When my father was dying, my daughter was holding his hand and said, ‘Well, Granddad, what are the recipes for a good life?’ And he said, ‘The recipe for a good life is to have courage, love, and hope.’ And I think that’s the major challenge facing a pacifist, and that’s why I think religious pacifists in a sense are better able to move in this direction than humanists. And that is to have the courage in a conflict situation to be willing to sacrifice yourself, to bring the pain of the situation on to yourself, rather than to inflict it on others.And that of course was the challenge of Gandhi, and Martin Luther King and all the others that have adopted the non-violent witness. And the challenge for me personally there is whether confronted by those situations, I would have the courage to make that sacrifice.
Kevin Clements, a member of the Religious Society of Friends and Professor and Foundation Director of the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, speaking on Radio National Encounter: The Far Side of Revenge http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s1534166.htm
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
The Courage to be Non-violent
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
You Can Trust God
St John's Chapel, Term 3, 2008.We have just heard a reading from Julian of Norwich, one of the great mystical figures of world religion. It is unfortunate that most people do not know that Christianity's mystical tradition is as strong as anything you will find elsewhere, reaching right back to the beginning of the Christian faith. You don't have to go to an ashram in India if you seek enlightenment. There are a few reasons why this has occurred, among them is the compensatory prejudice against Christianity n some sections of our culture, a reaction against the dominance and contribution of Christianity to the Western world. The second is the media dominance of the kind of traditions that know very little about the mystical traditions of the church.
Julian had a vision of everything that is, including stars and planets etc, as the size of a small nut. It appeared so fragile. How could it even continue to survive? Because God loves it. God sustains it, and everything that is will only find its true and final completion and rest when it rests in God. I'll come back to this.
But I want to talk about a great way to get on with people, and to move through difficult situations. It is called the 'win-win'. I get what I want, you get what you want, and we can get on with our business, whatever it is. It is great, and it really works. Much better than 'win-lose'. But there is a difficulty with it. 'Win-win' is based on self-interest. It is still selfish, in the nicest possible way. The problem is that, if either of the partners in the 'win-win' no longer perceive it to be in their interest to remain in the relationship, they can unilaterally change it. To the possible detriment of the other person.
God isn't like this. Go back to my last sermon at chapel. I talked about that strange vision that Moses had of the burning bush. But the strangest thing was the name of God: 'I AM'. Strangely incomplete, and this is because God is already complete. God is already full, complete, in no need of us or anyone or anything else. This is stretching our theological imaginations because everything we encounter on this plane of existence is in some way incomplete without the rest of us. But God is complete. God does not need us.
And this is great news. God doesn't relate to us in a 'win-win' kind of way. God doesn't need anything from us, God doesn't need to gain anything from God's relationship with us. Which makes God trustworthy. God won't bail out halfway through because God isn't getting enough out of the relationship with us. God doesn't need us. God loves us just for us, entirely for us.
This is why Julian of Norwich could say that everything that is will find its final rest and completion in God, for only God will give everything entirely for us.
Monday, 6 October 2008
The Two Great Elephants in the Room of My Life
I remember reading something from Rowan Williams talking about the two great mysteries in our lives, the mystery of suffering and the mystery of love. Love is stronger, and the two are not hermetically sealed from each other. My less poetic version is that there are two great elephants in the room of my life, and there is no point in trying to avoid them. Julian of Norwich saw the two elephants as well and spoke of them. (Although she didn't actually mention elephants in her Revelations!) In this regard, Julian of Norwich, in her Thirteenth Revelation, wonders about the origin of sin, and why God did not prevent it in the first place. (She includes in this word 'sin' everything that is not good.) This famous answer comes to her from the Lord:Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
The two great mysteries are necessary, but the mystery of love prevails. Julian also sees that while the pain caused by sin is real enough, sin itself "has no substance of reality and cannot be known except through the pain it causes." But she continues to wonder, why this sin and pain? It is in response to this questioning that Julian receives for a second time reassurance from the Lord, spoken to her in a most "tenderly" fashion:
It is true that sin is the cause of all this pain, but all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
She finishes:
Through these words I saw an unfathomable mystery hidden in God which he will make clear to us in heaven. Only then shall we truly know why he allowed sin to come and knowing that, we shall rejoice in him for ever.
Something in me recoils at this. I don't want that answer. But there is no other answer, other than to reject the possibility of God, and fall headlong into despair and nihilism. But the answer works on one's soul, and meditation upon the enormity of the Christ event brings a different perspective. Perhaps, in the face of sin and suffering, it seems that we are on the precipice of losing everything. But in the cross and resurrection of the Word made flesh we are given everything, and then more, much more than my imagination can fathom. Hans Urs von Balthasar said it well when he wrote:
The joy of Easter after all is founded on Christ's dereliction on the Cross and his abandonment in hell. For his abandonment was like the final testing of the unity of the Trinity, which as such is the fullness of joy. Not that the joy of the Divine Persons is an idle, self-indulgent kind of joy that they share in while the creature suffers; their joy penetrates deep into all the world's suffering; they share the experience of its misery, but their joy proves deeper than all sense of abandonment. For God's action on behalf of lost humanity is so final that every reproach levelled against the providential ordering of the world is put to silence. In the New Testament we read that joy is able to permeate not only the extremes of suffering and situations like the abandonment of God by God but that it is also to be found in the face of the hardest demands, the most remorseless rebuke, even that most tragic of all divisions (between Jews and Christians, who stand divided before the Cross). [Emphasis added.]
Friday, 3 October 2008
The Ten Commandments (Kids' Talk)
For a good, usable version for kids of the 10 commandments, see here.
A simple kid's talk: Who has heard of the 10 commandments? Can you name any of them? [Then put them on the screen and go through them.] The point of the commandments is to tell us who we are.
For example, We tell the truth. When we tell the truth people can trust us, and we want to be a church that people can trust. When we tell lies, people can't trust us because they don't know whether we are lying or telling the truth. Imagine if we lied all the time. What would it be like? No good, because you could never trust anyone. That's not who we are: we tell the truth, and we tell the truth to be trustworthy.
God gives us commandments for us to obey so that we can be the kind of people God wants.
Thursday, 2 October 2008
We Don't Know Everything
It was the birthday of the parish priest and the children had come with their birthday greetings and gifts.
The priest took the gift-wrapped parcel from little Mary and said, “Ah! I see you have brought me a book.” (Mary’s father ran a bookstore in town.)
“Yes, how did you know?”
I”I always know,” replied the priest.
And you, Tommy, have brought me a jumper,” said the priest, picking up the parcel Tommy held out to him. (Tommy’s father was a dealer in woolen goods.)
“That’s right. How did you know?” “Ah, I always know,” replied the priest.
And so it went, until the priest lifted Bobby’s box. The wrapping paper was wet (Bobby’s father owned a bottle shop), so the preist said, “I see you have brought me a bottle of scotch and spilled some of it!”
“Wrong,” said Bobby, “it isn’t scotch.”
“Well, a bottle of rum then,” said the priest.
“Wrong again,” said Bobby.
The priest’s fingers were wet. He put one of them in his mouth but that gave him no clue. “Is it gin?” he asked.
“No,” said Bobby. “I’ve brought you a puppy!”
[Anthony de Mello]
When I finished my first degree, I thought I knew some stuff. Then I did an Honours degree, and I thought I even knew more stuff. Then I did a PhD and realized I knew virtually nothing! There is just so much to know! So much. And there is so much that is mystery, and I will never know or understand. That is the danger with a great education: we think we know all we need to know, or that we can work it out ourselves, whether that be as individuals or a human race. Not quite so. At some point we come to the realization that there is always more to know and more that we will not understand. Humbling really.
Buy the Ticket, Stupid!
Days passed. Then weeks and months. But nothing happened. Finally, almost driven to despair, he cried out one night, "Why don't you give me a break, God?"
He suddenly heard the voice of God replying: "Give me a break yourself! Why don't you buy a lottery ticket first?"
(Anthony de Mello)
Paradoxically, we receive everything as gift, yet we have to make it work. Disciplined and costly grace.
A Prayer for Disciplined Grace:
God of life, today we give you thanks that you shower upon us so many gifts, skills and aspirations. Give us the hearts and discipline to use them for your kingdom and the good of all people. We ask this in the name of Jesus, who gave his all for us. Amen.
Selling Seeds
A woman dreamt she walked into a brand new shop in the marketplace and, to her surprise, found God behind the counter.
“What do you sell here?” she asked.
“Everything your heart desires,” said God.
Hardly daring to believe what she was hearing, the woman decided to ask for the best things a human being could wish for. “I want peace of mind and love and happiness and wisdom and freedom from fear,” she said. Than as an after thought, she added, “Not just for me. For everyone on earth.”
Last assembly I talked about how much we don’t know. Which is very important: we are humble in the face of our deficit in knowledge. But let us not denigrate and dishonor what we do know! Because we don’t know everything doesn’t mean we know nothing! In comparison to what there is to know I know very little. But I do know some things.
In comparison to the work there is to do for the good of the world, what I can do seems very little. But I can do some things, and some things well. I might plant a seed only, so small, but someone else will water it. Who knows, when I have long past that little seed might be a great tree.
Finish with Matt 13:31-32
Jesus told them this parable: ‘God’s kingdom is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’