The Essence of Life

Jeremiah 2:4-13; Luke 14:1,7-14

Edward Tenner wrote a book entitled “Why Things Bite Back” exploring the idea that there is a shadow side to what seems a good idea at the time.  He discusses such things as the importation of eucalyptus trees into California for the purpose of harvesting eucalyptus and oil and the disastrous impact that had on the intensity of bushfires in that area. In Australia we do not have to go far to see the impact the introduction of drought resistant buffel grass, cane toads and bunny rabbits have had on the environment. Good ideas, good intentions. Disastrous outcomes.

 

Human beings have a fatal flaw, the idea they are the centre of the universe and they hold within themselves all the wisdom necessary to solve the big questions, to distil the mystery down to logic and practical common sense and dispense with the natural wisdom of the world and of the worlds creator.

 

Sitting around a campfire in Alice Springs we each had taken turns to speak. The last two to speak were two local people, almost lost from our vision against the night sky. When it came to their turn, they spoke slowly, hesitantly, long pauses, each word chosen carefully and only what was necessary expressed. Unlike the rest of us who waxed lyrical, using words with ease and saying, often, more than need be said, they waited for the right word and the right time, in tune with something else other than the need to be heard. They spoke volumes to me.

 How self centred we are to think by our use of words, opinions and ideas we somehow can circumvent the natural flow of things. Miriam Ungemerr comments that indigenous people speak little, think a lot. This is counter-wisdom, wisdom based on deep thinking, slow to act and careful in its application.

 

Growing up on a farm I got to know a lot about cisterns. You could say I was a cistern aficionado. I could tell you whether this design, that placement or that position was the most effective for a cistern.

 

Now in case you are thinking I am talking about toilets, I’m not. 

 

A cistern is the equivalent, in Jeremiah’s time of a tank or a dam, a catchment for water constructed in appropriate places to water the shepherd’s flock. A properly constructed cistern ensured sufficient water would be available as required. One shoddily made, with cracks and holes would soon leak whatever water entered it, resulting in thirsty sheep and a frustrated shepherd.

 

Jeremiah takes this easily recognisable rural image and provides us with the counter wisdom by applying it to the action of the nation.

^“12Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says theLord, ¹³for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.”

Some time ago I heard an expert say, ‘ We have the best climate in which to grow rice, there just isn’t enough rainfall.” At the time I thought, there is something wrong with that statement.

Jeremiah says there is something wrong when people ignore what is right there available to them and go looking else where for something they already have. In rural life cisterns are of good use, but you would not be doing that if there was a flowing river nearby. You only dig a dam if there is no other alternative.

Jeremiah is pointing out they already have everything they need and they simply have to abandon their self-centred search for something better and dig deep into the fountain of living water available to all. It’s not a shallow dam, or even a river, it is a fountain flowing from the deep, full of life, power and vibrancy. All we have to do is allow it to be.

Imre Kirste, A Duke University regenerative biologist discovered, by accident, that baby mice who are subjected to two hours of silence everyday grow neurons faster than those who are provided with stimulus and activity. She had been trying to find out what the effect of activity would be and instead discovered that the impact of no stimulus was actually for greater and longer lasting.

 

Now whether this is the case in human beings is yet to be proven but it does challenge us to think about Jeremiah’s assertion that God is a living fountain bubbling up within, my indigenous friends as examplars of silence and the challenge silence is to the western psyche.

 

Silence is not just the lack of sound but it is the lack of the ego striving to be noticed and heard. Some people can say little, yet still not be silent. Every action, movement, word is designed to make a noise others can hear. The lack of stillness speaks volumes.

 

Jesus deals with this in the Gospel.  Table protocol in a shamed based world was such that you never placed yourself in a place where you may be asked to move. Losing face was something to be avoided. Jesus reiterates this and everybody in the room nods with approval. Noisy people get there first, get the best seats and make sure everybody knows they are there. Not through words but actions. They are the ones who are the first to congratulate the speaker, they regale the key people with their stories and make sure everybody is aware of their special relationship with the important people.

 

Jesus encourages silence. If you really are important to the person in charge you will find yourself receiving an invite to move. If you are not, you may find yourself getting the same invite, not up but down, and be unhappy about it.

 

He also turns this around to those who are doing the inviting and the table seating.  Again this can all be done with little noise, but the type of people invited can scream ego and noise. Jesus, don’t invite those who think they should be there, invite those who will be surprised to be there. Share your hospitality with those outside your circle, outside those who can invite you back sometime, lock down a deal, or fix a problem for you. Don’t be so noisy. Be silent in your action and it will be noticed.

 

What does that mean for us? As Christians in a world focussed on noise and words, action and activity we are challenged to reflect on what we say, what we listen to and what we do, not only what but why. Jeremiah and Jesus remind us our scheming to be noticed and to be heard can find us without the capacity to hear deep calling unto deep with in us, the fountain of living water capable of providing all we desire and more.

 

Too late we will find that success, wealth, celebrity status and more are broken cisterns and do not satisfy our longing to be heard and noticed. We already are. If we take the time to be silent, to sit still and to let go of the futile search for more, we will discover we are enough, we have enough and enough is more than the broken cistern and the seat at the top table. 

The Covenant of Compassion

Luke 13:10-17

 

The Covenant of Compassion

 

Cruelty of any kind to animals of any kind is almost always universally condemned. The banning of greyhound racing by the NSW government in response to the reported on going mistreatment of live animals for training purposes and the mistreatment of greyhounds themselves is a case in point. In general terms human beings have little tolerance for such cruelty.

 

There is a connection between people and animals which ensure most of us will not leave an animal without water or food and will take steps out of a sense of responsibility for that animal to ensure it is properly cared for. In the same vein we will not tolerate those who perpetrate cruelty to animals in any form.

 

Yet we are often not so quick to step in when other people are suffering as victims of cruelty. Our definitions of who deserves our intervention, the types of cruelty we will or will not tolerate, and the fences we put around both our action and inaction means we often fail to act when we should. Our preferred method of action is to have another Royal Commission, internal investigation or external review, generally resulting in little or nothing changing. Practical steps to solve the problem become bound up in red tape, protocols, separation of powers, questions of who is responsible and bureaucratic buck-passing. And nothing happens.

 

For some Christians, Anglicans included, this translates into the duality of spirituality and faith versus social justice. We avoid becoming involved because we do not see it as a spiritual or religious question. It has little to do with our faith.  It is a question for those interested in social justice and activism, not Sunday worshippers.

 

For still other Christians, Anglican included, our faith is tied up with a personal friendship with Jesus and is private, personal and heaven bound. It does not involve an engagement in the messy stuff of the kingdom of God here and now. That doesn’t matter because we are not citizens of this world, but are only passing through, on our way to glory.

 

For still other Christians, Anglicans included, if it is not specifically decreed in the Word of God, the Bible, then it is not required of those for whom Jesus died. Without a proof text there is no evidence available to suggest we should become involved.

 

Jesus and Jeremiah, confront these and other views directly in today’s readings.

 

100 years after Isaiah for whom it was an article of faith that God would not abandoned the temple, Jeremiah speaks out against such faith. For Jeremiah  “neither city nor temple guaranteed safety to a city that did not act with justice and did not remain loyal to YHWH.” (Jenks)

 

At the same time ‘Jeremiah had parted company with the ….. reformers who had come to power during the reign of Josiah. He seems to have lost confidence in the capacity of a book of the law to bring about holiness.” (Jenks) For him neither the temple or a book of law would be sufficient for people to act with compassion and he set about reimagining the covenant as one that “would be inscribed on the human heart, rather than on tablets of stone. It would need no religious authorities to instruct people on how to observe its requirements.” (Jenks)

 

Jeremiah now becomes the post-modern prophet shifting responsibility for faith and action from an external source to that of an internal project. It is no longer the responsibility of the temple thought police or the literal readers of the text to set down the rules of engagement with the real world. It becomes the task of the individual faithful person to so identify the right and appropriate action in every situation.

 

Way before Augustine wrote ‘love God and do as you will’; Jeremiah had upset those in power in the temple with exactly the same direction. Love of God, the deep sense of compassion sitting at the centre of all, is to be the driver of action. Only an experience of and response to compassion and a sense of the goodness of God enkindled through faith will ensure people live out the covenant relationship with God, and not any amount of rules, regulations or books.

 

In our Gospel reading, Jesus returns to this theme through a healing miracle. Here Jesus heals a crippled woman who had been so for many years. She comes to Jesus on a Sabbath day and is healed. Jesus is rebuked for doing work on the Sabbath by representatives of the temple.

 

 Marcus Borg provides some insights into this event:

He says: “The non-Markan sabbath conflict stories follow a common pattern. Jesus, taking the initiative, healed a person in the presence of opponents and then legitimated his action with a rhetorical question that referred to common human behaviour.

 

Two are peculiar to Luke:

Luke 23:15-16: (Todays reading)

And Luke 14:5: Which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well will not immediately pull him out on a sabbath day?

Both times, Jesus invites them to consider what they naturally do when they saw an animal in need or suffering on the sabbath.” (Jenks)

 

Jesus does not appeal to precedence from the scriptures, the prophets or the patriarchs. In fact Jesus does not dispute the letter of the law. He makes no effort to counteract the argument of law by finding an argument to makes his case.

 

He simply challenges them to think of what they would do to safeguard the wellbeing of their own personal property, in this case an animal and contrast it with the attitude they express toward this woman. Your animals are treated with more compassion than:

• A woman,
• A sick woman
• A woman who has been sick for a very long time

He continues: Where is your compassion?

 

You are more interested in obeying the temple rules than obeying the law of compassion that lives with in you. The implication is: haven’t you ever been challenged by the disconnect between what you feel for such as this person and what you enforce upon her and those without power?

 

For Jesus and Jeremiah the imperative of compassion overrules religious and legal double-talk requiring us to follow our sense of what is the right thing to do. It is not a question of social justice v’s spirituality v’s faith. It is the love for the Other and others that is to drive our engagement with the world. Compassion changes things and draws together what we have separated - justice, spirituality and faith – as one, giving birth to hope.

 

Asylum seekers, victims of violence and abuse, indigenous Australians and more require us to stand up with compassion as a church, a people of hope, standing against the lawgivers, the temple and anyone who stands in the way of God’s kingdom becoming present in this world. Trust your sense of what is right and live out your faith without fear and trepidation. Today.

 

 

 

  

One Mob

Colossians 3:1-11

People have asked me how was my trip to Alice Springs? Did I like it? Was it a good experience? I am not sure how to answer. And when some words begin to form, I find them slipping away, not really wanting to be put out there for others to hear.

You see, I had heard a lot about the Centre, the desert, the people and the Aboriginal problem and it was different to what I saw. I watched tourists and  people on pilgrimages, seeking something from the country and the people in order to save themselves from them selves. I witnessed the harsh beauty of the landscape painted in red rock and carved on the faces of the people who lived there. When I am asked what was it like, I am not sure what people want me to say.

I listened to people wax romantically about the wisdom in the country, the dreaming and the ancient people who still live there, and find myself conflicted and challenged. I watched people worship this wisdom seeking absolution for the guilt of the past and fear that what they find will do little to change they way we, black and white, live with each other here.

The 7.30 report story on children in detention has created a stir but while the images are new, the story is not. This has been going on in our country for, the day the first white boat people arrived, was there at the day of Federation, experienced during my youth and I can share many a story from my years working on the streets of Kings Cross, Fortitude Valley in Brisbane and a range of prisons I visited as a Salvation Army Chaplain. No amount of commissions, inquiries or reports will change what is so deeply entrenched in the Australian psyche.

Stan Grant in an emotional powerful speech this week at the University of Sydney, a must read for everyone, makes it plain that bigotry and racism lies at the core of our country and without the honesty of such as a truth and reconciliation commission, as in South Africa, can we even begin to turn this around.

M K Turner, an Arrenta woman from Alice Springs speaks of Uteryea or the line or vein which runs through country and through people. Like  a vein it carries the essence describing the character and truth of country and people. It is in us and runs through us on and out to others, it defines and claims us and remains with us always. It changes brings us into relationship with others.

Paul in Colossians brings us solidly back to a similar truth. It is no longer about us but about the life of Christ that lives with in us. And because of this we are different to before.

David A. Sanchez writes: "I am inclined to read this Biblical passage as a response by the author to a community that was struggling with shifting ethnic, social, and cultural demographics where one group attempted to conserve and validate a perceived privileged position based on what they recognized to be normative, entrenched, and original." And so do I. Paul is attempting to bring about a cultural change that is already completed. By this I mean, when we encounter the resurrected Christ we are changed, now but not yet. It is now because it is the gift that occurs in the moment; it is not yet because it requires us to clothe ourselves in the life and example of Christ in the journey of relationships and experiences from now to forever. The fullness of that change only becomes real as we give life to it in our lived relationships. 

And here is where it gets complicated, a word that came up continually in Alice – what about….. the answer always was, it’s complicated. It’s complicated being a Christian because it is hard to stay with the countercultural expectations of living Christ's life in the world. It is so easy to move from inclusive love to hate, compassion to anger, generosity to scarcity and greed, and more. Paul is talking to a group of people who are needing to engage with a new world, a new way of being, with the inclusion in the community of people who are different, who they do not necessarily want there. They are struggling at the hardest place, the interaction between individuals, in the most difficult of places to do that, the church. 

It is here our expectations are at their highest. We expect those who are like us to behave in a certain way, to be the epitome of everything a Christian is meant to be. And they aren’t we react badly. We are let down, disappointed and may even use it as an excuse to leave. Yet we are shocked when others see us in a similar way. Paul cheekily finishes this passage with: “In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” even the one who is different, difficult, who hurt you, who let you down, who is not you. A constant theme coming from the indigenous speakers was we are one. 

Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, a Daly river woman writes: “Life is very hard for many of my people. Good and bad things came with the years of contact - and with the years following. People often absorbed the bad things and not the good. It was easier to do the bad things than to try a bit harder to achieve what we really hoped for… There are deep springs within each of us. Within this deep spring, which is the very Spirit of God, is a sound. The sound of Deep calling to Deep. The sound is the word of God - Jesus.” 

How much we need that word in our country now! The word Jesus dwelling deep within creation and creatures, country and people to reconcile firstly ourselves to ourselves, and then to others. Paul is right. Blame and guilt does little and only works if we recognise others as not us and abled to be manipulated and mistreated. We are one, we are connected, and we belong to each other. The uteryea runs through us and when we sit together in dadirri we discover the truth deep down flowing like a river – we are the same, we belong in this place, in this country as one mob. 

Without this word Jesus; fear, hate, anger and violence will continue to be the language we speak to each other and the resultant destruction of culture and country, the legacy we leave behind. Paul reminds us it is up to us, “you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

Without a fully reflective engagement with this word Jesus so that our veneer of respectability is torn open and our deepest prejudices and ideologies, our sin, is extinguished from our daily living in the light of this word Jesus then we will continue as we were before we encountered Him. No one can absolve us from Paul's injunction. It is our vocation, my vocation, your vocation and it begins today. Let's do it.