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 

Christified

John 1:29-42

^29”The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

 

*******************

Have you ever had the experience when something you have said comes back to you completely misunderstood and is interpreted, so impossibly disconnected from its original context and intention, it seems it took place in a completely different universe? The tragedy is such an event can ultimately come to define you, what you believe and how you live, taking on a life of its own.

 

Working in a school, I saw many bad decisions made by young people fittingly described as permanently defining moments if they were allowed to take on such an aura. Peer pressure, the need to belong, the first burst of passion or an encounter with alcohol or drugs suddenly took on a life of its own, becoming permanently attached to the young person involved. Yet life moves, times change and people mature, becoming somebody completely different to the one you remember. They are no longer the same or living in the same context or environment. Their world has changed and so have they. They have out grown the experience once synonymous with them and find new ways to be defined and understood.

 

Merton suggests the only person who is inconsistent is the one who is always the same, who remains connected to ideas, thoughts, philosophies and practices which worked once upon a time and have now taken on the rigour of known truth never to be challenged or changed.

 

David Bohm, the physicist and philosopher, speaks of creativity as being the passion to find the new in the experiences of life and to exalt those above the known and the accepted. He and others affirm this as the practice of all creatives - artists, musicians, mystics, scientists and theologians.

 

For theologians and mystics - you and I – we risk becoming solidified believers. Maybe a better term is petrified believers. We remain connected to a way of seeing our faith and our Christ, locking us in the past, not allowing us to expand with the evolving universe. Running the risk of being at odds with orthodox understanding of our faith, I would suggest we need to let go of images which worked when they were written and begin to explore new ideas appropriate to our 21^st century understanding of the universe and the laws of creation as seen in the urge for wholeness and creation.

 

John and the other New Testament writers were writing in a very different world to the one we live in. The understanding of the universe as a static creation in which the earth was the centre of all that existed, where God was above the sky in a place called heaven and our existence on this planet was temporary and transitory until we made the transfer to heaven or hell. Such a world view no longer exists or can be supported and neither does a world in which the understanding of the need of a sacrificial lamb dying a violent death so we can live free of sin can be.

 

John, the Jewish mystic, uses an image from the Old Testament, a ritual of symbolically addressing and confronting ones’ alienation from God and of making amends for simply being an ordinary human being. It was a ritualistic act all participated in and allowed reconciliation between God and the community. It was not a personal act but one done in and on behalf of the community. If we read "‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” literally, it seems to infer that God sent Jesus for just one purpose; to die to become the basis for substitutionary atonement or the idea Jesus was sent to die to set us personally free from sin.

 

If we consider ourselves Trinitarian, this idea raises a number of questions in terms of the relationships within that iconic symbol of unity and diversity. If we consider God as pro-life and essentially committed to the ongoing creation of the universe, does it not seem a rather brutal approach to take to deal with a relationship issue? Is there not something amiss if the only reason we celebrate the incarnation as understood in Jesus is that Jesus is our get out of jail card and we never have to face the music for our own falling short of the mark because of the violent death God prepared for him?  Or is there something else at work here in John’s comment and in the thinking of John the gospel writer?

 

If we take the hymn to Christ at the beginning of his Gospel seriously then there is surely something else alluded to here. Jesus is present at the beginning of all things and is the empowering present in the ongoing journey of creation as seen in the evolutionary process. Jesus is the ultimate in created consciousness and therefore the ultimate image of the creator. The incarnation is testament to the relationship God has with creation in that he becomes fully participant in the process to wholeness.

 

As one commentator suggests: The Jewish disciples of Jesus understood the identification of Jesus, the symbolic Yom Kippur sacrifice, as a symbol of the human yearning to be at one with God. It was their way of saying that the death of Jesus was not a tragedy, but was a free and complete act of human self-giving. In offering his life without the need to protect, defend or preserve his selfhood, they were saying that in the death of Jesus they had caught a glimpse of who and what God is. They had experienced in Jesus life fully lived, loving extravagantly, as having given them the courage to be fully themselves, fully human.

The death of Jesus was therefore originally interpreted as an act of ultimate self-giving that greatly enhanced life.

A God of sacrificial atonement seems out of sync with 21^st century cosmology and scientific knowledge. Now it is appropriate to  understand the death of Jesus as the fulfilment of an individuals commitment to the process of evolution – one dies so another or a species may flourish and become something completely knew. Jesus embodies the creative intent toward an ever burgeoning, ever blossoming world – he lives the ultimate example of created consciousness so that others may do likewise through love in action – the Spirit. The Spirit is released to empower you and I through a mystical experience of Christ for ourselves.

 

As Jesus grows and becomes the Christ, leaving behind his ego self and his personal individual identity, it is so we may experience the possibility of doing the same. He is the Lamb of God in the sense he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of becoming. He deals with sin, the dislocation from oneness via the ego self, in that anyone who has a real experience of the Christ will become Christified and do likewise.

 

And perhaps here is the reason we wish only to see Jesus as the means to our personal redemption. To accept the task to become Christified – like Christ – will entail us moving away from our personal egos and taking the journey to complete kenosis or self emptying as Christ did, so others and humanity may evolve into Christ.

 

It is a costly act. It will cost materially, physically, psychological, emotionally and spiritually. You will see things differently and from a new place and find yourself marginalised and locked out of normal society. You will not be accepted now, nor will your words and actions be seen to be appropriate. They may, as they did for Jesus, be deemed so after the tragedy and they may then empower others to do the same.

 

The challenge for the church, you and I, is to leave behind a set of symbols appropriate for another age and begin to search for the Lamb of God in a strangely different world than the one John was writing in, and the one in which much of the definitive theology was done in, such as the middle ages. We now understand the world differently on a day-to-day basis and must risk disconnecting our theology from a world view that is no more, rediscovering the Lamb of God in an expanding universe. To not do so, spells the end for faith. 

Wealth Equals Debt

Read the following article this week:

“In what local authorities are calling a "near tragedy," Charles Wentworth, a 17-year-old senior student and member of the affluent Wentworth family, came perilously close to suffering a consequence resulting from his own wrongdoing Saturday.

 

Wentworth, reportedly ignoring the protests of his classmates, got behind the wheel of his turbocharged Supra 2000GT after consuming half the contents of a bottle of Goldschläger at a friend's party. While driving westbound on Route 27, a disoriented Wentworth drifted across two lanes of traffic and collided with a minivan carrying a family of four, bringing the teen face-to-face with a potentially life-altering lesson.

 

Wentworth escaped unscathed and unpunished, however, when his airbags deployed and a team of high-powered attorneys rushed to the scene and rescued him from the brink of personal responsibility.

 

"Amazingly, Mr. Wentworth did not experience a single repercussion for consuming alcohol under age or operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, and is furthermore completely unaware that he did anything wrong," local police chief Marvin Taylor said. "He is a very lucky boy."

 

"If he had been driving just 5 mph faster, or if his parents hadn't had the influence to keep the matter out of court and the endless financial resources to lease a car of the exact same make and model to prevent him from having to face even the relatively trivial humiliation of being taunted by his peers for driving a slightly less expensive vehicle—my God, who knows what could have happened?" Taylor added. "He could have died or, worse, been held accountable for his actions."

 

Now this is obviously satire as it comes from The Onion, a satirical magazine, yet it is an almost accurate picture of the society in which we live. Entitlement is the buzzword, spoken or unspoken, witnessed in the actions, words and lifestyles of many modern people.

 

Not us of course. We would not dare to think like that. Or would we?

 

Paul writes to the Galatians to remind them of who they are, heirs of God’s promise to Abraham. It is a reminder for them not to lose sight of who they are in the midst of a chaotic and adverse world, a world in which they are persecuted and run the risk of becoming embroiled in the lifestyle and philosophy pressing in on them.

 

One could read Pauls statement as the Galatians being entitled to their inheritance. It is theirs. It belongs to them.

 

Yet it is also a reminder of the obligations that goes with their position – to live in such a way as to always give a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God. To turn the totality of life towards God and away from any sense of self as the centre of existence. To recognise in our worship and living, God as the source of all that exists and that we possess and that we are totally reliant on God for our life and existence.

 

WEH Stanner suggests aboriginal spirituality is built on this deep sense of relationship with the Creator Being in exactly the same way the ancient Hebrews were. Causality belongs to God and we are to respond to it with the totality of our being. Modern man lives by the myth that he/she has had some influence on their existence. That somehow each of us is responsible for where we are in life and therefore are entitled to make the decisions about what we do with it.

 

Such responsibility is indeed too much responsibility if we think about. If we are indeed fully responsible for who and where we are we are also responsible totally for the impact we have had on self, others and the world. No wonder people collapse under such responsibility.

Elizabeth Farrell writing in the Sydney Morning Herald states it plainly:

"Wealth isn't really wealth. It's really debt.
Everything we have, from jobs to bodies to microchips, we take from the earth. But – and here's the thing - it's not a gift, it's a loan. Everything must be repaid. The ancients knew this, constantly making down payments via death and sacrifice. But for us – more inclined to sacrifice nature than sacrifice to her - the bigger the pile, the greater the debt." 

Recognising our true place as heirs of the promises of God we can commit ourselves to living a life of praise and thanksgiving for we understand who is the source of our being and our existence. All that we have including our success and failures, wealth and poverty, health and sickness are covered by the promises of God that are our inheritance.

 

From this position we are able to commit all we have to God with fear, without the prospect of there never being enough for us. The Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota Environmental Stewardship Commission echoes the words of Paul by claiming: "In the wake of Christmas, then, the household of faith is freed from its self-preoccupations as it is sent forth into the world to participate in that grand process by which God works throughout Creation toward the energetic 'fullness of time.'

 

On this stewardship Sunday we will take time to consider what the participation in the inheritance that is ours may look like. What will be my weekly gift, what roles and tasks will take on, how will I work within this parish to further the kingdom of God? How will my decisions indeed be a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving?

 

While Paul laid down the challenge, it was up to the Galatians to live it out.  The same goes for each of us today. The challenge s God’s, the response is ours. 

The Eternal Quality

(Mark 10:17-31)

Last week we looked at grace and the abandonment of entitlement in terms of our relationship with God and others. Jesus took the image of children reliant upon their father for their place in the world and reminded us we are to abandon ourselves entirely to God for the outcome of our lives.

 

Living in a modern, comfortable and affluent society such as Australia we may find this to be most difficult step to take; to completely give up any claim we have on our lives and to trust entirely, without reservation on God and God’s grace may ask just a little too much for us. Reputation, bank balance, possessions, children and public image take the place of God, ever so slightly, until we simply do not need God nor include the faith and God in our day to day life.

 

"We have all we need, without God. And anyway all God would ask of us is to share it with others who are lazy, won’t work, sneak into our country through the backdoor and more. We deserve everything we have because we worked for it, scrimped and saved, studied hard, got promoted and put our career/wealth/image before anything else. As a self-made person I simply have no need for God. What more could God have given me than what I already have?"

 

An earnest and keen person runs up to Jesus. He has some questions he wants answered; actually he has one question above all others that needs to be answered:  “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

 

Jesus looks at him and chastises him for over familiarity and presumption, providing a reminder of the condition of all human beings; we are flawed, not perfect and therefore not good. Only God, the creator of all, is good.

 

Whyatt, a veritable bundle of uncontrollable energy, bound up and said ‘Hello Father Glenn.” Hello Whyatt, how are you?  “I am good Father Glenn”. ‘Whyatt’s good or well?” “Good, Father Glenn”. “Does Whyatt know what good means?” And referring to this text I reminded him of what it means to be good, half way though he looked at me and said, “Whyatt’s well!”

 

Not only do we sometimes have a rose coloured opinion of ourselves, we have the same for others. The earnest man was appealing to the public image of Jesus; Jesus questioned the validity of such an opinion. "How well do you know me? Are you not being a little overfamiliar? And how do you judge what is good?"

 

Jesus doesn’t allow him to answer. Jesus has seen all this before and goes straight for the jugular. "I know, you have kept the letter of the law while amassing economic riches and moral brownie points for good behaviour and shrewd business acumen, but that is not enough.  What was the purpose of your astute business dealings and your proper attention to the law? What were you trying to achieve? Did you think that being successful within the constraints of the law excuses you from the sacrifices that goodness will extract from you?"

 

He knew the earnest man would have tithed, given alms, supported all the appropriate funds and appeals and practiced his faith strictly within the guidelines set. This was no part-time religious person. Faith and religion were the pillars holding up his life. Those around would have known that too.

 

There was a fair chance they would have looked up to his upright and devout citizen and striven to emulate his behaviour and practice. If wealth and right practice were not sufficient to enter eternal life, then the must have wondered what they had to do? If this pillar of society had not done enough, what about them?

 

Jesus understood the power money and possessions (wealth) has over human beings. We fear being without possessions, without money, without the resources to participate in the consumer society we live in. While we do not have the resources of  a Bill Gates, Gina Rinehart, James Packer, Andrew Forrest our even our Prime Minister, we often perceive that what we have is both ours and deserved, and that we are to hang on to it at all costs.

 

Stacey Simpson repositions the question the rich man asks, "What must we do to inherit eternal life? (and suggests) We must let go of all that we have and all that we do that gets in the way of seeing that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves." Gerry Pierse, adds: "The issue here is not so much the acquisition of riches as the attachment to them."

The earnest man was aware something was missing. Life didn’t have the x-factor, that special something which could only be described as eternal, ever-lasting, unfailing, all ways present. With all his wealth, possessions and strict observance, his life lacked that essential something. How frustrating; to be a self made man held in high esteem for his diligence and faith an, all along, being aware it wasn’t enough.

This was not about heaven, life after death. This was about life here and now. Remember, for the Jewish people there was only one resurrection and that took place at the end of time. You could store up treasure there but you had to live out the kingdom of God here and now. Eternal life is a substantive quality, not a destination, and he knew he was missing it.

The answer he receives was not the one he wanted to hear. He wanted affirmation, to hear Jesus say, ‘Well done Good and Faithful friend. You have done it all.” Instead Jesus says let go of your dependency upon self, your achievements and the fragility of wealth. This is about paying it forward, giving it away. It is about a sacrificial involvement in the world that asks us not to count the cost of giving, and not to rejoice in the good our giving may do, but to give until we are at peace with ourselves. That is eternal life.

This is about what we hold onto for ourselves in relationships, partnerships, community, churches and workplaces out of fear that to give up our ownership of self and possessions (the extensions of self we value ourselves by). Mark has Jesus calling us out on this reluctance to commit through the example of an upright and upstanding citizen who so much wanted to be good himself.

What might this look like in our lives:

• Taking the time to reflect on, not on what we give, to the church, our relationships, our communities but on what is out of bounds, untouchable, held in reserve.
• Being honest about our reticence to loosen the purse strings and respond without fear to the ask for funds at church and by those less well off than ourselves;
• Placing ourselves in the position of those who are in poverty and respond as we would like others to do if the situation was reversed;
• Honestly looking at the reasons we give and to accept that it is about fear, we are afraid to give up something in case we might need it later.
• Understanding the dichotomy within us – we say can rely on the God who is within us for our salvation but then we baulk at that very same God providing sufficiently for our daily needs.

Steven Albertin suggests eternal life is experienced because "…. we GET TO be generous and gracious with our lives, pouring ourselves out and giving ourselves away to those in need, (not as charity but as empowerment)."

It’s a shame the earnest man walked away. It would be a shame if we did the same. 

ANZAC Day

On this ANZAC Day, let us not forget the horror of war and let us abandon the talk of glory, sacrifice and heroes. Let us abandon the myth that death and mangled bodies, lost lives and fractured families is the foundation on which our country was born. A country born in blood needs blood to continue to give it meaning, the blood of soldiers, refugees and the indigenous.

It is time to get real and find a new reason for our being or we will continue to need war and blood as a sacrifice for our sins.

Emotional Event

(War In Afghanistan 2)

(A reflection on the dehumanised nature of the modern video war where people do not exist as victims but only as collateral damage)

I read in the paper

just a couple of innocuous lines

planted almost hidden

camouflaged amongst a battalion of words

the following

“… the 2000 pound bomb that went astray would cause ‘ a significant emotional  event’ for any one within a square mile…”

then it all became clear to me

war is not about death

people do not die in war

they only suffer emotional events

collateral damage

insignificant

unnoticed

not even counted as a statistics

they were not even there

like the poor

victims of the Great Fire of London

on the illegal immigrants

on September 11

not dead

not included

forgotten

ignored

somehow responsible for their own misery

yes death is a significant emotional event

for all human beings

especially when hit by a

rogue

wayward

homeless

2000 pound bomb

Whose Values?

Today’s readings (2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62) are hard readings – readings which sit uncomfortably with the world in which we live – a world which is designed to mollycoddle and protect the individual as sacrosanct.

In 1957 Thomas Merton said:
‘The inner basic metaphysical defilement of fallen man is his profound and illusory conviction that he is a god and that the universe is centred on him…….we seek what we may call relative omnipotence: the power to have everything we want, to enjoy everything we desire, to demand that all our wishes be satisfied and our will should never be frustrated or opposed.”

We have just witnessed a number of events highlighting this issue:
The forced resignation of Mark McInnes allegedly for his inappropriate behaviour (and it appears that his actions were unacceptable), but it baffles me that it took the board so long to catch on to what was going on, if as reported, all the staff knew. Perhaps they acted because his behaviour was about to impact on the company and they moved to preserve self – individually and corporately.

The bloodless coup in Canberra. It was a political coup, no different from all those we abhor in other countries – the move of individual will, not the democratic will of the people – but somehow no blood makes it ok - (duh!) It was, as one commentator said, all about parliamentarians moving to protect their jobs, it was about disloyalty and the Ides of March, it was about self – political and individual power. As one Parliamentarian noted at a function to me; ‘If any politician says they are not in it for power, they are lying.”

(Interesting aside here – women played a prominent role in both these events – there was one women on the DJ’S board and our new prime minister who played a key role in the coup is a woman – so much for a softer more gentler world. Interesting, because one of the key players in the suffragette movement, Dorothy Day, spoke of this danger in 1917.)

The dismissal of General McChrystal by President Obama for allegedly saying ‘not nice’ things about him and his political advisors. Perhaps the forum in which it was said may have been more suitable but what was said is said everyday in the halls of the military power brokers and no-one is sacked. It was about protecting image and self – once again individually and corporately - from the prophetic words of one who would know the truth. From personal experience I am glad the powers to be in this country were not as sensitive or I would now be cooling my heels in some out of the way establishment because of comments I have made directly to those in power in our military!

Saying the Uncomfortable Word:
Elisha takes on the mantle of Elijah – not something I would have done to quickly – if the story of Elijah and his run in with the rulers of society are anything to go by. Here was a man who, empowered by God and the Spirit, spoke up about the ways of the world – the accepted values and mores of his society – and was hounded almost to his death by those in charge. In last weeks reading Jezeebel vows to kill him! Elisha, his loyal follower, puts his hand up to take on the very same role.

We first meet Elisha when Elijah sees him plowing in the field. He walks up to him and throws his mantle, his outer cloak, over him including Elisha in his world as his disciple. Elisha followed his master everywhere. He witnessed Elijah do amazing things. He heard him denounce kings at the peril of his own life. Things he could not even imagine doing on his own.

But the day finally came for Elijah to leave him. His master asked him what last thing he could do for him before he left. Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” Elijah’s shoes were big ones to fill and Elisha needed all the help he could get.

Elijah says to do so Elisha must witness his leaving. He does so and he picks up the mantle. He parts the waters with it just like his master did. He begins to lead. He takes on the responsibility of Elijah and went on to be just as outspoken and critical of his society as his master was.

We are challenged to pick up the mantle of Jesus our master and do the same.

Living Counter-Culturally:
Recently I heard a theological scholar comment that the strength of the Anglican Church is that it listens to society and follows its lead. To support his argument he quoted issues such as slavery, women priests, human rights, abortion, and rights for gay people, refugees and more. I was astounded that he thought that was a strength. How did it come to this, that the church has been reduced to being a follower of society’s values and not an upholder of the core values of the Christian faith, which include these and more, and have done so since Jesus was born, delivered the Sermon on the Mount and died for every single human being?

Paul, in Galatians, says simply, we are to be counter-cultural – to live at odds with the values of our world.

If the values noted in the events of this week, and highlighted by Merton, are the world’s values, then they are not for us. One of the most disturbing developments over the last 20 years has been this move to values (used in every conversation, press release and corporate mission statement like salt – just to sound more palatable), not to mention values based education. NRL and the AFL, as did David Jones, has values about inclusivity and even their senior players can’t get it right.

Whose values and why are they important? What are the values of society and where do we see them?

Paul says its not only secular values but also religious values we need to challenge by counter cultural living. I had a conversation with a senior student this week about this (she presented a typed A4 page of questions for me to answer – wonderful stuff) – how, in her perception, the so-called values of the church simply don’t add up in reality. Is the church now obsolete? Our kids see this stuff and challenge us. How do we answer?

In the case in Galatians it is not just about circumcision, which is the sign of the Jewish people as God’s chosen, but of maintaining all that is involved with being that people, the law and ritual, which no longer applies. Jesus has turned that culture on its head and asks his followers to live by one countercultural concept - love – love for God which reveals itself in faith and love or compassion for the neighbour – it is not all about me and my desires.

Being a Living Sacrifice:
In the Gospel reading Jesus ups the ante. A would be follower hesitates because he pleads to be let bury his father. The man does NOT mean that his father has died already and that he needs a day or two to make funeral arrangements. He is saying that he has a duty as a son to care for his father in old age, to see that he has what he needs while he's alive and that he gets an honorable burial once he does die. And Jesus tells this man to "follow me, and let the dead bury the dead." Jesus instructs a man to abandon his family and the values of his society. How counter cultural is that?

It is about becoming a living sacrifice, relinquishing our desires for our self only, instead taking on responsibility for the world, not of the world. It is not that the man’s wish is evil, or selfish or unusual – he was fulfilling the cultural values of his society. Jesus says simply, by reason of your faith and your desire to follow me – all has changed. You have become a member of the kingdom of God, a kingdom with different values – values that place God and those created in his image (people, places and things) before what society says are your rights.

So What Now?
Somebody has said that the reason why people dismiss Christianity (and for that matter all major faiths) is, not that it is too easy, a cop out, but that it is too hard. Simple yes – love God and neighbour – but too hard and they give up before they start.

When we say at the end of the Eucharist :
Father,
we offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit
to live and work to your praise and glory,
we are saying, it is no longer about me, it is about the Other and others.

I walk away from my culturally and religiously embedded values and rights and commit myself solely to the values and responsibilities of the Kingdom.

Wow!