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. 

The With-ness of Being

At the back of the house where we stayed on our break runs a little river. It gurgles and gargles alongside large native trees, over the remnants of such trees laying across it and over little rocky rapids as it makes it way down to the meeting of waters, a place where, as the name suggests it reaches other little rivers.

 

I went for a walk in the bush behind this spot and wandered along beside another of these little streams that seemed to me to giggle and laugh its way down hill over trees and rocks, alongside little eddy’s which were havens for those who didn’t want the wild ride the middle of the stream offered.

 

Beside both of these creeks were banks inhabited by  a multitude of life, animate and inanimate. Multi hues of greens, browns, yellows etc covered the banks hiding a variety of life and activity only partially glimpsed by the naked eye.

 

We drove through the forests above Marysville to marvel at the savagery of nature and the capacity it has for returning to continue the search for wholeness and fulfilment. The sense of interconnectedness and relationship as different species worked together to bring back life under the stately skeletons of eucalypts who perished in the fires was awe inspiring.

 

Charles Darwin concluded his last chapter of his ground breaking book with the following:

 

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. ……….. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

 

Darwin encapsulates for us a series of ideas relevant to our celebration of the reign of Christ on this the Feast of Christ the King. In the last few months and longer we have experienced the upsurge of isolationism, populism and blame sharing most of us have not previously experienced. It seems that many of the givens in our society  have been overturned and replaced by ideologies and movements determined to wreak havoc on our sense and sensibilities. The rise of the right in Turkey, Brexit, the rise of the right and one nation here, the success of Donald Trump and the possibility of the extreme right exerting power in Europe alongside the growing influence of China and the continuing power of Russia all seem determined to change how the world has been for most of our lifetime.

 

In the midst of this how do we make sense of the reign of Christ? What does it look like in a world in continuous flux? Who or what is in charge? How do we discern Christ the King in this seemingly unmanageable mess?

 

In our reading Luke has Jesus in conversation with another on the cross which goes like this:

 

“Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” ⁴³He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

 

There are three things in this exchange in the midst of Luke’s passion story I think is worth remembering, not only for our world but for the church and on this day of our AGM, our parish – wholeness, relational and love.

 

These three words could be used to sum up both the Gospel of Jesus and the thrust of Darwin’s work.  Creation is, through the evolutionary process, working towards relational wholeness empowered by love. It is the reason why we are to always be hopeful about the future, the future of the parish, the church and the world.  The turmoil we see is the result of the process into wholeness, the ultimate end of evolution and faith. It is the result of being in relation with others and the Other as we work to fulfil our calling to abundant flourishing in the natural and spiritual worlds. It is not the end.

 

The conversation between Jesus and his companion is about relationships – you will be with me – the word with describes the reign of Christ. It is about with-ness not separate-ness. Christ is not a king separate from the agony of the process to wholeness. And by association God is not a distant God who arbitrarily chooses when to intervene, on who’s behalf to intervene and for what cause to intervene.

 

Much that was distasteful was said during the recent US election, but the moments which disturbed me most were when both candidates ended their speeches, at various times, with God Bless You or God Bless America. How dare they co-opt God into their ideologically inspired campaigns? How dare they think that God is theirs to invoke in such away? 

 

Christ is with us, right in the very middle of it to such an extent that his desire for wholeness for all takes him into the deepest with-ness or relationship possible – death on a cross – the ultimate in suffering and in sharing the suffering of others. It was the worst of death for those who challenged the way of the powerful and fearful and it is all the evidence we need for the with-ness of Christ, and by definition, the with-ness of God.

 

Wholeness is the process of creation. We are engaged as human beings in the ever-forward process of wholeness and fulfilment. We are deemed to be the pinnacle of created beings, but like all created beings we are not finished yet. There is more to come to create wholeness in capacity, capabilities, knowledge, wisdom and co-operation with all that is. It is the direction of faith taking us toward the reign (kingdom) of God. It will be complete when we live relationally in justice, respect and compassion. It will be that time when all is complete and all live in completeness. It will be the fulfilment of love.

 

Love is the spark of creation and the energy that empowers the process towards fulfilment. All creation, humans included, are imbued with the creative spirit of Christ and it is the spirit, this love, this essence of God, who is responsible for empowering the urge toward relational wholeness – the reign of Christ. Love is not an emotion. Love is not a concept. Love is not just a descriptive word. Love is a verb and it is the a verb or action word at the centre of all that is.  Without love, without the creative spirit who is God and love, there can be no hopefulness, no striving for existence and wholeness.

 

These three words – relational wholeness empowered by love – describe the reign of Christ in the world. It is the ongoing with-ness of Christ at the darkest and most difficult moments and also at those moments of great joy. They are to be our motto for how we live individually, in community and in our church. If we live these three words well we will attract others to see and participate and we will share with others and ourselves the reign of Christ here and now.

 

These three words must be at the centre of all that we do if we are to survive, grow and flourish, not for ourselves, our memories or our hopes, but to usher in the reign of Christ now and forever. Amen.