The Speak Life Podcast. Sharing Jesus in Everyday Life. In David Cameron's memoirs, he discusses, among other things, his grief over losing his son Ivan, aged six, to O'Dahara syndrome. On the weekend, the Guardian's editorial was gracious enough to admit that David Cameron would have felt pain over such an unconscionable tragedy, but the editorial said it was only privileged pain. It's very important to know that David Cameron is a different species to us, a privileged species not touched by our unprivileged frailties. There exists no common humanity between David Cameron and us, apparently. He experiences life in a wholly other register. These were the beliefs expressed in The Guardian over the weekend. Such views were not those of a fly by night freelancer, this was The Guardian's editorial. Taken down a couple of hours later for falling far short of their editorial standards. But here's the thing, they only backpedaled because of the bad publicity. Enough people clearly thought this stuff in the first place in order to get it published. And that is worrying. Because this seems to be the view. Cameron doesn't really know about Pain because he is a distant relative of the Queen, he went to Eton, he went to Oxford. But if David Cameron is privileged, then his son Ivan must be privileged too, right? He was also related to the Queen. He was the son of a Tory party leader, no less. His dad would go on to rule the country. Surely Ivan Cameron was born into privilege, wouldn't you say? Sure, he would have 20 or 30 seizures a day, lasting for minutes or sometimes hours, his small frame racked with spasms and what looked like searing pain, but they were privileged seizures. Privileged spasms. By the end of the day, his clothes would be drenched in sweat, but of course his clothing was design a label, his sweat royal, his agony and death, a privileged agony and death. See, it doesn't work, does it? And a moment's thought with anything like a human perspective reveals that it doesn't work. The Guardian thought it was unveiling vile inhuman class-based hate. Of course, it was the Guardian itself that displayed those things in spades. And notice the assumption. Cameron is privileged, but guardian readers are not? I mean, relative to who? What's the comparison? That means the average Guardian reader is not themselves privileged. 80% of the human race lives on less than $10 a day. Are old iconians the only privileged ones? What about guardian editors? Are they not themselves privileged? Or are they, when not demeaning the pain of grieving parents, moonlighting as chimney swoops in Victorian tenements just to make ends meet? Why this convenient division of humanity so that the bad guys are over there while us good guys are over here? In my newsfeed, the Guardians editorial was side by side with another news item, the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. It's quite a comparison. These finalists give us short-lived relief from the serious business of demonizing our ideological enemies. When clicking on the Comedy Wildlife photographs, we're able to take a break from despising each other, and instead we chuckle at animals that look like people. But what a contrast this is. We look at a grizzly bear who can maul us to death. Have you seen the revenant? But he happens to be striking a particularly anthropomorphic pose, and so we say, look, the huggy bear thinks it's people. So David Cameron is another species, the bear friend. Our political opponents are demonized, animals are humanized. What's going on? Well, with the discussion of Ivan Cameron, we have an opportunity to stop, take a breath, and recalibrate our conversations. Surely the death of a son can put us in touch with some kind of common humanity, can't it? Can we not find common cause with one another for one brief moment as we grieve for a lost son? As we confront our own mortality, as we all acknowledge that we are walking through a dark valley and death is bigger than us all. Will our common mortality help us to feel a common humanity? And Christians have an even deeper tool: the death of the Sun. If God so entered into our dark valley that he died our kind of death, if even the very highest and most privileged volunteered to have his frame racked with spasms and searing pain, is that not the greatest leveller imaginable? Might that be the basis on which we address our political opponents, not as enemies, but as fellow travelers through the same dark valley, accompanied by a king who thought nothing of privilege, but who walks with all, left or right, rich or poor, or remain? When tribalism threatens, Christ is our hope. It's the 17th of September, this is Speak Life, and you're watching the live cast. But you might be confused by the presence of this third party at uh in in the live cast. Um can you introduce yourself to us?
SPEAKER_02Who are you? Yeah, my name is Matthew Schaefer, and I'm one of the interns that's just come on.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. And uh from your accent, you're not from around here. Where are you from?
SPEAKER_02Just a little north. No, I'm from the United States. Um lived all over the place in the United States, but most recently I was in Indianapolis.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. So what on earth would possess you to move from Indianapolis to Eastbourne in East Sussex?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a great question. So we recently we sold our house, we sold all of our stuff. Um I routed it up with my wife and with my daughter, and we moved uh all the way here to England, which I've never been to before, never come to the UK first time, and um, and it's sometimes I've been asking myself kind of that same question.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So uh what would possess you to to I guess you you sold your house, is that right?
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00You sold most of your possessions. Yeah. Wow. And kind of whatever you could carry in in two suitcases and decided to bring across the Atlantic Ocean. That's right. What would possess you to do that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so uh kind of the big thing was we just um had been kind of studying scriptures and and noticing kind of trends in scriptures, and I'm really brought back to this idea from Matthew chapter 19 of the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and he says, Hey, I've been following the law, I've been doing all these good things, I've been participating in church, you know, all the things. And he says, What else do I need to do? And Jesus says, I want you to sell everything you own, and I want you to come follow me. And the rich young ruler, of course, he leaves, he's sad, because he feels like that's too great a sacrifice. And so he sadly leaves the greatest, most amazing eternity he could ever have for the temporary things in his life.
SPEAKER_00Now, most people when they read that story, they think they think of ways in which they are not the rich young ruler. So or they think Jesus would never ask me to sell up and give everything away. He would just ask me to go on a Twitter fast for ten days or something like that. Right, right. Some very manageable sort of sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02Right. And maybe nine days instead of ten.
SPEAKER_00Let's call it a week. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Whatever. Ten literal days, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00The night times count, I don't know. And so we're we're always wanted to shrink it down and make the sacrifice not ourselves and kind of to not put ourselves in the sandals of the rich young ruler, but you're you're totally comfortable putting yourself in those sandals and saying, Lord, command me, I will do what you say.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so from the United States, I am more comfortable wearing sandals. Um, not with socks. No, uh, of course not. But um yeah, I do think that is the temptation, right, of kind of people in Christian cultures to say, hey, you know, these biblical characters, that's what God was calling them to, you know, uh calling David to go you know fight Goliath and calling um kind of kind of those things where we say, oh, but he's just calling me to something much less than that. Um I think the real challenge is to look and see what is the Lord calling you to? What does it look like to be obedient to what he's asking you to do? Um and not and not kind of take that, not to take away from that, you know? Um and so I don't think everyone is called to this. You know, obviously there there's different different pieces of that, but I do think um he's calling it something difficult, you know. It's not it's not supposed to be easy. Right, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01So I guess yeah, I guess in the case of the the rich young ruler, so I mean as you say, not everybody is called necessarily to give up sell up house and everything like that. I suppose what Jesus does there is he identifies an idol in this guy's uh heart there. Um I guess I guess the challenge for us is working out what are the idols in our hearts. You know, and and so it it may well be for some people it is I mean I imagine for a lot of people it has to do with wealth actually, you know. Um but you but then that might not necessarily mean selling up and shipping off. That could I mean you could who knows, it might be sharing the wealth, I don't know, using it in a different way. Um but are there other ways in which you think you know, if we think about the kind of the average Christian in the pew, so to speak, um for whom it isn't necessarily selling your house. I mean, can you there are other kind of ways you can think that that story would uh speak into Christian life?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So I I have a tendency to think of um of Christians as kind of having this monologue with themselves or this this kind of dialogue where they say, Oh, well, you know, God's not calling me to sell all my stuff, um, he's calling me to kind of live this ordinary life. And maybe sometimes I'll invite a friend or a colleague from work to church with me, but that's all he's really calling me to. And and I do tend uh there's this quote by Francis Chan I really like. He says that um it should be shocking that someone would claim to have the Holy Spirit living inside of them and yet live an ordinary life. And that quote is really haunting for me. It's like it's like this this challenge to say, we're not expected to just uh to claim to be Christians, to claim to have literally God living inside of us and then just live a normal life. I don't think that's what we're called to. But we are maybe called to live lives that that look extraordinary in other ways. And so it could be making big sacrifices, like maybe it isn't uh picking up and moving somewhere else, but maybe it's actually staying back and caring for a an a loved one who's um who's failing in health or something like that, or maybe it's about the way that you raise your kids really intentionally and pay attention to the way that that you raise a family. And it can be about the way that you have a work ethic at work, or maybe it's actually about cutting back from work so you can spend time with a family, or you know, it looks so different for different people that it's hard to really say this is exactly the steps, this is exactly what you need to do, you need to sell your house and move to England or whatever. Um it can look really different, I think.
SPEAKER_01No, go on after you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So we're very British.
SPEAKER_00So that that that idea of um so Paul writes to a whole bunch of Christians. Paul's a really radical Christian, you know, goes around planting churches all around the Mediterranean. Um, and yet when he writes letters, so often he's saying, you know, families love one another and work hard, even if you're working for a slave master and honor the king and pay your taxes, and make it your amb uh your ambition to lead a quiet life and live this radical life. So so how do you put those things together? Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, but be this radical, spirit-filled, sacrificing Christian. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_02Live a quiet life seems a little ironic coming from Paul, doesn't it? He's like this guy who's getting beat up and thrown out of city. Turning the world upside down, yeah. Um I I do think that that the reality is we are called to, you know, follow the laws and we are called to pay our taxes and live at peace with other people, but that can look really radical in comparison to what the rest of culture is doing. And I think the really radical thing is when culture is telling you to do one thing, um, and maybe that's you know, follow for me it's the American dream that's what we kind of think of, this idea of like get a house and a family and a good paying job so you can get to retirement and really live your life then or whatever. Um that's what culture is telling us to do. And and God has got something different planned for your life than just what culture is telling. And I think that's what it really looks like to be radical. It's not about radical for radical's sake. You're not just gonna rebel and break the laws and do whatever you want. It's about being obedient to what the Lord is asking you to do. And so I think to key down on that is really about um really spending time with him and developing a relationship with him and making sure that all those aspects are there so that way you know what to be obedient to.
SPEAKER_00And I love how that chapter ends. So the rich young ruler goes away sad, um, which is it's it's it's a tragic ending to that story. Peter then, and you you sort of imagine a little bit of pride in Peter, and he says, you know, Lord, we've left everything to follow you. You know, what do we get out of it, right? And then Jesus interestingly says, Oh, look, Peter, anyone who's left father or mother or wives or children or fields for my sake and for the gospel will not fail to receive a hundred times as much in this life and then eternal life at the end of that. So sort of Jesus has this little rebuke to Peter if he thinks that because he's kind of given up all for Jesus, that he can kind of go around feeling good about himself, Jesus is like, well, that was actually a clever investment, Peter, because you've got a 10,000% yield on that kind of investment. Um in one sense, you haven't made a sacrifice at all. It's a clever move. Well well done, Peter. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I and I'll I'll say I really have felt that in just a small sacrifice that I've made, um, is in every small way that I've trusted the Lord, he's proved himself a hundred times more faithful in every way financially, and just so many ways that he's blessed me and my family for making this move has been really incredible. So um it hasn't felt much like a sacrifice, and I really encourage people like if if there's something that God's calling you to and you and you're aware of it and you're thinking, oh, it's gonna be really hard though, I don't know if I can do that, that's that's that's too ridiculous. Man, if the Lord's calling you to it, it's way better than you could ever expect. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_00Well what a challenge to leave us on as we as we think about yeah, the challenge of the spirit. And and one thing that my flesh does when the challenge of the spirit comes is my my flesh is now thinking, yeah, that's okay for Matthew, but be reasonable, Glenn. Be reasonable. And yeah, allowing the challenge of the word, the challenge of Christ to confront my flesh. And yeah, what a what a challenge for us all. Um what would it mean to really live this radical, sacrificial, Christ-filled life? Um let's go away thinking about that. Now, Matthew, you are part of the uh foundry, uh, an internship program for 10 months. Um how long have you been with us? Uh a week and a half. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. First impressions? Oh, it's been amazing. I felt so welcomed here by the church that I'm plugged into, but also just you guys. Um it's been great, and uh some of the cultural differences are so fun. I feel like there's been a little bit of like, no, it's pronounced this way.
SPEAKER_00It's amazing. But it's acclimated to us? Acclimatized, no, no, no. Climatized, exactly. It's learning. We're teaching it. Yeah, yeah. So your 10 months will not be misspent. If you go away from here knowing that it's climatized, not acclimated. There we go. Good learning. Brilliant. And if you guys want to join us with the speaklife foundry, check out check out speaklifefoundry.com and uh figure out what a 10-month internship might look like for you. Uh if you want to find out more about how you can support uh Speak Life and the work of this live cast, you can go to speaklife.org.uk slash give. And uh there are lots of ways that you can support the ministry. There. Well, I think that'll do us for this week. Um we're gonna try and trim it down to a nice trim 30 minutes. Trim the facts. Trim the fats.
SPEAKER_01No more annoying preamble banter.
SPEAKER_00That will be us our tagline from now on. Yeah. No more prepared. We'll bring you the best preamble banton. That's a separate podcast we're gonna do. You're gonna fail that podcast. Annoying preamble bant. Hours of content. Yeah, very good. Uh this will show up as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and uh some of these uh excerpts from today's live cast will show up on YouTube and Facebook. So sharing is caring. Get the word out there, and we'll see you again next week. Thanks so much for joining us. Take care. Bye. Bye.