what’s happening
Graduate Christian Fellowship meets again Tuesday morning at 9am. Rolina is bringing the food and I’ve got the drinks. Grab a colleague and join us!
The Theology Reading Group will finish reading John Webster’s Holy Scripture Thursday at 1pm – chapter 4.
The Connection will meet on Thursday at 5.30pm and we’ll conclude our series on the As, Bs, Cs, and Ds of a Mature Christian Faith. D stands for Disciplines that nourish our union with Christ and mold us into the image of Christ.
The End of the Year Party is happening on Thursday, April 10 at 6pm – the last day of class. It’s for anyone who has been involved in any way this year in these campus ministries. Dinner, bowling, and billiards at Palasad (Oxford and Richmond). Cost is only $10 and tickets are limited. Purchase your ticket by April 3rd at the chaplains office. Judging from last year’s party, you won’t want to miss it!
Leadership opportunities for the 2008-2009 year: If you are interested in volunteering a few (about 3) hours each week to Christian ministry on campus next year, now is the time to look into a number of opportunities available. Small group (Bible studies/book discussion) and large group (Connection/GCF) leaders as well as leaders focussed on special events (retreats, workshops, etc.) are open for you. As a student leader, you will be invited to explore core Christian discipleship practices and leadership principles. You will receive a stipend for your time and a certificate confirming your “service learning” – all as a way of deepening one’s education at Western. If interested, contact Mike soon!
Summer activities on campus are now posted on the “Programming” page (see the navigation bar at the top of this page). If you’re around London this summer taking classes or working and would like to continue to be a part of this campus Christian community, let us know so we can keep you up to date with further details.
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newsletter
“THE UNDERDOG” by SPOON
Picture yourself in a living room
Your pipe and slippers set out for you
I know you think that it ain’t too far
But I hear a call of a lifetime ring
Felt the need to get up for it
And cut out the middle man
Get free from the middle man
You got no time for the messenger
Got no regard for the thing that you don’t understand
You got no fear of the underdog
That’s why you will not survive
I wanna forget how convention fits
But can I get out from under it
Can I cut it out of me
It can’t all be wedding cake
It can’t all be boiled away
I try but I can’t let go of it
Can’t let go of it, nuh uh
Cause you don’t talk to the waterboy
And there’s so much you could learn but you don’t want to know
You will not back up an inch ever
That’s why you will not survive
YEAH
The thing that I tell you now
It may not go over well
It may not be photo op
The way that I spell it out
But you won’t hear from the messenger
Don’t wanna know ‘bout some thing that you don’t understand
You got no fear of the underdog
That’s why you will not survive
Right!
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An underdog is someone who is expected to lose a fight or contest. This term originated from the probability theory in the 17th century as a result of a gambling problem involving dice throwing. Since those days almost every industry and individual uses the probability theory daily. Insurance actuarial tables are probability charts, and so are sports betting odds that have the ‘favorite’ and the ‘underdog.’ From the point of view of a normal observer, the underdog has little or no chance of winning against his opponent because of the insurmountable obstacles and problems that he has to face.
There’s something we don’t like about the appearance of weakness, of vulnerability. It embarrasses us, doesn’t it? We shy away from being associated with losers, with people who aren’t self-sufficient. We probably fear others discovering the areas in which we’re just barely holding it together.
When I reflect on the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday this past weekend, I think of Jesus as the underdog – the one who appears to be losing but in the end is victorious. Just think of the odds against Jesus:
- born to a peasant mother and father
- considered born to a single mother
- lived in the rural outskirts that had a bad reputation
- no formal theological training as a rabbi
- did not own any property so had to rely on the support of others
- abandoned his family responsibilities to be a traveling teacher
- no witnesses at his trail to counter the charges against him
- condemned as a criminal
- executed by the Roman state
And yet, we have to wrestle with the historical fact that three days after his execution, his grave was empty and there are hundreds of eye-witnesses that he was alive again. The most probable explanation is that Jesus’ predictions of his resurrection after his death had come true and that this event confirms the truth of his claims to be God in the flesh. And if that’s true, that’s quite a claim to have to wrestle with.
I think that’s what we can hear from Spoon in their song. That you can be living your life very comfortably (in your living room with your pipe and slippers) when all of a sudden you’re confronted with the call of a lifetime. You want to respond to that call to throw your allegiance in life at Jesus, you want to get rid of whatever stands in the way of you responding to that call (the middleman) that tugs at you and leads to a full life, but you’re afraid of how it will look in the eyes of others. You’re afraid of putting everything you’ve got in line with an underdog, with this Jesus who can appear embarrassingly weak and out of it. It’s hard to understand some of the things of Jesus and so we don’t want to commit.
The song takes on a prophetic punch in this light, if Jesus is seen as the underdog. And how we will not survive in the end if we continue to stand on the side of what we can understand, manipulate and manage, and hold in our fist. Instead of taking a step of faith into the unknown, into the territory of the underdog.
In a small group I host, we’ve been reading through the little New Testament letter of 2Peter. There’s an amazing claim that Peter makes in the first chapter of that little letter. He writes,
“[God]’s divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2Peter 1.3-4).
What’s he saying? That through the power of God shown in Jesus’ Easter resurrection, we have been given everything we need for our life in God. We’ve received God’s promises to us, we’ve been welcomed into the intimate fellowship of God’s trinitarian nature, and we’ve been given what we need to live a life that honours God in the world. In short, that through the victory of Jesus, we can live lives of victory over those things that drain life away from us – that we may appear foolish and weak at times but the power of God is at work in us and our life will pattern underdog Jesus as we follow him.
As you wind down the year, I pray that God’s strength would flow through you when you feel weak; that God’s hope would burn within you when you feel despairing; that God’s peace would settle your soul when it’s anxious. In Christ, you’ve received what you need to live for him.
