Confronting Violence

Matthew 13:24-43

All gardeners know weeds grow no matter how diligent you are. If you are a gardener like me, the weeds always seem to grow better than the plants I planted! A gardener’s main task it seems is to keep the garden clean of weeds.

In todays reading from Matthew we have a landowner who seems to have more than the normal outbreak of weeds amongst his wheat. And the weeds he is dealing with look like the real deal. Called darnel it is a wild wheat like weed that replicates the real wheat. Weeding it out as it grows is a risky task. What is and what isn’t the real wheat? We won’t know until we go to harvest and then we wil sort it out.

Really? Isn’t it too late then? Does this sound like a Jesus who understood rural life or is it a parable from a later edition with a different purpose?

The Jesus Seminar scholars suggest the following: “The parable reflects the concern of a young Christian community attempting to define itself over against an evil world, a concern not characteristic of Jesus. Letting the wheat and weeds grow up together suggests the final judgment rather than agricultural practice.” [Five Gospels, 194]

And the parable itself seems to point in that direction:

40Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.41The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

What we have here is another of a number of difficult passages pointing towards a violent end for those who are not of the true faith, the church. It is not our responsibility to judge others; God will do that and will condemn them to a furnace of fire. But don’t worry; we who are righteous will shine like the sun and escape the punishment of those who sit amongst us in this and other communities.

Are we comfortable with this image and language? How does this sit with us in a world where our understanding of people’s behaviour has been influenced by science, psychology and personal experience? Are we able to accept an image of another burning in a fiery furnace and not be challenged by the image of the God it portrays?

Perhaps we are today more comfortable with this concept of punishment than ever before. We live in a surveillance society where one of the fastest growing industries is the prison system; a society in which prison and detainment camps are accepted as part of our response to the plight of others (refugees etc) and where we are quick to condemn others by means of media and hearsay. Perhaps today we are more comfortable with the idea of a last judgement that will separate the wheat from the weeds as long as we are included in the wheat, than ever before.

There is also the fact that we may have become desensitised to the violence in our faith and our liturgy, a violence which reflected a different world view and a different cosmology. On the ABCs the Drum the archbishop addressed the issue of domestic violence and a research paper which stated that Christians from certain styles of Churches are more likely to commit violence on their partners. It was primarily a discussion on the doctrine of headship - males as heads of the household and women as being obedient to that headship. His response is that there will be an apology on this at General Synod if it passes a vote.

At the same time It is important we address the violence in our liturgy and the language of sacrifice and redemption we repeat each time we gather for worship. We need to ask how have we embedded and normalised violence as a symbol of Gods' (understood as male) action in the world and find ways to address this. Domestic and other types of violence are expressions of our acceptance of violence as a way of being in the world and, for the church, violence as an accepted part of Gods action in the world.

It is much bigger than headship.

Are we comfortable with images of eating the body and blood of Jesus, of God sending his son to die on the cross to make us better, of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of God to be sacrificed because of our failure in order to bring about redemption and peace?

In discussion with many older people I hear things like; “Well, I cringe at some of the things I hear in church”, “I can’t believe any more in some of the stuff we say in our liturgy”, “I have moved on in how I understand what happens but I still like the form of our service” and more.

Or are we disturbed by such language because it does not depict the God of our experience or the one discovered by rational and critical reflection? Are we ready to explore new ways of taking the ideas expressed in the scriptures and our liturgy and begin to craft a new way of doing church that is relevant to a modern worldview?

Matthew was writing for a community in the midst of a battle to control the synagogue, a battle between traditional religion and the embryonic group who followed Jesus. Matthew was employing language which basically said, let us not try and identify who is a true follower of Jesus, let’s leave that up to God. In doing so he employed an image understand by those reading his words.

We are living in a very different time and with a very different understanding of how the world, and God, works.  Is the language of such as the Agnus Dei (which you may have noticed is not part of the 10am service book) relevant or does it take us back to an understanding of human sacrifice Abraham left behind when he decided to sacrifice the sheep instead of Isaac? Are these words and the story they tell the story of God that is your story?

Jesus, Lamb of God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, bearer of our sins, have mercy on us.

Jesus, redeemer of the world, grant us peace.

I spend much time with people who are wracked with guilt and shame, much if it seemingly imputed by words they have listened to over and over again in their church liturgy. Is it not time for a careful look at what we say simply because it is our tradition to say these words? Is it time to consider new images and options in order that what we know in our head is no longer in conflict with what we are asked to believe?

Now I know that this may be difficult for some, but the word acts and what we say influences how we see and accept what is happening in the world. Is our acceptance of the violence we see around us influenced by our acceptance of the apparent violence in our faith we attest to each week?

Perhaps it is time for us to begin the discussion on just what we need to be saying and how that reflects our informed understanding of God, faith and scripture. This is a subject our worship committee, like the wider Anglican Church here and overseas, is thinking about and we would be happy to hear your ideas and suggestions in writing.

Matthew’s Jesus poses us a modern challenge, to bring the message of the kingdom of God into sync with the time in which we live, just as he attempted to do to those he was representing at the beginning of the church. Amen.

In The Thicket

There is much said and written about the found violence in the Quran and some interpretations of its voice.  Media and politicians and some church leaders are quick to point the finger at the text as the reason for the violence of terrorism, war, treatment of women and children and its own form of law.

 

I am no expert on Islam but I do read the Christian scriptures and am constantly challenged by the violence there in, the violence accredited to heroes of faith, and the violence that emanates from or is sheeted home to God. And I am always challenged by the violence of the cross as the central focus of our faith.  It doesn’t matter how I read the texts, last weeks or this weeks, I am left with a sense of unnecessary violence as an integral part of my faith.

 

This violence is in full view in the Genesis reading of the binding of Isaac – the akedah – and the intervention of God at the very last moment to rescue the boy. It is often this intervention that is spoken of as the compassion of God but the reality is that Isaac was facing death at the hands of his father because of a command apparently given by God. Human sacrifice was prevalent in Abraham’s time. even though it had been banned by his people it still had a deep hold over the people and their understanding of God. Otherwise there could be no story. Abraham would have dismissed this idea as a madness and left it behind. He didn’t’. He went along with it.

“Not only do the prophets condemn such sacrifices in honour of Molech, but the Hebrew Bible even notes the power of such sacrifices when deployed against Israel in battle:

When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through, opposite the king of Edom; but they could not. Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land. [2Kings 3:26-27]

The story of Isaac—horrific as it is—must also be read alongside the even worse story in Judges 11 where Jephthah offers his daughter as a human sacrifice in fulfilment of a vow.” (Jenks) It is a confronting story to read. There is no intervention by God; no last minute testimony to their faith, as the story of Abraham and Isaac is often interpreted; it ends as it was intended to, with the father killing his daughter to maintain a vow.

 

In the story of Isaac we get the straying sheep stuck in a thicket and all ends well. But does it? Has the damage been done? Have we ended up with a tainted God, a God who is not afraid of using violence and who is not impartial – he saves Isaac but not the daughter of Jephthah? Has this image of God continued to haunt the church, not the least through the interpretation of the cross as the inevitable means to solve God’s relationship problems with his creation?

 

Modern day atheists such as Stephen Fry, Richard Dawkins and others cite this seemingly in built desire for violence as the reason to dismiss any discussion of a god or God’s existence. You and I have our own stories and questions regarding the seeming disparity in justice, fairness and compassion shown by the world to those we love and care for. Where was God? Why did God allow such and such to happen? Why did God do no thing about this tragedy or disaster? Many who no longer profess faith can point to a moment when the perceived disparity between a God of love and a God of violence changed their heart and mind.

 

We cannot simply pass this off as an Old Testament anomaly. There is much in the birth of Christianity that raises the same questions. The history of the church in all its forms is replete with violence ranging from inquisitions, crusades, persecution of witches and women, the abuse of children and more seem to make a lie of the image of God as all consuming love.

 

What are we to do with these stories and experiences and how are we to frame or reframe the image of God? How are we to read the scriptures and the history of the church containing many such stories in such a way that we too do not find it all too incongruous and slip away ourselves?

 

We could:

·      Simply ignore that they are there and go merrily on our way oblivious to the impact they have on others – the ostrich approach;

·      Embrace them and spruik a wrathful God who will do what ever he please to whomever he pleases, but never to us  - the bring it on God approach;

·      Spend copious amount of time to study the research and academia and develop an appropriate intellectual understanding of why this would be so in this particular time for this particular people - the there is always a rational reason for stuff we don’t like approach;

·      Simply accept the incongruous nature of evolution of thought and understanding and get on with living out our understanding as truthfully and respectfully as possible – the living with the questions approach.

 

Living with the questions and the questionable seems to be the way faith and understanding has developed or evolved. It does not come pre-packaged fully comprehended ready to roll. It has to be grappled with, argued about and lived to become real. There is a sense that the stories which disturb us are a part of that process. Abraham’s almost murder of Isaac was stopped when Abraham had an insight and recognised the foolishness of his ways. Jephthah fails to stop his crime because his vow was more important than the outcome and he didn’t recognise the very same insight. The accrediting of the process in both cases to God forgets the cultural impulse to child sacrifice and the incredible growth in understanding required for Abraham to change his mind. No wonder the story is told with God at the centre, Abraham had to frame his experience this way to explain how he could do such a tremendous about turn.

 

If we are seeking a squeaky clean narrative of the evolution of the understanding of humans interaction with the Divine then we won’t find that in the scriptures. If we are seeking a nice neat interpretation of stories such as today’s Old testament story then we are fooling ourselves. The path to spiritual understanding and experience is a prickly one, as prickly as the thicket that caught the lamb. Not to learn to live with incongruous stories of an evolving relationship, and to learn to live with all our questions will find us  running the risk of abandoning our faith. Embrace the questions and the messy stuff, it is the only way. 

Divisions & Unity

There is an ad on tv for a bank called ME. The ad comprises a lot of little yellow circles with the word ME in it bouncing around our screen singing me, me, me! The voice over cements the image by saying we are a bank that understands you. Welcome to the narcissistic 21st century.

Today’s readings are not for the faint hearted nor for those seeking consolation and comfort or for the narcissistic 21 st century. All three readings take us deep into the darkness of sacrifice and division, a long way from the blessings we see in such passages as the Sermon on the Mount.  If we are reading the scriptures honestly we will note that this is not an isolated case, the Bible is often a disturbing, violent and challenging read, but read it we must.

The reading from Matthew 10 hardly relieves the doom and gloom ...:

• Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
• ….whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
• Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth ...
• Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me...
•  ... and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
• Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Comfort and safety are the watchwords of our generation. “I am entitled to be comfortable and to feel safe at all times” seems to be the mantra. Governments and political parties try to out do each other with more and more unlikely promises to deliver a world in which all danger and threat is eliminated.  Churches and faiths of various sorts promise us wealth and happiness in return for obedience and faith, quick solutions to issues and problems that have taken years to come into being.

Our world is an uncomfortable and dangerous place most of the time and the major division is between those who see and accept this and those who refuse to accept that is so. And it has always been so. Matthews Jesus is railing against those who want to be in control and who want to be able to lord it over others, including God.

Matthews Jesus poses an interesting conundrum –when we allow the need to feel safe and comfortable to rule us we instantaneously divide and separate ourselves from others, God and creation. Jesus is conscious his very incarnation brings about such conflict and sets up the possibility of conflict at all levels of our existence. The intention is, it seems, to unify but the effect is to divide. Why? Because we always choose the prominent place for ourselves in opposition to others. We are unable to see that unity can only come about when we let go of the need to be safe and comfortable; that unity can only come when we let go of the desire to possess Jesus for ourselves. That is idolatry.

We increase security, identify others as the enemy by race or faith, marginalise people because of their ethnicity or history and by their past acts, big or small. We do it on a world scale and we do it with in communities and families. The lie we are told is that by so doing we are unifying our world, nation, community and family by definition of values, world-view, faith and family ties. The result? The world becomes a more divided, less safe and a more uncomfortable place.

Perhaps Jesus is challenging us to understand that if the world is to be safer and more comfortable for all, then we have to let go of our sense of being entitled to our own personal safety at the cost of others value and existence. Jesus knows his message is an uncomfortable one; compassion and mission through sacrifice; the going out into the world to engage with it as it is, not as we believe it should be; the letting go of our own particular prejudices and personal wants in favour of a shared understanding of wholeness and belonging.

Jesus is challenging us to look at a much larger world view than the one we generally focus on. Do not be preoccupied by the trivial – there are much bigger issues to be addressed. Do not live in fear of others but live mindful of the greatest threat within us, those desires and needs which can kill our soul, deaden our compassion and divide us off from the unity of creation. And this is the hardest to do. Jesus is not saying families, peace and unity are not important, they are. But what is more important is the sacrifice required to secure such for all.

God’s kingdom is not personal. Stepping up to the task requires us to take a realistic look at what is important and making decisions that will cost us materially, emotionally and relationally. It will separate us from friends, family and others because the kingdom of God is about inclusion and it will not include those who exclude based on friendships, families, relationships or material greed.

The challenge for us is to let go of the sense of privilege we have as Christians in a first world nation and begin to grapple with the divisions allowing us to enjoy such privileges. Jesus makes it clear to do so will put us out of sync with the dominate culture both within and without the church and place us at risk of danger and threat. But that is the price of discipleship. Is it a price worth paying? Yes if we wish to change from me to us.

Compassion, Mission & Sacrifice.

On this our stewardship Sunday my text for this sermon comes from the last verses of Matthew chapter 9:

35Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”

 

One of the dangers for us is that we place Scripture in the spiritual realm and remove it from the practical material world. We can read the most difficult of scriptures and domesticate them by placing them within the spiritual, not at all directly related to the ordinary life of human beings such as ourselves. By doing this we render them powerless to change our lives or to bring in the kingdom of God.

Today’s text is not a text about giving, it’s not even a text about duty and faithfulness. It does not allude to church growth or financial security. It is not a text about being grateful in a way that empowers our response to God through the church by giving more.

 

This is a text about sacrifice. No, not sacrifice in terms of giving until it hurts. Money isn’t even mentioned. What is mentioned is even more confronting than any discussion of money can be. It is about giving up everything out of compassion for those who are lost and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

 

Jesus makes a direct connection between compassion, mission and sacrifice. Now we struggle with the word sacrifice in a world of instant gratification, me first and entitlement. We are comfortable with it when we use it theologically to refer to the death of Jesus to all things material but we stumble when are asked to apply it to ourselves and how we are to define our membership of the church – our discipleship. We struggle to give up our personal opinions, biases and self-defensive attitudes, we struggle to sacrifice our comfort and leisure, we struggle to give up our comfortable buildings and practices to make room for those outside our walls.

 

Yet sacrifice is essential if we are to respond with compassion to those outside the borders, those Barbara Creed refers to as strays, the people and creatures who do not exhibit the same attitudes as us toward material things or who challenge our way of life. For Creed that includes stray animals, refugees, indigenous peoples, homeless and anyone who does not subscribe to the goals of a consumer society. For Jesus these were the people he met on is wanderings and those who, although Jews, were beyond the borders of the religious world of the times.

 

Jesus calls for such sacrifice, not because we should be grateful for our place in the world but because of compassion for others. Jesus encountered people who had no centre, no place to call home and no-one to care for them. These were not people who were different but people like them. Jesus does not give the reasons we might for compassion – hungry, lonely, homeless, unemployed etc – and there fore see what we are doing as helping, as reaching down and bringing people up. No Jesus uses the word compassion – that deep sense of belonging and connection which rises up from within, an emotional not a rational response, from the heart and not from the head.

 

It is difficult for us to have compassion. We live in a world of hardening borders, of economic rationalism, of media portrayals of others as enemies, or if not enemies , at least someone to be afraid of. We have clearly defined categories of those who are lifters and those who are leaners, we have categories for those who have Australian values and those who don’t and any number of ways of referring to who is in and who is out.

 

Yet Jesus sets the example and calls his disciples and us to have compassion and to sacrifice ourselves on behalf of others. This is the call for the church and therefore it is the call each of us must answer in some way. This place is not here for our personal gratification. It does provide us a place in which we can worship and gather but it is not the full expression of who we are. What emanates from this place is what counts. If this place becomes all we do then it is a millstone around our necks. If all we are doing is maintaining the edifice then we are not fulfilling the call of Jesus.

 

We have witnessed this in all wings of the church over many years as a result of the clergy abuse scandal. The church sought to protect what it had for itself and failed to have compassion and therefore make the necessary sacrifices to deal with the issues. In the end the church has been forced to make those sacrifices, not willingly through such as royal c,missions.

 

The questions we need to answer here at St Oswald’s is: do we have compassion on those outside our walls who are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Your neighbours, friends and those you share this community with. Those who are shut in, forgotten and denied access to all you and I take for granted. I am not talking about our service or our giving to other charities or organisations, it is not their job. Jesus calls his disciples to do this work in their place and to make the necessary sacrifices to do so.

 

While organisations such as Anglicare and others have their place, they should not take the place of the work of the local church. As Ian Cutmore says, “If it is not happening where you are, it is not happening.” We cannot offload our responsibility for others to others. Our sacrifice, our giving must be sufficient to meet the needs of the local community. 

Like many churches this is not the case. We, as a congregation, do not give  enough to meet the running costs of this parish without significant help from hall hirers and fundraising. As a result we are unable to make a considered financial contribution to compassion for our community - the mission of God. 

We have no budget for mission empowered by compassion. And a church without mission or engagement is a church of stagnation. We cease to exist for others and only maintain what has been important to us - liturgy that makes us feel we have been to church, a choir that suits our purposes as its members and groups that keep us comfortable.

 

Jesus calls us to compassion and mission through sacrifice. This is not just about getting more people and resources in from the outside, but more people and resources out from the inside. He goes on to say: 7As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. 9Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food.”

 

Jesus does not call us to the comfortable life, individually or as a church, we are to be partners in the abundance of his kingdom. We are called to give up our expectations for ourselves and to ensure others have enough  by virtue of our compassion.

 

As we take the time to make our commitment to our church for another year let us to do so with compassion and sacrifice and with an eye on the kingdom of God.Compassion, Mission and Sacrifice 

Pentecost 2017

7:37-39

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the giving of the Spirit as a result of the Ascension of the Risen Christ. This is a day of great celebration and unnerving responsibility. It is both a blessing and a challenge, a day in which we move out of the shadow of the incarnate Christ in the shape of Jesus and are left alone with the Spirit to usher in the kingdom of God.

 

It is easy to get caught up in the glorious scenes depicted in the book of Acts. It sounds almost like a scene from any major Hollywood blockbuster – big, bold and life changing. And it is, or at least can be. Here there are dramatic symbols of tongues of fire and a universal language of love and hope. All are able to hear the same voice at the same time. In the moments of revelation they stand together imbued with the power of the Ascended Christ and speak and hear as one.

 

John, as he is wont to do, editorises Jesus’s proclamation with the words “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive..” Jesus is offering himself as the source of the water of continuing life and John clarifies that this will only happen when the Spirit comes. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and John always has great hindsight. In this case John’s hindsight brings with it the insight of cause and effect.

 

John’s Jesus says, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” He rightly notes that this is not a natural response of human beings to an encounter with the Mystery we call God, that this will not happen without the input of grace, of a gift we are unable to see or consciously receive but that comes to those who stand with the Cosmic Christ unconditionally, without having to seek it.

 

And the effect of such a gift is an outflowing of that same Spirit in the form of love, respect and wholeness by those who claim Christ as their own. Jesus says this flow will be life giving, life-enhancing, life-watering. It will be as water is to the human body and to all creation, the vital and necessary source of the ongoing existence. We can not live without water and we can not live into Christ without the Spirit.

 

Let us take a little time to imagine a world in which such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed. Let us image a country or even a community where such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed. Let us imagine a church in which such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed.

 

Then let us take the same time to  look around us and see what is really the case. A world in which violence and selfish takes pride of place, communities and countries in which people are marginalised and excluded and churches in which bullying and violence is done daily.

 

In the last week or so I have spent time with clergy who have left their places of ministry this year because of bullying by parishioners. These are good and experienced clergy in parishes here in our city. They have been criticised without reason, bullied by those who resist change or simply want their own way and people within their parish have threatened some with violence. Another priest recounted a conversation with parish councillor who asked who we were reconciling with during National Reconciliation Week. When she said the aboriginals the person responded with, ‘That’s ok, we don’t have any of those here.” The fact that the priest is obviously indigenous in appearance and had been open about their background during the two years tenure seemed to have been completely missed by the person in question.

 

As we talked I saw broken people who have been victims of others fear and anxiety, who have been made scapegoats for others personal insecurities and who have ceased to be persons but simply priests. I have had these experiences throughout my ministry, some of these have occurred here. As I said in my paper at the Carmelite symposium on Thursday,, “In our interactions with others there is often a crucifixion, and it is not Jesus who is crucified.”

 

We know that Pentecost did not result in a problem free church. The book of Acts is full of conflict and the history of the institutional church is replete with scapegoating, inquisition and violence; innocent people have been destroyed over and over again by those who claim the Spirit of Christ. We excuse it as politics, human nature and well, that’s the way it is.

 

Jesus is definite, that is not the way it is to be. He says clearly, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Shall flow not may flow, on a good day will flow, when they have had a good night’s sleep or any other rider. It is “shall flow” Now we know that is not always the case for ourselves and for others and we need to ask ourselves why?

 

Are we awake to our own frailties and foibles, and our biases to stymie the flow from ourselves to others? Are we able to take our selves out onto the front veranda and have a full and open conversation with ourselves about how we speak to others, how we demand our own way, how we hold onto what we have and have come to value?

 

Self-reflection is vital to both human and, in our context, faith growth. Without the capacity to look closely at our motivations and the impact of our words and actions on others and change pour behaviour, we will continue to wreck havoc on others in our churches, communities and the world.

 

The coming of the Spirit is a gift but it is not a gift to be corralled for ourselves or recognised in major events. It is a gift that we can only receive if we allow it to flow freely through us and to do that we have to get out of the way. We are to take ourselves to task and be prepared to step away from long held prejudices, understandings, practices and opinions and make room for compassion, inclusion, welcome, mystery and not knowing if we are to be source of living water. 

National Reconciliation Week - A Call For Action

Last Wednesday night I had a  dream. I dreamt I and many others were in a compound ruled over by a powerful white bureaucrat. There were so many people there they could not all be accommodated. Some 200 were killed  to make room and those left behind were made take the bodies into the hills and leave them. As we watched a black cloud began spiralling into the sky. It took the shape of wedge tailed eagles and black crows. The female and male totems of my clan hovered as the spirits of those who died rose into the sky.

 

Some began a protest and were taken to a police station accused of crimes we had not committed and, believe it or not, of the crime those in power had committed. All the while the spiral of spirits connected the heavens and the earth, both devastatingly sad and infinitely hopeful.

 

This is a hard dream as it highlights the destruction of indigenous peoples by people who worshipped in our churches. It raises modern issues as income management, the Northern Territory Intervention, The Closing the Gap policies, the campaign to assimilate indigenous people into the constitution along with the return to countries such as India of long serving citizens who came here on 457 visas and our treatment of refugees, Muslims, the LGBTI community and others.

 

And it explains why I paint. I paint for the recognition of all people and cultures and for the reclamation of the place of country, languages and culture in this place. Coming from a place where the aborigines were marked for extermination, I have no language and no culture. William Cox, landowner and Anglican at a Public Meeting in 1824 stated the following, “The best thing that can be done is to shoot all blacks and manure the ground with their carcasses. That is all they are fit for! It is also recommended that all the women and children be shot. That is the most certain way of getting rid of this pestilent race." By 1876 the last tribal aborigine, Tom Penney had died, and in 1900 those who were left in a camp at Wollar were forcibly moved to a mission at Brewarrina, never to return.

  

Why do I paint? Thomas Merton wrote, “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”  Art is where I find myself. I have been lost to my story and myself and have needed a process in which I can reclaim my identity. The paradox is that once I begin to paint I lose myself again, but this time with a sense of becoming something mysteriously new. I have no country to walk but my canvas. My father would use the indigenous idea of walking country and listening deeply (dadirri) as the means of discernment. I have no such land but I do have a canvas and as I sit or stand before it I begin to hear and respond to the stories hidden within it and those deep within my hidden and ancient self.

 

Thomas Berry, encapsulates the experience of aboriginal people in particular when he says,  “We can no longer hear the voice of the rivers, the mountains, or the sea. The trees and meadows are no longer intimate modes of spirit presence. The world about us has become an ‘it’ rather than a ‘thou.’”  My art is an attempt to hear the voice of rivers, mountains and sea, and the voice of those who went before us. My art is an attempt to honour that voice and to amplify it into the world that has forgotten them. My art is an attempt to transform creation and people from an “it” to a “thou”.

 

Jesus says in our gospel reading; ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.’ My art is an attempt to make this a reality in a world created to surge towards wholeness though compassion and respect. It is a project with no beginning and no end but is embodied in Jesus the Christ as the Alpha, the still point of creative power in all things, and the Omega, a point far in the ever-evolving future we are yet to see.

 

It is important tonight to refer to the Uluru statement and the hope it appears to offer. While it is hopeful, the reality is our political leaders are not committed to it and have already begun the process of watering it down as witnessed in their initial responses. Many non-indigenous Australians are  ignorant of the issues Indigenous Australians face and of which we who identify as indigenous can attest to on a daily basis, in the world and in the church.

 

We must understand this statement doesn’t fully express the will of the First Nation’s people, having been crafted with an eye to securing a future referendum. It is disappointing there is not a stronger call for treaty and for a body with legislative recognition to act on behalf of indigenous people. This maybe a start and we will work and wait until we get what is just. As Vincent Lingari of the Wave Hill walk-off said, “We know how to wait."

 

While we are waiting let’s consider what this Diocese can do to further this cause.

 

I would call upon the Diocese of Melbourne and the Anglican Church of Australia to:

•    Publicly affirm the Uluru statement and it’s faint call for treaty, self-determination and sovereignty, and commit itself to translating these objectives into the life of this Diocese and the Anglican Church of Australia and not to settle for a minimalist position of recognition only.

•    To work to ensure the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders Anglican Commission is fully funded and empowered in the spirit of the Uluru document as the fully representative body with authority to speak into Anglican policy.

•    To work to fund a First Nations person to educate parishes in this Diocese.

•    To appoint a First Nations person as a Bishop or Archdeacon with oversight of First Nation people and clergy, and to speak on behalf of the diocese and across the province on indigenous issues.

 

These are moderate but necessary steps if we are to take seriously our task of putting right the wrongs we as a church have been party to in the history of our country. These are moderate but necessary steps if we are to release the souls of our ancestors to soar in the sky with the wedgetail eagle and the black crow. 

Art and Identity - Canvas As Country

A Portrait of Australia - With Important Bits Missing - Glenn Loughrey, 2017

Matthew 28:16-20

 

Today is the Sunday closest to Ascension Day and also National Reconciliation Sunday. An interesting juxtaposition maybe, but one I would suggest, poses some interesting questions for us individually, as a church and as a society.

Colonisation of Australia, as it did through out the world, brought with it the evangelical fervour to convert those who lived in the colonised countries to the state religion.  In the case of Australia this was, initially at least, Christianity as promoted by the Church of England. And this was essentially predicated on the verses we read in today’s Gospel.

The impact of such fervour continues to reverberate down through the ages in the experience of indigenous people. In conversation indigenous people often ask me why they should trust the church? Desmond Tutu writes, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.” This was the experience indigenous peoples on all continents shared.

 

Matthew’s Gospel is a powerful passage, a passage that brings power, and promises power through the giving of the Holy Spirit. Like all power, it is a double-edged sword. It all depends on how it is used. Way too often it has been used to damage people, places and creatures in the urge for control.  Having everyone believe what you do ensures that you bring him or her in under your control. Belief systems are powerful moderators of peoples behaviour and the inappropriate or literal interpretation of these words from Matthew’s Gospel have been responsible for the justification of poor behaviour by the church.

 

Not only by the church, but by those whose sensibilities have been influenced and informed by the church. Present policies of paternalistic politics in this country continue the conversion of indigenous people, not to a specific faith, but to a specific religion – that of secular capitalism and consumerism. Much of the policies governments and others follow are designed to assimilate indigenous people into the world of individual work, consumption and home ownership. Policies such as the Northern Territory Intervention, the subsequent Closing the Gap policy and individual items such as the indue debit card quarantining income and limiting individual responsibility and the drive to include indigenous people in the constitution have continued the idea of conversion. This time the conversion is to consumerism and making disciples for the corporations to continue to rack up profits.

 

Now these are harsh words for a passage of scripture empowering the disciples to go into the world and engage with those whose worldview is different to theirs. They are harsh words as we consider the significance of the Ascension of Jesus as the releasing of the power of the Holy Spirit into the world. And we must remember that the damage done by literal and colonial interpretations of these words have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit.

 

These words challenge us to receive the Holy Spirit and to listen to her activity in the world. It is about walking abroad in the world and listening to creation in all its various forms and responding out of compassion and respect to bring about wholeness in our lives, the lives of others and in creation.

 

The baptism we read about is not a branding as in the branding of cattle, of ownership and control, but a baptism into the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the wholeness of the Godhead. It is a baptism of unity with all that exists for all that exists finds it beginning and end in the Source of all being – God. This baptism we are asked to conduct is the shared inclusion in the forward whole-ing of all that is, was and ever will be.

 

Baptism is a partnership with the Spirit of the Christ set loose in the world, whole-d up in places, peoples and events we do not expect or cannot imagine as her dwelling place. In the lives and practices of indigenous people whose understanding of the spirit have been honed and experienced over many centuries before we in the western world encountered the incarnated Christ.

 

Too often we have demanded that people who have been baptised turn their backs on their own traditions and spiritual experiences without consideration of the impact of such an action. Other times we have attempted to appropriate ideas from ancient spiritualties and redefine them within our own faith traditions and understanding. Neither is appropriate and neither is the call of Mathew’s Jesus. He is calling for a deep and respectful dialogue which brings about people who are disciples committed to the core tenets of his teachings – unconditional love and respect for all that is, was, and ever will be – the love which respects others and joins in the process of whole-ing for all.

 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This passage is one of the most difficult statements Jesus is given to say. It is all open to interpretation and is often reduced to a legal and theoretical framework designed to ensure people remain faithful to a particular world view depending upon which tradition of faith you belong. It is why we struggle with equality of gender and marriage, of poverty and riches, of race and culture, of faith and religion. Our interpretations of Jesus teachings defines what we believe this should all look like and results in a simple tick sheet of who is in and who is out.

Yet this is one of the most inclusive statements in the Gospels. Go into the world, listen to the Spirit and join with others in the journey into wholeness for all through mutual love and respect. This is the sense of the aboriginal concept of deep listening to country which Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr calls dadirri (and other mobs have different names for) – the deep mutuality of dialogue with all that exists.

This passage challenges us to stop our incessant urge to convert people to our world view and begin the difficult but necessary task of listening deeply to others, people, places and creatures, so that all as the off spring of the Godhead can live in harmonious wholeness.

How do we do that here, in this place? Is it our expectation that all who enter into this place must share our own particular view of faith, liturgy, music and worship? Is it our view that all who enter here must fit the model that we have been comfortable with? Are we indeed listening to hear what the spirit is saying to the church or have already decided what is being said and we do not need to listen anymore? Do we actually go out into the world surrounding our beloved church and actually engage with those who are in such a way that we begin the journey wholeness with them or are we just happy to meet here once a week for our own personal benefit?

I suspect there was some of this in Jesus’s statement to the disciples. I also suggest that the coming of the spirit is not just for our sake, but for the whole world. You know, God so loved the world, and all that stuff. Amen 

Treaty, Sovereignty and Self-Determination

The Road To Treaty - Glenn Loughrey - 2017

There is much discussion in the media about the proposal to recognise first nation peoples in the Australian Constitution. This was a project commenced in 2011 by a government headed by Prime Minister John Howard.  The proposal was to add a suitable clause in the preamble and at other points within the constitution with the stated outcome of removing race from the constitution. Once suitable statements are agreed upon, the suggestions will be put to a referendum and if successful will see the appropriate clauses being changed.

So is recognition in the constitution an appropriate option? Only if it is meaningful and provides not just a nod and a wink but a true devolution of the power of self determination to those recognised. In the suggestions we have at present this seems unlikely.  What is proposed is basically adding recognition to a colonial document with no mechanisms for the proper empowerment of those who have never been included in the colonial project.,

In response to this project there is a groundswell of, primarily, First Nations People calling not for recognition in the constitution but for a treaty or treaties recognising sovereignty and enabling full self-determination. For many FNP recognition continues the colonial project of assimilation and fails to address the question of invasions, land wars and the subsequent trauma and racism that continue today. For these people, these questions must be addressed on equal terms by people who possess sovereignty in their particular areas of governance; the Federal government for the well being of Australia as a while and the various clans and tribes for the governance of their specific country and peoples.

It is correct, to a point, to say State governments cannot by reason of their existence enact and enforce a treaty with anyone, only agreements or contracts. The only seat of power capable of enacting a treaty is the Federal government and only then after it is agreed to by the Queens representative. Once again, as we have seen in the recent American experience, this can and will change depending upon the focus of the government in power.

Yet as Michael Anderson states: "State Governments can negotiate treaties with their First Nations, but can only negotiate on matters that are within their powers to do under their respective State constitutions. On matters that are shared between them, like water, and natural resources the Commonwealth would have to enjoin with the Treaty negotiations to agree on these matters which overlap." He goes on: "As a Peoples, First nations Peoples who negotiate agreements of any kind can under international law have that agreement/Treaty registered with the UN under International law. Moreover, any Treaty that may be negotiated will have to be guided by all the Human Rights and the terms of the Decolonalisation Committee process under the UN.”

In terms of concerns regarding the enforceability of treaty (ies), retired judge of the Family Court, Alastair Nicholson suggests "it is true that the only way that any treaty can be made binding upon a future Parliament is that it is supported by some Constitutional guarantee and even then there are provisions to amend a Constitution, albeit with difficulty in the Australian context.”

He goes on to suggest several possible ways in which a constitutional guarantee could be achieved. 

"One could be that the negotiation of a treaty, enforced by legislation, could be a precursor to an acceptance of the need for constitutional change. This could be strengthened by the inclusion of a fixed time provided in the legislation for the holding of a referendum to introduce such constitutional change.

Another would be if the Constitution was to be amended to authorise the Federal Government to enter into such a treaty, which would be binding on all parties and the States and Territories and could not be changed by legislation without the agreement of all parties and/or by a referendum in accordance with the Constitution. The proposal is not new. It appears to have been first made in the early 1980s, and in 1983 the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs recommended the insertion of such a provision in the Constitution.

It is based upon a model that is already in s105A of the Constitution in relation to State Government debt. This model could constitutionally bind Federal and State and Territory Parliaments to act consistently in accordance with the terms of the treaty."

So what is it that we need to do? It has been suggested cultural respect is the place to meet, a place where people from both camps can applaud the others achievements, in other words, pat each other on the back, grab a stubby and a sausage and watch the footy together? If this is the way forward then I suggest we have trivialised the situation into absurdity.

The answer is indeed hard work but it is the hard work of sovereign respect, the respect due to equals in a process honouring of the history and story of both and their respected places in the fabric of our society. The idea of any form of permanent agreement is impossible while ever one side holds all the aces in the pack and continues to treat the others as losers.

It will involve the hard work of acknowledgement -the acknowledgement of country and the ancestors and the fact that one party stole it and has no intention of returning it any time soon. It is the hard work of sitting in deep silence with one another and discovering what we share and how we share it with equity and justice. The hard work of recognising our own complicity, black and white, in the ongoing injustice indigenous people experience and finding pathways forward. 

It is the hard work of a long time as there is no easy or quick fix to the hurt and tragedy, the mistakes and missteps and the communal failure to face the truth about our shared past. It will take a level of honesty and openness hitherto unseen in this struggle but it must occur if we are to find a lasting solution, be it recognition, treaty or a third way no one has thought of yet.

As one who comes from an area where tribal people where all but exterminated by mid 1800's the remainder moved out in 1900, I understand this issue is emotive, painful and embedded in the indigenous psyche and can not be resolved according to a western timetable or legal framework.

It can only be resolved by time, deep listening and a willingness to stay with the process for as long as it needs. Then and only then can a treaty be possible.

The way of the heart - one with the heavens and the earth

Paper given at the Carmelite Symposium, May 2017

·      Acknowledgement of Country.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Werrundjuri people of the Kulin nation, and the elders past, present and future.

I would also like to acknowledge that this land was stolen and those who stole it have no intention of giving it back anytime soon.

TALK

When I was asked to prepare a paper for this conference, I made great plans to develop a deep theological paper that would have something significant to say about the future of the church. I had plans to invite my friends Thomas Merton Czesław Milosz to join me with me to provide a deep and meaningful insight to where the future for the church lies in this seemingly anti-church environment.

Then I met Jemma and my focus changed. Jemma is a rescue English Springer Spaniel with PTSD. She is classically beautiful, gorgeously gentle and overly obedient until the madness sets in, then she is carnage on four legs.  After one particular episode when she was on her own in the house for 3 hours and we returned to canine destruction of the maximum sort, we visited the vet, got the diagnosis and some anti-anxiety pills. Now we have moments of normality in its various forms and life goes as normal as possible with a nine -month old pup.

Prior to the medication she was living at a heightened degree of perception. She saw, heard and imagined the very worst at all times. Whatever had been her early life experience dominated her worldview and she was unable to respond sensibly and rationally to any kind of stimulus and input that came her way. After the medication, her irrationality has been tempered and she is beginning to see the world differently, not as a place of many threats, something to be feared and the humans around as those who hurt her but as a place of safety, enjoyment and love.  The world itself hasn’t changed. Her mindset has and that has changed the world.

Now Jemma shares this experience with me. A childhood of family violence, bullying because of my race, being shot at and held hostage for several hours in the mid ‘70’s drug culture that was Wollongong, the loss of children due to doctors errors, workplace bullying as well as the intergenerational trauma that visits many indigenous people has left me with PTSD. This is especially the case for me because of my connections to Jimmy and Joey Governor the protagonists in The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and the subsequent denial of true identity in order to simply survive in a whites only society of the 40’s,50’s and 60’s in Australia. This is an example of the generational trauma affecting many indigenous Australians as they battle to find a place for themselves in this country and which has lodged in me.

What has this got to do with our topic – 'The way of the heart - one with the heavens and the earth'?

The church in the 21^st century is reeling from the attack of new atheists, the hangover of evolutionary science, the destruction of its previous clearly defined cosmology and the many scandals that have left its reputation in tatters. To say it has PTSD may sound trivial but it is not. With the many stressors compounded in its recent experience it seems to me it would be better to say it is suffering from Compound PTSD and that is something both Jemma and I know something about.

It is a diagnosis we both share and, like Jemma, I need medication to deal with the anxiety events such as standing up in front of an eminent group of people such as yourselves or a visit to Chadstone or the dentist brings up.  The church shares a super vigilant, highly tuned sense of being in a world which is sceptical at least of meta-narratives and hostile due to the misdemeanours committed in it’s name. The ills that have assailed it in the past and, particularly in the recent past, leave it anxious and self-destructive. We tend to over react to the criticisms of others, to the failings of our own people and the seemingly glaring embarrassments in tradition, liturgy and scripture.

Where we are now is not unlike the world Thomas Merton was commenting on from his viewpoint in the monastery.  In Peace in the Post-Christian Era "He writes, ‘We …live in an irreligious post-Christian world in which the Christian message has been repeated over and over until it has come to seem empty of all intelligible content to those whose ears close to the word of God even before it is uttered. In their minds Christian is no longer identified with newness and change, but only with the static preservation of outworn structures."

Merton recognised and stated clearly that we were and are living in a post-Christian era, if in fact we ever had lived in a Christian era. He spent much time commenting on the failure of the church to catch up with society and to stand with it and at the same time separate from it. He wrote passionately about challenging the politics of the time and those who advocated violence and destruction of the ordinary people. He wrote against the hierarchy of the church and those who said they were believers and who supported the destructive policies of nuclear war, the denial of race equality and more.

His discussions with Milosz in terms of those who are living in exile are of value. Read these letters. Both men felt the pressure of exile, both had very different experiences. But both recognised the importance of exile as an impetus to change and revolution. Both argued that only those who find themselves exiled from the centre of controlling power have the right to speak into the future, to act as prophets. And it is in exile we, the church find ourselves today and it is indeed a place of prophetic power.

Indigenous Australians know this place. We have lived there for 200+ years. And the church has been responsible for some of this, as it has used it connection to the dominant powers in society to maintain a certain white European hegemony. We will be there for many more but now we find ourselves sharing this place with the very people who helped to put and keep us there – the church. Thomas Berry comments that this is the way of those whose life are committed to power and control. Sooner or later those who took the land will have the land taken from them by those more powerful than them, and this will go on and on and on.

Part of the issue for the church, and part of the solution, is found in how we read the Jesus story and in particular how we read the Easter story. It is important to consider what Easter story we engage with and what is consistent with a progressive and modern reading of the Gospel stories and the context of the world we now inhabit This is important for one of the solutions to our future involves a move away from a popular reading of the cross as Jesus being the sacrifice to atone for original sin and whose death was planned by God to occur. Accompanying this is the need to have all people converted to this world view regardless of how inappropriate such a demand may be. Such a reading (penal substitution) often sits underneath our presentation and interpretation the cross and the subsequent resurrection despite our many protestations to the contrary. Our liturgies and our interpretations of scripture reinforce this worldview. Our approaches to the failings of each other often involve a crucifixion, generally not of Jesus.

Is there an alternative reading? I suggest there is and we will return to it in just a moment.

Now many modern or post-modern progressive Christians would say that this no longer the case. Scholars such as Greg Jenks have clearly shown that scripture has many different readings and a literal interpretation is not one of them. The Christian myth touches on meaning making and speaks into the psyche or the mystical imagination of human beings, not the intellect alone. As Elizabeth Johnson comments, “The word acts.” And how we interpret and speak the word influences how we see ourselves as and how we see the others we share this world with. As Jemma shows, the word can create a monster on any given day.

This reminds us that the church is not just about the institutional body nor is it just concerned with human beings. The church is about all creation – every created thing in its own place and with its own sense of being. It is the millennia of life in progress before human beings began to walk upon the earth and it is the millions of species living and going extinct around us now and in the future.  Our worldview has to be broader and deeper and higher than the average human being. This world is not designed only for us and we were not designed to be the primary reason for its existence. As Haught, Johnson, Berry and others suggest all that has gone before us, all the varieties of creatures who began to exist at the beginning of creation, have culminated in who we are today and we are to look forward to what is yet to come for we are part of its interconnected birthing, however mysterious the outcome maybe.

From my point of view a reading of the Jesus story as simply a solution to original sin leaves out the long history of creatures (flora and fauna for example) and restricts the actions of Jesus to human beings who are only recent additions to God’s creation. It also fails to address the evidence of science as to the violence and brutal survival of the fittest that sits underneath the concept of evolution and an ever-expanding universe. It also fails to understand that there was no paradise to lose only a paradise to gain somewhere in the future and that Jesus, as the ultimate example of creation’s consciousness leads us forward, not backward.

The question is: if God’s creation is unfinished is the cross a response to a paradise lost or a paradise yet to come into fulfilment? If the latter, as I believe it to be, is Jesus death on the cross a sacrifice for sins or the complete and fulfilling response to a forward moving feast of possibility we are to embrace and to live in in conjunction with the Holy Spirit? In other words Jesus wasn’t sent to die to put right something that was and has been lost through original sin, but to model the possibilities to be found in the future glory of a creation in continual becoming. What we perceive as original sin is the by-product of creations surge for wholeness and its fulfilment in Christ. Merton and Milosz had an interesting exchange on this very point. Milosz suggested that Merton was able to speak philosophically about the violence in nature such as when a hawk takes down small prey bird but that he speaks less philosophically and without any excuse about human violence. Merton struggles to answer this to Milosz’ satisfaction but appeals to the consciousness of human beings as requiring a more appropriate solution to issues than reverting to unnecessary violence.

God has not finished and neither have we. The work of Christ’s redemptive consciousness calls us forward into a wonder we have no possibility of seeing or understanding from where we stand. It challenges us to reinvent or reimagine language, liturgy, posture and presence and to engage as if this is just the beginning. We are to stand where the characters in the Resurrection myth stood, on the cusp of great possibility in the midst of terrible chaos. All that they knew and trusted in had collapsed. Jesus was dead. They were scattered. Their story had all but been demolished. Yet, Jesus came and pointed, not back but forward, and called Mary with the caution not to hang on to what she had known but to go tell others of the hope she now had oh so briefly glimpsed.

Like Mary, the church stands on the cusp of an ever expanding-universe God is continuing to create in the midst of the rubble of our collective failings and is called to go and tell of the hope we have seen. Karl Rahner suggested that unless we become mystics or contemplatives as Christians, we would cease to be both Christian and present in the world. Unless we step out of the dubious comfort of past traditions, rituals and language and engage in the deep unknown then we are doomed to report the mistakes of the past. The sins of the fathers (pardon the pun) will be visited on the sons.

In Matthew we read “Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

What strikes me about this little dialogue is the direction Jesus gives to the disciples to return to where it all began - in Galilee. It does seem a little odd that the resurrected Jesus would want to go back to the beginning and not to move forward into new places and new territories. A worldly leader would have used this amazing return as the opportunity for an assault on power and control. No politician worth their salt would take a step backward when he or she held the element of surprise.

They are to go to Galilee and begin again without a leader to grab the limelight and give them the upper hand. The campaign begins again, this time it is not about an incarnate Christ but a Christ incarnate in the disciples. The emphasis shifts from the Son of God to those empowered by the Cosmic Christ, the spirit of the Son of God. The disciples are to be themselves by being empowered by the spirit of God and to live out Christ in their own lives.

This is a powerful message. This is no longer about the physical presence of God changing lives and challenging authority, this will be about the ordinary men and women from Galilee standing up and taking responsibility. They return to Galilee for the transition of authority and responsibility, for Jesus to hand over the reins of the kingdom to ordinary men wand women now empowered by the resurrection Spirit.

We all have to return to the beginning at some point in our lives, be it our faith lives or ordinary lives, to go back to where we first commenced our journey and take the time to recalibrate our compass to ensure we are in touch with the Source of all being. Galilee was the place where they first encountered the Source of Life and it is where Jesus takes them as they begin the second half of their journey.

And this is exactly where the church is – reclaiming the future through a return to its beginnings in the form of a human shaped God walking boldly and courageously into a problematic future. Like the disciples who have to go back to the place where they first made that connection, the church is being challenged to leave aside the accretions of the centuries, undo the violence of law and guilt, to let go have of well worn doctrines and decrees and pulled down the fences of exclusion. It is time for the church to return to the uncertainty of an incarnated life and to reclaim the future as a humble, fallible and vulnerable presence, not unlike that of the Christ of Galilee.

A future reclaiming church will:

• Will be smaller numerically as the uncertainty of the unknown will leave people who are seeking certainty behind.
•  Will take seriously the task of making amends for its past failings and fully embrace the process of embracing all it has destroyed, and excluded as away to begin again.
•  Will be looking to see a Creator at work in all of history, not just that of human beings.
•  Will be engaged in the evolutionary project of the urge for wholeness in and for all of life and, therefore, will see it committed to all people and creatures, not just those within its sacred walls.
•  Will not be chained by traditions stifling its capacity to move intellectually, technologically or spiritually. For example, it will be challenged to include such as Artificial Intelligence within its moral and spiritual brief as it becomes technology becomes more communicative and conscious.
•  Will let go of tribalism and embrace the full gamut of spiritual form and philosophy, looking not for what excludes but what includes.
•  A forward-looking church will not be about itself but about a universe driven by the dynamism of a creator who is the master of unfinished business.  

Returning to Jemma and we find we have a decision to make. Do we continue to defend our place in the world; the place we feel is under threat and in some cases already gone? Or do we recalibrate our worldview and return from Galilee to take a vital role in the surge for wholeness driven by the Spirit of God within the ever-becoming world? It’s up to us. Today.