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. 

Relationships, forgiveness, reconciliation

Guest Post - Rev. Andrew Tasker

Matthew 5.21-37

As we have just heard, the Gospel is long, quite harsh and includes some of the hardest lessons from Jesus about really complex issues - adultery, divorce, swearing falsely and finally, conflict with another – I can’t think of a more challenging passage!!

So I have decided to be cowardly and pick what I consider to be the easiest topic of a really hard bunch – believe it or not, it’s conflict – that is, difficulty with our neighbour, friend or family member, about relationship and reconciliation. 

To me, reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel, it doesn’t come easily to most of us and it constantly challenges us to be better people. 

So, firstly then – I think it is to acknowledge that striving for healthy connection with one another is absolutely central to our existence.  

Jesus wants us to use the perfect, non-judgmental and loving friendship he offers us, to mirror our own relationships.  We become as one with God when our relationships flourish.  I am convinced that we are called to create nothing more and nothing less than loving relationships.  Perhaps nothing else matters.

But - we can’t do it on our own.

Much as all the Gospels call us to individual relationship with Jesus, Jesus knows that we cannot live life without the other.  You.  You are the other, for others.  St Paul in his letters is at pains to explain to communities of which he has charge, that ‘getting on’ in the name of Christ is pivotal.

We can’t ignore that we are born into community, not into some vacuum in which we are alone and can be wholly selfish.

So with these things in mind, interestingly, Jesus doesn’t immediately start by addressing the actual topic of relationship, of reconciliation, but rather he starts with a strange command - that we must leave our gifts at the altar before reconciling with our neighbour.  For it seems that gifts at the altar are of little value to God unless they come with our clean conscience and our resolve to seek reconciliation with our neighbour.  

By leaving gifts at the altar, we are acknowledging that God knows us inside and out.  He knows our secrets and the dark brooding ways of our all too human nature.  For when we leave gifts at the altar, or at the altar of our minds, we leave a part of ourselves there - and right then, God can work on us and heal us.  And give us courage for the process of forgiving – and indeed of being forgiven.

And when we try to take Jesus at his word and actually leave gifts at the altar, this altar need not, of course, be a church altar – the kitchen table, a side table at home will do – why not actually leave something there – as a reminder that you need to…call your cousin whom you dislike, to send that email or text to a friend that you lost contact with because they said something you didn’t like.

The psychological impact of conflict cannot be underestimated.  It makes us ill with worry.  Jesus knows this and accordingly he craves that people are free from conflict - as soon as possible.  Surely he wants us whole and healthy.

Jesus always teaches us with a view to challenge, of course – the Gospel is not easy and today’s Gospel is particularly hard to stomach.  Indeed, this issue of resolving our differences with others is just plain hard work – it frightens me to face those with whom I am have issue, that I don’t fully trust, that I would rather not engage with.  For it is all too easy to love my friend and dine with them, offer them compliments and help them solve their problems and comfort them.  Jesus doesn’t preach on the things that we do easily - the love we lavish on those with whom we are friends.  No, we are called to be radical in our relationships and seek out the complex and divided relationships of our lives. 

We are challenged to make that hard phone call, or to accept that we were wrong too and even if we are sure that we were not wrong, to compromise and sometimes even take the blame. 

In this way, the cross looms large – maybe some days bearing another’s anger, for example, might best be borne by absorbing that anger ourselves.  In this way we willingly suffer the pain of those we have difficulty with.

And reconciliation might need to happen quickly.  That gift you left with God is waiting to be picked up and time is short.  The Gospel is clear on this too – we never know when the hour will come and that broken relationship calls us to both rectify it quickly - and to love the other at almost any cost.

Further, in our day of psychological intervention, the issue can go even deeper.  This whole matter of reconciliation is also about our relationship with ourselves – the disquiet we have in our hearts for ourselves at the things of which we are not proud – what of our lack of forgiveness of ourselves, when all the while we are often happy to forgive others?  That gift we left at the altar might just be ourselves and in the meantime whilst we mend our relationships with another person, God is busy mending our broken hearts.

No one is an island.  We live in a variety of communities and they focus our need to be compromising and forgiving...to me, nothing is more important.  If nothing else, it is just unhealthy for us to be in conflict.

But ironically I would add this – don’t think that you are called to forgive at any cost – only God can keep forgiving and forgiving – we have human limits – despite the fact that Jesus’ command to reconcile seems absolute. 

To think that we have to be as God in our relationships is not useful and may even be destructive.  You might find that despite your best efforts you simply cannot resolve a situation – and that’s alright too.  Yet ensure that when you come to pick up your gift from the altar – wherever that altar is – that you focus on God and say ‘God, I have done my best – I have tried everything to reconcile with my neighbour and it has not worked out’. 

Then don’t forget to do one more thing – take up that gift you left at the altar and with a clean conscience, offer it to God in humility. 

Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you judge them – enquire as to their pain and suffering. 

And be at peace.  Peace is an ultimate goal of reconciliation.  Be at peace. 

Reconcile at any cost, until you simply cannot reconcile any further.

After all, we live only to try and do as Jesus does.  To get it right with others.   

One Mob

Colossians 3:1-11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

Reconciliation Sunday - Words That Heal

Luke 7:1-10 

Today is reconciliation Sunday, a day set aside to contemplate the history of our country, in particular, the history of the relationship between the sovereign owners of this land and those who came here by sea.

This is a contested history, one of much rhetoric, deceit, dishonesty and denial on all sides yet it is imperative we deal with it and deal with it without delay. Some think, ‘It happened 200 years ago, move on’; others think, ‘This land was uninhabited and no one was here’ the doctrine of Terra Nullius; others still think ‘to the victors the spoils’. 

To the indigenous nations inhabiting the land then and now, this was and still remains theirs and those who came here are invaders who have yet to recognise their rights and, more importantly their existence. The English clash with the indigenous people was rife with massacres, annihilation and ongoing policies to rid the land of black people. The issue then and now was about colour and the supremacy of white over black in terms of anthropology.

A couple of months ago I went back to Mudgee and took the funeral of my mother’s best friend. After the service, outside, a man came up to me and asked, ‘Your Blackfella’s young bloke, aren’t you? Your Young Blackfella!” Now this man had known me since I was born and nowhere in the conversation that followed was I referred to by name. Here I am, dressed in Anglican priests robes undertaking English ritual, and I was still Young Blackfella with no name.

The issue of reconciliation, no matter how we dress it up, is far from being resolved. The issue of colour remains central to our discussion. Growing up I understood white was equal to good, and black to bad. My father, part indigenous himself, referred to a good bloke as a “White man”. “He’s the whitest bloke I know”.

In today's gospel are two statements that may be helpful to us. I have grouped them together as one to help understand the importance of acknowledging the situation and bringing about healing and hope for all:

7“But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”

“10When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.”

What is the word or words we must speak so God’s servant, the people of this country may be healed?

They include:

• The word of identity. Recognising, finally, that Australia was not an empty country and accepting that people existed here before the English came. The doctrine of Terra Nullius, the empty land, by definition denies the existence of the original people and therefore denies them identity as human beings. They have no name and will always remain Blackfella. 

• The word of equality. Once we accept there are and were people here who had and have sovereignty over the land with sophisticated government and land ownership structures, then they must be treated as equals, giving them the respect of being able to govern themselves and setting about coming to a treaty with them on equal terms.

• The word of reparation. Once we have recognised them and granted them respect of equality, we then must set about providing reparation, not welfare, to the original owners. Reparation means providing adequate compensation for another’s loss, loss of land, country, identity, culture and ritual. Money is but a part of this process, an important part and if a small percentage of all land taxes and rates collected were made available to the traditional owners, much of the so called aboriginal issues could be resolved.

The result of these three little words? 

Three more:

• Health. People who are recognised, respected, treated as equals and compensated find a path to physical, psychological and material well-being. We know that to be the case for all those affected by the child abuse scandal. It is no different in this case.

• Wholeness. When you live in a foreign land under another’s customs and without the possibility of returning you are a fragmented, pulled apart, shattered. The Israelites knew that experience in Babylon and Egypt, as do the Palestinians do today. Wholeness is about returning to what gives you meaning and identity and the three words begin the process to such a state.

• Reconciliation. Reconciling the split within is the outcome of these words. The split within the individual, the original owners and within those who have come here and feel the disconnect with the Australian story. Reconciliation is not about black or white. It is about you and I coming home to, and being comfortable with the truth, and being able to live out of such truth in a life giving way for all.

These are the words of hard work, dialogue and deep communion with another this country has avoided and continues to do so. The referendum of 1967, the Rudd apology and now the constitutional recognition are western solutions to an issue to which there are no IKEA DIY solutions. A culture 50,000 years old is not yet ready to resolve the difficulties on another's terms.

Vincent Lingari said, during the Wave Hill walk off, 'we know how to wait.’ They waited 8 years. It is a lesson western culture needs to learn. 

There will indeed be a moment in time when aboriginal people will welcome the newcomers into their country and they will do so without the need of voting rights, apologies or constitutional recognition. 

It will happen when we take the time to hear the words we need to say and say them. 

It will happen when we sit down and learn to wait with each other to hear these words together.

It will happen when, like the centurion and Jesus, we connect at the deepest place of respect, trust and openness, what Merton calls communion.

May we begin this waiting together today. 

Unity in Being, Diversity in Doing

John 3:1-17/ Romans 8:12-17

Today is indeed Trinity Sunday for us here at St Oswald’s. This Sunday we explore the liturgical festival of the trinity while reflecting on the task of reconciliation, still a work under construction for our country, and finally, we are thinking about our parish stewardship responsibilities. How do these come together or are they in fact three very different ideas we actually need more time to investigate? Are they an improbable puzzle not unlike the one Nicodemus was faced with when he came to Jesus under the cover of the darkness? I suspect so.

 

You see Nicodemus nearly got the profound insight Jesus had to offer yet he was unable to leave his rational mind out of the conversation. His rational mind, schooled in the ‘theological’ superstructure of the synagogue found no place for the mystical experience Jesus was introducing him to. Being born again, being born of the spirit and not of the flesh, the coming and goings from heaven to earth and back again, simply over-rode the rational understanding Nicodemus was equipped with. And he went away, still in the dark.

 

In Romans 8 Paul speaks eloquently about the Godhead, interspersing the three personalities without actually trying to explain how it actually goes together. In this passage he speaks of God as father, of Christ in relationship to both God and us, and the Spirit as the enlivening source of relationship which ties it all together. Yet Paul does not explain the Trinity -- how God is three-in-one and one-in-three -- and no systematic explanation is to be found in the other biblical writers, either.

 

Perhaps it can be understood as ‘unity in being, diversity in way of being’. The oneness is the Who and the diversity is the role or the what. Rublev’s famous icon shows the three personalities together at a table, in hospitable fellowship with one another surrounded by the symbols which identify, all are together but noticeably separate in their body language; a turning out here, a looking a way there and the use of space to signify that separation.

 

They are united in their divine being, but very diverse in their roles and their actions. Although all maybe present at the one time, they are busy about different things, tasks and operations. The creation, salvation and imbuing of the world are done together but separately. A wonderful image of this unity and diversity is found in the description of the baptism of Jesus in Mark 1:9-11:

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’”

 

An interesting observation to make about Rublev’s icon is that there is no competition for space or for recognition amongst those he depicts. In fact the generosity of the Trinity is such that it always leaves room for more. If you look closely at the icon, space is made at the front of the table for another, or others. It has been suggested that we are being made room for, invited into that intimate relationship, not as observers, spectators or as lesser beings. but as co-equals.

 

Jesus says that God so loved the world that he sent the second person of the trinity so that he could save it from itself, from it’s ego violence and gratification. We are saved to share in eternal life which is a now and future realm, to be experienced in relationship with the three personalities active in the divine.

 

Paul says ‘you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.’ We have been adopted into that intimate relationship which is unity of being but diversity and how, the way, of being.

 

In the last few days we have witnessed the recognition of gay marriage in Ireland, an almost unthinkable outcome if the referendum had occurred a decade ago. What is primarily a Catholic country has embraced change and the church faces some interesting time redefining it’s place in what was essentially it’s country. It is a challenge for the  Church of Ireland which, within a day or so, had produced a press release saying that there would be no marriages for same sex couples carried out by it’s clergy as they are still reviewing their position through Synod. Yet over the road in Scotland, the Church of Scotland has voted to accept gay clergy in same sex civil partnerships, although note civil not church sanctioned marriage. The world is a rapidly changing place, full of diversity and, seemingly, collapsing unity. 

 

On this Trinity Sunday we are also asked to think about reconciliation between the first occupiers of this country and those of us who came later. Reconciliation as a task has had a rocky road and, I would suggest, has almost stalled. Governments, institutions and landowners have been hesitant to take the steps to apologize and set about a clear path of repentance for invasions, massacres, land grabs, stolen children, child abuse, and more. We remain silent about the 140-year civil war which took place in this country, only coming to an end, possibly, in 1928. We do not recognise the casualties of that war, on both sides, and fail to accept that the injustices committed then set the groundwork for the injustices which continue, such as the closing down of remote communities today.

 

The table of hospitality we sit around is similar but different to that of Rublev’s icon. Yes there is a space at the table but those who are different are not free to join those who maintain the social geography of our country. Not only have we not given free access to the first people, we continue to prevent those seeking a new start in life access either, even when we know the alternative option is likely death, we continue to say ‘Nope, Nope, Nope.’

 

The way forward will be chaotic and marred by many sidesteps and back-downs but we are being challenged to engage with the diversity of being from the point of view of what holds us together at the core. The trinity speaks of unity in relationship, of being essentially connected at the centre of our being although we are acting out our being, our lives, in very different and diverse ways.

 

We have a choice, to hold onto what divides us, to our diversity, not as something to be celebrated but something to be destroyed, or at best, ignored. To harken back to a day when we did not have to deal with these things because we agreed not to recognise them will consign us the way of the dodo. We no longer have that option.

 

Or we can choose to find ways to engage, dialogue and discover our place, with others, at the table of fellowship alongside the three distinct personalities of the Trinity. It asks of us deep self-reflection on why we believe as we do, why we find it difficult to even dialogue on these things, let alone find a place of unity, and why we are uncomfortable about difference and diversity?

 

On this thanksgiving or stewardship Sunday we are also being asked what can we do, what can we give, to expand God’s presence in this community? What do we bring with us and make available to this parish under God to engage, dialogue and discover ours and others place at the table with the Trinity? In the 80 or so years since St Oswald’s was founded, the world has changed in remarkable ways and this church has always been willing to engage, belong, support, guide, represent and feed this community. Why? Because there have been people willing to sit at the table with the Divine and co-create a representational Holy presence here.

 

Nicodemus was asked what did he bring and what could he give? He found that he could not give up his rational and conditioned mind. He could not step out of the darkness of difference into the glory of diversity. He was unable to remain engaged in dialogue and fellowship long enough for the truth to appear. He was lost in the darkness.

 

As we close let us reflect on the wisdom of Paul who writes:

 

^“22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” Amen

 

Living With Loose Ends

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 - Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Today’s readings drag us into the complicated world of relationships and dysfunction. It is, without putting too fine a point on it, almost assured that relationships will be,at least at sometime in their life, dysfunctional, one side or the other gets out of sync and slips into a place of its own, unable to relate or live with the other. It happens in marriages and friendships, in professional and work areas, on the international and national political stage – it happens in almost all areas of life.

It is the stuff which makes life the most interesting.

Somebody is alleged to have said that it is what makes making up such a challenge and a skill. How to begin again, how to re-mind ourselves, retool our minds, so that what was in dysfunction functions again? How do we see in what appears to be a lost cause the possibility of re-commencement, re-engagement of new life and hope?

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk suggests; “Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, AND then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.”

Often our approach to this kind of challenge is built around ‘either – or’, ‘one or the other’, resulting in one or more of the parties having to back down so the other wins, all in the name of reconciliation and moving on. Unfortunately reconciliation built on that type of ideology is only temporary, for it builds resentment and hostility in all parties. Those who have backed down resent the loss and those who win think they should have won more.

In Hanh’s suggestion we find the neat little word “and” – “Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, AND then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.”

And is one of the most useful words we have, unlike or which separates, and, unites – it brings together both sides of an argument and makes them one. It is about the ‘oneing’ of life in all its complexities. It makes one and when things are one they begin to work together to reconcile the differences.

My mobile phone synchronises with my computer. When I connect and hit synchronise the two reconcile or become one – what is on one is on the other – it notes the difference, the double ups and then either deletes or includes as appropriate, and after a few minutes you have the two, one. It reconciles the phone and the computer.

In our second reading today, Paul is battling to achieve the same result with the Christians at Corinth. Paul had, in a sense, raised these people in the faith, nurtured and brought them through only to find now that they are estranged from him because of the influence of other so called Christian leaders. We are not told who, but obviously they were persuasive in getting the Corinthians to follow them and to leave Paul.

Perhaps out of anger, but probably out of concern for those he ‘loved’ and a concern that they are receiving good teaching; Paul responds. He does so with some of the clearest theological teaching we find in the New Testament.


Paul's appeal for reconciliation arises out of a complex, messy human situation. Much as he desires the Corinthians to be reconciled to God, Paul also earnestly yearns for some kind of reconciliation between the Corinthians and himself. These are not two separate issues. Paul recognizes that what goes on in human communities, how we relate to one another, has implications for how we relate to God. It is not just about us; nor is it just about God. It is about how we understand ourselves to be in relationship with God and with one another, all in the same moment. The two are inextricably linked.



To illustrate this, Paul juxtaposes two ways of viewing one another, using the example of the Christ. At one time, he says, we looked at the one we call the Christ and saw, nothing special: perhaps a prophet, perhaps a fool. We judged on the basis of our human experience ("a human point of view"). Then something happened that allowed us to see in Christ the one in and through whom God reconciles the world to God's self. Paul does not specify what this "something is", and it is different for each of us. We experience the presence of God not only in our own lives, but come to recognize the presence of God permeating the entire cosmos. Our way of seeing has changed, as well as our understanding of how we are in the world, as Paul goes on to say "if anyone is in Christ, there is an (ongoing) new creation" (verse 17).

Ongoing, here, does not mean in the sense of evolution, but in the sense that creation, when it is sustained as we are in Christ, is in a constant state of renewal. This on-going act of creation, says Paul, occurs through Christ for it is "In Christ" we experience God reaching out to us and ourselves as creation restored; if we recognize ourselves as a part of this new creation, then we no longer view one another in the same way. Our vision has changed.

Reconciliation is not simply something to be desired; it becomes an imperative because we have experienced reconciliation with the one who has given us (new) life. If, in this most important of all relationships, we find that our "trespasses" (which can also be rendered "missteps") are not held against us, we too are challenged to reach across the boundaries and barriers that separate us, whether due to missteps, misunderstandings, or misconceptions, and find ways to renew our relationships as a part of the on-going act of creation.



Were Paul and the Corinthians reconciled? Holly Hearon suggests: “We do not know. The danger remains that one or the other side will confuse their status as ambassadors with the role of God, and reconciliation with conformity. As it stands, we are only left with the issues and the possibilities. Much as I like tidy endings, I am drawn to the open-endedness of this situation because it gives us room to consider what we might do in this, or any other, situation where we are still searching for the reconciliation that will open up the potential for the renewal of creation. It is in this act, says Paul, that we may become the righteousness of God.”

It is in this sense that the Gospel story of the Prodigal Son is also an incomplete reconciliation story. It ends without the ends neatly tied up. We are not sure of the Son’s motivation for returning, was he really repentant and coming home for the right reasons, or just for a hot shower and a good meal? What was the father’s motivation for accepting him back, true love or an attempt to save face in front of the local community? Where was the older son? Did he ever get over his resentment and reluctance to accept his brother back or did he stay forever out in the garden, unwilling to join the party? And what did the mother think, and did it really matter? What work needed to be done to build on this apparent reconciliation to turn it into a new beginning or did the dysfunctional family remain just that, a work in progress?

Reconciliation is what brings us to the Eucharistic table where we realize the reconciliation between humanity and God wrought by the action of the second Person of the Trinity Christ, fulfilling his relationship with God. Christ’s action was relational, bringing into being the forgiving action of God. The cross and the Eucharist are not Christ’s work but God’s. At no time do they become ours for no action of ours will reconcile us with God.

God through Christ reconciles the world to himself, even though it often feels like there are a lot of loose ends. And there are. God likes it like that.