Month: November 2024

It is the ‘in’ thing that every organisation, every vendor, every service provider must have its own client magazine. I regularly get a news magazine from my health insurance provider Assura. Didn’t ask for it, but I get it anyways. I get a news magazine from my car insurance Mobiliar. I get a news magazine from AXA, where my second pillar pension insurance is gaining weight. I used to get a news magazine from Primeo Energie and if you get your electricity from IWB, you’ll get a magazine from them. Every month you’ll get a Dropa magazine from the drugstore chain in your mailbox. Even if you’ve got a ‘Kein Reclame’ sticker on your mailbox. Every month, I’ll get a thick envelope from the Schweizer Evangelische Alliance in my mailbox with a magazine and a bunch of other flyers. It just goes on and on. The busier we are, the more is crammed down our mailboxes. If I would want to read them all, I have to reserve at least an hour a day to go through them. Which of course doesn’t happen. Probably you won’t read most magazines either. I can’t help but think: “All the manpower that goes into putting them together. All the expenses to produce and send them. Why? If they wouldn’t, my premium would be less, my pension would be a bit higher, my products would be a little cheaper.” Just because one company does it, doesn’t mean another company has to. I think these client magazines are an echo-chamber of marketing specialists. Perhaps they should think a bit better about the question: “how do I get the most important message across to people that are used to only read snippets of information; Facebook-size” I hope we’re doing a bit better with this Compass. If so, let us know. If not, tell us how we can do better to give you the information you really need. In the marketing bombardment of client magazines, we should reserve a special place for the Bible. Paul writes to his protégé Timothy: Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. (2 Timothy 3:16+17, The Message). I plead with you that the Bible should take a place in your life that no Assura, or whatever magazine can take in your life. Give your undivided attention to the Word of God for at least 15 minutes a day. So that we are “put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.” No marketing magazine can do that for us!

Remember those phones? In a time, long, long ago, they were the ‘normal’ thing. That is how I got to learn to use a phone. You pick up the receiver, you stick your finger in the hole with the right figure, you turn the dial until you can’t go any further because of the metal placeholder, you pull out your finger, the dial goes back to the starting position and then you repeat the procedure with the other figures of the phone number. My kids – now grown men – did not grow up with these dial phones. We were once visiting with friends that still had one. My youngest son wanted to place a phone call, and the friend said: “sure, there’s the phone, use it!”. My son walked over to the phone and stood there, glazed eyes, not knowing how to use this ancient thing. The thing with these dial phones is that they never, ever go ‘kaput’. Probably, if you stick one from 1960 into the phone socket (if there still is a phone socket around), they’ll still work. But they have become obsolete, because we all have push buttons nowadays, either ‘real’ buttons or – more likely – digital buttons. There are more things that still work just fine but are obsolete anyways. ‘Planned obsoleteness’ is a real thing in our consumer society. In 2011, I bought an iMac computer with a 27-inch screen. In 2018, I updated it with an SDD disk and in 2023 it still worked as a charm: fast and furious. But Apple thought differently. They decided for me that a 2011 computer should be replaced. They stopped issuing updates for the operating system and before long I got messages, saying: “This computer is too old; you can’t update the operating system anymore.” That was the beginning of the decline into obsoleteness. Then I started to get messages saying: “Your computer is in danger for viruses, because your operating system can’t scan for viruses anymore.” And then user software started saying to me: “you can’t use this software anymore, because your operating system is not valid anymore.” Now it was my turn to stand by my good, old, working iMac with glazed eyes, not knowing what to do. When people brought a woman to Jesus who was caught in adultery, we read this:When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” John 8:7-11. With Jesus, people never become obsolete. Maybe we sometimes feel that way. We lose our jobs. We get sick. We make stupid choices. We ‘lose the touch’. We get older. But there is no ‘planned obsoleteness’ in God’s economy. God doesn’t run an Apple company. He runs His kingdom, in which people are his prime assets. And for the financials amongst us: he doesn’t depreciate them either. They keep their full value into eternity.

The reality of the fall or autumn has fully settled in. With the fall come the misty, damp days in Basel. Despite high-pressure systems over Switzerland, it stays gloomy, misty and grey over Basel and over larger parts of the country that are below 700 or 800 metres. If you’re lucky enough to live at higher elevations, then you can enjoy clear blue skies and lots of sunshine. The Swiss even have a saying about it: ‘Unten grau, oben blau’. Grey below, blue above. The only way to get some sunshine in these fall days is to escape to the mountains. My house in the Netherlands has sun panels. With an app on my phone, I can exactly see from moment to moment how much electricity these sun panels produce. In that country there is only ‘unten’ and no ‘oben’, so you can guess what it implies: many grey days, even more than in Basel! Very little electricity production by those sun panels. And no escape to the mountains. On a sunny day in the fall, they still produce 35 kWh of electricity, on a really foggy day it is not even 10% of that. Hear what the Bible has to say about reflecting God’s radiance. Paul uses some complicated sentences and sub-sentences, but this is the main thought:Now if the ministry that brought death (the law) came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? We all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:7+11+18 Solar panels can only produce when the sun shines on them. The brighter the sun, the more electricity they produce. The greyer it is, the less the production is. If we compare ourselves to the solar panels and God is the sunshine in our lives, we need to position ourselves well to be able to receive the sun rays and produce the juice. If we don’t regularly place ourselves fully in the rays, then don’t be surprised there is little ‘production’ that comes out. Just one other thought. Not very devotional, but quite practical. If the sun does break through on a fall day in Basel, don’t wait to enjoy it! Don’t first finish your chores. Don’t wait for the ‘right moment’. Go out and enjoy those rays. Because it will be over before you know it.

I’m writing this in the train from Arnhem to Basel. I just visited my wife and the family in the Netherlands. And, of course, my granddaughter, who is about to turn 4 years of age. She’s a bright, young little girl. I still hear her voice ringing in my ears: “Zelf doen…. I’ll do it myself.” Her quest for independence has started significantly and very determinedly. Getting in and out of the car. Undressing. Dressing. Opening the present. Opening a bottle. Closing a bottle. Getting a bowling ball off the rollers (while grandad fears she’ll drop it on her toes). Making a sandwich. Praying. Biking. Self! Every parent who has had teenagers in the house or is presently enjoying them, knows that the quest for ‘I’ll do it myself’ only intensifies when they turn the corner of puberty. To culminate in the moment they leave the house and spread their wings. It is somewhat of an irony that a child we receive, starts off so helpless, so much in need of care and guidance and then, slowly but surely throughout their lives, we need to let go, bit by bit, inch by inch, year by year and help them to become independent from us. Hopefully still in a relationship, but nevertheless independent. In the same train, I have been preparing my sermon for this upcoming Sunday. We’re starting a new series about the ‘I Am’ statements of Jesus and I’ll be preaching on ‘I Am The Vine’. One of the things that Jesus says in John 15 is: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from the Father I have made known to you.” Even Jesus wants us to grow up from servants to friends. He wants us to understand the Father’s business and take responsibility. Zelf doen… do it myself. God doesn’t want us to stay dependent upon him like little children are. He wants us to grow up to be co-labourers, people that understand what God is doing. So, yes parents, your predominant and God-given task is to help your children grow up into responsible, independent people who can make their own decisions and who don’t need you to weigh in on everything. It is nice and encouraging for them and for you if they want to check in with you from time to time. For counsellors, psychologists and therapists, it should be a great joy if your ‘patients’ get it and start applying your input, your advice and their self-reflection to their issues and come to the point where they don’t need your help any longer. Cut them loose, let them go, you’ve done what you have been trained to do. Don’t keep them on the hook for more treatment fees! Same for pastors and pastoral workers; our goal is not to make people dependent on us. It is our goal to make our congregants strong and ‘self-reliant’ for their spiritual nurture and health. If a pastor goes, your spiritual life should remain steady and focused, because you have learned about the source where that pastor got it from! ‘Do it myself’ is a good way to go, if you have paid enough attention how to do it yourself the right way. I hope to see you Sunday in church, to hear more about Jesus being the true Vine and we as the branches getting our input from Jesus.