Deeper into Sin to be Freed from it.

Walking the way of the cross during Easter is traditional. You can do it in Jerusalem (the via dolorosa), or closer to home you can do it at your local church. We are invited to 'walk' the path of the saviour each time we read the story from Gethsemane to tomb in dramatic form. I like the latter best when we (the congregation) take all the parts other than the role of Jesus. We walk the road from Gethsemane to tomb not out of guilt and as an excuse to self-recriminate. Nor do we grovel as we walk in a religious version of a show-trial. Nor is the journey an occasion of (inner) chastisement leading to catharsis, like some kind of pagan festival. We walk as sinners, sinners who know they need a saviour. It isn't hard to know our need: one only has to look at the newspaper of history, or one's own heart and experience, to see the universality of sin and our need to be saved from it.

People these days recoil from the term 'sinner'. In my experience, they cite either the self-recrimination that has gone with 'sinner' in the past, a self-recrimination aimed at controlling 'the sinner'. Alternatively, some people cite the way 'sinner' has been used to point the finger at others, with 'sinner' in this version of history partnered with judgementalism. 

Ironically, a culture that has given up on 'sin' and 'sinners' is captive to the very consequences it wants to avoid. Denying the universality of sin/human failure - that is, pretending that there is some part of me that is quarantined from the imperfect world I have grown up in - makes those very consequences more likely. In naivete about the world ("Let's all just be kind to one another" or "Why can't people just love each other?"), to extreme narcissism (think identitarian politics), and then onto scapegoating and cultural polarisation (think social media), we have core features of the contemporary cultural landscape.

Instead, Christians walk the via dolorosa as sinners in need of a saviour, and a saviour appropriate for our mutual sinfulness. Walking the via dolorosa as a sinner is, ironically, to get off the see-saw of self-recrimination and criticism of others. Walking the way of the cross with the saviour also brings with it freedom, and should make us more difficult to control through guilt. 

Why is this? Mostly because we are loved, that's the point of the whole Jesus thing. And as beloved, we don't have to hide from our sin. We can receive the salvation of the saviour. We don't have to be in the centre of the universe: we can let God be the centre and receive God's love and forgiveness, renewal and freedom.

 God's way of dealing with human sin is to go deeper into the human predicament by being a victim of sin. And we must go deeper into our sin by acknowledging our need for a saviour. This is the path that yields genuine repentance (not guilt), and we emerge with a new empathy for the human condition, which we share.

Immanence of God's Presence (Quote)

"The importance of the teaching of the Incarnation is that this mystery of God in his eternal creativity is not only brought closer to us but is really united to us. We no longer need to objectify the mystery that has taken up dwelling in our hearts of flesh. We now know that our awakening to his reality is an imminent possibility for each of us because the awakening is an incarnate encounter. The joyfulness to which this feast should recall us is that this awakening is not the result of our own inadequate resources. It is not our own power or wisdom that leads us but his love that is present as the light of the supreme reality in our hearts." (John Main)

Repentance Vs Remorse

It is important not to confuse repentance with remorse. Repentance swirls around the triad of self, God and others. When we repent we look at ourselves and the human being we are (and in contrast, the human being we are called to be). We are cut to the heart with an awareness of what we are doing to others and therefore the whole human family. This is much more than sorrow for individual acts (but includes this). And in repentance we are struck by our disobedience to God, our 'stuckness' and therefore our need for God. The three - self, others, and God - are coordinated in repentance, and mutually present, for it is impossible to reflect on the human being I have made myself and not be aware, at least in the background, of our creation in God's image. Remorse, on the other hand, tends toward the severing of the ties that bind this triad together. Sorry that you were caught? That's remorse. The desire to be a better person without being led to reflecting on our relationship with others (and what we have done to them) and God (and not the god who is a tool in our hands to make us feel better about ourselves, but the real God who justifies us) is remorse, not repentance. Remorse is about us alone; repentance is about us being pulled into the orbit of others as real people, and into God on God's terms.

When repentance begins we can start at any one of the three mentioned above. But repentance will move us further than any one of them.

Epiphany

A guest blog from the Revd Ron Keynes.

One of the sad things about the season of Epiphany is that it tends to occur when people are on holidays, and so miss out on the emphasis. On top of that, the somewhat weird title of the Season can be off-putting too.

In a culture when there is rarely complete darkness, we miss the dramatic point and purpose of this Season. Quite some years ago, I had a young lass from a previous parish stay with me at Riverton. There the Rectory was somewhat out of town. When we retired for the night, there was a sudden yell from her room! When I wondered what was wrong, the scared reply was that she could not see a thing. She had been used to city living, when streetlights were on all night. The outcome was that we left a light on at the back of the house so she felt safe. Light! Epiphany!

Epiphany, you see, is what happens when suddenly there is light in a dark place. Not only does it help to see where you are; it also enables one to see where we need to head. And that is one of the powerful messages of Epiphany. Stars for the Magi; and a vast change of direction for the Jewish faithful. No longer was religion something for personal and individual comfort; this Faith is a direction to head for all humans who looked for the truth about life. It was certainly so for those Magi, who to all intents and purposes were personae non grata as far as Israel was concerned. I dare to suggest that some more recent Christians have been off-put to realize that these were occultists, but who dared to follow wherever the truth led them.

One of my comments about the readings chosen for the Season this year (RCL, Year B) is that the stress offered to us is that not only is this Faith once delivered meant to be that light to lighten the Gentiles, but – and I ask you to ponder the readings this Season – that the People of God are called, themselves, to be lights themselves. Part of our role as the People of God is - like those Magi – to follow the truth and to share it with anyone we meet who is not yet aware of the realities. Christianity is not for religious people: it is for honest searchers after truth, and for anyone else who catches sight of the light. ‘Religion’ never was a personal and private matter. This Faith is for the reconciliation of all people, to each other as much as to God.