A Longer Reflection on Forgiveness

 

Forgiveness is important,  as is its lack. But before we talk about forgiveness there are useful spiritual disciplines to mention first. 

So, let us say that we believe/feel we have been wronged. Perhaps we are angry. Here is a discipline that, under some but not all circumstances, may help as we head to forgiveness (or not), and grow into the full stature of Christ.

1. So, who is the person who has done this? I mean really, who are they? Questions to ask: I wonder how they have come to be this person? What have they been through, how have they grown past the difficulties of their life, whether these difficulties are self-inflicted or inherited? Continue with these and other explorations about the person and the incident(s), and what has led to this alienation between you that you are experiencing. Call this increasing our sympathy or empathy for the one you believe has wronged you.

2. How about me? Where am I in all of this? Think about the lead up to 'the incident(s)'. What can I learn about myself? Am I ready to 'die' to whatever has brought me to be so angry or offended? (E.g. pride, self-importance, or perhaps my anger reveals a part of me that I am actually uncomfortable with, a discomfort that has led to my angry reaction and feelings.) This is not a call to attack oneself, but rather, an invitation to self-understanding, or you could call it sympathy for our own particularity as human beings.

I find that this discipline leads to insight about myself and others, and can let me give up some of what is driving my alienation from the other person. Sometimes, because of this discipline, I can forget and move on. 

Not all feelings, not all actions, not every alienation from someone, will yield to the above discipline. Sometimes there is a remainder: I understand something of why they did this, and yet ...

 Indeed, plenty of human history will never and should never yield to the above discipline. No matter how much we understand what lays behind or led up to the incident(s), there is no simple forgetting, no easy moving on as though it 'doesn't matter'. (The discipline above can lead us, in some situations, to say exactly that, "It doesn't matter." And this can be real and genuine. To say "It doesn't matter" is to say I've grown, and it - the incident, action, and the alienation I felt - doesn't matter like it did formerly.)

But when there is a remainder, or when understanding, sympathy, empathy, do not cover the sin, we have entered the realm of forgiveness.

The first thing to say about forgiveness must be its asymmetry. Forgiveness is not deserved, it is not earned, it is not a reciprocal coming down off our mutual high-horses and meeting somewhere in the middle. It is full of grace, if you like. 

Forgiveness costs us. We venture into alienation, and bringing reconciliation where there is human alienation is neither easy nor cheap. Grace is always costly.

Jesus is, if you like, God's spiritual discipline as outlined above. In Jesus God becomes one of us, one with the human condition. God knows human sin (in need of forgiveness) from the inside, as a victim of it, to the point of betrayal, desertion, torture and execution. God knows us and our sin. God understands us and sin. But the Incarnation (God becoming human in Jesus), death, and resurrection of Jesus are more than (to use my metaphor above) a spiritual discipline. In Jesus God overcomes the alienation of sin. This is God and God's way: God becoming what is not God (in this case sin, godforsakenness, and alienation, see 2Corinthians 5:21 and Mark 15:34) and in this complete embrace of what is not divine bringing reconciliation with what was formerly alienated (us). 

And then there is the resurrection. Of course, we should not separate the two, cross and resurrection. The forgiveness that is brought about through God's embrace of godforsakenness (see Mark 15:34) is the resurrected Jesus. The forgiving victim of sin offers forgiveness and sends his disciples out to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

There is freedom in this. God's freedom in embracing human sin, and in this freedom carrying our freedom (misused in sin) so that we can grow into our true freedom as children of God.

And there is grace in all this. Undeserved forgiveness (there is no other kind) that is utterly asymmetrical. Forgiveness is always ahead of us; in Christ forgiveness never catches up to us, but we catch up to forgiveness. That is, even though we seek forgiveness through repentance, and hear the word of grace and absolution after, it is forgiveness that arrived first at that place, and we were drawn to it.

Jesus the Innocent Victim (Lent Study Week 4, 2013)

Jesus the Innocent Victim

Please read Luke 23:32-49 (or segment)

Notes

Troyes (part) altarpiece

1. The passage is drenched in irony. Those who mock Jesus reject him as the messiah and the points of mockery are exactly why he is the messiah.
2. Even to the end Jesus is faithful to his mission in obedience to his Father. He has preached non-retaliation and forgiveness, invited the sinner to experience God’s acceptance through healing and fellowship, and now he prays that the Father will forgive his executioners and those who mock him. (23:34)
3. The mockery reiterates the charge of blasphemy against Jesus and deflates the expectations that his healing ministry encouraged.
4. The innocence/righteousness of Jesus is recognised by two unlikely characters, one of the criminals executed with him and the centurion (Lk 23:47 cf Mk 15:39) presumably in charge of his crucifixion. (See also 23;4, 14-16) The faithful death of Jesus evokes a change of heart amongst some of the onlookers (23:48 cf 18:13) and strengthens the resolve of even a member of the council. (23:50) The unanimity that bound together all those who condemned Jesus is beginning to unravel.

Some Questions

Have you ever discovered you were part of a unanimity of condemnation that was later proved a misjudgment? (That is, the person was innocent of the charges.)

Can you remember how you were persuaded to join in? 

And how was it that you discovered that the charges against the accused were false?

What happened next?

Where was God in all this?

And can you remember a time you were wrongly accused? Where was God in this experience?

Final Thoughts

1. The resurrection is the vindication of Jesus and the sign that those who judged Jesus, and the judgements made about him, were wrong.
   
   
2. Beware joining the unanimous crowd of condemnation! Beware the tight arguments we form in our own heads that justify our condemnation of someone we are in dispute with.
   
   
3. The resurrected Christ, still faithful to the Father, preaches repentance and forgiveness of sins, not retaliation. The disciples are wtinesses to this Jesus.

Eating and Drinking with Jesus (Lent Study Week 3, 2013)

Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano

Luke 5

vv 1-11 Jesus calls first disciples

12-16 Jesus cleanses a leper

17-26 Jesus heals a paralytic

27-28 Jesus calls Levi

29-32 Jesus invited to a banquet

33-39 Jesus and celebration

Luke 7

v 34 “a glutton and a drunkard” See Deut 21:18-21

36-50 “... hence she has shown great love.”

Luke 14

vv 1-6 Eating and curing on the sabbath

7-14 Humility, who to invite

15-24 Bring in the poor, crippled and lame

Luke 22:14-23 Last Supper

Luke 23:43 Paradise as a banquet, see Isaiah 25:6-9

1. Jesus eats with those rejected and vilified. These people recognise in Jesus someone victimized as they are, by those who have rejected them. And Jesus is willing to risk the opposition that will come from his mixing with sinners and eating with them. Eating and drinking with sinners disrupted the rigid and enforced system of insider/outsider and was an enacted parable of God’s acceptance of all. (See Luke 15)

2. Luke 5:30 Pharisees ask the disciples why they eat with sinners compare Mark 2:16. By time Luke writes the church is being asked the question. Jesus answers the question (5:31), and this is the reason the church shares a table fellowship of festivity and inclusion signifying God’s acceptance and generosity. And notice Jesus’ answer, pointing to the healing ministry of his eating with sinners. (See Luke 4:16-21; 7:18-23)

Some Questions

Do people say this about our Eucharistic practice? (Lk 5:30)

What do people say about our Eucharistic practice?

How could we enhance the sense of the Eucharist as an occasion of joy in the presence of Jesus?

How do we welcome people to the table? 

How could we strengthen this practice?

Who isn’t welcome at our table at church? 

How do we live and invite people into a discipleship of righteousness and inclusion?

Quote for Reflection

“Jesus' compassion is characterized by a downward pull. That is what disturbs us. We cannot even think about ourselves in terms other than those of an upward pull, an upward mobility in which we strive for better lives, higher salaries and more prestigious positions. Thus, we are deeply disturbed by a God who embodies a downward movement. Instead of striving for a higher position, more power and more influence, Jesus moves, as Karl Barth says, from "the heights to the depths, from victory to defeat, from riches to poverty, from triumph to suffering, from life to death." (Henri Nouwen)

World-Wide Mission (Lent Study Week 2, 2013)

Peter Baptising Cornelius by Francesco Trevisani

A. Mission and Missionaries

Some passages you could check out in Luke-Acts

• Luke 3:4-6 all flesh
• 4:18-20 the Spirit of the Lord, justice
• Luke 10 the harvest is plentiful but labourers are few
• Luke 15 lost sheep, lost coin
• 19:10  to seek out and save the lost
• 24:44-49 repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations
• Acts 1:8 you will be my witnesses .. to the ends of the earth
• Acts 10 conversion of Cornelius, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.
• Acts 15 the Council of Jerusalem (compare with Galatians 2:11-14)
• Acts 28 gospel has reached even Rome

When you think of the mission of Jesus/the church/you yourself what do you think of?

B. Acts 10: The Ins and Outs of Community

Acts 10:9-16

10:28 God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean

10:34-35 God shows no partiality

10:36 Israel, peace by Jesus Christ, Lord of all

10:37 that message spread

10:39 we are witnesses

10:43 everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name

10:44 the indiscriminate Spirit! And baptism

1.We are tempted to think that it is relatively easy for a community to remain faithful to its identity (current and historical) and let in new people. But how easy is it really? (Think about the functions of a ‘tribe’ psychologically and sociologically, both positive and negative.) It is easy for members of a community to mask an attitude of assimilation into the existing ‘culture’ of a community with the belief that we are open to new people in our community. When people join an existing community change happens - for the community and for those who join.

How well do we negotiate this tricky boundary at the local church? 

 Where are the points where we need to grow or change? And how might we do that?

2.We take the freedom of the gospel  and its call to break down the barriers separating people for granted after centuries of its inner dynamic shaping Western culture. Some now wonder how it was that people didn’t see this freedom before and act on it. Some wonder if the gospel is now superfluous given that the ethnic and discriminatory barriers between people can be rationally unmasked and dismantled. But is it really that simple? Is it that simple in your life? Without the gospel working over the millennia, would our freedoms have been possible? And what about the future?

Some Study Notes and Questions on the Temptations of Jesus

Some notes and questions on Luke 4:1-13 that I will be using in the Lenten study this week.

1. The temptations of Jesus in the desert are not a chance meeting between Jesus and the devil, and they are not at the instigation of the devil. Jesus is led by the Spirit into the desert.
Q: Why are the temptations instigated by the Spirit? Why is it necessary for Jesus to be tempted?

2. Forty days recalls the forty years of the desert wanderings of the people of Israel after their liberation from slavery in Egypt. Unlike the people of Israel, Jesus renounces the temptation to idolatry and lack of trust in the faithfulness of God.  

Q: How has your trust in and faithfulness to God gone in the desert times or places of your life? 

 3. Jesus refutes the promptings of the devil by citing Scripture. The devil gets the hang of this and uses Scripture to justify the third and final temptation.
Q: How do you feel about the devil’s ability to use scripture? How do we stop the misuse of scripture? What does this tell us about how to use scripture?

Temptation of Jesus by Michael Hudak

 4. “... until an opportune time.” (4:13) The opportune time will be the Passion of Jesus. (See Lk 22:3) The Passion will be the final proving ground of the Son; in the cross the true sonship of Jesus will be revealed.

Q: Opportune in what way?

5. Commentators like to call the temptations of Jesus programmatic. By this they mean that the temptations reveal something about the whole ministry of Jesus, his death and resurrection.
Q: If you were to write a similar account of the three programmatic temptations of your life, what would they be? (One will do if you can’t think of three.)

Quote for Reflection

Crucifixion by Richard Wallace

The Roman captain asks Lavinia, a young Christian, why she is willing to die as a martyr.

THE CAPTAIN: Are you then going to die for nothing?

LAVINIA: Yes, that is the wonderful thing. It is since all the stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all that I must die for something greater than dreams or stories.

THE CAPTAIN: But for what?

LAVINIA: I don’t know. If it were for anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for. I think I’m going to die for God. Nothing else is real enough to die for.

George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion (Act II)

Quoted in Paul Harris, (ed.), The Fire of Silence and Stillness,  p. 168.

No One is an Island (Part 2)

Most people have heard the famous line, “No man is an island”. You might have even heard a little more of the meditation it comes from:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The above comes from John Donne’s Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII, and “For whom the bell tolls” was picked up by Hemingway. It is a meditation upon our interconnection as human beings and as baptized Christians. And I think it is a way of understanding the whole of the Christian faith; a sort of lens to understand what we believe and what we are being drawn into. Some doctrine and biblical passages to reflect on through the lens of 'No One is an Island'.

• Doctrine of God (Trinity) God is not alone (Jn 1:1)

• Jesus Lives, dies, raised for God and others (Jn 5:19-24;11:45-53)

• Eucharist “We who are many …” (1Cor 10:14-22)

• Baptism into Christ, Jesus’ brothers and sisters (Rom 6:1-11; 8:15-17)

• Humanity Gen 1:27

• Ethics Matt 5:21-48; Rom 12:9-21

• Church Mk 3:13-19; Ephes 4:17 – 5:2

• Evangelism Acts 2

• Healing Mk 5:21-43

• God, Jesus, Spirit, love 1Jn 4:7-21

And as in all Christian doctrine, all the above lead into each other and back again.

To view Meditation XVII see here, or a podcast of it being read, or the whole of the Devotions, or my sermon on 'No One is an Island' and a link to a really cool video here.

Study Notes For Rowan Williams, 'Tokens of Trust' Chapter 6

Again, this chapter is not difficult. It is about the church, about being Christian imperfectly, and about our final hope. And it is all grounded in his first three chapters really, where Williams has laid the trinitarian groundwork of understanding ourselves and the hope we have been given.

1. On pg 136 Williams mentions in passing one of the great theological movements of the 60s that remains prevalent in one form or another in the diocese of Adelaide! This is the death of God movement, which poured out divinity onto the earth to the extent that God becomes the sum total of human aspiration. The death of Godites were deeply impressed by Jesus, and sought to free him from the accretions of doctrine and church verbiage. They loved what he stood for, but ignored Jesus' relationship with the Father, a relationship that defines him in the
   Scriptures. Williams says "it is just not possible to empty out of Jesus' story this constant, all-pervading, sometimes dark and agonizing, always decisive relation to the mystery out of which he comes." (136)
   
   
2. Williams closely allies the church to the Trinity, this 'threefold rhythm of love." (136) The church is an image of the Trinity, where diversity and identity are not inversely related, but our 'individual' identity is bound up with others, to whom I am related. However, he cautions of thinking that the Trinity and the church are two inter-related examples of communion. We are drawn into the communion of love that is God, and do not possess this communion in our own right.
   
   
3. I particularly like his emphasis on our participation in the church now as preparatory for the kingdom that is to come. It will be a bodily life of community that will not be less than this life, which is part of the reason why we believe in the resurrection of the body. (Here is one to remember: "God does not redeem us by making us stop being what we are..." (141)
   
   
4. Our hope does not lie within our power to grant. Our hope is in the faithfulness, trustworthiness, of God. Immortality is correctly predicated of God, not us, and we gain our eternal life derivatively from God. There is no shard within us awaiting release to zoom back to God. (138-144)
   
   
5. Perhaps surprisingly for many Anglicans, the Archbishop provides a positive account for the necessity fo some kind of purgatory. (144-150) We have distorted our humanity, and the redemption given to us in Christ will undo that twist and distortion. And this will hurt. We gain some practice in this in our discipleship now. Coming face to face with the truth brings challenge and pain at times. Purgatory should not be thought of as an intermediate state, but just a recognition that in our continuing journey with God, as we are formed more fully into the likeness of Christ through love, the transformation will not be painless.
   
   
6. But what of hell? We must always hold open the possibility, for we know the depths of our unwillingness to face the truth, and its consequences. But this leads to why a focus on our failure is so important in the Christian schema, and full of hope. The church points to God as its hope, not its own holiness. And this applies to us all as individuals.
   
   
7. And don't miss a beautiful account of the importance of contemplation in our lives and the life of the church. (155-159) Contemplation strips away all the false identities, and all the ideas and emotions and behaviours attached to these false identities. Indeed, to even let go of what makes us happy. (156) And all this to put distance between us and our usual comforts so that we might have a chance of seeing the truth, which will be strange and disorienting.
   
   
8. And finally, what might a trinitarian experience 'feel' like? Don't be surprised if it is not like talking to someone on the other side of the room, despite the fact that we use the language of 'person' to describe God. Father, Son and Spirit are not literally persons. We should know this is immediately true, because the trinitarian persons are present to each other internally, simultaneously. "Something is is going on that is deeper than that, but no less personal, no less a real relationship, but something that doesn't depend entirely on how we feel and what we think: a pouring-in of God's love that will steadily transform us from the inside." (158; see Romans 5:5)
   

Study Notes For Rowan Williams, 'Tokens of Trust' Chapter 5

The book is getting easier. Three highlights to look out for are what he says about the meaning of peace, the nature of the church, the Eucharist, and the Bible.

1. The meaning of peace not as an absence of conflict or tension, and this includes inner peace, but peace as a dynamic giving and receiving within relationships with others. And there is always some 'action' happening in relationship! 'Peace' as conceived by many is more like escape.
   
   
2. The church echoes the Trinity as neither individualism nor communitarianism, but personal. (Think about the person of the Father: the more he is father, the more he relates, thus person brings 'individuality' and relationship into proportionate relationship.) In this regard Williams mentions the early church metaphor of 'Body of Christ', and points out that its Christian use goes beyond the functional interpretations of paganism. The church as the Body of Christ is about gift giving and receiving, with each unique member called to bring their unique contribution to the common life. This is not just a functional perspective, but recognises that the gift of God is personal, directed to us and shared via our uniquely personal presence and activity. Not just about functional giving, but the gift giving of ourselves, albeit through ministries.
   
   
3. The Archbishop says a lot of good things about the Eucharist, particularly relating it to the work of the Spirit and baptism. The Eucharist is not magic, but the work of the Spirit in extending the presence of Jesus in this action of making eucharist. The sharing of the bread and wine through Christ (and addressed to the Father in thanksgiving), prefigures the end of all things, when all that is will glorify God through Christ in the power of the Spirit. The eucharist gives us a clue to the cosmoc nature of salvation (just in case the Incarnation isn't enough!).
   
   
4. Jesus is the Word of God, not the Bible. The Bible is the primary witness to Christ and is not a text of magic answers to life's questions. It witnesses to a history and a life: God's history and life (Father and Son), and God's history and life with the cosmos in Christ.
   

Study Notes For R. Williams, 'Tokens of Trust' Chapter 4

“Fearlessness in giving has to find its place at the heart of things…” (83)

1. God’s desire for us and our world is an ‘economy of gift’ (82) whereby we live by a mutual generosity. But this is not the world we live in, and none of us seem to be able to break this cycle of ‘original sin’, which is merely the observation that we are all born into this imperfect world, and exhibit this imperfection in our lives. Thus we have weaved a tangle of selfishness “that goes back to the very roots of humanity.” (82)

2. Jesus is the break in the cycle that is needed.(83) The break must be genuinely human (or it won’t break the human cycle), but it must also be divine to effect the transformation required, for only God is so utterly free as to be able to give utterly selflessly. (This selfless giving is the very nature of God, Father, Son and Spirit.) This is why the doctrine of the two natures in Christ is so important; it verbalizes the experience of being saved by a human act, but one carried out by God in person.

3. Jesus, as Son in relationship with the Father, is this living out in history of the Trinitarian life of unrestricted and utterly consistent love. Utterly consistent remember because God is an utter fullness of love already and does not need us in this sense.) And in him this love is turned also toward us, so that the love we see and receive in Jesus is the total and unselfish giving of God. Through Christ, who is both God’s love turned to us and the Son in person in relationship to the Father, the very life of God is brought into history, personally. Think of Jesus as the intersection of God’s own life of love with the world.

4. But when love meets sin, the cross is the result. (84-85) Notice some of the New Testament metaphors for the death of Jesus (87-88) Williams picks up. None are literally true (which doesn’t mean they are meaningless), but all help us understand the depth and comprehensiveness of the salvation wrought in Christ. “The single central thing is the conviction that for us to be at peace Jesus’ life has to be given up. It isn’t that a vengeful and inflexible God demands satisfaction, more that the way the world is makes it unavoidable that the way to our freedom lies through the self-giving of Jesus, even to the point of death.” (88)

5. The descent into hell, pp. 88-89. Don’t get hung up on this, the point is that Christ’s salvation is universal and complete: nowhere is safe from it! The dereliction of the cross finds its nadir in the descent to the dead/hell, that place of utter godforsakenness. This follows the logic of the substitution of the cross to its (theo)logical conclusion.

6. Interesting argument for the reality of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, not just as a personal/psychological appearance (91-2). The resurrection is the triumph of God over evil and sin, but the theology of resurrection focuses on Jesus, not this triumph in abstract terms. This suggests that the disciples could not dispense with Jesus when talking of resurrection.

7. Through the giving of the Spirit to us (see John 20) we receive the new humanity that is possible through Jesus ‘the break’ in original sin. The cycle is broken in him, and transmitted to us. (92) This Spirit we receive is not just a Spirit of loving other people, but is the Spirit of the love of Father and Son, the love that is free and unrestricted self-giving. (The latter is possible because of the former.) This parallels Jesus’ relationship with the Father on the one hand, and on the other hand, his relationship to the world.

8. The victory of Christ and the giving of the Spirit now have led some to think that the end has already come. Wrong. And this includes all those who cease to act rightly because they believe the end is nigh. We are assured of the future victory, but as the future. (This is one reason why it is important to see the resurrection as the future come to meet us, rather than a past event like the cross. The victory is not locked in the past, ineffective against current evils.)

9. In speaking of the second coming, Williams remembers a saying of Luther who said that if he knew the world was ending tomorrow he would plant a tree today! This is because to do so is good in itself, and doing good is important no matter how short the time frame. (98) So caring for the environment, or doing justice, is the right thing to do and to do now, even though the resurrection will transform everything.

10. Notice the interesting interpretation of ‘Lead us not into temptation’ (99). The light of Christ’s love is not just all beer and skittles. There is the pain of transformation, transforming the persons we have made ourselves by following the channels of original sin. Williams says that ‘save us from the time of trial’ is asking to be spared this final transformation until we have had the time to do some more work now, so that the final judgment won’t be quite so painful. 11. Sharing in the communion of Holy Spirit doesn’t just mean receiving an external gift, but receiving the Spirit that transforms our very natures. (101) What we share – our human nature – is transformed into the likeness of Christ himself. (The Word of God, by becoming an obedient human person, perfects our nature, and this perfection is transferred to us.) This new nature echoes the Trinitarian life itself, a nature that is constituted by mutual giving and receiving. (102) Thus the cycle of original selfishness, broken in Christ, becomes universal

Study Notes For Rowan Williams, 'Tokens of Trust' Chapter 3

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

R. Williams, Tokens of Trust, Chapter 3 notes.

“What is seen in Jesus is what God is; what God is is the outpouring and returning of selfless love, which is the very essence of God’s definition, in so far as we can ever speak of a ‘definition’ of the mystery. The phrase in the Creed, ‘being of one substance with the Father’ or ‘of one being with the Father’ can sound a bit chilly and technical … Yet it ought to be one of the most exciting words in our vocabulary…” (71)

This chapter is a brilliant attempt to fill out the claim that Jesus is both human and divine by using all kinds of images, and by contrasting what the ancient Creeds say with what they are not saying. Extraordinary claims were made by his disciples very early on. These claims led inexorably to what we know as the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In the totality of his life, we see in Jesus a movement within God, between Father and Jesus, which is expressing what is the case always in God. And this human life is God’s life without impediment, being God’s face directed to us, but also a human response to God, prefiguring our ultimate response to the Father as individuals, a human race and a cosmos. How is it that such extraordinary claims were made of Jesus, and from the earliest strata of the tradition? It is so un-Jewish!

Williams begins with Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of God, which he understood to mean living under God’s presence and rule and no one else’s. But this kingdom was personalized in Jesus, for acceptance of this kingdom coincided with saying ‘yes’ to what Jesus was saying, trusting in Jesus and what he was saying to God and humankind. Jesus did not just make this kingdom visible (but he did do this) but made it possible. This citizenship through Jesus in God’s kingdom is about our freedom from all (natural and supernatural) powers that demand our allegiance, especially when this allegiance is contrary to God’s kingdom. Such a proclamation and person had (and still does) obvious political and social import, although it cannot be captured by social action alone.

This proclamation of the kingdom was, in fact, talking about being part of God’s people, and this was the central point of debate and conflict in the Jewish world of Jesus. The many Jewish sub-groups had their own particular ideas about who was in and who out. Jesus’ claims about himself found no easy home among these groups.

Remember that the Jews understood membership in the people of God to be dependent on God’s invitation. Jesus was making an implicit claim cutting across the assumption of the day. And he seemed to be suggesting that those everyone agreed were not included in God’s people, and were never likely to be able to meet the requirements of entry, were actually received into membership by believing in Jesus! (60) And this membership meant a new relationship with God and the grace of relating to God as Jesus did. (‘Our Father in heaven…’) without the complexities and intermediaries of the different Jewish systems.

There is remarkably little about Jesus as just a teacher in the NT, even in the early tradition when you would expect it. This is easily explained if we remember that Jesus is remembered not for what he taught alone, but for what he did. In and through him a new community was formed that claimed a new intimacy with God, and this led to questions about his authority to do this. The answer was not an angelic intermediary (hence the denial of this in Hebrews 1) but that there is simply no gap between Jesus and God. (62)

“Awkwardly and slowly and with much complication and even apparent contradiction, the New Testament moves towards the extraordinary notion that the Creator of the universe is at work without interruption in the life and work of Jesus – that it is God who is doing what Jesus is doing.” (62-63)

And given this extraordinary experience and claim, it is no wonder that his followers went out into the word around to preach him and his kingdom, no matter what ‘nationality’ or language the listeners were.

“They saw Jesus as a ‘man for all seasons’, a man for all climates and languages, capable of transforming any human situation by his presence. And when you put it like that, you can see how this echoes what is said about God’s all-powerful nature, capable of transforming any situation.” (65)

But notice how the Scriptures show a Jesus, he in whom God’s action is present without impediment, who is also humble and dependent on God, not just a powerful wonderworker. Jesus receives from God, and reflects back to God. Here is the beginning of the doctrine of the Trinity! God is more than a solitary individual, but a movement of love between Father and Son. (66) But in this movement back to the Father Jesus embodies a perfect human response to God, foreshadowing our own complete response forever. This Trinitarian formulation sets Christianity apart from every other philosophy and religion. (Except those religions and philosophies that, although thoroughly saturated with our language, have claimed it for themselves.)

Williams suggests that a concerto performance is a good way of thinking of the Incarnation. The composer brings to life this music, pouring all that they are into it, yet it is the musician who is playing entirely. As Williams says, it would not be good for the musician to suddenly stop and say “Let me tell you how I feel about this.” (75) The composer and the musician coincide in the performance of the concerto. Here is the link to Jacqueline du Pre’s performance Williams cites as an example of God and humanity at work in Jesus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5C99JyP2ns; “Two ‘sorts’ of life, but in practice lived in one flow of action.” (75)

And don’t miss the final section (pp. 76-77) on Mary.

Study Notes For R. Williams, 'Tokens of Trust' Chapter 2

The Risk of Love

R. Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Chapter 2 notes

1. Arguments for the existence of God have their place. (They can’t communicate a living relationship, and do not intend to do so, as can the diary of Etty Hilesum, for example.) Such arguments try to approach everything in creation as a single unit, and ask how to make sense of this whole. (Compare with the atheist who will say that there is no need to try and make sense of the whole because the individual clusters and bits make sense in themselves. No higher order of meaning is necessary.) Arguments for the existence of God also suppose God to be on a different level of explanation than everyday causation. So, the child asks, ‘If God made the world, who made God?’ This is thinking of God as just a bigger version of the things we already know within our world. Instead we are asked to stretch our theological imagination:”we’re trying to get our minds around the idea of an activity that is so utterly consistent with itself, so unaffected by any other activity, that it is, so to speak, its own explanation, its own ‘cause’, eternal and unchanging.” (34)

2. A Christian theology of creation affirms that God’s creativity is ongoing and continuous. This means that without God everything would cease to exist. Most non-believers have a watchmaker (deism) approach that has God ‘make’ everything and then let it go its independent way.

3. Creation is to be understood not just as ‘making’ stuff, but establishing a relationship with the stuff of creation. Indeed, the ‘making’ and the establishment of relationship are one and the same action of God. which is to say that God’s act of creation, while ‘making’ stuff (us, for instance) is also about establishing a relationship with us.

4. A theology of creation is therefore not to be understood as an alternative to science. God is not just one more causative force amongst a series of causes. Creation is about the ‘big picture’, the underlying reason and comprehensibility of all that is.

5. A Christian theology of creation is to be distinguished from pantheism. Pantheism makes the sum total of created reality into God (or at a minimum, God as a universal principle within everything). Christianity supposes a distinction between God and that which is created in dependence upon God. A theology of creation safeguards freedom, gives creation its own integrity, and funnily enough, was one of the principle ingredients in the rise of western science. This is because if creation has its own integrity then we can study it for its own sake; whereas pantheistic science will also be restricted by theological conceptions about what is possible, leading to the neglect of the scientific method of hypothesis and experimentation.)

6. But what of the problem of pain? A world that is truly other than God is a risky world. Creation has its own integrity and freedom, and to deny this by requiring God not to take that risk is to imagine a different world than this one, and one incapable of true relationship with God. Yes, creation is complex and fragile, and very risky, but this is the nature of a real relationship with the possibilities of real growth and reciprocal movement.

7. What of miracles and prayer? Keeping in mind the meaning of ‘almighty’ from chapter 1, we can see that miracles and prayer are not examples of God’s arbitrary whim dis/agreeing to this or that prayer, or overriding the integrity of creation this time and not the next. Instead, Williams suggests the miraculous, including the miraculous in the life of Jesus, are grounded in “a robust idea of God’s action burning intensely in every moment of the world’s existence, always just around the corner of our perception.” (48) Sometimes (as in the case of Jesus) this intensity of God’s presence is closer to the surface than usual, allowing the interconnected whole of creation to come together in a more transparently God-directed manner. (pp. 44-46)

8. A comprehensive theology of creation also allows for creatures that are beyond our perception and instrumental use. Angels in the Bible and tradition, he says, are, at the very least, symbols of this other world that is beyond our usual perception. Creation is not just there for us to use and consume, and is a lot bigger than we usually allow.

9. Finally, to affirm God as creator of everything, visible and invisible, is to allow God to be God of every aspect of our lives, even the embarrassing bits we suppress. God knows who we are, and God can heal and bring every aspect of our lives into a coherent whole. (Again, touching on the idea of almighty as being able to rework creation into a future of life and fulfillment.) This is, ultimately, the meaning of resurrection. (55)

Study Notes For Rowan Williams, 'Tokens of Trust'

In a study group we are reading Rowan Williams' introduction to Christianity entitled Tokens of Trust. I am writing notes for each chapter for members of the study. I will post these notes each week in case you would like to read the book as well, or perhaps run a group in your church!

R. Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief, Chapter 1 notes

“Basic to everything here is the idea that Christian belief is really about knowing who and what to trust. (p. viii)”

1. The loss of trust generally felt in society, directed at all levels.

2. The “I/We believe” of the Creeds is not a statement about whether we believe “God” is possible, like someone saying “I believe in UFOs.”

3. Creedal “I/We believe” is more like “I/We trust…”, and indicate where we find the anchor, meaning and purpose of our lives. (p. 6) Which is potentially problematic given the general dissipation of trust within society generally. (On this idea of “believe” being more like trust Williams mentions on p. 5 John 9 which is worth looking up.)

4. So, how do we know we can trust God the Father almighty? The answer has two parts.

5. First, Jesus reveals the inner meaning and purpose of God the creator of everything. The incompleteness and darkness of our natural inclinations toward God are clarified and corrected in the revelation of God in Jesus. (pp.7-11)

6. Note this does not mean we now know everything there is to know about God!(p. 9) But the meaning and purpose that is the inner dynamic of our lives and of history is revealed. Note also that we do not receive this revelation in the abstract (just ideas cut off from life) but in a real human life, the life of the Jew named Jesus of Nazareth. (p.9)

7. The meaning and purpose is unselfish, self-giving love. (p. 10)

8. This section finishes with this beautiful quote: “At the heart of the desperate suffering there is in the world, suffering we can do nothing to resolve or remove for good, there is an indestructible energy making for love. If we have grasped what Jesus is about, we can trust that this is what lies at the foundation of everything.” (p. 10)

9. The second part to the answer as to how we know we can trust God, the Father almighty emanates from the Christian insight that God is love in Godself, and is not requiring anything of anyone/thing else. God is complete fullness. (pp. 11-14) This is important because it means that our creation does not come from God’s need, but out of unselfish love. If there were any kind of deficit at all in God, a deficit that the creation filled, then our meaning and purpose from God is not unselfish, self-giving love. There would be something in it for God, so to speak. (especially p. 12)

10. This is the theological foundation for the Christian claim that we are not forgiven because we are moral. God’s love makes us good. (p. 13)

11. The next section (pp. 15-20) is asking about the nature of God’s almighty power. It is not arbitrary power to do whatever one likes, so that God might choose to destroy just to show God’s almightiness! “Almighty” in the Greek means “ruler of everything” or “holder of everything”. (p. 16) This means God is not only everywhere, but can be relied upon in all situations, and can make good from all situations. God is never found wanting.

12. An interesting discussion of Genesis 18 and Exodus 32 where Abraham and Moses respectively persuade God not to act contrary to the nature of God revealed in the covenant. (pp. 17-19) Williams suggests that these passages, and others like them, function in the Bible as a tongue in cheek literary device to highlight the reliability of God; even in these extreme situations God can be relied upon to be faithful to the covenant (and new covenant).

13. The final sections (pp. 20-28) talk about living this life of love in the world, and being conduits of it, even in our imperfection. He uses a number of examples, including Etty Hillesum, to show that those who believe (that is, trust) are called to stroke the embers of that trust in others. He puts it boldly; we are to be those who take responsibility for God’s believability.