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The Epiphany
Experience
Experiencing an
Epiphany
Ordinary people like you and
I are talking about their epiphanies. What do people mean when they
say they have had an epiphany? Is it the same thing as what
the theologians mean when they talk of an epiphany? It is in
some ways, but there are usually important differences. The
epiphanies we celebrate in Christian worship are occurrences in
which the invisible God makes himself visible to one or more people
whom he has chosen to help implement his plan of
salvation.
The message comes in a
spectacular and other-worldly way. For instance, God knocks
Saul to the ground with a blinding light. Saul literally hears Jesus
saying: Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me? According
to Matthew and Luke, when Jesus is being baptized by John all those
present hear God’s voice proclaiming from the heavens: ‘This is my
beloved son in whom I am well pleased’.
By contrast, when one of our
contemporaries speaks of their epiphany they are unlikely to report
that their epiphany came from God. What then does a 21s
century woman or man mean when they say they have had an
epiphany? They are likely to mean that they have
experienced an unexpected insight. Their epiphany is most
likely to be about them and their future: their life dream. This is
in contrast to the epiphanies the church celebrates because these
are about God’s plans for a whole nation, and sometimes all
nations.
Isaiah’s epiphany is a case
in point. We heard some of it described in today’s Old Testament
reading. Isaiah was telling the Hebrews about it in an effort
to coax those living in Babylon back to Palestine. He says to
them you will share in God’s greatness and great plans for all
humankind if you do this thing. If you come back and join God in
rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple the Lord’s light will shine upon
you and your special standing will be seen by all the people who
presently live in darkness. They will come to the light of
Zion bringing their gold and incense to the altar of the Lord.
So, do not tarry in Babylon, and if you are already back do
not paralyze yourselves dreaming of the comfortable life you
left behind in Babylon, live God’s dream here in
Jerusalem.
Isaiah proceeds to denounce
the Babylonian Empire as a fraud, and promises free wine, milk and
bread to the exiled Hebrews if, and when they return
home.
God speaking,
Seek the
Lord while he may be found,
Call upon him while he is
near;
Let the wicked forsake their
way,
And the unrighteous their
thoughts;
Let them return to the Lord,
that he may have mercy on them,
And to our God, for he will
abundantly pardon.
That was Isaiah’s great
epiphany message. It was not about his future in particular but
about the future of the Hebrews and about the future of all the
nations of the world.
It is true a modern
individual may attribute their epiphany to God but more often than
not they attribute it to some human event they have witnessed, or in
which they have participated. They may attribute it to
something another human has written, or to their own thought
processes rather than to supernatural forces.
Yet, such an epiphany often
has a powerful, even overwhelming emotional dimension to it. An
epiphany experience can take you out of yourself and transport you
to a place you have never been before. It can induce a rapturous
experience.
Barrie Kosky, festival,
opera, and drama director tells of how his enjoyment of music and
his career choice as a director of the live arts, was triggered by
an experience he had when he was fifteen years of age. His father
took him to hear Leonard Bernstein conduct Mahler’s Resurrection
Symphony. Mahler’s symphony has an exhilarating and uplifting
vocal component. A portion of which you will hear after this
sermon.
Witnessing Bernstein
conducting the work and hearing the sublime music produced a state
of ecstasy in Kosky that took him out of himself. From that
day music occupied this special transformative role in his life and
eventually in his work as an artistic director.
It is helpful in talking
about personal epiphanies to separate the insight from any changes
in one’s life that may follow from it. The new understanding
or insight may lead to a significant change in outlook and
behaviour, as it did for Barrie Kosky.
As the result of an epiphany
experience a person may do as Kosky did, and say now I understand
what I should do with my life and commence making their dream come
true. Alternatively, an epiphany experience can cause you to
see you should set things right with a person with whom
relationships have become strained or have broken down.
However, how often do we act on our insights, our epiphanies?
Biblical epiphanies are
sometimes described as the light that drives out the darkness, or
the dawning of a new day. An epiphany that leads to
improvement in one’s mental or physical health, in one taking a more
positive attitude to the serious problems that come along can be the
light that drives out the darkness, or at least does so for some of
the time. This may occur even if you do not attribute your epiphany
to God.
People with a severe
physical handicap may achieve a partial emotional and mental release
from the captivity their handicap imposes on them through an
epiphany type realization. The neurosurgeon, Charlie Teo,
tells of such an outcome occurring for a patient of his who was
quadriplegic. The woman had a brain tumour that was going to
kill her and she asked Charlie to remove it. He wondered why
she wanted this operation given that her quality of life was so
poor. Many in her position welcome the release death brings.
She could do nothing for herself, she could not feed herself, do her
hair.
Charlie had the temerity to
ask her why she wanted the operation. She was a little taken
back by the question. However, she said this to him. “I have a
sixteen year old daughter and I have much wisdom I want to impart to
her in the next few years. I have that to offer her notwithstanding
my state and I want to do that”.
The woman had come to the
realization that her life had meaning, it had purpose; it was not a
living death. She had released herself sufficiently from the
terrible mental and emotional captivity brought by her quadriplegia
to implement this plan of action.
The woman’s story was an
epiphany for Charlie Teo as well. It changed the way he viewed
people with problems that he assumed would devoid their life of
purpose. He came to realize how much the attitude and
perspective of the person mattered. What is a nightmare for
one person may be an epiphany for another.
As I said, the church
historically understands an Epiphany as the light that drives out
the darkness. This woman, was, at least, partially released from her
darkness by her epiphany and her action in imparting wisdom to her
daughter.
The eventual release of some
people from the captivity of alcohol occurs following the insight
they gain from attending an AA meeting. They come to the
realization that they are alcoholics, they cannot handle their
problem on their own – they need the assistance of a force greater
than themselves, that is God. They also need the ongoing
support of other reformed alcoholics. For the project to
succeed they must give similar support to alcoholics in their times
of crisis.
The actor Anthony Hopkins
tells of how he gained release from his captivity to alcohol through
taking these insights on board and implementing the above plan of
action. He knows that in order to manage his addiction he will
have to continue for the rest of his days supporting other people
seeking to give up alcohol.
I have recounted several
stories of people experiencing personal epiphanies that led to
significant changes in their life. Although such epiphanies are
often individualistic and self focused in character, we should take
them seriously. Those that experience them do so. We should
listen to their stories even though they may leave God out of the
narrative.
We should celebrate the
insights people report when that seems appropriate, and if the plans
and dreams those insights give rise to are likely to have a positive
impact on the person’s life we should help them bring their plans to
fruition.
The stories I have told
showed that the release or partial release from captivity requires
the person to take action: to change attitude, to change behaviour;
and, not leave it all to God, or other people. We should
facilitate them gaining a release from any form of captivity they
are experiencing that is significantly reducing the quality of their
life or oppressing them. Did not Jesus seek to release his
contemporaries from their captivity?
I find it helpful to regard
epiphanies as experiences that may give you or me, another chance.
Another chance to put a relationship that has soured right, to find
something positive even inspiring in our line of work, even though
in some ways we experience that work as imprisoning, mind numbing
and demoralizing.
An epiphany may help us make
something worthwhile from a dreadful situation induced by an
affliction that has no cure, an addiction that it is near impossible
to conquer.
Perhaps we should regard
epiphanies as offering us new understandings that if acted upon may
result in us living a more enjoyable life, a more fulfilling life
and perhaps a life that is more beneficial to other people.
If someone is kind enough to
share their epiphany experience with you or I and ask us to comment,
we should try and help them understand what the experience means for
them and perhaps for others in their lives. If we do so, we are
likely to gain more from the experience than we give. And, let us be
open to accepting this kind of input from others concerning our
epiphanies. Let us do these things with humility, optimism,
trust and good will.
In the final analysis, other
people will judge us, and our Christianity, by our willingness to
put aside our personal schedules and preoccupations to focus on the
needs and concerns of others.
AMEN
Top of Page
The Baptism of Jesus
*
The baptism of Jesus by John was an acute embarrassment
to the early church, including to the gospel writers. Why? Because
John's baptism was for the forgiveness of sins, and Jesus was
believed to be sinless. Luke shows his embarrassment over the
baptism by saying as little as possible, as quickly as possible,
about it. "When all the people were baptized, Jesus was
baptized". The writer of the fourth gospel John, does not even
mention the baptism of Jesus.
If Jesus was, as the creed claims, sinless, why did he go
to John to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins? To answer
that question we need to look at why John was pressing his fellow
Jews to be baptized, and the second question we have to answer is
this: What was going on in Jesus' life that would prompt him to seek
John out?
So the first question, why was John engaging in what
amounted to a missionary programme to get his fellow Jews to come to
the Jordan for baptism? John believed that God was going to
intervene any day soon in life on this planet to clean up the mess,
and in so doing deliver salvation to those people who were faithful
to him. John believes the only thing stopping God coming immediately
was the people's sins. In order that God will come, John travels
through all the region around the Jordan calling on people to repent
and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. He warns, when
God comes, he will sit in judgment on every living soul. There will
be one of two outcomes, you will be saved, if you truly repent and
are baptized, or you will be dammed. The God John presents to the
people, is judgmental and violent rather than a compassionate and
forgiving God.
John locates himself on the banks of the Jordan and
people queue in their thousands for baptism. The people who
hear him preach are scared out of their wits. To those who
present for baptism he says, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to
flee from the wrath to come?" He instructs them to bear fruit, or be
dammed. John speaking, "Already the axe lays at the root of the
trees, every tree that does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown
into the fire".
Enter Jesus. It is first appearance in Mark's gospel, and
it is a very human Jesus Mark introduces with these words, "In those
days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized". Yes,
Jesus joins the queue of repentant Judeans waiting for baptism.
This brings us to the second question I posed earlier.
What had been going on in Jesus' life up to this point in time that
would prompt him to seek John out; to make the long journey from his
home town in Galilee to the banks of the Jordan? Mark's text offers
no clues. However, on the basis of a handful of other sources we can
say a few things: When Jesus was baptized by John he was about
thirty years of age. He was a member of a very poor family and he
worked at an everyday knockabout kind of job.
The only clue we have to what may have happened between
his birth and his presentation for baptism is the story Luke offers
of Jesus' journey with his family to the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus
was 12 years of age. In Jerusalem, he impresses the scholars with
his knowledge of the scriptures. It is not a lot to go
on.
Why does Jesus present for baptism? Is it because he sees
himself as a sinful man in need of forgiveness by God? Luke's
story indicates the family would have probably seen him as in need
of forgiveness when he went missing during that early journey to the
temple. His mother chastises him saying, "Child why have you treated
us like this, your father and I have been searching for you in great
anxiety?"
There are also a couple of indications in the gospels
that Jesus' family was, at times, far from happy with Jesus'
activities. A cornerstone of Jesus' public ministry was the
practice of hospitality: providing food and drink for non-family
members. Some scholars point out that this practice would have
strained his family's budget, even put them in debt because they
were a poor family. Jesus also declared that those who became his
followers, not his blood relatives, were his true kin. If his
relatives got to hear such a thing, they would have been deeply
wounded. Yes, they may have thought his work among the poor was
preventing him fulfilling his God given duty to them. Jesus may have
experienced some grave moral doubts too.
We do not know, but we cannot rule out the possibility
that the man Jesus did come to John, at least in part, because he
wanted to ensure he was standing in a right relation to God when the
day of judgment occurred. However, my best guess is that Jesus made
the journey to see John for a more all encompassing reason: he did
so because he, Jesus, was trying to sort out what he would do with
his life. He was trying to imbue his life with meaning, with
direction.
Jesus was a faithful practicing Jew, with an
extraordinary knowledge of the scriptures who regularly attended the
synagogue. He was living in a country that was suffering the latest
in a long line of oppressive occupations that was destroying the
lives of her people, especially the more than 90% who lived in
extreme poverty.
The question that was probably uppermost in Jesus mind
was, how can I best serve my God and my fellow countrymen?
John was the logical person to go to talk over the big questions of
life. He was a famous prophet and man renowned for his closeness to
God. He was now drawing large crowds because he was preaching a
deeply troubling message, yet one that held out hope for the
ordinary people.
Jesus hears in Galilee that John is getting up a movement
aimed at preparing the way for God to intervene in an apocalyptic
way in human affairs and put things right for his chosen people. One
of the things scholars are surest about concerning the life of Jesus
is that he began his working life as a follower of John the Baptist
(Boring). When he was a disciple of John's he must have
believed in the message that John was communicating. He accepted
John's message that God would intervene and single handedly clean up
the mess in the world and use violence to do so.
Jesus respects John, he never criticizes John, he says of
him that he is, the greatest person ever born of any human being.
However, he reaches the point where he says, "Great prophet though
John is the least in the kingdom is greater." That statement
indicates that Jesus changed his understanding of the kingdom and he
was no longer going with John's interpretation of how God
works. Yes, Jesus changed. Biblical theologian John Dominic
Crossan says Jesus listened to John, he learnt what to believe and
what not to believe about God. Jesus watched John and he learnt what
to do and what not to do.
John was a one-man band. He had no assistants. All Herod
had to do to stop John's movement was get rid of John. Jesus learnt
for his movement to succeed he needed a team of assistants.
John believed God would intervene and put the world right
without any aid from humanity, and he would do it soon. All the
Jewish people could do, was watch for God and pray for him to
come. But, God did not come as John predicted. Instead, Herod
Antipas imprisoned John, and God did nothing. Herod executes John
and God still does nothing. Jesus watched these events and he
changed his message and his behaviour.
Crossan says Jesus' message became different to John's. His message
to his fellow country-men was this: "You have been waiting for God
to act, to bring in the kingdom single-handedly, but he was never
going to do it. You have been waiting for God but God has been
waiting for you to collaborate with him in making the kingdom a
reality.
Just what kind of kingdom this will be, Jesus sets down
in the Sermon on the Mount. It will be a kingdom in which
those with the greatest material, physical and spiritual needs are
prioritized, one in which compassion and forgiveness not judgment
and punishment prevail. It is a kingdom whose implementation
requires Jesus and those who respond to his call to identify with
suffering humanity, to take on their burden.
And here is the interesting point. The nature of Jesus'
future work is foreshadowed at his baptism. Yes, in some of the
words spoken by God.
God addressing Jesus says, "With you I am well
pleased." This expression is derived from some of the opening
words of the 42nd Chapter of Isaiah. The passage says, "Here is my
servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights".
What though does this have to do with Jesus taking on the
burden of suffering humanity? It has a lot to do with it because
chapter 42 of the Book of Isaiah is the first of three suffering
servant Songs. In this song God declares that his soul delights in
what his servant will do for humans. "He will bring forth justice
for the nations etc."
The New Testament presents Jesus as Isaiah's long
awaited Suffering Servant who identifies with human weakness and
suffering. Consequently, the real significance of Jesus' baptism is
that it signaled the role Jesus would play in human affairs. He was
identifying with suffering humanity, and his baptism was a
commitment to God to work to end that suffering.
Our baptism is similarly the beginning of our calling as
followers of Jesus Christ to identify with suffering humanity, and
being followers of Jesus is supposed to be our primary calling.
In the year that Martin Luther King Junior died he
preached a sermon in which he stressed that his Christian calling
was the primary calling in his life. He said, "Every now and
then I think about my own death, my own funeral and I think what
would I want said?" He said, "Tell those who speak not to mention my
awards they are not important at all. Tell them not to mention where
I went to school.
"I'd like someone to mention that day that Martin Luther
King, Jr. tried to give his life to serving others. I'd like
for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther king, Jr. tried to
love somebody … that I did try to feed the hungry … that I did try
in my life to clothe those who were naked .. that I tried to love
and serve humanity .. I just want to leave a committed life behind"
We could add, Martin Luther King showed us what it means
to collaborate with God in making the kingdom a reality on earth.
The commencement of a new year is surely a good time to revisit our
commitment to be the Lord's servants who collaborate with God in
making the kingdom a reality in today's world. Do that and we are in
tune with a core meaning of Jesus' baptism, do that and we implement
the promises given at our baptism AMEN
1930 words
Top of Page
Healing & Hospitality
Hospitality and Healing*
It is the Sabbath and Jesus is in the Synagogue
in Capernaum preaching. He startles his hearers, especially a man
possessed by a demon. The man interrupts Jesus’ presentation by
screaming out two questions: "Why are you interfering with us Jesus
of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" He follows up with a
declaration of who Jesus is: "I know who you are you are God’s Holy
messenger".
Jesus does not answer his questions or comment on
his claim that he, Jesus, is God’s Holy messenger. Instead, he
performs an exorcism: he commands the demon to be silent and to
leave the man. According to the gospel writer the evil spirit throws
the man into convulsions, lets out a loud scream, and comes out of
him. The man becomes calm, behaves normally. All present are
amazed!
In order that you may understand the context in
which this exorcism occurred and why people responded the way they
did you need to know that belief in demons was widespread in Judaism
at the time of Jesus. That was so, notwithstanding the fact that
there was no place traditionally for demons in Jewish thought. The
Jews had regarded Satan as the servant of God. Now they regarded
him as the source of Evil, and the demons as his agents who were
responsible for much of the mental and physical sickness people
suffered. How did this change in thinking come about? Foreign
influences introduced the idea of demons into Jewish thought during
the last few centuries before the birth of Jesus. Exorcising demons
was a way of reducing evil in the world and restoring people to
health. (Hooker, p. 61).
When I last preached on today's passage of
scripture from Mark's gospel, I said the story of the man seemingly
possessed by an evil spirit demonstrates that God can transform
human lives; He can liberate us from our 'demons', whatever form
they take. What I did not do on that occasion is consider the claim
that this miraculous event was indeed miraculous. I did not question
the claim repeatedly made in the scriptures that God could and would
intervene to end in the twinkling of an eye a wide variety of human
captivities. I did not question this claim even though my experience
and observation of life had convinced me that overcoming most
'demons' is a long drawn out process that often yields at best mixed
outcomes. Nor did I consider the part that human action may play in
the processes described as miraculous interventions by God. Rather I
merely asserted that God brought the miracles about. Today I will
address the questions I neglected to consider last time.
It is not surprising that I, and many preachers,
present Jesus' miracles as God's doing, because this is how the
gospel writers present them. It would seem that Jesus performed
some miracles because the individual benefiting, or someone close to
that person, had displayed faith in Jesus' capacity to deliver the
miracle. That, however, was as far as the exploration of the process
of how a person moved from being captive to some powerful force to
being liberated, went.
I now feel it is not good enough to merely assert
that because the scriptures say Jesus exorcised a demon in the
Capernaum Synagogue two thousand years ago it happened as described,
or to claim, on the basis of the alleged miracle, Jesus can exorcise
your 'demons' today.
There are obvious problems with the conventional
proclamation that Jesus liberates people today. For one thing, so
many people's 'demons' go on holding them captive, despite the
person afflicted or others praying for God's to put things right.
The reality is that many people remain captive even though a range
of medical practitioners and a variety of other therapists have done
all they can to effect a cure.
A person may be held prisoner by a chronic
physical or mental malady of some kind, perhaps by a job that does
not deliver any satisfaction, by a job that diminishes rather than
enhances their feelings of self worth. A person may be held captive
by the feelings of bitterness and resentment experienced because she
has been let down by someone she trusted, or she may be held captive
by the recurring feeling that life generally has treated her
unfairly. A person may be held captive by any one of numerous
addictions; for instance to smoking, gambling, alcohol,
pharmaceuticals of various kinds, illegal drugs. Frequently, people
are held captive by rigid patterns of thinking, by overworking, by a
variety of obsessive-compulsive disorders. I am sure you could
nominate many more 'demons', but those are enough to clarify what we
are talking about.
Numerous Christians claim that God continues to
perform miracles for such people that are similar in character to
those described in the gospels. I am skeptical about such claims.
Human experience shows that exorcising a 'demon' of almost any
kind, usually takes more than asking for it to happen, or praying
and hoping it will happen. A significant change in one's life almost
invariably requires a great effort on the part of the person held
captive. We have to take responsibility to make the change we so
badly want, we have to put in. For instance, if alcohol or the poker
machines are your 'demon', no single act of external intervention or
therapy, is likely to end your addiction. Your will must come into
play and you must seriously commit to making it happen. Managing
your addiction will probably be a lifelong task for you, and may
require ongoing support from other people.
Now I am not denying that healing miracles of the
kind presented in the gospels may happen. What I am saying is that
my experience indicates that significant changes in our lives
require a great and sustained effort on our part.
In trying to understand today's gospel story and
many other similar stories where the reader is asked to take on the
word of the writer that a miraculous event occurred, I find myself
asking this question, "Well was it really as it is described?" We
need to bear in mind that the gospels do not offer us eyewitness
accounts of Jesus' actions. The evangelists wrote these accounts at
least 40 years after the occurrence of Jesus' ministry. Eminent
scholars have repeatedly demonstrated that each gospel writer is not
seeking to write an historical factual account of what Jesus did and
said. Rather he selects, shapes, and, at times, creates his material
in a way aimed to persuade the reader to become a follower of Jesus,
or not to give up on Jesus if he is already a follower. Each
evangelist writes to convince the reader that Jesus is a unique
person, that he is in fact God's Divine Son. In a time in human
history when almost everyone took it for granted that a divine
person would perform what we today call miraculous events there was
no better way for a gospel writer to persuade his readers that Jesus
was divine than catalogue the miracles he had performed.
Yes, the gospel records present Jesus as a highly
successful miracle worker. Given the gospel writers were championing
Jesus' cause it is highly likely they would focus on the successes.
Yet, was Jesus always successful? There were some indications that
he may not have been. For example, Jesus' ministry was not a success
in his home town of Nazareth. Matthew reports that Jesus failed to
do many mighty deeds of power (that is exorcisms and healings) in
that town because the people did not believe in him.
What I am suggesting is that the gospels tell
only part of the story, and they tell it in such a way as to
highlight Jesus' divinity, sometimes at the expense of his humanity.
When reflecting on what probably happened when
Jesus performed seemingly miraculous events, we need to keep in mind
the distinction I made some months ago between disease and illness.
Briefly, a disease has a physical cause and an illness a social
cause. A disease is cured by a successful intervention in the
physical world, and an illness healed by a successful intervention
in the social world of the person. Jesus did not always cure
somebody with a mental or physical disease. What he is more likely
to have done is heal their illness by inviting the person to
participate in a community situation where the people resources they
so badly needed were available.
In Jewish society, mental and physical disease
cut people off socially. This happened in part because disease
rendered the person ritually unclean, and in part, because many
diseases damaged the moral standing of the people afflicted with
them.
People suffering from a chronic disease had a
stigmatized status and were often shunned. As a result, they had
little or no sense of personal worth. They most probably, felt
lonely, abandoned and helpless.
However, a healer could often heal a person's
illness, and in so doing provide inner peace, even if he could not
cure their disease. For such a person to experience healing the
appropriate care and social acceptance needed to flow to him or her
from other people. The people who extended care to those in trouble
were special people. They were prepared to experience criticism and
rejection by most of their fellow citizens for reaching out with
acceptance and assistance to those whose lives were being seriously
disrupted by their problems. They empathized with their suffering.
Jesus knew that restoring people to wholeness, especially those who
were socially ostracized, required bringing them into a communal or
familial type of context, not just for an hour or so but for an
extended period of time.
Jesus and his inner circle of followers provided
such understanding and care. Jesus offered them hospitality. As New
Testament scholar Brendan Byrne points out, the word hospitality
suggests guests and visitors coming for meals, providing people with
lodging and board. Hospitality entails making the visitor, whether
friend or stranger, feel he or she belongs in one's home. Yes, it
is a demanding process, so the people who practice it the way
described are very special people.
By the manner that Jesus related to people, he
demonstrated that he accepted each person as a child of God, as an
invaluable and worthwhile human being. By inviting a person into his
home and providing food and drink, he paid the invited guest the
ultimate compliment: recognition of the person as an equal. In
practicing hospitality in a loving and accepting way, Jesus was more
likely to be healing their illness rather than curing their disease.
By inviting these people to share in the daily
life of himself and his followers, Jesus brought them healing and
hope. Often we do not hear what happened to a person after Jesus
performed the miracle. I believe that in many instances the miracle
reported by a gospel writer was the first significant step on the
journey of recovery for the person.
Jesus understood the power of the social in the
healing process. He knew that for each one of us to live a healthy
life, we need other people. We need their company, their interest in
us: in what we do and say, in our wellbeing. We need their
encouragement and we need their trust. Healing is a collaborative
process. Engaged in the process is the one suffering and one or more
other people providing loving care and acceptance. Yes, the
sufferer has to engage actively in this process of healing.
I believe if understood in this way, the stories
of Jesus healing a diverse range of people with a variety of
problems still has much to say to us today. Healing is a
collaborative act. We know that even the best professional care is
most likely to succeed if we as patient collaborate in the healing
process: we implement the practitioners directions, for instance, no
matter how tedious, time consuming, and physically and emotionally
demanding. Yes, we commit to becoming well.
We followers of Jesus have a crucial part to play
not only in our own healing, but also in the healing of other people
whom we know need care, acceptance and encouragement. Being a
disciple of Jesus entails engaging in such healing processes. Do
these things and we reduce or eliminate the hold 'demons' have in
the lives of the people we commit to caring and helping. Do these
things and we restore their hope, their joy in living and their
sense of self worth. AMEN
* The sources I found the most helpful in
preparing this address were, E. Boring, Mark A Commentary; B.
Byrne, The Hospitality of God; Morna Hooker, The Gospel
According to St Mark
Top of Page
Release for
the Captives?
'Release for the
captives? The Part God Plays in Human Affairs'*
Today’s reading from
Isaiah is set in one of the darkest periods in Judah’s history. It
is the year 540 BCE, and the Jews Isaiah is addressing are living in
captivity in Babylon. Sixty years earlier Babylon, the new
superpower of the then known world, had invaded Judah. In the course
of two invasions, the Babylonians murdered many Jews, destroyed
Jerusalem, and the temple. They carried off the brightest and best
of Judah's people to Babylon.
Isaiah does not think
these are chance events. He, like another great prophet Jeremiah,
believes God uses the superpowers to achieve God's goals. The great
empires are pawns in His hands. In this instance, God has used the
Babylonians to punish the Jews for their faithlessness to Himself
and their unjust treatment of one another.
The
destruction of the city, and especially the temple, were immense
losses that humiliated and demoralized the Jews. They believed the
temple was God's dwelling place. "Where is God now?" they asked.
"The temple is gone, and we are not burning our sacrifices?" "Has
God completely deserted us? What will happen to us if Yahweh is not
present to protect us from our enemies?"
If the people listened
to their prophets, they heard the message that God was responsible
for their troubles: yes their loss, humiliation and grief. God was
exacting payment for his people's sins! One may ask, "What kind of
God would inflict such dreadful suffering on any human beings,
especially his chosen people?"
In the
early years of their Babylonian captivity, many of the exiles had
hoped to be freed, and to make their way back home. However, those
hopes and dreams had largely gone. Some of the exiles had given up
on ever returning. Their demoralized state is movingly expressed in
Psalm 137
By
the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, for thee Zion.
Yet, not all the Jews
in exile were weeping for the life left behind in Judah. Many of
them had come to terms with living in Babylon. They did not have
full citizen rights, but they had a job, a home, and probably a
sense of being where the action was. Like the capitols of all great
empires, Babylon was an exciting place to be. There were far more
creature comforts to enjoy in Babylon than could be found in a third
rate country like Judah. Consequently, many of the expatriate
children were reluctant to go home, and actually many never did
return.
Isaiah now delivered
the Jews living in Babylon the news that God had finished with
punishing them. Isaiah wants to stir them into action, especially
the young descendents of the original exiles. These young people had
never known the homeland and Isaiah sets out to coax them to go to
Judah to reinvigorate Jewish religion, rebuild God's dwelling place
– the temple -- and rebuild Jerusalem.
You can imagine,
however, that the call on young people to go back to a place they
had never known and leave the place where they had always lived did
not spark enthusiasm. Isaiah was promising them that if they made
the journey God would protect them from Nebuchadnezzar, King of
Babylon, and be with them in restoring the Promised Land. But, would
Yahweh deliver on his promises? Their grandparents had experienced
the horrors of military conquest and forced removal from their
homeland. They and their parents have only known the rule of the
Babylonians.
For his part, the
prophet Isaiah was anything but positive about life in Babylon. From
Isaiah’s perspective, the Jewish people were in a cage – maybe for
some it seemed like a golden cage -- but nevertheless it was a cage.
He writes to get the people to stop accommodating to Babylonian
life. He wants to move them home to resume their distinctive life.
Isaiah sees a great opportunity of getting them out of their cage.
There is a new super power and it is Persia who is overrunning the
Babylonian Empire. When they finish their conquest, Isaiah reasons
the Jewish people will be able to escape and return to their
homeland. He writes to convince them they will have the freedom to
return. He writes to give them the courage to do so.
Yes, Isaiah wants to
get them home. History comes to Isaiah’s service. The Persians
agree to return the Jews to their homeland and to finance the
repatriation. Isaiah sees God’s hand in all this. We will see
later that God declares that the Persian King, Cyrus is His agent.
As part of his plan to
get them home, Isaiah paints a glorious picture of God building a
super highway for his people to journey from Babylon to Judah. He
also paints the picture of a powerful God, alongside of whom princes
of the Babylons and Persias of the world are nothing. Isaiah
stresses, that God is faithful and he alone is capable of being
faithful. God is there for us not just today but forever and ever,
he tells them.
Many do find the
courage to venture to Judah. However, when they return home what a
daunting task they face! They face years of backbreaking, spirit
destroying, work. It costs them dearly to be the people of God in
their own land. There was not a stone of the temple standing, the
city was in ruins, the utilities were destroyed. Where is Yahweh
many of them must have thought? Where is the God who promised to
make our burden light? Why did we ever leave the comforts and
security of Babylon?
Yet, their grinding
protracted workload was not the worst outcome for those who
returned. Worse was the fact that the foreign invaders kept coming.
Each new invader murdering, raping, and pillaging. Where is our God
who said we had paid the price for our sin? Why is this still
happening? were the questions they repeatedly asked.
That is as far as I
will take the story of the Jews' exile and the return of a minority
of them to the homeland. What I want to do now is consider several
important issues this story raises about the part God plays or does
not play in human history. I will start with a question, “Were the
great powers of the time of the Babylonian exile merely pawns in
God’s hands. Did he use them to punish the Jew for their sins? I
do not believe they were merely God's pawns: that they mindlessly
executed God's will.
We do not need to
introduce God as the one pulling the critical levers to make sense
of the Babylonian exile incident. We can explain what happened to
the Jews by taking account of an accident of geography and of the
propensity of empires to behave, arrogantly, belligerently and
greedily.
Judah's fate was in
large measure the product of its geographical location coupled with
the overweening ambition that every empire has to conquer, occupy
territory, and mercilessly exploit its people and their produce. As
far as Judah was concerned, when the great powers of the
middle-eastern world went to war, whether they were travelling to
fight one another on a north-south axis, or on a east- west axis
they had to pass through Judah. The great powers often chose to
fight in Judah and destroy that country rather than their own. They
murdered and raped the local people and destroyed the productivity
of their land in the process.
Dominic Crossan puts
Judah's geographically determined desperate situation colorfully
when he says if the Jews had all been saints and spent their lives
on their knees praying to Yahweh, it would not have made one iota of
difference to their fate. The only possible difference was they
would have been slaughtered kneeling rather than standing.
No, we do not need to
introduce God as an actor in this episode of Jewish history to offer
a convincing explanation of why the Jews were carried off into exile
and Jerusalem and the temple destroyed. This is the way emperors
always behave. "All empires are self-indulgent, arrogant and
abusive." (Brueggmann, p.22)
This brings me to my
second question. Is it possible to reconcile the picture Isaiah,
Jeremiah and other prophets paint of Yahweh as a God who chooses to
use the great powers of the world to inflict great suffering on his
people with our claim that God is compassionate and loving? I
accept that God holds us accountable for our actions, but does a
loving God pull us into line by inflicting incalculable suffering on
us? What kind of God would deliberately do such things? That God
would act in such ways is irreconcilable with humanitarian standards
of behaviour, and with the Christian claim that God is just,
forgiving and compassionate. Dominic Crossan asserts that it is
obscene theology to tell such victims as the Jews were, that
invasion is God's punishment for their sin.
My third point is this:
God never delivered for the Hebrew people what the prophets
repeatedly said he would deliver. There was no royal highway to
travel back to their homeland. When they arrived the country was not
flowing with milk and honey, it was virtually uninhabitable. An
enormous task awaited those who came back. The rebuilding of
Jerusalem and the Temple took years. It only happened at all because
at least some of the people who did return displayed the
characteristics the Prophets say only God could display. They proved
their loyalty and their steadfastness by collectively doing the
backbreaking work.
Worse than the back
breaking work was the fact that the Jews continued to be murdered
and oppressed by wave upon wave of foreign invaders. This happened
although the prophet Isaiah had announced God had declared that they
had paid for their sins. Well, why were they still being invaded,
and massacred if their sins had been forgiven? If God is the one who
makes the rulers of this earth as nothing, why did he not put a stop
to the incalculable suffering the Hebrew people experienced at the
hands of several rulers of this world? Was he still punishing his
people for their sins? That is how many Jewish people interpreted
what happened to them each time a fresh conquest occurred.
I think we create far
more problems than we solve when we declare God pulls the strings in
human affairs. No God did not deliver on the promises the Prophets
said he made to his people, because that is not how God works, or
human affairs work.
According to eminent
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, the prophet Isaiah came to
recognize that this was so himself. He recognized that human
history depends on what humans do, not on God taking over the human
scene. For instance, Isaiah makes it clear to the Jews he is urging
to return home that whilst God will encourage and inspire them on
their journey, they must take responsibility to get back to Judah.
When they do get back, they will have responsibility for the
rebuilding. God is not going to lay one brick.
The big surprise,
however, is Isaiah's declaration that God anoints the Persian King,
Cyrus, as the agent of restoration in Jerusalem. By anointing
Cyrus, a gentile, he is in effect declaring him his Messiah. He is
not treating this king as a puppet but the anointed one charged with
making things happen on God's behalf.
It seems God is not
finished with human kings. Isaiah, on God's behalf, is going to
transfer all the authority of a king of the house of David, to this
gentile. The message is clear, God does not create history by
moving human actors this way and that as one would move the pieces
on a chessboard. Cyrus, himself will choose to strip kings of their
armour.
'I have
aroused Cyrus in righteousness, and I will make all his paths
straight; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for
price or reward, says the Lord of hosts'.
God may encourage and
inspire but humans themselves transform or fail to transform their
situation; they create human history. This is the reading that
pre-eminent Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, offers of the
message of Isaiah chapters 40- 55. Brueggemann is no radical. He
describes himself as standing in the tradition of evangelical
pietism. He is telling us that we create our history; that we have
to take responsibility for it. This is a similar message to the one
I shared with you last week concerning the part we play in our own
healing and in the making of the Kingdom of God a reality in this
world. The message that human history depends on human agency has
profound implications for how we pray and what we pray for, and what
we preach and teach.
My final point is this,
God through his prophet Isaiah, urged the Jewish people to make a
new future beyond the grip of Babylon. Some chose to do so, and it
proved a hard choice but for many a life transforming, life
bestowing choice. In this 21st century, the Babylons are still with
us, and their sophistication, power, and life style are as seductive
as ever. The God we meet in Jesus Christ urges us to break with
Babylon and transform our lives by joining Jesus in journeying on
his way. AMEN
* The sources I found
particularly helpful in the preparation of this paper were, Walter
Brueggemann, Out of Babylon, John Dominic Crossan, God and
Empire
Top of Page
The never-ending search for a "rush"
During the course of the last annual cycle of
tennis tournaments in this country, Lleyton Hewitt said something
like this. "Of all the tournaments I play in the one that matters
most to me is the Australian Open. There is nothing like playing on
the centre court in front of your home crowd. It gives me such a
rush. It is the hope of repeating that experience that keeps me
coming back after yet another operation for an injury, and keeps me
working hard to get my game good enough to play before my home crowd
on the centre court".
We all like to experience a special rush, and you
know what, it is not only available to the 'Lleyton Hewitts' of this
world. Ordinary people like you and me can experience that
exquisite feeling. Jesus' disciples experienced it when on the
mountaintop with him. Peter did not want to let go of the
experience. He begged Jesus to stay on the mountain rather than
return to everyday ordinary activities. We all try to find ways of
extending that special moment.
How did Peter's special moment come about?
Jesus took
Peter, James, and John to a mountain where they witnessed a great
light transfiguring Jesus. Jesus’ face shone like the sun, his
clothes became as white as the light. That would have been enough
to create a special sense of euphoria in Peter. However, something
more happened that made Peter's experience even more special. No
sooner was Jesus transfigured than Moses and Elijah -- the two
greatest figures of the Old Testament --joined Jesus and spoke with
him. Yes, the Transfiguration was the manifestation of Jesus’ glory
and understandably, the experience exhilarated Peter.
Peter clearly did not
want to let go of his special experience. Why give up being at the
centre of things and being in an ecstatic state? It beats being
down on the flat struggling with the crowds that followed and
pressed in on Jesus.
No, Peter is in no
hurry to get back to his demanding life on the plain. Like all human
beings, Peter wants the "rush" to go on and on. Peter says to
Jesus, “This is great here Master, if you wish we will build a tent
for you and one for Moses and another for Elijah, and we can stay
here”.
Surely, we can all
empathize with Peter. But, like many ecstatic experiences, Peter’s
comes to an end. Elijah and Moses suddenly disappear and Jesus and
the disciples return to their normal life.
We live in a different
world to Peter, and the other disciples. Over the last four hundred
years, or so, religion has been gradually squeezed out of public
life and the great institutions of all western societies. We now
find religious and spiritual matters, largely confined to the
private sphere, and perceived as essentially personal.
It is true there are
numerous individuals who make their religious commitment their core
commitment, and seek to have that commitment infuse every area of
their life: for example, their work and recreational activities.
However, the number of people seeking to make religion a deeply felt
experience appears to be rapidly dwindling. It seems the great
majority of our contemporaries seek ecstasy and positive feelings
generally outside the sphere of organized religion.
During the childhood
and adolescent years of many of us, the most ecstatic experiences of
our lives occurred in a church context. As well as strictly
religious activities, such as Sunday worship, there were a great
number of church social activities that provided that special
"rush". For example, when I was a child the annual Sunday School
Picnic was for me and some others I have spoken to, the high
emotional water-mark of the year. For still others, it was the
Sunday School Anniversary: a chance to get up on the stage in the
special new dress, or your first pair of long pants, especially if
you were chosen to present a solo performance to the congregation.
When we were
adolescents, many of us got a very special rush from attending a
church camp for a whole weekend. Romance and excitement were
constantly in the air during those three days.
It now sounds like I am
saying if only we could have those days back. I am not. What I am
alerting us to is that the society has changed around us so
dramatically, even during our lifetime, that the church is far less
likely to be offering people a way of gaining release from the
mundane whether in an exciting kind of way, like Peter experienced,
or in more serene, calm, meditative ways.
Why are the young
largely absent from contemporary mainstream church life?
My hunch is that they absent themselves,
primarily because the church offers them little or no experience of
being taken out of the mundane.
It is important to
stress that the Uniting Church’s National Christian Youth Council
does excite and inspire many young people. However, it is difficult
to translate what works for them in that context to local church
life, especially as there are usually so few young people present,
if any, who have shared the NCYC experience.
In one of her recent books, Karen Armstrong makes
the point that if humans can no longer find ecstasy in synagogue, or
church, or mosque, they look for it in dance, music, sex, sport, and
drugs. We could add to this list many other places and activities
humans go in search of a "rush".
Exercising has become an important way of gaining
a sense of euphoria. The gymnasium, the spa, swimming, and bike
riding become great activities for people seeking a "rush" through
exercise.
Retail therapy represents yet another attempt to
escape the mundane and give oneself an emotional high. Marketers of
designer labels aim to attract to their products people wanting to
escape the mundane, and experience a special buzz when they adorn
themselves in a garment badged with their high status label.
Then there is the business of collectables and
the pursuit of a rush through finding that one special object to
complete one's collection. Playing sport, watching sport, attending
movies, traveling overseas, are ways enthusiastically engaged in, in
our society, to take one out of the mundane and give one’s life a
lift.
The weekly trip to the footy game may be a
highlight for the week and a way of stepping outside the routine,
and if your team wins of experiencing several days of euphoria.
I am all for encouraging and celebrating
activities that help people enrich their life, or just help people
get through it in a meaningful and emotionally positive way.
We can lift our spirits by engaging in passive as
well as in physically demanding pursuits. For example, painting and
gardening gives many people an extra special buzz. Andrew's mother,
Joan Craggs, got a great buzz from painting. Ted tells me he gets a
buzz from building 'billy' carts.
Listening to music can take you outside your
normal existence. One of the moving moments of Betty Dickenson's
funeral service was a heart- stirring rendition of her favourite
hymn, 'The Old Rugged Cross'.
Many of we churchgoers
are probably more likely now than 30 years ago to seek to find
release from the mundane, in non-church activities.
And, I acknowledge that such so called secular
experiences can be as emotionally valuable as those associated with
religious activities.
Yet, no matter where we
find our mountaintop experiences we cannot extend them indefinitely.
It is not only that work and family duties call us back from any
‘emotional high' we have. It is also the fact that we cannot cope
constitutionally with perpetual excitement. We need the ordinary,
the routine.
Here are several
questions worth considering: Do we see the time out activities, even
the momentary ones, as the things that make our life worth living?
Do we see the routine segments of our lives as mundane, drab and
dreary: activities we have to get through as best we can, all the
time impatiently waiting for our next ecstatic experience?
Can the moments of
ecstasy whether of the calming reflective kind or the more euphoric
kind inform positively the routine in our lives? For example, can
our weekly worship and our other church activities enrich, perhaps
even help rejuvenate the lives we live away from the church?
I know they do for some
people. Attending a church service, singing some hymns, hearing the
scriptures read, participating in the Eucharist, brings them a
sense of wellbeing that permeates their
lives generally. These are the people, whom are most likely to say
that the spiritual side of church life enhances their sense of God’s
presence in their lives.
Then there are those people who say they are not
particularly spiritually inclined, but who stress that participating
in the social life of their church is enjoyable, and generates a
sense of wellbeing that carries over into their life away from the
church, helping them to deal with the more difficult and testing
aspects of daily living. Such people may get a special buzz from,
say, the fellowship at 'morning tea' or from participating in a
garage sale that does well. Perhaps we could ask Iris and June, if
they were present, if a successful garage sale gives them a special
buzz. You may get it from working in the Opportunity Shop, or
participating in the Thursday morning social activities.
So notwithstanding the declining significance of
the church in Australian society, there are still many experiences
connected with church life that we should give thanks for and
celebrate because they
enrich people’s daily lives in a meaningful and often emotionally
uplifting way. Dare I go so far as to suggest they may even provide
at least a hint of the 'rush' that Lleyton Hewitt experiences on the
centre court during the Australian Open. AMEN
Top of Page
Lent and following in the
way *
Lent is a time of preparation for Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday
which this year was last Wednesday. On this day, many Christians
are daubed with ashes as a sign of their mortality and penitence,
and as a reminder that through Jesus Christ they receive the
gracious gift of everlasting life.
In many countries, the last day before Lent -- called Shrove Tuesday
-- has become a day for a last fling before the solemnity of Lent.
Some of you participated in a collective last fling of a modest kind
on Tuesday night: eating pancakes and ice cream, and watching the
film 'Chocolat'. I here you all had a great time.
We are supposed to
prepare for Easter by engaging in a 40 day fast. I trust all the
pancake eaters are now in fast mode. The number forty was suggested
by the forty-day fasts of Moses, Elijah and Jesus himself. However,
during the first three to four centuries of the Western church's
existence, the Lenten fast lasted for only two or three days. Long
enough, I am sure, many of you are thinking! The first mention of a
forty-day period of fasting did not occur until the fourth century.
What form does fasting take in the 21st century? Some Christians
choose to abstain totally from meat, or alcohol or chocolates during
the forty day period prior to Easter. Some people choose to fast by
reducing the amount of time they give to pleasurable activities
generally. They may elect to spend more time than usual in prayer
and reflection.
All these approaches
are perceived as methods that will help people keep to the forefront
of their minds Jesus' suffering. They are also meant to remind us of
the suffering of human beings generally.
In ancient Israel,
ashes represented suffering. They represented that which in human
experience, was burned out and wasted. They symbolized grief for
what was once so beneficial and wholesome but was now gone: healthy
bodies, sound minds, a loving family, a redeeming relationship with
God.
The ultimate form of
burn out and wasting is, of course, death, and for the Israelites,
the ashes symbolized the inevitability of human death and the
mourning to which it gives rise. Ashes also symbolized the
pervasiveness of human sin.
The Christian church
adopted from the Hebrews the practice of using ashes as a symbol of
human sinfulness and penitence for wrongdoing.
There are a variety
of meanings given to the word sin in the scriptures. I am not going
to try to cover them all but instead concentrate on one that I think
speaks to our situation. Sin is often called hubris, which
translates pride, but hubris does not mean taking pride in some
achievement. It means giving to one’s self the place that belongs to
God alone.
The Bible makes it
clear that putting ourselves at the center where God belongs always
results in people treating their fellows unjustly and unfairly. In
Israel sin, so understood, showed itself by those with land
exploiting the landless, rulers frequently exploiting their
subjects, and the Hebrews exploiting the peoples they defeated in
war.
Hubris is still
pervasive today. Those with power often exploit the powerless,
those with wealth are inclined to take advantage of the poor in
order to further grow their wealth. One ethnic group resists
another moving into its neighborhood, and, in order to have a higher
standard of living, the peoples of the first world exploit the
peoples of the third world.
Lent is a time to
remember that when we humans exploit one another, using others
unfairly to achieve our goals, we are replacing God with ourselves.
Yes, sin is about
excessively centering on the self. Having made that point, I must
acknowledge that centering on the self to a considerable degree, is
unavoidable. Humans are born with drives and needs which, if not
satisfied, will result in the extinction of those humans. There are
always cultural, economic and political forces pushing human beings
to center on themselves. For example, people are being pressured to
worry about themselves by the rapid decline in job security in this
country.
Confronted by almost
daily news of one prosperous enterprise after another sacking a
significant number of its employees, is it any wonder that a growing
number of individuals are saying: “when push comes to shove I am on
my own”.
Individuals can end
up feeling like exiles in their own neighbourhood, their school, at
their place of work, in their society, in their own church, even in
their own family. All these developments typically push people to
center on the self in the interests of survival and personal
wellbeing: not just physical survival or well being, but also
emotional, mental and spiritual survival and well being.
So let us not
underestimate the inevitability of such centering occurring nor
underestimate that it can bestow at least some essential benefits.
Yet, of course, we live in a society in which we have made
centering on the self into an art form. We are encouraged to focus
our energies and resources more or less exclusively on looking after
me: my pleasure, happiness, and career, my victories and my
well-being.
We are encouraged to
do these things even if excessive attention to ‘me’ is at the
expense of others who have rightful claims on me and who need my
practical support, my affection, my compassion for their lives to be
sustainable and enjoyable.
So centering on the
self to a substantial degree is inevitable. However, it is when the
balance between on the one hand, the need to care for ourselves and,
on the other hand, the need to care for and commit to others goes
awry in favor of ourselves that, from a Biblical perspective, we
lose the plot. So here are a couple of questions for us to think
about: Does not the profound understanding the Hebrews had of human
self-centeredness and its often destructive outcomes communicate a
message that is still relevant? Do we have a propensity to
separate ourselves from God and from our fellows by trying to
extract for ourselves every benefit we can from life and from our
relationships? Do we find ourselves saying all too frequently: What
about me, rather than what about my brother or my neighbor, or my
work colleagues, or my fellow church members?
The next point to
highlight is this: when we do get our lives markedly out of whack,
when we focus on ourselves to an excessive degree, we can find it
very difficult to save ourselves from ourselves.
We can find
ourselves imprisoned by living a life centred on the self. In
today’s first reading, the psalmist expresses a yearning we may
share to gain freedom from the self centered life. It is a yearning
to have God transform our life.
The Psalmist says:
Create a pure heart in me, O God, And put a new and loyal spirit in
me.
What the Psalmist is
saying amounts to this: God, I beg you, save me, change me, because
I cannot change or save myself.
The Psalmist may have, changed his ways, but what about the
Israelite people as a whole? Any change of heart they collectively
experienced was often short lived. They repeatedly went back on
their side of their deal with God. The Biblical picture of their
fall into exile is very decisive.
However, not
only the Hebrew people were in exile from God, and from their true
selves. It was often human beings generally. In today's world, many,
possibly most human beings are exiled from God and from the person
God yearns for them to be.
The Biblical
message is that we are a contradiction: "We are created in the image
of God but we live outside of paradise… in a world of estrangement
and self-preoccupation" (Borg, p. 117).
Consequently, we need to be born again. The born again experience
may be sudden and dramatic as in the case of Saul on the road to
Damascus. Through that experience, Saul became Paul. Probably for
most of us, however, being born again is a gradual and incremental
process, entailing dying to an old identity and acquiring a new one
more in harmony with the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Being born
again is the outcome of the work of God's Spirit and it leads to us
living a life that is centred more on the Spirit of God as known in
Jesus and less on the self.
How does
this come about? The clue resides in the fact that the first
Christians were called people of the way. The people of the way
imitated Jesus in their daily lives, particularly in their
relationships. They had a strong sense of Jesus' spirit journeying
with them. Martin Luther observed that being a follower entailed a
daily dying and rising with Christ: a daily dying to an old way of
being and of rising to live in a new way.
Christianity
is not the only religion to talk about journeying in a new way. In
fact, the notion of journeying on the way is at the heart of all the
world's great religions, observes Marcus Borg.
For
instance, Judaism talks of following in the way. For Jews making
this journey entails gaining a new heart, a new self, centered on
God.
Islam
requires of Muslims to "surrender" their lives by centering on God.
Buddhism talks of letting go of an old way of being and of being
born into a new way of being. Buddhist writer Lao Tzu says: "If you
want to be full let yourself be empty; if you want to be reborn, let
your self die"
Yes, the
process of personal transformation is at the heart of all the
world's great religions. That is concerning to some Christians
because the church has claimed for centuries that Jesus is the
only way. However, a growing number of Christians cannot
reconcile the God they have come to know in Jesus with the claim
that only those who say they believe Jesus died for their sins can
know God. Jesus shows us a God who is inclusive not divisive. One
who calls on us to show our love for God by being compassionate as
God is compassionate.
Rather than
being a source of consternation the commonality between the way of
Jesus and the ways of the world's other religions should, in this
season of Lent, be the cause for celebration. As Borg points out, it
means that the Spirit of God has gone out to Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists and so forth.
Moreover,
the fact that the practitioners of all the world's great religions
believe they are called to take a journey that entails dieing to an
old self and discovering a new self adds credibility to
Christianity. He argues, When the Christian path is seen as utterly
unique, it is suspect. But when Jesus is seen as the incarnation of
a path spoken of by all the great religions, the path we see in
Jesus has great credibility (Borg p. 119).
Paul
stresses that for followers of Jesus the new life in Christ is
marked by freedom, joy, peace, and love. These are all gifts of the
spirit but the greatest of these is love: the love of God for us and
the love of God in us. However, we can thwart the work of the spirit
or we can facilitate it. During the course of our lives we probably
do both.
Finally, for
we Christians, Lent is a season to remember with thanks that God has
turned our life around and continues to turn it around. Lent is a
season in which we recommit to living the life of love following in
Jesus' way, under His Lordship. AMEN
* I have
made use of M. Borg's The Heart of Christianity in preparing
this sermon.
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