Still Thinking Abundance

Much of Jesus’ teaching encouraged his listeners to live life with a sense of abundance.  While later Christianity has tended to restrict and limit this teaching to what a person could or could not do, the Gospel’s give a strong message that the ministry of Jesus was about removing the restrictions and opening the lives of his followers to the abundance and fullness that one could encounter in this world.  It is probably no surprise that one of my favourite verse in the Bible is the passage in John’s gospel Chapter 10, verse 10, where Jesus’ says to his disciples, “a thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that you may have life and may have it in all its fullness.”

There are many thieves in this world that would destroy abundant/full living today.  This includes rule based religions; immoral and unethical living; fear of failure; the unwillingness to take risks and even a distorted view of ourselves and others.  But I want to focus on just one thief of abundant living and that is the thief of attachment.   For us in middle Australia this is always a difficult subject.  We have so much and yet we seldom feel as if we have enough.  It is also difficult because our economic society is based on consumerism. If we stop consuming then the retail industry suffers and we all suffer (economically at least.)

But constant consumerism and the need for continual growth is not the same as living a life of abundance. While there are real human needs that must be meet, housing, food, education, transport among others, there are true limits to how the things we consume contribute to an abundant life.

Few have been more articulate on this subject than the director of the Australia Institute, Clive Hamilton.  In two of his books, Growth Fetish and Affluenza, Hamilton takes Australian society to task for its financial and consumerist obsessions.  He suggests that Westfield shopping centres are more the “quintessential icons of modern Australia,” than the Sydney Opera House and Uluru.  He argues that two thirds of we Australians can’t afford what they buy and then once we have bought it, we become the third biggest generator of landfill per capita in the world. I heard someone complained recently about having to purchase a digital TV because the analogue signal will soon be switched off.  They purchased the television and took the old one to the tip and there at the tip they saw a mountain of discarded analogue TVs.

I don’t raise this because I am a non-consumer, that is not even possible, but because at its heart consumerism is a spiritual and theological approach to life.  Buying stuff and having more and more things can be a way of dealing with the hunger in us for what is called “the More”  and the more is the desire to live with abundance.  But a grain of wisdom and a pinch of maturity shows us that the things, the stuff we have, seldom feeds the need in human beings to satisfy their desire for “the More.”  Spiritual hunger can only be satisfied spiritually.  That means we apply spiritual principles to our lives such as; less is more; or to have something - one must let go of it; to find oneself - one must lose oneself; and abundance is discovered in who we are, not in than what we have.

And of course no stronger words can be said than what Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.”

Christopher

Still Thinking – Atheism

“The enlightenment is under threat. So is reason. So is truth. So is science … We have to devote a significant proportion of our time and resources to defending it from deliberate attack from organized ignorance …" Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. 

"The number of churchgoers in Australia is about 9% and dwindling, the diversity of spiritual belief is flourishing and atheism is going off like a frog in a sock." Catherine Deveny The Age, Melbourne February 18, 2009.

The Atheists are coming!  In fact, they are already here.  Last Friday the Global Atheist Convention 2012 began in Melbourne with keynote speakers Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, Catherine Deveny, AC Grayling and Geoffrey Robinson just to name a few.  These are probably household names to those who have rejected religion and are seeking some sense of community among the “disbelievers.” Atheism has a long and colourful history.  It is a philosophical approach to life that is born in the rejection of religious faith and religious belief.  Atheists are the more militant wing of the Agnostic movement – those who don’t know or don’t care for discussion about God and belief.  Atheists are willing to engage the enemy – we religionists and the new Atheist take no prisoners.

I think Atheists are both right and wrong.  First, why they are wrong. Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion spends most of his argument attacking all religious people regardless of their theological persuasions.  Fundamentalist and social reformers are all in the same basket.  If one is motivated by a religious impulse beyond one’s self, then that is to be condemned.  Sorry, but that doesn’t make sense.  Religion, like any human activity can be healthy or unhealthy.  Beliefs can be destructive or creative.  People can kill each other in the name of their God or they can bring the hope and healing through their love of God and all people. In the quest for absolutism many atheists walk the same pathway as religious fundamentalists.  They take a straw figure of what the religious person should be like and then blow it over.  Human beings are far more complex than these easy caricatures.

But the atheists also have it right.  Atheists often accuse religious people of having an “invisible or imaginary friend,” and that God is just an illusion or delusion to make life easier.  This can be true.  It has taken us sometime to unshackle ourselves from images of God that are at best unhelpful and at worst, dangerous.  Marcus Borg in his book Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, tells the story of a young student who says to him, “I don’t believe in God!”  To which Marcus replies, “Tell me the God you don’t believe in and I probably don’t believe in him either!”  The atheists have helped us see that it is not just believing in God that counts, but rather it is the God we believe it that really counts.

While religion is constructed from our human experience it is also a response to the very source of life itself.  We know that not everything in this magnificent universe is constructed in the mind of human beings.  It is equally possible that we are constructed in the mind of God within the universe and that God, like the human mind is much bigger that we originally thought.

Christopher

Still Thinking – Easter Love

Recent scholarship has shown us that there was a great diversity among the Christian gatherings and communities after the death of Jesus.  The central debate among those communities was between Jewish and non-Jewish (Hellenistic) beliefs and practices.  These were expressed through a diversity of rituals, symbols and practices in those first Christian communities. The writings of Paul to the churches were often a response to the question, “how should we follow Jesus in our gatherings,” rather than just specific questions about belief.  Some have argued that the early church was more concerned with orthopraxy - right action, than it was with orthodoxy – right belief. And of course this was motivated by the view that Jesus had initiated a movement of radical inclusive love not just a system of belief.  The following quote for Wikipedia is helpful:

Christians proclaimed a God of love who enjoined them to share a higher love with one another. Some interpreted the Old Testament as revealing primarily a God of justice, whereas the New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John, revealed a more loving God. Parallels are found in Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism. Paul of Tarsus is represented in Acts 17:22-33 as equating the Unknown God of the Greeks as revealed in the Christian God. Early Christian communities welcomed everyone, including slaves and women, who were generally shunned in Greco-Roman culture…

Oh dear, where did we go wrong? Perhaps it was in our (the early Christian Community’s) embracing of Empire.  It is difficult to find anywhere, where the church and the state have come together, that the church has been able to maintained its commitment to radical love.  When the Christian church no longer wants to be the salt, but instead become the salt shaker, it tends to lose it unique savour.  Maybe this evolution from Christian community to state sanctioned church is built into the very message of the early church.  The more successful we are at making disciples, the greater the desire to make the whole society in which we live, Christian.  And so the community that practices this form of radical inclusive love must bow the knee to what our society or nation tells us.  Therefore the enemies of the state become the enemies of our Christian faith.  We can no longer love our enemies because the state to which be give allegiances forbids it.

However, the most subversive Christian communities have always been willing to love and include whoever they choose.  While love is a belief of the Christian faith, it only finds true expression in action.  It is said of the infant Christian community by those outside, “Oh how they love each other.”  While that was in the first century, the same was also said of the Methodist/Wesleyan communities that gathered around the Wesley brothers in the late 18^th and early 19th century.  It seems that these gatherings of people lived, as the early church did, in a time of exceptional grace. And such times encourage a spirit of welcome and hospitality.

Do we live in such a time today? Is there a movement of open and welcoming hospitality in our age, in the 21^st century?  As we unshackle ourselves from the oppressive aspects of our society and culture and practice what we preach, will we experience a time of exceptional grace? When we stop trying to be like other Christian churches and communities and become authentically ourselves drawing from the well of inclusive love, will that shape and reshape us into the kind of community where our words and actions are in harmony?  I believe so. That’s Easter love!

Christopher

Still Thinking – Soul

Over the last few years I have been involved in a “Circle of Trust” which is a contemplative group developed by Quaker writer and scholar Parker Palmer.  Those who have read Parker’s writings will know that there is a great deal of emphasis on what he calls the soul.  The word soul has been used in many different ways throughout history.  Stretching back to Plato and Aristotle philosophers and theologians have attempted to understand and explain what the soul is.  In Parker’s writings the soul is the heart; the true self; the inner life; the centre of our being.  But most of all it is a metaphor that names a way of being and a way of life. It is not an object that you can find or discover by searching rather it is something we experience in times of struggle or in solitude. It is the real you.

May Sarton in one of her poems expresses it this way:

Now I become myself. It has

Taken many years and places

I have been dissolved and shaken

Worn other people’s faces.

That becoming myself has something to do with the soul and our soul is the gift God gives to us.  It is in fact me or my life.  Throughout the centuries theologians have suggested that the Imago Dei, the Image of God which in Genesis is the imprint of God on humankind, maybe marred, suppressed, distorted or neglected but it can never be obliterated. The centre, the inner life, the soul, the God-self in us is permanent, resilient and tenacious. 

Parker in his book A Hidden Wholeness says that the soul is like a wild animal and I want to add to that that this wild animal he calls soul is the mark of God in our lives, the Imago Dei. We often interpret wild animal to mean vicious or frightening, but look at how Parker uses this metaphor:

Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient...and knows how to survive in hard places. I have learned these qualities during my bouts of depression.  In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always relied on collapsed...But from time, to time deep in the thickets of my inner wilderness, I could sense the presence of something that knew how to stay alive...

For me that is the Image of God imprinted on my life.  It is where I find courage to match fear; hope to match despair; wonder to match busyness; and peace to match confusion.  It is the centre of my being, and while I may image it as a strong wild animal, like all wild things that are undomesticated, it is shy and will only appear when it is safe.  My soul, the centre of my being survives by being aware of the dangers around me and seeks solace in safe communities where I can both be myself and grow toward wholeness.  May TUC be such a place where the soul in each of us is nurtured, nourished and cherished.

Christopher

Still Thinking – The Atonement

There can be in our journey to Easter quite an emphasis on suffering.  Because the resurrection of Jesus is preceded by his violent death, many have argued that even in the new life the Christian is called to accept that both healing and suffering are woven together into their lives.

Throughout Christian history there has been many theories put forward in an attempt to explain and promote the relationship between Jesus’ death and its relationship to the Christian.  Most theories of what has been called the “atonement” are shaped by the world view of their proponents.  Many of the authors in the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures rely on a “blood sacrifice” view of atonement and reconciliation. 

Most hold the view that a price must be paid in blood, the blood of a perfect and innocent sacrifice, to a Holy God who is distant and often vengeful.  Many passages in the Bible are drawn from this world view.  However, that world view does not exist in our culture and time.  It is in fact both repulsive and abhorrent.

There are other views in the Bible about how the death of Jesus is understood and related to the present experience of Christ among us. It was in the twelfth century that the controversial theologian Peter Abelard began to argue that the death of Jesus was not about blood sacrifice, it was in fact, about love. This came to be named the "moral theory of atonement."

It the twelfth century, the common view of the atonement was that Jesus’ death paid a debt, either to God or to the Devil, that humans could not pay ourselves, but Abelard approached the matter from a more subjective angle. He explained that Jesus’ life and death were such radical demonstrations of the love of God that we are moved to love God in response, and God then forgives us on the basis of that love. He wrote

Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him who has shown us such grace that no greater can be found.

This view of the atonement became popular during the Enlightenment, a time of intense scepticism towards anything transcendent or supernatural.

It was Peter Abelard who also made significant contributions to Christian thought in the areas of ethics and sin. He controversially taught that humans are not born with original guilt, as no person can be guilty for the sin of another.  He argued that there is no guilt until we have agreed with or acted upon our “sinful” inclination. Whether an act is good or evil depends entirely on one's intention.  And finally, Abelard insisted that no person can absolve another person of sin, so the function of confession can only be to instruct the sinner in the proper penance not to absolve the person from their sin.

While much of Abelard’s language and this theological constructs are foreign to the twenty-first century, he did give a fresh approach to the stale theology of the scholastics and their dogged ascent to time worn doctrines.  As we move toward Easter our hearts are fixed on the love of God demonstrated in the life and the death of Jesus; a God of love who is seen in the capacity to receive the violence of our world and not retaliate with violence.

Christopher 

Still Thinking – Death and Dying

I never thought much about my own death when I was a young person even through at the age of 13 I was in the house when my mother died.  While I had an awareness of what death was I was too much immersed in life to dwell on it.  I recall a real feeling of irritation as a teenager when a travelling evangelist came to Upper Mt Gravatt Baptist Church and at the conclusion of his sermon told us, “As you leave the church tonight and walk out into the street you could be hit by a bus and killed.  So if you don’t accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour tonight you will spend the rest of eternity in hell!” As a “God intoxicated” sixteen year old whose mother had died when she was 32 years old, I truly felt that I knew more about life and death than this itinerant preacher did.

While my mother’s death left an indelible mark on my life the only time thoughts of my own death would pass through my mind as a young person was when I was engaged in something dangerous - like diving off the rocks into the surf at Currumbin beach and then the fear was more about being injured than actually drowning. However, life and aging does change our reflections on death and dying. 

At the ripe old age of 59 I do think more about my own death today than I did ten or fifteen years ago.  But, and I suspect this is true of most in the second half of life, my concern is not so much with death, that final terminus, but with the “process” of dying.  What can be worrying is the manner in which I will die.  I don’t lie awake at night fearful that one day I will die, neither do I want to live forever, but I know that dying often - not always - takes some time.  Perhaps it’s the fear of the loss of control when doctors or my wife or adult children make decisions for me; or the loss of dignity when forced to wear those hospital gowns designed to display ones rear end to the world. I don’t think I fear the pain or the discomfort and while I don’t want to be euthanized, I do want to have the right to both pain medication and the final say about the end of my life.

I am aware that such a discussion is much easier in the theoretical or hypothetical than it is when faced with the sting of death and the cloak of dying but the Christian faith has taught us that death is a part of life and that those who face their own death can then live more fully.  During my time in the desert on the men’s initiation retreat with Richard Rohr I spent a day by myself on the top of hill contemplating my death.  We all had a simple sentence we were to contemplate for 8 hours.  That sentence was, “You are going to die!” What began in the morning as a trite recitation of the sentence, ended after a day’s work with tears, longings and a love for living.  “Death,” someone said, “is too important to leave to the end of life.” 

This morning we will consider the story of Jesus drawing his disciples into the paradoxical truth that “only those who lose their lives for the sake of gospel will save their lives,” I hope that in this story we can still see the flowering of hope and life.

Christopher

Still Thinking – Jesus through the Centuries

John Churcher in his recent book Setting Jesus Free suggests that the

“Jesus of Nazareth was the breaker of barriers that separate and the final barrier to be broken was that between life and death.”

It goes without saying that Jesus still remains one of the most important figures in western civilization even as our society becomes more and more secular and materialist.  For those of us in the Christian church Jesus is far more than an influential figure his life, message, and teaching, is what shapes and forms us every day. But that only occurs when Jesus is “set free.”

The slow movement of history has a way of placing a kind of veneer over the facts and events it is carrying.  We know that the Christian Church has passed through several “reformations” and each time a different and sometimes a new view of Jesus has emerged.  Jaroslav Pelikan in his book Jesus Through the Centuries chronicles the various names and cultural identities given to Jesus through the last two millennia.  Would you believe that in English society in the nineteenth century it was common to refer to Jesus as the “perfect gentleman”? That does not sound like a barrier breaker does it?.  More common of course are the Biblical names that are attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. 

From the second century onward there was more and more emphasis placed on the divine names for Jesus as against the “earthly” names.  For example we know that the early church place a lot of importance on Jesus being a Rabbi/teacher.  In the story of the empty tomb Mary addresses Jesus as Rabbi.  By the third and fourth centuries AD Jesus is referred to as God. For some this was blasphemy for others it was the natural progression for a leader to be deified by his followers. It was left to the various Church councils to come up with some way to reconcile not only the many designations given to Jesus but to state what is the nature of this person who grew up in Palestine and was now seated at the right hand of God in heaven.  So in 451AD the Council of Chalcedon established what is called the doctrine of Hypostatic Union which states

…following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;

It is probably not the language we would use today, but in its time it was a very successful marriage between Christian theology and Greek philosophy.  It stood until the nineteenth century when the inherent logical error that placed all of the godhead in one human being became apparent and so the formula began to collapse.

In the 21st century it seems that the most powerful way we can image the presence and nature of Jesus is in the human.  The Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer called Jesus “the man for others.”  And more recently the predominant way in which the designation, “Son of Man” is translated is as “the Human One.” That may sound strange to our ears because it is not as familiar as other names for Jesus, but it does resonate with our time and culture.

Someone once said, “…the more we worship Jesus the less we seem to follow him.”  The further we push Jesus away from being like us, the less we identify with his call to show love, justice, compassion and hopefulness.

Christopher