. I heard one story where a student had already developed an alcohol dependency and as a result of this, spent time in hospital having his stomach pumped after overdoing the alcohol on an overnight fishing trip.

Violence is another life skill that young people have to deal with today. An abundance of violent content in computer gaming, television, movies and in particular, the social content seen in dramas, seems to constantly portray confrontational moments between men and women. This can result in a high degree of verbally abusive and often physically abusive content being shown on our screens on such a regular occurrence, that we think that it is a normal response to the actions we witness in the real world. This type of behaviour is also seen by many young people in their homes, as the adult role models they live with display similar habits. In the young person’s social setting, adolescence provides the ideal proving ground for young people to experiment with their interaction with each other; to try out new rules of conduct that they have witnessed in a variety of media, with varying degrees of success.

One young lad walked into my tutor-time with two black eyes and a fractured hand from a fist fight he had with someone who was ‘hitting’ on his girlfriend. He felt that his rival needed a physical reminder of who the girl’s rightful suitor was but his rival felt that he didn’t deserve that first punch. So he took it upon himself to retaliate against the other boy’s action and did significantly more damage than either boy probably thought possible in the initial confrontation, requiring hospitalisation as a result. The fact that this type of action was deemed acceptable or even considered to be a reasonable level of response to this situation, is a startling glimpse into the moral barometer that adults have instilled within young people’s subconscious thinking.

There are many more stories that define each generation, which become an identifying marker to the demographic of a population group. At the turn of the millennium in the year 2000, a marker for the transition between the ‘Baby-Boomers’ of generation ‘X’ and the new ‘millennial’s’ of generation ‘Y’ was created. After world war two, the teenager was born, with new technologies allowing young people to express themselves in many more ways than were previously thought possible, leading to the birth quite literally of the ‘Baby Boomers’. 

Music on the move allowed young people to express themselves in far greater way’s than their parents ever could, often resorting to listen to new radio broadcasts in secret. New styles of clothing and fashion that was distinctive from our parents choices, helped to define a new look; new foods and drink enabled greater distinctions in our social patterns through the proliferation of café’s and bars that encouraged us to spend more time with our friends and less time with our families.

Breaking the direct connection with our families and the new sense of social mobility that the young teenager has access to, has enabled us to be exposed to a much wider range of influences than was previously thought possible. With our horizons broadened, we could shake off the shackles that we believed were holding us back and expressed ourselves more freely in our new found social communities. For example, new technologies have enabled me to contact my friends who moved to Qatar to work as teachers using Facebook Messenger as I eat my dinner. It is as though they were in the next room – a feat impossible only a short time ago... the reason why they were confident in making this lifestyle change due to the assurance that they would not be totally isolated from family and friends.

We have all seen how social media has been used for even greater purposes in the ‘Arab Spring’ and other up-rising’s, to help accelerate the cause of the suppressed in the hope that there would be lasting change through the mobilisation of like-minded people – history unfolding as we watch.

Generations are defined by the belief that we are in charge of our own destiny, particularly with the increase in the secularisation of society; the influence of faith groups on our culture has been marginalised, in favour of an altogether different form of self-expression. Our so-called post-modern philosophy is charged with questioning all know truth as subjective, freeing minds to believe in their own truth outside of the traditions that have served to promote them - not unlike the tradition of the Pharisees. So what is the future in this generation for those with faith and for those without?

 

Social change has been a pattern of life since the beginning of the ancient civilisations of pre-history. Social change is affecting young people and their actions today in just the same way that it has been recorded for millennia. In the story of Noah found in Genesis 6-9, of which a new Hollywood movie is to be released in 2014 starring Russell Crowe as Noah, we find an account of the first indication that society had evolved beyond that which God intended; becoming corrupted by the people’s own sense of right and wrong and going their own way. 

This is similar to the way that the re-telling of the Noah storyline in the new movie, which focuses on a weird environmental slant that is more pagan in origin than Godly, tries to change the focus of the Noah story for this particular generation that rejects God. In the Bible, God uses Noah to call people back to himself but they rejected Noah’s message, condemning themselves to certain destruction within the flood waters that covered the land.

Later in the Bible, we read about the Jews. They are chosen by God and charged with being a representative of his kingdom here on earth. They were to characterise Yahweh, the Hebrew name for God, by the way that they dealt with all of the other gentile nations around them. The way that the Hebrews traded with each other; dispensed justice with fairness and integrity; and the way they treated each other within their societal structure, was meant to demonstrate the grace of God on earth. They were also called to be distinguished by their worship in the Temple, in comparison to gentile forms of worship to deities such as that of Baal, Rah or Asherah, who represented the god’s of the other civilisation on earth.

In the wilderness, Yahweh revealed to Moses, the plans he had for his covenant people the Hebrews, later to be known as Israel. Through Moses, Yahweh rescued the Israelites from captivity in Egypt through the symbolic destruction of the pagan god’s that the Egyptians believed protected them. Through the great plagues that afflicted Egypt, epitomised by the Passover meal  that saw each first born male infant killed, Yahweh proved that he was above all of the other ‘man-made’ deities, by offering the Hebrews protection from all of the crazy things that they had witnessed. The people escaped from the hands of Pharaoh because God made it so. This is why they were called to worship God… he was the peoples saviour, champion and guardian.

In the desert, the Israelites were instructed in how they should worship God, with certain individuals being filled with the Holy Spirit so that they could build a meeting place - a tabernacle – a tent of meeting; to the exact specifications that God commanded. In this place, the glory of the Lord existed as a reminder to all of the Hebrews camped around it, that they were the chosen children of Abraham, whom God had made a covenant agreement with.

A new covenant was formed in the desert that went beyond the covenant with Abraham. Moses received the Law of God that consisted of the Ten Commandments, but it also consisted of a whole host of regulations that guided how the people should live out their lives in the desert. Wandering in the desert could have led to many illnesses spreading through the camp so regulations were established to ensure that the people would stay healthy. There were also regulations regarding keeping clean, cooking food and the types of clothing that should be worn, as well as a range of personal, social and cultural considerations. We will have to wait and see how Christian Bale play’s Moses in Ridley Scott’s new movie, Exodus, scheduled for 2014.

In response to living lives as God commanded, the Hebrew people were rewarded for their obedience by receiving the protection of God from all of their enemies. The law was a vassal treaty written on behalf of God, for the provision of his people. In response to keeping the law, God would uphold his promise to guard the people from every conceivable threat that they could face: economic, health, harvest, conflict. This forms the basis of why we worship God today.

In order to stay in God’s protection the people had to keep the whole law. Any occasion whereby a person forgot to keep the commandment that God placed on them, needed to be put right. The offender had to first recognise that what they had done was wrong, in order for them to be able to put right that which was broken. In the Law, God provided a way for each of us to be absolved of the wrong doing that we had committed. The outer courts of the Tabernacle were entered by the repentant worshipper who left a sacrifice that matched the nature of the sin they had committed with the priest. This sacrifice was offered as a substitute for the punishment that the worshipper deserved… This act being symbolic of what Jesus would do a few millennia later.

The offering was burnt by the priest to atone for the sin we had committed, on an altar in front of the Holy of Holies, which contained the law of God. The aroma reaches up to heaven and is described as being a ‘pleasing’ aroma.

And the LORD was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, "I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. (Genesis 8:21, NLT)

The worshipper could then leave the Tabernacle knowing for certain that they were forgiven for the wrong choices they had made and the fresh start that they have been given. When David established God’s kingdom in the Promised Land, he pledged to build a temple fit to hold the presence of Yahweh in the city of Jerusalem. However, David could not complete his heart’s desire because in accomplishing God’s actions as a warrior king, he had bloodshed on his hands which stained the purity of his offering.

David’s son, Solomon, got to carry out his father’s wishes, building a temple that could contain the glory of God. At this time of peace, the people kept to the law for as long as they remained faithful to Yahweh. As is always the problem with prosperity, Solomon and the people became corrupted by the life they had been gifted, just as in the times of Noah. This began the cycle of faltering descent into exile and certain banishment from the land that Yahweh had promised them in the treaty he made with Moses and the people.

The people continued to break the treaty that they had agreed to up-hold, to the point that God gave the people up to those from other nations whose armies came up against Jerusalem to conquer the city and subdue the people. They would do this by destroying the temple, preventing the Jews from worshipping God and plundering its treasures. By the time that the temple had been rebuilt by Jeremiah on the return of the Israelites from exile in Babylon, second temple worship in Jerusalem was never to return to the purity and closeness to God that the first tabernacle in the desert provided.

Moving forward in history, the Jews were back again in the Promised Land living in the hope of a coming Messiah. The scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the Law and the temple authorities directed the people in the forms of worship that they should practice. Even though there is a strong oral and written tradition within the temple community, temple worship became corrupted through the teaching of an interpretation of scripture or Midrash, which differed from rabbi to rabbi. This drew the people away from the truth of the Mosaic Law, to a hermeneutic that fitted within the contextual understanding and the reasoning used by the Pharisee’s. This meant that some practices employed by the Pharisees could have been described as having become ‘lost in translation.’

Jesus was constantly being challenged by the Pharisees and scribes to explain his position on various parts of the Law. If Jesus was found to disagree with the Pharisees, then they would have grounds to reject his teaching. Jesus answered the questions posed to him by stating that he had been sent by his father to represent the fullness of the law; that in Jesus, something even greater than Moses was standing in front of them. This was interpreted by the Chief Priests as heresy, which ultimately led to Jesus’s arrest and trial.

At the trial, Jesus is sentenced to death on a wooden cross so that the shame of hanging on a tree would discourage those who followed him. Yet at his death the veil, that hid from view the book of the law held in the Holy of Holies, from the worshippers in the temple, was torn in two from top to bottom. This veil symbolised the removal of the shroud of mystery that prevented the ordinary worshipper from approaching God being removed so that through Jesus, we could all enter into a new relationship with the father. 

No longer would the people be bound by the teaching of the law through the instruction of the Pharisees, teachers, chief priests and temple authorities; for in Jesus, the mystery of God is revealed.

On the cross, the glory of God was demonstrated by the sacrificial love shown in the selfless act that Jesus endured to atone not just for yours and my sins as in the tabernacle sacrifice, but for the sins of the whole world. The temple was spiritually torn down as Jesus foretold and in the three days that his body lay in the tomb, he became the Passover Lamb who came to take on himself the sin of the world, and banish the effects of Sin – death itself. In Jesus and the lives of every believer, the temple would spiritually and physically rise up to new life, as revealed in the resurrection accounts of Jesus in his risen body meeting with many disciples… the stone that the builders rejected had indeed become the chief cornerstone.

So we move forward again within a new generation of believers in Jesus. The apostle Paul was one such believer who as a Jew, studied under the finest of Jewish scholars Gamaliel. He came to know the risen Jesus in a conversion experience that broke the traditional barriers of what he had been born and tutored in. On the road to Damascus, the glory of the Lord shone around him so brightly, that he was blinded by the brilliance of the Son (Acts 9). In the one in whom no sin could be found, Paul found the culmination of all of his studies into the Law of God. His search for obedience to the truth, led him to zealously track down and trial for heresy, any followers of the way. The irony being that in the faith of those he persecuted, Paul found the answer to his search for true faith -Jesus. This is why he knew he was unworthy. He could no longer condone his murderous actions against the incorruptible nature of Jesus. He was undone.

Paul is commissioned by Jesus to teach all people, both Jew and Gentile, and charged with this mission: to reach out to all nations and preach the Gospel. This echoes the promise Yahweh makes to Abraham; that his descendants will be as great as the stars… that God’s family had indeed been extended beyond that which was ever thought possible by those who followed Mosaic Law. The Jews no longer had exclusive access to God as symbolised by the torn veil in the temple; now everyone who believes in Jesus, has access to God by the grace that he freely pours out to each one of us.

As an apostle who had an encounter with the risen Jesus, Paul was able to marry together his considerable intellect surrounding the law and make the vital connections necessary, to join up all the information from the historic events that had taken place, in order to make sense of it all. By piecing together the narrative found throughout the books of Moses and the prophets, Paul understood through his encounter with Jesus and through him being filled by the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of Jesus. Paul has helped us to understand what it means to be born again; we are not simply generation ‘X’ or generation ‘Y’; in fact we are all part of one generation: Generation Zion – our association with the Son of God, grants us access to the father. In him our future is secured and we will all inherit eternal life as co-heirs with Jesus, our Saviour and King… hallelujah!

Eyewitness accounts of what Jesus did, the quality of his teaching and the testimony given of him by those who witnessed all of this, validated Paul’s preaching from his position as a murdering unbeliever who was saved by grace, to one of an authority in the preaching of the good news of Jesus. Jesus deliberately spoke in parables through the use of counter questioning so that the truth was hidden from anyone but those who were genuinely searching after the father. The disciples too, misunderstood or could not comprehend the true meaning of Jesus’ teaching. They spent every moment listening to him, observing him, and seeing the power of the Holy Spirit at work through him, yet they begged him for further interpretation in what he had been teaching.

The disciples had the best seats in the house but still Jesus was a mystery to them, even the boldest of them, Peter the rock, denied Jesus three times in the pre-trial story of his arrest. Paul was able to unravel the meaning of Jesus’ teaching within the context of his historical perspective and his traditional interpretation and understanding of the law, as he had spent a life time studying it. We can read these expositions today in the many epistles and letters that Paul wrote, which are contained in the New Testament.

When we observe the interaction between Jesus, the Samaritan woman and the Roman centurion, outcasts and gentiles alike, we witness an extraordinary longing and undoubting belief in who Jesus is. Without the saddle of tradition, Jesus’s objective truth was clearer to those who observed the life and actions of a saviour. Jesus did not point to himself or his actions, but to the father who sent him. No longer was worship confined to the constraints of temple life as defined by the Pharisees, teachers of the law and the Chief Priests but rather, it was defined in the atoning sacrifice of God’s son, Jesus. In him, our sins are forgiven and by faith, we can approach the Holy of Holies in the confidence that we can stand before God, wearing the veil of the Messiah, who clothes us in his righteousness.

The dynamic between these two Gentile believers is really curious as they knew that they were not the elect and were not covered by the Abrahamic, Mosaic or Davidic covenants but still received the promises of God. They both understood more clearly than the Jews around them, of the new world order that Jesus taught about… they understood what Jesus offered them and were willing to make a step of faith by simply asking. Perhaps this was so because they were foreigners and aliens in the land given to the Jews. They didn’t have the same locational hang-ups as the Jews living in the Promised Land, dependent on the existence of the temple in Jerusalem to give validity to their faith. 

Through Jesus, both Jew and Gentile can be welcomed into the house of God together, through the atoning sacrifice attained by the shed blood of Jesus on the cross. No longer would it be Abraham’s mark of circumcision in the flesh but a divine mark borne in the body of Jesus alone, whose righteousness we could now all receive as followers of the one sent by the father.

In Jesus, we become a new creation and a temple for which the Holy Spirit can reside. As one body made up of many members, the church takes over from the role of the temple by becoming salt and light in the world. No longer would Jew and Gentile be separated by birth-right and tradition. No longer could the Jews be confident in their exclusive traditional position of being the children of the covenant of Yahweh. As one generation, in fellowship with the communion of all the saints, we can step out in faith together with thanksgiving in our hearts. Whatever the ethnic, cultural or political differences between us, we are all united in Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

(Ephesians 2:19-22, NLT)

So let’s finish today by looking at how Paul, who is anointed by the Holy Spirits commissioning, encourages us all to keep the faith. Paul eulogises about the perfect nature of God’s love for mankind. This nature is revealed in the perfect love displayed by Jesus on the cross. Paul encourages us first to be strengthened by the Spirit; he then encourages us to be filled with love for one another; and finally he tells us to be full of understanding in the scriptures so that we can piece together the biblical metanarrative of the kingdom of God for ourselves. Even Paul doesn’t fully grasp the fullness of the multidimensional nature of God in using his height, depth analogy in Romans 8:38-39.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:38-39, NLT)

We can all imagine a height and a depth which limits the scope of what God can achieve. It reminds me of an old Vineyard song, ‘The Lord is gracious and compassionate’ written by Graham Odd, which seems inspired by this passage. In the lyric, the chorus reads: ‘As far as the East is from the West, that’s how far, he has removed our transgressions from us.’ This is perhaps a better analogy… when you set out heading east; you will always be going eastbound. Such is the Lord’s love for us – boundless. The mystery of God is such that we will never fully comprehend the nature of God until Jesus returns in glory. Until that time we’re charged with expanding our comprehension of the scriptures and to pursue the endless possibilities of our future eternal hope.

As we think more about this new hope, our hearts are overwhelmed by the love Jesus has for us; it compels us into action within our communities. So the church glorifies Jesus when it imitates the love that Jesus has shown us... We do this through our worship which helps us to determine our actions and through our ‘Spirit filled’ devotion that we express in our prayers. As the church, we draw strength from each other, sharing our lives in Spirit and in truth, providing a rich tapestry of witness to those who observe from a distance.

When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:10-17)

So what now…? How do we go about revealing this love to the world? Well, to steal a line from a Delirious? song: ‘We are the freedom generation, living for revival in this town…’ We are Generation Zion – revealing the glory of the Lord to all who choose to look – that is our mission. It is the same mission that Jesus commissioned… ‘And then he told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.”’ (Mark 16:15, NLT) So get out there and be an ambassador for Christ, proclaiming the Good News that JESUS is ALIVE.