Love & War

³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13:31-35

 

At a leadership conference for handpicked sailors, a lecturer from the ANU made the commented that the reported incidence at Abu Grahib prison by US military personnel couldn’t happen in the Australian forces because we were so well trained to behave otherwise.

 

After a moment of mouth open bewilderment, I spoke up and suggested that he was either being reckless in his confidence in our troops (us sitting in the room) or he was deluded into believing that we were, somehow, superhuman and therefore would not act irrationally or emotionally if the circumstances were right.  Both of which I knew from my understanding of myself to be possible.

 

On this eve of ANZAC Day, arguably Australia’s national day, let us keep an informed mind about war and those who find themselves involved in them. War is not rational, it is irrational. Killing others, especially your own, to achieve a politically ordained solution to an intractable problem is irrational. To ask people who find themselves in the midst of the subsequent conflict to act rationally is irrational. The war fought in our country for control over the land and its resources, the unnamed and unremembered war, was irrational. The wars fought on other shores for the political and power needs of others have been irrational. The wars we continue to fight are more so.

 

Why do we expect people who find themselves caught up in the big business of mass  killing not to behave irrationally on the ground just as those who are behind the scenes, governments, corporations and media do? Why do we elevate these young men and women to a level of sainthood they never sought and can never live up to?

 

War is abominable. Being caught up in it at the ground level is horrific and can never be forgotten. Society appropriates war and the outcomes of war for its own purposes, to give meaning to an event that was often a failure but was so costly it needs to be elevated to the spiritual to allow us to live with its memory.  This ANZAC Day it is worthwhile unpacking the fairy-tale and taking a peek at the legend for what it is, the disastrous plans of misguided men who were willing to sacrifice fellow men, women and children to feed their own political, economic and power delusions, be they on the shores of Gallipoli or on the plains across the states of Australia.

 

The truth is we live between betrayal and denial, between upholding our values and respecting others, between hate and love. In todays shortened Gospel reading Jesus gives the well recognised, oft heard call for love: “³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” In light of tomorrow James Hillman says we have tried brotherly love for 2000 years and it has failed, humans have an insatiable appetite for war.

 

It is interesting to note where John places Jesus command to love. Paul S. Berge notes, "In the midst of his betrayal by Judas and denial by Peter, Jesus calls the community to live in love with one another, a pattern expressed in his own life and death."

 It sits squarely between the betrayal of Judas who had, according to John, just left the room to carry out his dastardly deed; and the denial of Peter, the denial that abandoned his teacher and companion to face the foe alone. One does not hear this command and behaves badly, the other behaves badly even though he heard it. Both had been well trained and taught by Jesus. Both had seen the evidence of Jesus identity and mission. Both had participated in the various miracles and events, eyewitnesses to the capacity Jesus had for his fellow humanity.

 

Yet, when the bullets started to fly, they failed him spectacularly. One went over to the other side, deserted to the enemy and the either denied any involvement or knowledge and refused to stand up when he was called upon to do so.

 

Love, love in the style of Jesus is tough love. It is the hardest thing to do. To stay fully engaged in relationship with others and self in the midst of life takes a resolve only grace can give. We, like Judas and Peter, fail to keep this commandment, not just once nor 7 times, but 70 times 7. Regardless, it is a our cornerstone, without which we find ourselves slipping into despondency and permanent failure.

 

The new commandment is to love one another as I have loved you – accepting and respectful of all that goes to make up who you are. Jesus love for both Peter and Judas remains despite the disappointment. Jesus love recognises we are not perfect but that we do endeavour to live out his commandment.

 

In the midst of the chaos of life in the world, the chaos that sits with in us as we deal with the stuff that comes our way, and the chaos that arrives unscripted and unwanted to turn our rational world into an irrational world.

 

As we unpack the legend of ANZAC and all the wars fought either side of the Gallipoli encounter we discover people who stay true to Jesus’ call. They carry out acts of bravery, sacrifice, comfort and camaraderie with those they stand beside and those they stand against. They do the incredibly rational in the midst of the unthinkably irrational. They put legs on Jesus command in circumstances most of us would find impossible.

 

Jesus command is a command to love in tough circumstances and to love those who are tough to love, particularly ourselves. It is to exhibit such love without violence and to find a way to reconcile us to others in the midst of the irrationality of their circumstance and ours. It is how we engage with people who have hurt, isolated and alienated us. It is how we engage with those who oppress, control and incarcerate others. It is the way we get on with creating life in the midst of a society committed to death.

 

How do we do that? There are no 5 steps to success, but we do begin with a clear mind and understanding of who we are and what we are capable of. It then follows that we work to retain that understanding in all our engagements with others. Love is the capacity to retain our humanity and to ensure others retain theirs despite differences, conflicts and blame.

 

Jesus lived such a paradigm into our imagination. We are to live that paradigm into the imagination of the world, starting right where we are. 

The Father and I Are One

 

John 10:30

Jesus, in John’s gospel, is Jewish, very, very Jewish. Not only is he Jewish he is very devout. John reports him attending synagogues, upholding various laws and attending a range of festivals just as a devout Jewish boy would. Jesus grew up in this environment. His parents were very Jewish and abided by all the appropriate practices and rituals. We can follow them through key incidents in the various Gospel retellings of his story.

 

There is no doubt about his heritage. Both John and Jesus rely heavily on the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, for images, ideas and connections to the story of the Israelites from Exodus to the promised land and more. Jesus lived the Psalms and understood his life and mission in terms of the stories of his peoples past.

 

In modern Christianity there is a move away from the Old Testament (the Christian form of the Jewish scriptures) to sole reliance on the New Testament scriptures. This has happened for a number of reasons:

• The proliferation of violence, often attributed to God or, at least, carried out in God’s name.
• The apparent irrelevance of the laws and moral positions found therein for modern life.
• The expectation that the Old Testament must be historically factual and true, and it fails to meet the modern scientific standard for such.
• The idea that the Old Testament is fulfilled and superseded by the New Testament and is no longer required reading for Christians.
• The idea that the Old Testament was about law exclusively and the New Testament is about love exclusively.

Each of these ideas have developed lives of their own (and I will deal with some of them in posts on my blog over the next few weeks) and a sense of the bleeding obvious for most Christians. Yet it seems to me that that was not the case for Jesus and those who wrote about him. Yes, Paul and others reimagined the story as contained in the Jewish Bible so that it could be understood and embraced by non-Jews, but the truth remains, key ideas and images of the Christian faith continue ideas and rituals at the centre of the Tanakh.

 

Today we come to one of those stories, the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple. An appropriate story for the baptism/dedication of Oscar. The Festival of the Dedication of the Temple or Hanukkah, commemorates the Jewish people’s successful rebellion against the Syrians in the Maccabean War in 162 BCE. A ritual cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple occurred after the Jewish people’s victory. It is believed that there was only enough consecrated oil to keep the lamp burning for one day but the small bottle of oil miraculously lasted for eight days. Hanukkah, also known as Chanukah, is referred as the Feast of Lights or Festival of Lights for this reason.

 

Why would John have Jesus walking in the colonnades of Solomon (the wisest of the Jewish fathers and the builder of the great temple) in the temple rebuilt by Herod, the despot? What is the significance of the confrontation with the synagogue scribes about his identity? Why doesn’t he answer them plainly?

 

Jesus is abrupt and brutal. It is very obvious who I am if you just see the connections, follow the bread-crumbs, join the dots. Those who are able to listen, those you are called to shepherd they understand my identity. Oh by the way, since you have separated your self from the sheep, you fail to hear because you think you know. Jesus continues, but here goes, here’s another clue.

 

Earlier in John 8 Jesus, in one of the ‘I am’ sayings says: “I am the light of the world”. Here Jesus turns up at the Festival of Lights, the Dedication of the Temple.  Paul S. Berge writes, "In the setting of the festival of lights, Jesus is the true light of the world; in this festival of the temple, Jesus is the true temple in whom the presence of the Father dwells."

 

The imagery is powerful and very deeply connected to the ritual and imagery of the Old Testament. This story would not work without a deep understanding of the Jewish scriptures. The synagogue people get it and don’t like it. Jesus has appropriated for himself equality with God. In verse 31 ‘The Jews took up stones again to stone him.” Here we find a sense of exasperation the Jews have with Jesus - the word ‘again’ – he constantly provokes them by couching the things he says and does in terms of their scriptures.

 

His finishing statement – “The Father and I are one” is more than they can take. Yet it is the bringing together of the covenantal relationship begun by God and related in their scriptures. It is what they believed in as a people, a oneness with their God, but were unable to see fulfilled in Jesus or anyone else for that matter.

 

And perhaps that is one of the major issues we have with the Old Testament.

• We don’t want to recognise ourselves in its stories, violence, legends and failures because we know we are not like that because we are constantly affirmed by family, friends and consumer society.
• We don’t want to recognise the possibility of a God who does in fact get angry, make judgements about us and leave us to stew in our own juices because it is always somebody else’s fault anyway.
• We don’t want to admit that there are time when we want God to be more like a marauding Messiah than Jesus turns out to be, because we do have a hit list of those we would like God to smite.  

It’s just a little too real and too close to home.

 

In the baptism service we recognise our place in God’s economy and commit ourselves, individually and communally to live in relationship with Jesus who is both the light of the world and the true temple. We dedicate, give back, welcome into the church a young person who will live in relationship with Jesus as a light in this world and a temple indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Baptism symbolises our desire to be one with God in this world and the next.

 

It is the moment we pick up two key ideas of an Old Testament Festival and celebrate them in the life of one individual, in our desire for life to epitomise oneness with God. This connection to traditions of great depth, meaning and longevity give us hope for ourselves, for the one baptised and for the future of our faith. The Old melds into the New as life goes on in the shadow of the past and the light of the present and the future, the light who is Christ, the temple and dwelling place of the everlasting Godhead.

 

Let us join with Oscar and cast ourselves into the baptismal waters to rise shining and in dwelt by the spirit of Christ. Amen. 

Peter - Exposed & Free.

John 21:1-19

 

One has to feel for Peter in today’s gospel reading. What with all h has been through in the last few days, the  betrayal of Jesus, his failures to live up to his promise to standby Jesus, the empty tomb and the great disappointment  at the seeming failure of a great and powerful dream, he is now out on the boat and his nets are coming up empty.

 

Can’t even do what he has always done, catch fish.

 

Everything has fallen apart. No thing remains as it was and his life is all out of shape and there is no inkling that it will improve. The way the fishing is going, he is going to starve to death any way, so why worry about the Jews or the Romans?

 

The little aside John gives us, when Peter and the disciples recognise the presence of Jesus is very revealing; “When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.”

 

‘For he was naked” -  why was he naked? Was it the preferred practice of the fisherman? What is it about boys and water that they want to take their clothes off and jump in? Were they all naked? It seems it was only Peter, as there is no reference to anybody else getting dressed and diving in?

 

And anyhow, isn’t this backwards? Wouldn’t you take your clothes off to dive in, not put them back on? I mean, it seems way more sensible to me, not to get your clothes wet early in the morning when there is little sun to dry you out.

 

When they get to the shore, a charcoal fire, Jesus standing near it organising a meal, confronts Peter. Jesus breaks into people’s lives around the disarming practice of sharing a meal. Throughout the gospels time and again Jesus breaks in, confronts, reveals himself and exposes others for who they are around a meal. The last supper, the feeding of the five thousand, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the various meals for the disciples, Mary and Martha and the leaders of the synagogue and more. The meal is central to Jesus self revelation and it is no wonder the Eucharist sits front and centre in our Eucharist, for it is here we are examined and transformed into the people available to the Spirit of God.

 

Peter was naked because he had been exposed by the events of the last week. All his talking big, super confidence and his knowledge of Jesus had been exposed by his failing to stand when it counted most. We find ourselves stripped and exposed for all the world to see when what we say and profess to know and be is confronted by the brutality of life. We may know all the formulas, understand all the terminology, know the truth of the scriptures, but is worthless if, when faced by life, we slip into the culture and practice of those who have no faith.

 

Peter was exposed to those around him in a way that left no doubt as to his ordinariness, his sameness with everyone else. He was no better or worse than those he was with, but He was no better than them. And they knew it and went fishing with him all the same.

 

Mateship, friendship, companionship can be the most powerful indicator of who we are. We are identified by those who see our faults and remain faithful to us. These are the people who don’t point the finger, pick out our faults, remind us of our failures. They simply go fishing with us. 

 

It is interesting that in the encounter with Jesus when Jesus asks him if he loves him, the final term for love Jesus uses is philios. Frank L. Crouch writes: "When Jesus himself clarifies the highest form of agapē, he does so in terms of philios. Love for friends is no second class love here."

 

Love of friends, the love which remains despite one failure after another, is the love Jesus calls Peter back to around a charcoal fire, just like the one around which he denied Jesus the third time. This is no deep and mystical spiritual love, just the love of one human being for another. A love without limits, without expectations, a love that simply asks to be replicated in our relationships with others. Peter was given no great mission. All he was asked to do was to love others in a way that would feed them in the midst of personal doubt, pain, oppression, doubt and fear.

 

“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbours worthy.”  More from Merton: “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them”.

 

Peter may have been hurt because Jesus confronts him and forces him to be realistic, not to over promise and to remain always true to himself and to others. He may have been hurt because no-one likes to be reminded of their failures, yet Jesus is not reminding him to shame him, only recasting that moment in the light of a new day so Peter can move forward in friendship with both Jesus and those around him. 

The conversation finishes, in between mouthfuls of fish, with the simple call to “Follow me”. When we come to the meal with Jesus, we are not brought to our knees by our failures, but are welcomed and encouraged hear the call to follow. Not to be perfect, not to be punished, not to be failure free but to simply follow. To go out into the world showing friendship to self and others in a way which validates life in the midst of death. Yes, we may find ourselves naked and undone as Peter did, it was in that state he was met by Jesus, welcomed in deep friendship and encouraged to go forward into the world as a friend.

 

As we come today to this Eucharist let us do so confident in the love of Christ, our Eternal brother and our friend, taking up the challenge to ‘follow’. Amen 

Doubting Thomas - Living in a Blurred World.

John 20:19-31

Today’s Gospel recounts the story of Thomas, known popularly, although not accurately, as Doubting Thomas. Whatever the origins of this story, it is both a challenging and hopeful story, one which asks some important questions and leaves the door chocked open by the naked doubt of Thomas. 

Michael Palmer suggests, "The rise of Donald Trump in American politics speaks to the depth and influential nature of our national and international fear. We're a people afraid, and that fear has trapped us. Like the disciples in those early moments after Jesus' death, we've locked ourselves in an upper room, waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Like the disciples who locked themselves away in fear of reprisals and the unwanted knock on the door, western society is in the midst of a similar phenomenon. The daily reports of violent actions by extremists such as the bombing of the Easter festivities in a park in Pakistan or the recent bombings in Yemen, Istanbul and Brussels fill us full of fear. The reports of violence in suburbs just like ours here in Melbourne cause us to double lock doors and think twice about going certain places at certain times. As for the church, clergy are now questioning the practice of wearing clergy collars when they are just ducking down the street in case people respond inappropriately to them.

Fear of others and doubts about our place in the world is indeed trapping us and keeping us reticent and impotent. How do we react in a world gone mad (if it has indeed gone mad)? How do we live out our convictions and faith in a world that appears to be hostile and dismissive? Do we lock ourselves away and become a hidden sect, secretive but safe?

In some sense that is what the disciples were doing. They were going for safety first. Even the occasion of Jesus revealing himself as being alive and present didn’t reassure them. Yes, they had seen Jesus but he had (apparently) to walk though a locked door. When he left the door remained locked. There was no surge of confidence and hope to drive them out into the streets. They remained where they were, out of sight and out of danger.

Thomas on the other hand wasn’t in the room with them. He hadn’t gone for the safety in numbers or in hiding idea. We don’t know where he was, he may have been back home, thinking about what had happened and getting on with life. There is no suggestion he was less fearful or less conscious of the risks he faced, yet he got on with life.

When told about Jesus being ‘alive’ he responded in a pragmatic and logical manner. There had been many stories and rumours going around. They started on Easter morning when the women went to the tomb and found it empty. Then Peter and the other disciple had a look and the rumours abounded. Not too much the gossip afoot in the general populace. For Thomas, perhaps, there was just too much variation in the story, too much too be asked to believe with it any evidence.

It wasn’t doubt in the sense he dismissed it out of hand, but a doubt needing experience to substantiate and verify.

That’s understandable, isn’t it? People tell you how great abseiling, bungee jumping, the Grand Canyon, Alaska or Victoria Falls, Sea World, Dream World or Movie World is but you will always have doubts its quite as good as they say it is until you go. You have to experience it for yourself.

Thomas is no different. He wasn’t there the first time Jesus appeared and there was just too much to believe without something to make it real. In any case, God came in the form of Jesus to experience life and all its challenges so that we could be understood and given the opportunity to experience what God is like. 

Nancy Rockwell writes "Thomas is a Greek name, and it means twin, though his twin, if he had one, never appears, and some suggest we are, each of us, his twin."

An interesting thought but one worth pondering in a number of ways:

How is what we believe influenced by our experience? We often speak as if we all believe the same thing and we all understand God and the Bible and faith in its purest and true form. Yet is it so? Or do we look at God and the Bible and our faith through the filter of our own personal experience? Are we not influenced by what we know, knowing by the experience we have lived though underpinned by our understanding?

People often say I don’t believe in God. I ask them to draw me a picture of the God they don’t believe in. Without question they draw a God I don’t believe in but when we start to discuss that drawing we uncover experiences that have given birth to such an understanding – Sunday School teaching, the disconnect between what a significant other has said they believed and what they did, treatment at the hands of religious people, violence in the world or the death of innocents – have all come together to give birth to the God they draw.

People of faith, you and I are no different. We say we believe in an unadulterated form and think we have it correct but what we know believe is the product of our life experiences as well as the religious teaching we have received in whatever form that comes. Like Thomas, there will be times when what we have experienced is forgotten and we get caught up in life and our lives, other things become more important. And that’s ok. 

In the midst of life there will be moments bringing us back to  the faith we affirm  and evaluate it against our experience and begin to refine it so that it is real for us. This won’t be a faith separate from the community, for as Thomas found out, he shares the experience of Jesus with others, in his case the disciples, in our case, the church. 

Thomas was no denier of the faith, simply one who had to experience it for him-self. In so doing he verified the truth of Jesus and went on to live out his faith in the world, although we know little about how he did that. 

Today, we are asked to live with what we don’t know and what seems beyond us, our doubts and to reflect on experiences, allowing them to lead us deep into the mystery of faith. Amen.