How to Change the World in Three Easy Steps: 1 – Dare to Care
Being Welsh requires me to be passionate about rugby. Unless you’re Welsh you are probably bemused by the wave of euphoria that sweeps our small nation whenever we win, and the air or despondency that swamps us when we loose. Nowhere else in the world can the economy, mood and political feeling in a country be so dependent on the fortunes of a sports team.
The Six Nations is the big annual rugby tournament for us. In 2003 we managed to win the wooden spoon. For those non-rugby people reading, that means that we managed to lose every single match. We even managed to lose to Italy, a country who, with all due respect, are not exactly rugby titans. The picture in all the papers following that debacle was of Colin Charvis, our number 6, moments after the final whistle with a massive grin on his face. There was public outcry, Colin having the audacity to smile after Wales had just lost to Italy for the first time in history. Colin had communicated to the world that he (and the team) simply didn’t care.
Two years on and we won the Grand Slam (that’s winning every single match). It was a massive change around in two years within a team that predominantly featured the same players. The style in which we won the grand slam was dubbed ‘the Welsh Way’ – the players had smiles on their faces. Their faces were filled with passion while singing the national anthem prior to the matches. Many put the change down to the new coach, Mike Ruddock, instilling some passion and pride into the ranks.
Pretty much the same team took the field in 2005 as in 2003. They played against the same 5 teams that they played against two years earlier. It was at the same venues. What had changed? The attitude of the players: 2005 saw a Welsh team that cared.
Now I shall go against my cultural heritage and say four words that no Welshman should ever say about rugby: it’s only a game! But the principle is fully applicable when it comes to important things; the first thing we have to do if we are to change the world is to ‘dare to care’.
So I want you to think about what matters to you. What do you see happening all around you that you just have to do something about? Maybe you are passionate about the Fair Trade movement. Perhaps you are driven mad by the havoc that diseases like aids are doing in Africa, whilst we have drugs and medication that can prevent it here. Maybe you walk through the streets and see the homeless people, and wish you could do something about it.
These passions don’t have to be on a world wide scale. Maybe you are incensed by rubbish worship songs, or dodgy preaching in your church. It could be that poor facilities at your local hospital or school drive you up the wall. Perhaps you just can’t sleep at night unless you know that the teenagers who hang around the corner of your street have somewhere to go.
We need to know what these things are that we can’t stand, because if we can’t stand them, the chances are that God can’t stand them either. If you have those passions then they are quite possibly from God, and God wouldn’t just give them to you for the sake of it. He intends to use you.
This takes my mind back to the story of David and Goliath (it’s in 1 Samuel 17 if you aren’t familiar with it). Now, not being funny, but David was a little shepherd boy, he really wasn’t the most likely candidate for going into battle with a 9 foot giant. There were trained solders all around him. People who were bigger, men who had amour that fitted. You would have thought that it would have been a better idea to send one of them out to face the giant, but it was David who went. David was the only one who would go. Was it because he was braver than the others? Possibly, although I think there was another reason. What drove David out of the safety zone and into a fight with a giant?
In 1 Sam 17:26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
What drove David into that fight with Goliath was a passionate love for God which made David feel so violated to hear this over grown ape mocking his God. I can just imagine the indignation in David’s voice when he said ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’
That is what made David run out and do something, even though it seemed stupid, even though it wasn’t properly thought through. Where was the risk assessment form? Where was the life insurance policy? It may have seemed crazy, but it still worked, because he was acting on an impulse that came from a love of God, and a love of God’s priorities. And that passion, that anger, pushed David out into the firing line, unprotected, without a contingency plan. And it was by strolling into the danger zone that David saved the Israelite army.
I think as Christians sometimes we don’t think it is right to get angry. I think also if you’re British you don’t think it’s good to get angry, or in fact show any emotion at all. But the truth is it is good to be angry (as long as you are angry about the right things).
Mathew 21:12-13 say this:
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them,” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’ “
That wasn’t very British. And I wonder how many of us wouldn’t think it was very Christian (if it was anyone other than Jesus had done it). Jesus was seriously hacked off. He overturned the tables of the money changers. That’s quite a hard core thing to do. There’s some serious ‘rage against the machine’ going on here. If we have a slightly cuddly view of Jesus, this passage is quite difficult to get our heads round. Make no mistake, Jesus could be harsh when he wanted to be.
In Mark 8 Jesus says to Peter, his best friend, “Get behind me Satan!” – that’s not a fluffy bunny kind of a rebuke. In Mathew 23 he says to the Pharisees “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” That’s not really examining all of the diplomatic options is it? Jesus could be blunt if necessary. Jesus would call a spade a spade, and had no problem whatsoever with displaying emotions, because emotions are good. I think Jesus overturned the tables in the temple for the same reason that David rushed off to face Goliath. Because he just couldn’t stand seeing something so contradictory to God’s will going on.
Before I go any further I think I’ll state the blindingly obvious. Jesus did not ‘lose his cool’. The example of Jesus turning over the table of the money changers is not Jesus having a psycho moment. He is not losing his self-control. Self-control is a vitally important, Godly characteristic that is commended to us throughout the whole of the Bible. Rather, what is happening is that Jesus is so passionately in love with his Father in heaven that when he sees the money changers using God’s house to swindle people, he just has to step in. Not because he cannot control himself, but because what was happening was so wrong that he knew God wanted him to do something. And there is a lesson for us today. We need to be angry like Jesus is angry.
The key distinction is between anger and hate. Hate is being vindictive. Hate is despising other people. Hate is bringing death and destruction with you. On the other hand, anger – holy, justified, righteous anger – is being so incensed at the ungodliness of a situation that you are driven to action. We have to be mindful of this, but not be afraid to be upset by injustice. In fact we should actively seek to be upset by these things.
Proverbs 14:31 says this:
He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
If you are upset about the trade laws crippling the third world, good – so is God. If you see corruption in Politics and that makes you want to weep, good – God is just as unimpressed as you are. If you just want to cry when you hear about modern day slavery, good – God wants to cry as well. God is angry too, and if you will allow yourself to be motivated and angry about it as well then God can and will use you.
This point is a bit woolly so let me give you one practical way of making sure that you stay angry.
Stew in the things that make you angry – I know that this sounds a bit odd. Taking a ‘chill pill’ may seem like slightly more worldly advice, but I suggest that it’s better to immerse yourself in the issue. Read newspaper articles, watch the news, look up the statistics, talk to your friends about it, think about it. Don’t suppress it, don’t push it down and try not think about it, because if you do that you will never get around to doing anything about it. Instead let it eat away at you. Feed it so that you just have to do something about it. Then and only then will you find yourself following my next two points, not because I told you to, but rather because you can’t not.
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So true, so true, so true! Amen!