"God beyond the reach of mystery" ... another sermon with thanks to Elizabeth Johnson (10 July 2011)

Two weeks ago[1], I offered some thoughts which might assist us in this wintry season of faith.  Several of you appreciated Karl Rahner’s observation that “agnosticism which knows it doesn’t know ... is the way God is experienced today”; others of you found compelling Rahner’s suggestion that our struggle against atheism is foremost and of necessity a struggle against the inadequacy of our own understandings of God.  Although some may have experienced discomfort with the tenor of that sermon – no-one spoke to me about that.  In all the feedback I received – and there was more than usual after a Sunday morning sermon – the common thread was an interest and energy to enter this less travelled path as we explore what it means to be people of faith in this wintry season.  Theologies of certitude, regulation and restriction just don’t work for the majority of us today.  We are more persuaded by open, inclusive and invitational engagement with the Holy Other, the mystery beyond ourselves, whom we call God.

However, when we enter that less defined place, concerns can – and do – arise.  Is there nothing we can say about God?  What happens to the strength, security and bedrock of our faith, when we are invited into the place of unknowing, into which we are called to surrender?  Can we risk the terror of letting go and letting God? 

Rahner suggests a fruitful starting point to be the dynamic orientation found in each and every human being – a condition every one of us possesses – that condition of yearning for something more.  This innate questioning, thirsting for life, love and meaning, known as self-transcendence is found in atheists, agnostics and believers alike.   It’s the way we understand and explain this questing-yearning that defines whether or not we are people of faith.

“In mid-[20^th] century Europe” Elizabeth Johnson writes, “an interesting debate broke out about what [self-transcendence] might mean.  Existential philosophers with a fierce commitment to atheism ... concluded that life is absurd.  The universe with its empty heaven endlessly frustrates human questing.  Since there is no ultimate fulfilment to our self-transcending, all our desires come to naught.  Held for a few brief moments over the void, human beings with all our strivings are the butt of a great cosmic joke.  Religious thinkers, to the contrary, contended that life is meaningful because an infinite holy God, who is the surrounding horizon of human questing, intends to be our fulfilment.” What is interesting is that “both sides agreed on the dynamic structure of human experience, which is oriented always to the ‘more’.”[2]

People of faith, have made the choice – not by proof, not by rational argument – we have taken on faith, that there is a goal for our yearning, longing selves – and it is to that goal we orient ourselves and our lives.  “Working within the context of modern culture, [Rahner] is trying to relocate the question of God.  He is moving it from a question about a Supreme Being ‘out there’ to a question about what supports [this] dynamic orientation of human nature.  If God exists, he argues, it is no accident that we find ourselves so open and so yearning.  The Creator would have made us this way in order to be, as infinite Truth and holy Love, the fulfilment of our questioning, loving, thirsty-for-life selves. 

“To appreciate this, we must get away from the conventional picture that the very word ‘God’ conjures up, which too easily leads to inadequate misunderstanding.”[3]

Johnson proposes the archaic term Whither as a replacement for the word God (for a time anyway) as we attempt to shift from that understanding of God as Supreme, out-there Being. “Whither”, she suggests, “refers to a point of arrival, a destination, as in the question “Whither goest thou?”  The Whither of our self-transcendence is that toward which we are journeying, the goal toward which our self-transcending minds and hearts are forever reaching.”[4] This Whither, the horizon beyond our being, is what our restless hearts yearn for – the Holy Mystery to which our lives are oriented. 

“Mystery here is not meant in the spooky sense of something weird or ghostly.  Nor does it have the mundane meaning of a puzzle that has yet to be solved, as in a literary murder mystery.  Rather, mystery here [suggests] that the Holy is so radically different from the world, so wholly other, that human beings can never form an adequate idea nor arrive at total possession.

“The Whither of human self-transcendence is and must remain [totally] incomprehensible ...  We will never reach the end of exploring having figured it all out.  It is something like parallel train tracks that appear to meet at a point in the distance, but when you get to that point the tracks have opened up to another distant point.  It is something like the horizon one sees when flying in an airplane; no matter how fast the jet goes, it never catches the horizon, which remains still farther beyond the window.  It is something like being in love and finding your beloved endlessly interesting and beautiful.  There is always more.”[5]

Taking this path towards God means we will never master the mystery.   We will turn away from the path that “think[s] of God as an element within a larger world, as a part of the whole of reality.  Holy mystery cannot be situated within our system of coordinates but escapes all categories.  Hence, to think rightly of God we must give up the drive to intellectual mastery and open up to the Whither of our spirit’s hungry orientation” – letting ourselves “be grasped by the mystery which is present yet ever distant.”[6]

 Over this winter period, we are attempting to do this in our contemplative and meditative evening worship – allowing images, music and candlelight, prayer, communion and readings to provide a vehicle for our yearning souls to open up to the horizons of Holy Mystery – that is, the basis of our being; that which people call God.

Understanding God in this way ... “even if we were eventually to know every blessed truth there is to know in the entire universe; even if we were to have our fill of loving pressed down and running over; even if we were to experience all dimensions of life in abundance – there would still be more, the Whither, calling forth and sustaining our spirit.  When we become aware of this and lucidly allow ourselves to be encompassed by God so understood, then our not knowing God who is boundless mystery ‘is not pure negation, not simply an empty absence, but a positive characteristic of a relationship between one subject and another.””[7]

“For some people struggling with faith amid modern culture, the idea of God as incomprehensible mystery comes as an enormous relief.  It liberates them from cramped, confined notions of theism and places their spirit into a relationship where they can soar.... [here] the human person glimpses the mystery of God not as absence, but as overabundance.” [8]

In the minute of silence that follows the sermon, I invite you to read the words of the hymn[9] we will sing after the Affirmation of Faith.  Ponder these words in the light of God as horizon of our self-transcendent longing.  Take time in the silence to allow these words assist you to engage with and respond to the Whither of the human spirit.

But, before we go there, a word of warning:

While some enter into the liberty and freedom of relating to God in this way, “this glimpse makes other people dizzy and disoriented; they experience such boundlessness as a loss of connection to the domesticated, even if authoritarian, God of theism they were used to.  Still others become fearful because the nameless, ineffable Whither seems so distant and aloof.  All need to recognize, however, that at this point in the argument the idea of God as holy mystery is only half-finished.”[10]

Later sermons will pick up that second half of how Holy Mystery, does not remain remote, but comes into radical closeness, so that we can experience this goal of all our longing, not only as beyond all that we can ever know, but also nearer than our breathing.   But that’s for another time...  For now, I invite you to enter the agnostic space - that space of knowing we cannot (and must not) define God – and open ourselves within this cloud of unknowing to a way of experiencing God, which nurtures growth in this wintry season.   And may we know the leap of recognition in our souls as we encounter the ultimate Whither of our very beings - beyond even “the reach of mystery”.

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[1] This sermon (the second in a series) continues to rely on and quote extensively from Elizabeth A. Johnson, Quest for the Living God 2008.

[2] Johnson, p.34-35.

[3] Johnson, p.35.

[4] Johnson, p.35.

[5] Johnson, p.36

[6] Johnson, quoting Rahner p.36

[7] Johnson, p.37-38.

[8] Elizabeth Johnson, quoting Jeannine Hill Fletcher, p.38.

[9] “Eternal God beyond the reach of mystery”, Colin Gibson Hope is Our Song

[10] Johnson. p.39.

A sermon from Ministry Intern: Margaret Garland (for 3 July 2011)

Jesus says: Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."  

Verses 28 – 30 of the gospel reading from the Message Bible

It really is worthwhile to read differing versions of the bible – to glean new understandings and to challenge words or phrases that have become humdrum or predictable. 

When we hear the familiar words ‘Come to me all that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light - what kind of picture does that invoke for you?  It may be that the passage is so well known that you draw from it comfort and relief rather than challenge and a call to action?  Are words like yoke and burden so evocative of being harnessed and driven that you just gloss over them as a bit uncomfortable?  I know I have done that at times.

Today I want to invite us into the space of revisiting these words and to circle that space with the invitation of Christ “I invite you to learn the unforced rhythms of grace”.  Its a thought provoking and intriguing phrase which deserves much more that the time given today.

First of all what is our understanding of resting in Christ – how does that fit into learning the unforced rhythms of grace?  We have the story of an eighty year old woman who convinced her daughter that she wanted to celebrate her 80^th birthday by climbing to the top of the Statue of Liberty – heart condition and all.  There were 342 steps to the top and it took 6 hours and resting every 3 or 4 step.  You do the maths on the number of rests but she was determined and she got there.  The rhythm of Christian life is made so much more sustainable if we can learn to take regular times of resting along the way.  Not only does it keep us up to the journey but it allows us to follow directions and visions that others might think impossible.    The renewal and refreshment is not a time out but a reflection on where we have come from and a nourishing for the journey still to come.  When we come together in worship as the community of Christ as we do today we come to be renewed and replenished, experiencing the grace of God in Christ anew and together.  When this balance of action and rest gets out of kilter then our choices and our directions become limited and ill informed.  Paul was talking about this when he laments the ability to both know what is right and do it without God’s rhythm of grace in our lives.  That resting time is our chance, in community with God and each other, to follow the Spirit and make choices about where our journeys should go, in spite of the utmost difficulties, no matter the 342 steps to the top.

And how do we understand taking on the yoke of Christ – the word to me always has meant confinement, hard yakker, head down and burdened and I have had to find a way to get past that understanding.  How can a yoke be an unforced rhythm of grace I ask.

 It is interesting to hear how the term was used in Jesus time.  It was common, according to Rob Bell, for the ancient rabbis to understand their role as that of interpreting the biblical writings and God for the people.   Many had different interpretations of course and therefore developed different rules of behaviour – and these were called the Rabbis’ yoke.  When you chose to follow a particular Rabbi, you believed their set of rules to be the closest to what God intended through the scriptures and you took up that particular yoke.  And then you acted them out – in the Jewish context it was always about action.  Furthermore each Rabbi would learn their understandings at the feet of another – that is where their authority to teach came from.

And so when Jesus talked about his yoke he was offering a new interpretation of how to live the way God intended, offering a new set of rules.  But there were differences. 

His authority came from God, through and was authorised not by other rabbis but by John the Baptist, his baptism and the direct blessings of God.  It was a radical step to take – this call by Jesus that there was a completely new way to interpret the teachings of God?   One could say that this lack of a traditional mentoring rabbi was one of the chief causes of conflict between Jesus and the priests – how dare he say his authority came directly from God.

And he stated that his way that was easy and light – in comparison to the heavy load he saw the priests putting on the people in God’s name.  Make no mistake – this is not light and easy in the sense of handing everything over to God and walking away but rather that we are walking lightly and easily because we have entered into the rhythm of life that is the grace of God and are walking it alongside Christ.  The difficulties and the challenges of life are a part of that rhythm and that is where we can rest in God and be renewed in our journeys. 

The other thing that made this yoke different too was that it was a shared burden – one that Christ has shouldered with us.   In fully embracing the human yoke Christ had lifted a burden from our shoulders and in responding to this amazing love we gladly take on the yoke of bringing that love and care to this world in whatever way we can.  A new interpretation of God and the scriptures, a new yoke.

So can we turn away from the concept of the yoke as a restraining implement and instead see it as the acceptance of the teaching that Jesus offers us, inviting us into a life lived as God intended.  There is a last thought that I would like to share here – one more thing we might ponder from the ways of the Rabbis . 

By choosing to accept Jesus yoke we are choosing to live in according to the rules of that life – to live and be as God wants us to be.  And by accepting that yoke we are in turn being given the authority to ourselves ponder and debate and pray about how we can best live the life God calls us to.   That puts a whole new angle for me on the idea of accepting a yoke.  Jesus expected his followers to be constantly engaged in the endless process of growing in knowledge and teaching others what it meant to actually live the Scriptures and to know God through Jesus Christ.   Rabbis each one of us.

There is a real rhythm to that as we think of the church over the centuries, as we bring to mind all the people that have encouraged our faith journeys, as we embrace our traditions and open ourselves to new understandings, as we in turn share our thoughts and understandings with those we are in community with here today and elsewhere.     

So learning the unforced rhythm of grace – today I have suggested its about the balance of renewing rest that informs our actions and empowers our understanding, about the constant learning and questioning of how we today live the Gospel truth, and about a willingness to choose to put all of our living in the completeness of the love and grace of Jesus Christ.

And so we have an invitation from the rabbi who dared to different, who offered a yoke of teaching unlike any that had gone before and a place of rest that challenges our limitations.

Jesus says walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace and you will learn to live freely and lightly.    What do you say?

Sermon for Mid-Winter (26 June) - with thanks to Elizabeth Johnson

Theologian Karl Rahner has suggested we’re in the wintry season; and he wasn’t talking about this present spell of cold weather.  “Keeping his eye on middle-class, educated European persons who are trying to live a Christian life”[1], Rahner suggests that we are living in a world that no longer finds it easy to communicate the faith. 

Would you agree?   Have you noticed that no longer is it ‘socially correct’ to go to church?  Do you notice today that Christian belief is called into question “not only by atheism and agnosticism but also by positivism” (i.e. accepting only as true that which we can know from data accessible from the natural sciences)?  Do you find yourself wondering – along with your friends – why bother with faith, when many people live good ethical lives without subscribing to Christianity.  Do you ever ponder the pluralities of faith, questioning the exclusive claims some insist are part of Christianity?    If you are asking some of these questions; if you are concerned about how your everyday life and your Christian belief engage with and shape each other; if you are one of those many Christians wanting to take seriously this secular, humanist, pluralist culture in which we dwell and of which we inhale, you too may identify this sense that people of faith (at least in the part of the world) find themselves, in this epoch of history, as in a wintry season.

For many of us, the "complex inner and outer worlds" which we inhabit are part of an ambiguity that seems to make up our reality.  But, let me assure you, this place of questioning, wondering and complexity is no cause for despair.  Winter can be a very fruitful place to be.  Rahner suggests that for many of us today “agnosticism which knows it doesn’t know ... is the way God is experienced today.” "Since mature spirituality requires integrating the basic experiences of one’s life into a wholeness before God", our present day culture is no stumbling block; rather, it forms a crucial element in the act of faith.

This wintry, regenerating time is not a time of yearning for the past; nor of hiding from the present.  In this winter time, we are invited into the womb-like darkness, to seek new forms of warmth, to allow a generating or re-generating process that will bring forth growth; growth, which at this present moment, we cannot conceive – and may not even be able to dream of.  Like a pregnant woman, unable to see what is happening in the darkness, we must trust and focus on the growth that is happening. 

In a time of wintering, it is essential that we don’t waste our time on things that are extraneous to the faith.   "The luxuriant growth" of churches full of those who attend because it is the socially cultural thing to do, extensive church programmes and secondary beliefs – "all these leaves and fruits that unfurled in the season when Christianity was dominant in the culture" – these have all fallen away.  "The trees are left bare and the cold wind blows.  In such a season," theologian Elizabeth Johnson suggests, "belief must get back to basics.  It will not do to spend energy on what is peripheral and unessential, as if it were high summer.  To survive, people of faith [must] return to the centre, to the inmost core that alone can nourish and warm the heart in winter."  In the bleak mid-winter, there is only one big issue and that is, according to Johnson, the question of God.

Both Johnson and Rahner are scathing in their criticism of preachers and teachers in this winter period.  It is of deep concern that "much of what people hear in the preaching and teaching of the church draws on a primitive idea of God unworthy of belief, rather than communicating the reality, the beauty, the wonder, and the strange generosity of the mystery of God. " According to Johnson – and I think she might well be correct – the "average sermon, along with the popular piety it encourages, has a basically retarded notion of God... acknowledging neither the absolute difference of God from the world nor the marvellous truth that God’s own self has drawn near as the inmost dynamism and goal offered to the world.  All too often sermons work", she writes, "with the tired ideas of modern theism, reflecting on pre-critical mentality that sees God as a particular element of the whole, even if the highest."  These tired sermons refer to God as someone (yes, an identifiable being) "whom we can calculate into our formula of how things work, thus replacing the incomprehensible God with an idol.  They fashion the Holy in the image of our own concerns, our neurotic fears, our puny hearts, rather than honouring the improbable outpouring of love by which God not only sets up the world in its own integrity but, while remaining radically distinct, gives the divine self away to this world. " These tired sermons, offered by worn-out preachers, "neglect to inform us of the most tremendous truth: that we are called into loving immediacy with the mystery of God who self-communicates to us in unspeakable nearness.  After listening to such dismal sermons, can we really say that the word “God’ brightens up our lives? She asks.  Unfortunately, Rahner wrote, it is more often the case that the words of the preacher fall powerlessly from the pulpit, ‘like birds frozen to death and falling from a winter sky.’"

And, in defence of preachers and teachers for a moment – might I not say too that even when preachers do provide new ways of thinking – prayers with new language – hymns with new imagery – so often we only allow these to sit on the surface – and not to scour out the old unhelpful negative images of the past.

"In this wintry season, Johnson suggests that church statements about God are ordinarily too naive and too superficial to help believers, let alone convince unbelievers.  In a sense the onslaught of atheism might perform a service, prodding faith to purify notions of God that, while they may be traditional, are woefully deficient to the point of being idolatrous.  Is God dead?  If we mean the God imagined as a part of the cosmos, one existence among others though infinitely bigger, the great individual who defines himself [of course, always HIM-self] over against others and functions as a competitor with human beings, then yes, the God of modern theism is dead."

I find myself wanting to say to most atheists:  Tell me about the God you don’t believe in – I doubt that I believe in ‘him’ either.  But we cannot engage in that debate, if we don’t have an adequate understanding of who or what God is for us today.   As Rahner claims “the struggle against atheism is foremost and of necessity a struggle against the inadequacy of our own theism.”

"Through a life time of writing, teaching, and preaching, Rahner set out to uncover truth about the living God that would provide warmth and sustenance in winter.  Holding himself accountable to everyday believers, he focused particularly on those beset by doubts engendered by the precarious existence of Christian faith in the secularised, scientific-industrial societies of modern Europe.  He made their doubts his own and responded to them with the full force of his penetrating grasp of the resources of the Christian tradition.  His method engaged people not by pouring solutions from above into bewildered souls but by inviting them to take a journey of discovery into the virtually uncharted territory of their own lives ...[inviting] the ordinary, average person on a personal journey that ends up being a journey of mind and heart into God."

So, let’s take this winter time seriously – let’s embrace it as a time of inner growth and warmth.  Let’s be brave and allow the last leaves of an old theism to drift away – let’s clear them, burn them, use them as compost to allow the new to grow.  Let’s take the task seriously and act as if our lives – and the new lives to come – depend upon it (as they surely do.)

Thanks be to God.  Amen

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[1] This sermon relies, almost exclusively, on and quotes extensively from Elizabeth A. Johnson, Quest for the Living God 2008, p.28-31.

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday - 19 June 2011

Some parts of a week, in the life of God’s people here in Dunedin:

Monday, 2.20pm tremors felt from an earthquake 6.3 on the Richter scale, 9km deep, 10km south east of Christchurch

                        And can we say: ‘God created … and it was good’?

Tuesday, 8.40am, the barely-visibly pregnant young woman has her first scan and sees her 12 week-old fetus bouncing, swallowing – a tiny new life living and growing within her.

                        And we might say: ‘God created … and it was good’!

Wednesday, hundreds of people’s travel plans in New Zealand and Australia are disrupted because of ash spewing from a volcano thousands of kilometers away.

                        And would we say: ‘God created … and it was good’?

Thursday, a long and full lunar eclipse seen in the skies – even as school choirs moved, sang and delighted in the local Big Sing.

                        And we say: ‘God created … and it was good.’

Friday, a teenager’s funeral is held, attended by some of those same singing, vibrant young people from the previous day’s Big Sing.

                        And how could we say: ‘God created … and it was good.’

Saturday, a large group of friends gather to celebrate life in what is described as a somewhat riotous 60^th birthday party .

                        Would we bother to say: ‘And God created … and it was good’?

And here now on Sunday, the people gather, on this the day our tradition says God rested.  Here we are, gathered to make sense of the week – to seek meaning – to explore wonder – to face fear – to find strength – to worship the mystery that takes us beyond the tight confines of our singular selves into the joys and possibilities of love, healing and peace.

Here we take a breath to see a wider perspective than the immediate. 

We know how difficult it is to affirm the good in life, when we zoom in on problems and tragedies, whether they be in Christchurch or Chile, or in our own lives.  We also know that if we ignore the pain and celebrate only the joy and delight, we may fall into the trap of  Pollyannaism, with all its associated unreality.  What can we say about this life and its goodness, which our tradition affirms?

Here, we know that when we enter that wider perspective – that Ultimate Reality, which we name as God, our assumptions about life and death will be challenged and broken open.  Here, in this wider perspective, we know that

Or, in the more traditional language of Christianity:  here we know, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, that death has been overcome.

“without the death of stars, there would be no planets and no life.  Without the death of creatures, there would be no evolution… without the death of mountains, there would be no sand or soil …without the death of plants and animals, there would be no food. Without the death of old ways of thinking, there would be no room for the new …[Here we know that] the gifts of death are Mars and Mercury, Saturn and Earth…[and] the atoms of stardust within our bodies … The gifts of death are [forests] and soils, [mountains] and lakes [and food that sustains us.]  The gifts of death are seeing, hearing, feeling… wisdom, creativity and the flow of cultural change.  The gifts of death are the urgency to act, the desire to fully be and become … The gifts of death are lives that are fully and exuberantly lived, and then graciously and gratefully given up, for now and forevermore.”[1] 

In his book Thank God for Evolution, Michael Dowd reminds us of the different ways in which we can use language.  “Humans” he writes, swim in a sea of meaning no less than fish swim in water.  We cannot avoid it.  Problems arise when we fail to distinguish the factual, objectively real from the meaningful subjectively real – when we mistake our interpretations for [the facts or account of an event].”[2]  Dowd differentiates these two by using the highly evocative language of day and night.  Day language is used to describe events and facts; it’s the usual everyday discourse of our lives:  Monday, earthquake; Tuesday, scan; Wednesday, travel disruptions; Thursday, lunar eclipse, Big Sing; Friday, funeral; Saturday birthday party.  Night language explores the meaning of our experience through story, image and poetry, creating a world of possibility, mystery and hope.  Night language tells the story of creation in Genesis 1.  Here sweeping metaphor, poetry and vibrant images resound as our ancestors seek to explain the source of ultimate reality – the source of life.    And God created … and it was good.

 We destroy the wonder and mystery if we attempt to turn this night language into day language – suggesting it provides facts and reasons about events.  Today we borrow from the night language of our ancestors – adding nuance from our day experiences of a very different time – a time when God is no less active, no less known, no less experienced.  For we now know, in a way our ancestors did not know, “that the Universe can be counted on over time – it can be trusted, deeply trusted – [not to remain the same but] to move in the direction of more diversity, more complexity, more awareness more transformation and growth… we know that our Universe can be counted on – deeply trusted – to provide every creature and every age with all sorts of problems and breakdowns, stresses and difficulties, and occasionally even full-scale cataclysms to deal with.  What we’ve recently discovered … [and what our night language must now take into account] is that problems and breakdowns are normal, natural, even healthy for an evolving, maturing Cosmos.  Indeed, they seem to be essential for creativity.  As it turns out, every evolutionary advance and every creative breakthrough in the history of the Universe, as best as we can tell, was preceded by some difficulty, often of great severity.”

And so now we say – “Nothing is lost on the breath of God”.  Now we say: We believe in God who has created and is creating … and it is good.

Michael Dowd reminds us of the story of the dinosaurs that “ruled the continents for more than 150 million years (much longer than us).  During this time … mammals were small scruffy creatures who stayed in burrows and mostly came out just at night, because … they were terrified of big, ugly, carnivorous dinosaurs.  Then one spring day, a terrible catastrophe struck.  An asteroid 10 miles across, travelling at a speed of 50,000 miles per hour, crashed into our planet just off … what is today Mexico, punching out a crater 100 miles wide.  Imagine all the nuclear weapons that our species has ever created being launched and arriving at the same destination at exactly the same moment … and then multiply that by a thousand….the sky turned into a cauldron of sulphuric acid.  It also triggered a magnitude 12 earthquake, which is a million times more powerful than a magnitude 6 earthquake.  This, in turn, unleashed at least six mega tsunamis, several of which were more than 100 metres high.  … [The result of all this was that] three out of every four species alive at the time went extinct.  The biggest creatures were hit the hardest and thus each and every species of what we loosely call ‘dinosaurs” went extinct….All in all, it was not one of Earth’s better days. But thankfully, from our perspective, it was precisely this catastrophe that allowed those mammals who survived in their burrows to flourish and diversify, culminating in all the amazing mammals of the world today, including ourselves.  So: no catastrophe, no whales or dolphins, no dogs or cats, no giraffes or elephants, no lions and tigers …and of course, no me, no you."

So the next time a comet crashes into your psyche” Dowd writes “or your life feels like sulphuric acid is raining on your head, or the next time a magnitude 12 earthquake rocks your world and you feel like you want to hide away in a dark hole for several months, just remember: in a few million years, things will be fine.  Seriously, though, the next time you’re greeted by a [100 metre high] tsunami” in your life, the next time your travel plans are disrupted by volcanic ash, or liquefaction appears in someone’s – or even your own backyard – difficult as it may be for the moment, it may be helpful to place it all in that much bigger perspective – remembering we are all “part of an amazing, creative Universe that turns chaos and catastrophes into new growth and opportunities as regularly as day follows night.”[1]    Thanks be to God who has created and is creating.  Amen.

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[1] Michael Dowd, p.54-55.

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[1] From Litany: “The Gifts of Death” in Thank God for Evolution Michael Dowd 2007/2009 p.98-99.

[2] Michael Dowd, p.114.

[3] Michael Dowd, p.54-55.

A Reflection for Pentecost - with thanks to Ralph Milton

It was only a matter of weeks after the resurrection experience.  Life had returned to normal – whatever that was.  Peter was getting irritated “Close the window, will you John. All that singing out there is getting on my nerves.”

“Come on, Peter,” said Mary, “After all, it is the feast of Pentecost. Remember, we’re celebrating the wheat harvest! This is a happy festival. And they have no reason to be upset.  It wasn’t their best friend hammered up on a cross and left to die like a common criminal.”

“Right! But I don’t have to listen to it.  Close that window, please, now,” snapped Peter. “Any new business?” Nothing but gloomy silence from the group of men and women gathered there. They had gone through the unpleasant business of choosing a successor to Judas, the man who had betrayed Jesus. Now they had their full quota of twelve men, to match the twelve sons of Israel. [not counting, of course, the women and children]. Everything was neat and in order. And lifeless.

“So what do we do now?” John wanted to know. “Perhaps we should put up a monument or something. People are already starting to forget that Jesus even existed.”

“Yeah,” Philip agreed, but there was no enthusiasm in his voice. “Maybe we could start a collection for a monument. A statue of Jesus. Or something.”

The gloom hung like a damp cloud over the disciples--the women and men who were gathered together--the rag-tag group of people who had known Jesus, who had loved him, who had heard his voice, had felt and seen the hope for a new way of living together in love. And then had watched him die. Some had seen what they were calling a resurrected Jesus, but the others didn’t really believe their story. Now they were together, a kind of memorial society for Jesus of Nazareth. Somehow it seemed important to stay together, but nobody really knew why.

“It’s stifling in here,” said Mary. Peter gave her an annoyed look as she got up to open the window. A cool breeze came in, along with the sounds of singing from nearby homes celebrating Pentecost. The breeze cooled Mary’s face. That helped a little.

Mary began to hum, eventually bursting into song. She sang an old song she had known since her childhood, a song she and the other women had often sung together.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of God,

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour

You, O Most Mighty One have done great things for me

And holy is your name...”

She sang quietly at first, humming some of the parts, then louder, and it seemed that as she sang, the breeze from the window became stronger, blowing back her head-dress, teasing her hair, lifting her spirit. She sang in a full-bodied contralto, a voice she hadn’t used since that terrible day they had watched their dearest friend cough and wretch and bleed and die.

You have cast down the mighty from their thrones

and have lifted up the lowly

You have filled the hungry with good things

and the rich you have sent away empty

You have come to the help of your people

for you have remembered your promise of mercy

The promise you made to our ancestors

To Abraham and Sarah and their children for ever

“Sarah’s not in the song. You’re changing the words,” grumped Peter. Mary grinned at him. “She is now!” she laughed. She hadn’t felt herself smile for so long, and it felt so good. She sang the song, with her own new words, all over again, louder than before, and some of the other women joined in. And the next thing they knew, they were dancing.

They were dancing out the pent-up anger and grief and frustration and confusion. They were dancing out the hope, the tiny, fragile hope they still had in spite of all that had happened.

They danced and they sang, and the men at first disapproved, then began to smile, then some of them joined in the singing and the dancing. Even Peter couldn’t sustain his grump. Even big, flat-footed Peter danced an awkward, joyful kind of dance and sang loudly off-key.

And the wind picked up and blew hard through the room. They opened other windows, they sang louder and danced their hearts out. Something was happening. Something electric. Something crackling with energy. Something had taken hold of their spirits and was moving them, motivating them.

Faces appeared at the windows. The door was opened. Curious neighbours looked in. Neighbours and their guests who had gathered from everywhere for the feast of Pentecost. They saw the dancing and the singing, and ecstatic, laughter-filled attempts to explain to the neighbours what was happening, when nobody really knew what was happening. There were tears and there was laughter and the dancing got faster and the singing got louder until everyone collapsed into an exhausted, happy heap.

“They’re drunk!” sneered one of the neighbours at the door.

“Ooo, no! Not drunk. Not drunk at all,” laughed Peter, who in the end had danced as hard and sung as loud as anyone. “At least, not drunk on wine. Sit down, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

“Do you remember the prophet Joel,” he asked. The neighbours nodded. Of course. “Joel prophesied that the Spirit of God would be poured out on all people. ‘Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,’ Joel said. And that’s what you are seeing.

“Jesus of Nazareth. Do you remember him? He was killed. He was crucified. But he promised he would send the Spirit again in a new way. Well, this is it. This is IT!”

And Peter began to dance again; to dance and to sing with a slow, awkward, passionate grace, with intensity and power and with a brightness in his eyes that literally sent shivers through the people standing around.  ...

They tried many times to describe what happened that Pentecost day. Some said they saw tongues of flame dancing over their heads. Others remembered speaking in strange tongues, or singing in strange tongues which everyone seemed to understand. Sometimes they would even get to arguing about what happened that day.

And when those arguments would begin, Mary would interrupt - “Does it matter?” she would ask, “We know the Holy Spirit came to us that day and filled us with excitement and love and passion. That’s the part that’s important. The Holy Spirit can come in a hundred different ways to many different people. It doesn’t matter how. It only matters that we’re open to the Spirit, and that we respond with our lives.”[1]

E te whanau, on this Pentecost Day the Holy Spirit invites us, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah – of Mary and Peter – to turn from our listlessness and apathy and join in the dance of life.  We may respond in different ways, but whatever steps we take, whoever our partners will be, may we never forget the call on our lives to bring hope, justice and love to the whole world.  It is through our actions – enlivened by the power of the Holy Spirit – that the hungry will be fed, the lowly will be given a place to stand and God’s promises will be fulfilled.  Thanks be to God, Amen.

---

[1] Ralph Milton, “The story of Mary of Magdala, “…this is it folks!  This is IT” (slightly adapted)

http://www.story-lectionary.com/ralph/Ralph-Pentecost-story.html

Sermon for Ascension Day - Guest Preacher, Liesel Mitchell

Choosing Life – 5^th June 2011, Knox Church

Good morning.  For those of you who I may not know – or don’t know me, my name is Liesel Mitchell and I have been coming to Knox Church for almost two years.  Since last year I have been one of the youth group leaders here. 

My background is Christian – growing up with parents as ministers meant that was non-negotiable as a child – however as a teenager I was given choice.  I chose more and more to stay away from both church and religious practice.  I trained to be a teacher which took me to South Korea which other than being a wonderful experience challenged my outlook on life.  One of the biggest restructurings for me was the concept that there may be more than one way of doing things – and my way just might not be the only one. 

Feeling somewhat like I was starting again – and needed to start again with all the life pieces that the experience in Korea had unstitched and re-stitched for me I made the choice to return to NZ after eight years in Korea and begun post-graduate study in Peace and Conflict Studies here at Otago University. 

I am currently working on my masters thesis which focuses on the topic of nonviolence.  I am becoming increasingly aware of how this study weaves the various strands of my past into a choice for life.  How do I live in this world in an honest and integrated way which makes sense?  So in this space of half formed thoughts and half way through the research and writing process, Sarah has kindly invited me along to share with you this morning. 

We all make subtle choices every day that may contribute to whether we are choosing life, and yet how aware of this are we?  It may take disaster, a tragic accident, a testing of personal boundaries or a situation that has spiraled out of individual control to expose the deeper core of what some may call our “survival instinct” or the deeper understanding of choosing life.

With this in mind, I want to take you on a journey back in time to the 1980’s.  This may summon up memories of your own.  I know for me this was a time when I was celebrating life in the shape of holidays by the river with friends, weekend trips to the beach, family picnics and the freedom to be a kid who could walk anywhere I wanted in a neighbourhood where you still knew most of your neighbours.  When I think of the 1980’s I feel safe.  Loved.  Alive.

South Korea, at this very same time, was in the grip of a military regime which was slowly but surely shutting down any pretense of democracy under martial law. 

In May of 1980, the people of Gwangju, South Korea were grieving the lives of hundreds – possibly thousands – of neighbours, friends and loved ones who had been massacred.   Gwangju is a city that is geographically similar in size to Dunedin.  A basin.  Surrounded on all sides by mountains and hills which made it ideal to seal off completely.  No one else knew what was happening as the killing begun.

It’s called many things but it’s often simply referred to as May the 18 or 오일팔.  It may not be a day that we, sitting here in Dunedin have ever even heard of, but it marked the beginning of approximately 10 days of terror and fear for the people of Gwangju. 

What would this be like?

Paratroopers and riot police had been deployed and they entered the city late on the night of the 17th of May.  The next morning, students gathered outside one of the universities in the city, unaware of its closure, but protesting the military presence who blocked entry to the campus.  Student protests were not unusual.  Military or police presence were also not unusual at these events.  But this time the rules had been changed and the students were sent into a state of confusion and chaos when the military police turned on them.  The intention was not to disperse the crowd.  The intention was to cause harm.

An account of this is given in the book, Contentious Kwangju “…a squad of soldiers…charged the students and waded into the crowd swinging their batons.  The students were beaten, clubbed, knifed and bayoneted” (Shin & Hwang. 2003, p.xv).

The students were speaking out against a destructive regime which was threatening to shut down their education.  They were choosing to stand strong in their belief in this, and were choosing to do it with their collective presence and their voices and cries for their university to remain open.  They did not have weapons and according to accounts of the event, it has been documented as being nonviolent on the part of the students.  The military was instructed to use violence.  They were instructed to go against what I would call the choice for life in each of us and destroy the lives of others.

This poem was written during the days of the Gwangju massacre by the poet김준태 and it’s called광주, 아 광주, 우리 나라 의 십자가 (Gwangju, oh Gwangju, the cross of our nation)

Our father: Where has he gone?

Our mother: Where has she fallen?

Our sons: Where were they killed and buried?

And our lovely daughters

Where are they lying, mouths agape?

Where are our spirits

torn apart, ripped to shreds?

Let’s now cross the seas to the east of Korea and arrive in Beijing, China – more specifically, that huge overwhelming expanse of space, in the heart of a pulsing city – Tiananmen Square.  June 4^th, 1989 – what many of us may remember as we saw the images in the news – the day of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

This too, was a student protest against a controlling regime.  Students and gradually the citizens of Beijing too, staged a massive sit-in in Tiananmen Square demonstrating against the government. 

This was a much more organized movement than Gwangju, with permanent camps of rotating students keeping a constant presence and pressure on the Chinese government.  The students’ established routines and were the peacekeepers between the military occupation and citizens whose anger and aggression sometimes had the potential to destroy the nonviolent tactics of the students.

The nonviolent protest in Tiananmen Square went on for almost six weeks, ending tragically on June the 4^th, with the deployment of the 27^th Army.  The protesting students, like the students in Gwangju, had placed a certain element of trust in the military as there was a clear mandate that the People’s Liberation Army was to serve and protect the people of China.  So when the 27^th Army replaced the soldiers that the students had grown to respect and form relationships with, there was no reason for fear.  But like Gwangju, the confusion and chaos scattered and panicked the crowd as the 27^th Army followed orders, made their intentions clear and opened fire on an unprotected, openly nonviolent group of people.

This is an excerpt from Liao Yiwu’s poem entitled “Massacre” which he was arrested for writing.

A massacre is happening
In this nation of Utopia
Where the Prime Minister catches a cold
The masses have to sneeze to follow
Martial law is declared and enforced
The aging toothless state machine is rolling over
Those who dare to resist and refuse to sneeze
Fallen by the thousands are the barehanded and unarmed
Shoot, Shoot, Shoot
Humans and stars are falling and running
Indistinguishable, which are humans and which are stars
Troops followed them into the cloud, into cracks on the ground…

Both massacres were horrific acts.  Both resulted in huge loss of life.  But that was not all.  Underlying these tragedies was the choice for life and nonviolence made by thousands of young people.  We continue to honour their choices which have shaped the ongoing political landscape.  Their stories are a reminder of hopeful living.

Like Jesus who taught nonviolence, chose life even in his own death, and then appeared to leave us, the stories of the people of Tiananmen Square and Gwangju too are somehow still able to speak to us with a power, a hope and choice for life that violence never has.