Occasional Reflections

Christmas 2011

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 22:58:50 -0800

I believe – I hope! – that most of the people of Saint Catherine’s know that we have an EfM (Education for Ministry) group that meets on Thursday mornings. The EfM program includes a significant educational component (as its name suggests), but also encourages participants to develop skills in theological reflection. This is a process of reflecting upon the events of our lives, both personal and communal, against the backdrop of our faith and our beliefs - integrating life in action with scripture, tradition and reason. Although, ultimately, theological reflection is an individual practice, it is something that can be developed in community, and EfM groups work together on reflections as part of their time together.

During Advent this year, the group at Saint Catherine's reflected upon the commercialism of Christmas. What would Christmas be like without the commercialism that has become attached to it? On the face of it, we all probably expected that in considering whether commercialism is a good or bad thing, we would conclude that it detracts from the "true meaning" of Christmas. However, by resisting the temptation to consider this at a purely superficial level, we began to realize after some discussion that this is not necessarily a straightforward question.

We all believe that Christmas commemorates an important event in the life of the church and the life of the world. It may be true, as I mentioned in a recent sermon, quoting Tom Wright, the former Bishop of Durham, that removing Christmas from the church calendar would eliminate three chapters in the bible, and not really erode any of the theology of incarnation. Equally, the spirit of anticipation and waiting for God that is at the heart of Advent is something that runs through the core of most of the old and new testaments, and carries considerably more weight. Nevertheless, the popularisation of the story of the birth of Jesus, presented from two different points of view in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, draws attention to something concrete and tangible that is easy to appreciate.

"Incarnational theology," which is about the divine becoming present in earthly, human flesh, sounds a lot more abstract than a baby, born in difficult circumstances to poor parents, recognized as divine by angels, shepherds and magi, representing the forces of heaven, poor members of the people of Israel, and the gentile world respectively. If it is not irreverent to say so, one might observe, that from a marketing point of view, God chose a very attention-grabbing way of presenting the message of "word made flesh" not only in Jesus' adult presence, but through a reminder that his birth was as human as that of anyone. There is also the element of vulnerability that underscores Jesus' humanity, and the unexpectedness of the manner of his role as messiah - quite at odds with the expectations of most of the people of Israel at the time.

All this is at the heart of Christmas, and seeps through all of the trappings and wrappings in which it has become immersed. But what about the secular "fuss" about Christmas? Does it detract from appreciating and understanding what Christmas is about? At first glance, much of the commercial attention paid to Christmas seems to be focused on making Christmas a season wherein we turn our children into acquisitive, materialistic consumers of things that they largely don't need; and then the adults become grown-up versions of their children! I read recently that the primary occupation of Americans is now to purchase and consume; the economy supposedly depends upon this. This is a strange message and manifests a large flaw in modern economics: being a consumer is more important than being a producer. But that's a subject for another time. So emphasizing the tendency to encourage people to buy things that they do not need with money that they do not have is not really compatible with the spirit of the Christmas story, which is about God bestowing a very different kind of divine richness upon the poverty of human existence.

Nevertheless, there is a silver lining in the cloud of consuming commercialism that threatens to overshadow Christmas. It all says that Christmas is important, that it is something worth celebrating. It draws attention to an important aspect of Christian faith: that God finds humanity worth personal attention, and that the relationship between God and humankind is intimate, personal and caring.

In the end, it is up to those of us who profess the Christian faith to play our part in exposing the reason for all the fuss, to tell the story in word and action, and to be representatives of the Christmas message. Christmas can be a time of acknowledging the gifts given to us by God, and a time to focus on the themes of caring, compassion, peace and justice.

As if to prove the point, I was composing this seasonal message when I heard a pastor from the United States talking, on the radio, about a father and son who visited an enactment of the nativity scene. The boy came to Mary, with a baby, and his father asked his son whether he knew what the mother was going to name the baby. The son did not know, and so his father suggested that he should ask the person playing the part of Mary. When she said that she was going to name the baby, "Jesus," the son turned to his father in puzzlement, and asked: "Why is she going to give him a swear word as a name?" It was a sobering moment for the pastor, who realized that recognition of the Christmas story might not be as prevalent as he hoped. It also says much about our society that the most common use of the name given to the Christ by his mother is nowadays as a term of cursing.

It is definitely worth making a fuss about Christmas. Christianity deserves all the recognition that it can muster in times of grand indifference and apathy towards any kind of spiritual expression, religion or faith. It is generally true that "there is no such thing as bad publicity." However, as I know from my days in marketing, the challenge is to capitalise upon the publicity once it has been generated, and to ensure that the "message" is properly presented and understood.

In marketing terms, the ordinary members of all churches are, as ministers (lay or ordained), responsible for ensuring that they understand the point and purpose of Christian faith, of the love showered upon ordinary, poor humanity by our Creator, and of the way in which Christmas demonstrates a very powerful aspect of the relationship between us and God.

Commercialism may have its negative aspects, but we can take advantage of the exposure that it offers to Christian faith, and play our part in promoting appreciation of the love of God bestowed upon us. That outshines any of the gifts that we may acquire for one another.

Have a blessed, meaningful and happy Christmas.

Paul +

Under and Over the Law

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 20:03:01 -0700

Within the space of one week, the church celebrated the life of Sir Thomas More, and our family attended a performance of The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare, at Vancouver's Bard On The Beach. Robert Bolt dramatized Thomas More's life in A Man For All Seasons. This conjunction served to raise questions about the law and its role in human society, which in turn leads to questions about the nature and value of human relationships as moderated by legal structures.

Thomas More, born in 1478, was a lawyer, and the son of a lawyer. He was an accomplished scholar, and initially decided to become a monk, subjecting himself to the discipline of the Carthusians, living at a nearby monastery and taking part of the monastic life. The habits of prayer, fasting, and penance stayed with him for the rest of his life, and contributed to his reputation for personal integrity. In his late teens, Thomas More returned to London to study law. He rose from being a barrister to become a member of parliament, a minister of Henry VII and eventually one of Henry VIII's most effective and trusted civil servants, acting as his secretary, interpreter, speech-writer, chief diplomat, advisor and confidant. In 1521 he was knighted; in 1523, he became the speaker of the House of Commons. He took the post of lord chancellor in 1529, just as Henry had become determined to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, something he opposed, possessing a strong allegiance to the church of Rome and papal authority.

While he was an honourable a man, there has been some discussion about whether Thomas More was as irreproachable and incorruptible as portrayed in A Man For All Seasons. Since a primary source of income for senior legal and government officials was payment “on the side” for favourable judgements, it may be improbable that he was completely exempt from all corrupt practices. Nevertheless, within the culture of his time, he clearly seems to have established a reputation for integrity that must have some basis in reality. Thomas More’s book, Utopia, is a description of an imaginary republic ruled by reason and intended to contrast with the strife-ridden reality of contemporary European politics. It would have been rather hypocritical to propose such a utopian society while immersed in corrupt practices.

Sir Thomas More’s defence against the accusations against him was to maintain strict adherence to expression of dissidence through a principled silence that was a refusal to express either support for, or censure of, the king. In A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt draws upon a number of historical sources, while still applying a measure of dramatic imagination and licence. His words for Sir Thomas More at his trial underscore the point of his resolute silence: “The maxim of the law is ‘Qui tacet consentiret: Silence gives consent.’ If therefore you wish to construe what my silence betokened, you must construe that I consented, not that I denied.”

In the end, however, his silence contributed to his undoing. Silence is not always an effective defence in the face of perjury, as Jesus demonstrated in his trial before the Roman authorities. When others do not possess integrity, human justice can appear frail and imperfect, a friable set of rules that are intended to constrain human action and guide it in the way of civil order. Unfortunately, human law is vulnerable to those who exploit its letter against its spirit in a devious manner. This is evident in the passion of Jesus, and is one of the morals of The Merchant of Venice.

I wonder how many people nowadays associate the expression "a pound of flesh" with its origin in Shakespeare’s play. Like a number of figures of speech that have passed into idiomatic use, it is quite likely that its original context is unknown to those who use it. This is particularly common with biblically-based sayings: “going the extra mile,” or “walking on water,” or even “good Samaritan,” are used in ways that may or may not reflect their original intent, and very often without awareness of whence they came. In The Merchant of Venice, the pound of flesh is the security that Shylock requests of Antonio, the merchant, who borrows in order to finance his friend Bassanio’s courtship of Portia. The character of Shylock is Jewish, and the play is often seen to be anti-Semitic, although this must be judged in terms of its time: “The Venice of this play is a racist world,” writes the director of its current production.

Under the Law of Moses, Jews were forbidden to charge interest on loans made to other Israelites, but allowed to charge interest on transactions with gentiles, as the latter often transacted business amongst the people of Israel. However, during the middle ages Jews were often not permitted to own or work the land, which was really the only way to support a family in a predominantly agrarian society. This is why Jewish people often turned to money-lending in order to make a living. It did not make them popular; in the past few years the vitriol poured upon the banking profession is evidence that those who make a living by lending are likely to be held to account - or to blame - when others suffer as a result of their transactions, no matter how sound the legal basis for their enterprise.

Rachel Ditor, the director of this production of The Merchant of Venice is Jewish, and writes in the director's notes on the play: "It was on the high school curriculum and I dreaded it. I was afraid it said something bad about Jews … And I was uncomfortable when we finally read it." She is still uncomfortable, and believes it is appropriate to be so, "for everyone." However, while acknowledging the racist nature of the play, she does not find it to be anti-Semitic. "Shakespeare wrote a real person in Shylock; a complicated man." The fact of anti-Semitism or racism does not mean that Shakespeare endorses either; writers often depict behaviour and attitudes to draw attention to them, and to raise questions.

Rachel Ditor’s production investigates the nature of the bonds between lovers, between parent and child, between friend and enemy, between living and dead, between the law and its citizens. As in A Man For All Seasons, the frailty of human law is on display, as are the effects of principle and law upon the relationships which they touch. Shakespeare nudges us in the direction of seeking the spirit of law, looking beyond its letter.

Portia’s entreaty to Shylock to have mercy even in the face of his legal right to exact the penalty of flesh, to place mercy above his right to justice as defined in the context of the laws of the state, is one of Shakespeare’s great speeches, and merits reproduction in its entirety:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; but mercy is above this sceptred sway, it is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute to God himself; and earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much to mitigate the justice of thy plea, which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice must needs give sentence ’gainst the merchant there.

Whether intentionally or not, this speech has strong resonance with Jesus' teaching and with the values of Judeo-Christian justice. Underpinning these sentiments is the basic Judeo-Christian belief that humans can only fall short of God's justice, were it to be applied on the basis of merit, rather than mercy. It is interesting that Shylock is portrayed as legalistic and inflexible in exercising law; this is the same underlying criticism that the Christian gospels have of first century Jewish leadership, especially towards Jesus and his teaching.

Time and again, Jesus in teaching and action urges his followers not to be myopic with regard to the letter of the law, but to embrace the spirit of the law in the way they apply it to themselves and others. His great commandment, to love God above all, and to love "your neighbour as yourself," is a simplification of a religious legal code that had become burdensome and insatiable in the lives of many of its adherents. Tempering justice with mercy is exactly what Jesus encouraged; in fact, for Jesus, mercy is justice, and such justice is the only route to true peace.

In the play, Shylock is eventually undone by his insistence on “justice,” insofar as it involves strict and literal interpretation of the law. The disguised Portia, in a clever legal twist that probably demonstrates that the crafty lawyer is not a modern invention, allows Shylock the opportunity to take his pound of flesh, but points out that there is no provision for the drawing of blood. She invites Shylock to take the pound of Antonio’s flesh to which his legal contract entitles him, but to spill no blood. When Shylock is (obviously) unable to meet this strict interpretation, Portia turns the legal tables upon him and accuses him of contriving to seek Antonio's life. She throws the letter of the law back at him:
It is enacted in the laws of Venice, if it be proved against an alien, that by direct or indirect attempts he seek the life of any citizen, the party ’gainst the which he doth contrive shall seize one half his goods; the other half comes to the privy coffer of the state, and the offender’s life lies in the mercy of the Duke only, ’gainst all other voice: in which predicament I say thou stand’st; for it appears, by manifest proceeding, that indirectly, and directly too, thou hast contrived against the very life of the defendant; and thou hast incurr’d the danger formerly by me rehears’d. Down therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.

The duke, prompted by Portia and Antonio, administers justice tempered with mercy, although it is a rather harsh brand of mercy: Shylock is deprived of the amount of his original loan and required to convert to Christianity. Those who choose to live by the letter of the law must be prepared to run the risk of being judged, and maybe perishing by the letter of the law. Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35).

Incidentally, those who are fans of John Mortimer’s series of books that became a popular television series, Rumpole of the Bailey, may recall that Horace Rumpole often refers to one of his female colleagues as “Portia.” This is a reference to Shakespeare’s Portia in The Merchant of Venice, as one who is wise in the ways of law and its uses and abuses.

By the end of The Merchant of Venice none of the characters emerges unscathed. Shylock has been stripped of his wealth, his status and even his Jewish faith: one of the criteria for his life to be spared is that he should become Christian. He has even lost his daughter: a sub-plot in The Merchant of Venice is that Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, absconds with a Venetian lover, taking money and jewels with her. Antonio emerges as a rather bereft figure. Bassanio, although he has wooed Portia successfully, has been shown to waver between loyalty to his friend, Antonio, and his commitment to Portia. And Portia, while demonstrating a high degree of legal acuity, and having navigated difficult waters to marry Bassanio, finds herself with a spouse who is not exactly reliable or perfect. Each human relationship in this play has paid a price for any gain that they have achieved. Rachel Ditor’s closing scene expresses this without words through an unscripted directorial flourish: with a sad and wistful look, Jessica hesitates before leaving the stage to join her lover. She has sacrificed her family and faith in order to pursue love. Whether intentionally or not, Rachel Ditor captures in this brief moment the costs that human relationships have to bear as choices are made about love or success. It echoes the price paid not only by Sir Thomas More, but also by his family, for his adherence to firm principles.

A Man For All Seasons presents Thomas More as a man with a high degree of personal integrity, firmly committed to the rule of law, upheld by and upholding spiritual principles and boundaries. The dramatisation also depicts the family tensions (and suffering) that resulted from his decision to put principle before personal gain. Like the characters in The Merchant of Venice, Thomas More’s family bore the brunt of his sacrifices. Yet in all of this, he saw the relationship with God as being above all. Having been dubiously convicted and sentenced to execution for the treasonable offence of refusing to recognize Henry VIII’s marriage to Ann Boleyn, his final words on the scaffold were: “The King's good servant, but God's First.”

In their different ways, both A Man For All Seasons and The Merchant of Venice offer poignant reminders of the cost of discipleship. It is sadly true that the cost is one that human beings impose upon one another. Perhaps we should be thankful for the protection that civil law provides for us, but remember in a society that sometimes tends to be litigious that we stand before God's judgement in a permanent state of indebtedness. Like Shakespeare's Shylock, we can choose to live strictly by the letter of the law, but if we do, we may find ourselves standing before God, as Shylock stood before the Duke, bereft of all but the hope of mercy, prone to judgement by the letter of the law. This is not just a matter for the state: it is part of human nature to judge things large and small. Each of us has constant opportunities to administer mercy in our judgements. How many Thomas Mores must find themselves on the scaffold of human legalism before humanity discovers that we come before God in need of justice tempered with mercy, and that we should ourselves err on the side of administering mercy as part of justice?

Paul +

The Merchant of Venice is presented by Bard on the Beach in Vancouver until 23 September 2011.

El Camino de Santiago de Compostella

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:45:01 -0700

Most of the members of the congregation of Saint Catherine's are by now aware that towards the end of August, my wife, Kate, and I will take our first steps along the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route that crosses northern Spain. We will walk about 800 km over more than a month, following in the footsteps of pilgrims who have walked along this path for more than a thousand years. The map below shows the overall route of the Camino.

This is actually just one of a number of pilgrims' paths to Santiago de Compostella. It is called the Camino Frances, since it originates in France, and has historically been the most commonly followed route.

Santiago is a pilgrimage destination because of a very old tradition in the church that it is the location of the burial of the remains of Saint James (Sant Iago in Spanish), the first of Jesus’ Apostles to be martyred (Acts 12:2). As the only European site able to claim apostolic relics, it became a popular destination for those wishing to undertake a religious pilgrimage, but who were deterred by the dangers and distances involved in setting the holy land as a destination in the middle ages. The journey to Santiago was remote and the walk hard, but more secure and well-organized. In Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Wife of Bath had made a pilgrimage to Santiago, and she is not portrayed as one prone to seek danger or hardship!

What place in modern faith or life is there for a pilgrimage to a place whose founding owes more to myth and legend than to history or scripture? The Santiago pilgrimage, which boomed in the middle ages, declined substantially during the Reformation and skeptical age of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, yet has enjoyed a resurgence in the past thirty years. Regardless of its authenticity, Santiago is a holy place, somewhere for people to experience the divine, and a place where people come together to experience, and co-create through their combined presence, a holy sanctuary. And as both mediaeval and modern pilgrims usually discover, it is the journey itself that carries the greatest value. A pilgrimage is many things, but chiefly it is about being in the present. Paul Tillich, a Lutheran theologian, once wrote that the fruition of the Christian pilgrimage is that point at which we can "see the presence of the eternal upon the crowded roads of the temporal." This is the journey upon which we plan to embark, and what we will discover will be as similar to the discoveries of others as are the similarities we all share with one another, and as different from them as are the differences between all of us. In other words, it will be a unique experience, but with some points that touch the experiences of others.

Several people have asked whether it will be possible to follow our progress. Below there is a more detailed map of the route, showing the main towns along the way. I will post another map on the board in the church. We will set out from Saint Jean Pied-do-Port on Friday, 26 August, and expect to take about 33 days to walk to Santiago. However, one of the purposes of a pilgrimage is to allow the journey to take its own time: to linger in places of interest, and to press on when appropriate. The journey awaits us ...

Paul +

Sounds of Love and Resurrection

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 16:01:44 -0700

During the season of Lent, inspired by a book called Our Sound Is Our Wound, by the Rev. Canon Lucy Winkett, a priest of the Church of England, the sermons at Saint Catherine’s have been illustrated and illuminated by different sounds - mostly music.

Lucy Winkett’s book (which has limited availability in Canada, and which therefore I have used as inspiration without reading it) looks at the sounds and noises that we make to fill the silences of our lives that we have come to dread. She postulates that our culture associates silence with death, and because we fear death, we fear silence. On Ash Wednesday I illustrated this point by playing Paul Simon’s The Sounds of Silence, and talking about the journey of Lent that challenges us, amongst other things, to greater comfort with our own mortality by attaching ourselves to the mortality of Jesus.

On the first Sunday of Lent, Sarah McLachlan’s Angel illustrated the Lenten theme of wilderness by looking at the loneliness that can overwhelm us even in the most densely populated parts of life. It is a song that has an association with death, inspired by the drug-induced death of a rock musician.

On the second Sunday of Lent, the nature and content of Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom demonstrated the conjunction of jazz as a musical idiom that describes spiritual life, and as a musical style that reflects the heritage of slavery in North America. In life, as in jazz, we are often called to improvise, and we have to listen to one another, and be sensitive to the times when we are called to play a leading role and the times when we must play in the background to someone else’s leadership. Jazz music sprang from the music of African slaves and former slaves, and therefore has roots in oppression. The journey of jazz music towards acceptance mirrors the cultural journey towards civil rights.

On the third Sunday of Lent, the sounds of an unfortunate student at UCLA complaining about Asian students, which was used to expose a layer of racism, and which made her a pariah, was juxtaposed with an American-Asian musician’s response in parody (which he called The Ching Chong Song). Combined with the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, these sounds served to remind us that prejudice has deep roots and a broad reach. But the scripture also reminded us that Jesus was not averse to engaging even the most disreputable pariah in conversation and the language of salvation.

On the fourth Sunday of Lent, the virtuoso sounds of Rachel Barton Pine’s rendition of Beethoven’s violin concerto were framed by the background of Jesus’ healing of a blind man - one who had a clearer vision of the nature and role of Jesus than the sighted leaders of his faith. The pain of composer and soloist not only failed to suppress the creative genius of each, but may even have contributed to the expression of their gifts.

On the fifth Sunday of Lent, Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven was a reminder of the pain of death and grieving that Jesus understood well, as illustrated by his emotions at the death of Lazarus. But both the musician and Jesus moved on to find new life in ways that give us permission to discover new life for ourselves in the midst of loss, death and grief.

What sounds would serve to illustrate the pain and passion of Jesus that we commemorate during Holy Week and the joyful experience of resurrection that we celebrate at Easter? There is so much sacred music associated with both Good Friday and Easter that it almost seems irreverent or even irrelevant to look elsewhere. How could anyone look further than the Saint Matthew Passion or Handel’s Messiah or Verdi’s Requiem, or – well, there is a long list. So much music …

And yet, as I reflect upon the journey from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, I am drawn to a more contemporary song, one by Billy Joel: And So It Goes. It is a love song, and yet as Nat King Cole discovered with Answer Me in the 1950s, songs of love can focus on either human love or the sacred love in our relationship, or both. What is human love, if not a manifestation of God’s love? What is God’s love, if not a spring from which human love flows?
The song begins:
In every heart there is a room,
A sanctuary safe and strong,
To heal the wounds from lovers past,
Until a new one comes along.

Human love is set within the boundaries of human experience, and as our lives progress there is a constant tension between the wish to love better, less conditionally, more openly, and the instinct to build barriers to protect ourselves from the hurts that we accumulate along life’s journey. There are indeed places within our hearts where we tend to retreat when afflicted by wounds or threatened by the risk of them; I have been there myself. Yet there are also doors to be opened to let the fresh air and purifying light of renewing love invade those spaces.

Often, as we grow older, one of two things happens: we find ourselves loving less conditionally, or we become more enclosed and insular. To see the tendency towards greater openness to love, consider the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren. Bill Cosby used to have an amusing routine in which he contrasted the attitude of his parents towards his children with their attitude to him when he was growing up. (“They give them money without being asked!”) It is not just a question of the grandparents “being closer to God,” (i.e. death) as he postulates: we really can learn to love better as we grow older. This is resurrection at work: new life is infused into old lives.

Billy Joel’s song is about human love, and even if we move it into the domain of divine love, we are likely to examine it from a human point of view: asking God to enter and heal the broken relationships and wounds of tarnished love.

But what about God’s love for us? Where is God’s sanctuary from the “wounds of lovers past?” In this case, there is not just the typical range of disappointing human relationships and disappointed lovers, but a vast expanse of generations of fickle and fallible human "lovers past" who have wounded God. God’s sanctuary seems to consist not of walls, but of arrays of doors, none of which has a lock.

The song ends:
So I would choose to be with you,
That's if the choice were mine to make;
But you can make decisions too,
And you can have this heart to break.

These are words that can be dropped into the space between Good Friday and Easter to illustrate both the abundance of God’s love and the vulnerability of our paradoxically powerful God. It is God’s choice to be with us; but the decision to be with God remains with us: that is free will.

We can have God’s heart to break - and we do break it, on Good Friday, and all the Good Fridays that we create in our lives, when we crucify what is good in one another and in the created environment around us on the cross of human self-interest and greed and pride and various other sins that often appear to be less deadly than we realize. And then, at Easter, and any other day when we are receptive, God gives the heart back to us, to break again.

At Easter, we might at least take the time to be thankful for God’s immeasurably patient love, and resolve to incorporate just a little more of it into our own lives and relationships. We might also resolve to reflect it back towards the one who gives it in the first place.

May the blessings of Easter and its manifestations of love grow abundantly in your lives.

Paul +

Fear and Wonder

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 15:09:38 -0800

Imagine how it might have been.
The angel Gabriel came to Mary and said, “Hello. You’re beautiful, with God’s beauty, inside and out. May God be with you.”
To which a modern, suspicious Mary might have responded, “Take your chat-up lines somewhere else, whoever you are.”
The angel, not to be deterred, said, “Mary, don’t be afraid. God has a surprise for you. You’re going to be pregnant, and give birth to a son, who will become the great ruler over all the earth, and you are to call him Jesus.”
To which our modern Mary, now well beyond suspicion, and thoroughly alarmed, would not necessarily react with grace and tranquility.
“Surprise? Shock, more like! How can I be pregnant? Not me, matey – I’m on the pill. If I get pregnant, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble!”
The angel, persisting, said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and God’s power will accomplish what would not otherwise be possible.”
Mary’s reaction would probably be cynical disbelief, tempered by a certain amount of cultural osmosis. “Pregnant by the Holy Spirit? That’s going to sound really good when my prospective in-laws hear it. Are you going to stand in the way when they stone me?”
The subsequent news from the angel about her cousin Elizabeth’s good fortune in similarly experiencing an unexpected pregnancy, but in her case at an advanced age, would do little to mollify the incensed Mary, who would probably mutter something uncomplimentary about Elizabeth and fertility treatment, and invite the angel to leave in language not normally associated with the New Testament.
“Fear not,” said the angel. Fear would not necessarily be the typical reaction for a twenty-first century young woman confronted by an angel with news that is good for everyone else.
This is why God has to act in the right time and place in history.
Of course, Mary was probably not a typical teenage girl even for her own time, so we have to allow for the possibility of counter-cultural young women, holier than the rest of us, and open to God’s puzzling will, in any time and place.
Nevertheless, fear of God is not quite as predominant in our own time as it was two thousand years ago. At least, fear of God in terms of the sense of awe and respect, and humility in the face of God’s creative power, seems to be in relatively short supply. On the other hand, fear of religion does seem to be in evidence.
According to a recent news item, the people of the lower mainland are apparently to be spared the sight of buses carrying signs that say: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Instead, we are to be treated to a slightly more subtle campaign with buses proclaiming: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Allah, Bigfoot, UFOs, Homeopathy, Zeus, Physics, Christ.”
I suppose that it is reasonable for citizens of a country that values freedom of expression to be allowed to express their opinions. People’s views on matters of faith differ. What is annoying about this is not the exercise of freedom, but rather the waste of resources and the allocation of energy and funds to something that is ultimately a manifestation of fear of what is different, unknown or mysterious.
These advertisements are expensive, and they are not really constructive. They simply take aim at people's faith and attempt to belittle or deny it – which is sad. The social critic in me wonders whether the funds would not be more compassionately directed towards solving problems for those in need. How many hungry people could be fed by what is spent on this negative campaign? How many beds could be provided for homeless people?
It's not that all advertising is wrong, nor even that investment in promoting dialogue, debate and discussion of matters of faith is a bad thing. The promoters of the atheist bus campaign claim that their intent is to “challenge ideas and ask tough questions to promote reason, science, secularism and freedom of inquiry.” This is part of a “nation-wide campaign, entitled Extraordinary Claims, featuring bus ads, educational events and online discussions,” that “challenges well-known and widely believed claims by demanding evidence as extraordinary as the claims themselves.”
People of faith need to be held to account, and to examine our own views and beliefs, so that we understand our relationship with the divine and with one another, and deepen our comprehension of what it means to our own lives and the way we lead them. The church itself has demonstrated ample ability to ask questions and debate. An alternative beginning to Monty Python’s “Argument” sketch would be: “Is this the place for an argument?” “No, the church is down the road and across the street.”
In fact part of one of the blessings that I use at the end of Eucharistic worship includes the phrase, “Voice your words of doubt and question; they are the making of faith.” I firmly believe that unless we are able to ask ourselves the same questions that others would ask of us, we don’t truly understand what we believe. On the other hand, part of faith is a dimension of mystery and unknowing. If we believe that we can know, understand and explain fully the complete nature of God, then we have placed ourselves on a level footing with God, which is the sin of pride that is represented as a theme throughout the record of God’s relationship with humankind that is expressed from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible.
There is a difference between constructive, creative dialogue that attempts to pose challenging questions and seek answers to them, and fear of the unknown or what is different that finds its expression in diminishing or ridiculing those who hold different views. This fear is a symptom of what happens when someone else’s views are not the same as ours, and we feel threatened – because if they are right, we might be wrong, and the stability of our belief system is challenged. It's a characteristic of modern human nature - apparently - to defuse our own fears, based upon what is different and makes is uncomfortable, by refusing to acknowledge two important factors that are foundational to any faith system: first, that the created universe is vast, and the result of forces and power beyond our knowing; and secondly, that it is possible for two people to hold different views, and for both to be right. Attentive reading of the Bible will reveal an acceptance of the mystery of a divine, creative presence beyond human comprehension, and the presence of sometimes-divergent views as part of the historical experience of the divine in human life. Once we accept the mystical characteristic of the created order, it must follow that our individual experiences of it may not be identical.
The New Testament contains several themes, including the fear that the coming of Jesus strikes into the hearts of those with something to lose, and the struggle of Jesus with those who wanted to focus on a judgemental and vengeful depiction of God, which was turned into the basis for judgemental and vindictive behaviour towards others. There are still those who would like to use faith as a basis for judgement and vindictiveness towards others. This is really a manifestation of fear – most often, fear of what is different, as well as fear of loss of comfort, or advantage, or position.
If, on the other hand, we are respectful of one another, including our differences, we build relationships that are stronger because they have been tested through discussion and dialogue. Relationships built upon respect and discerning the needs of others, while being open about our own needs, makes our relationship with God stronger, and this in turn reinforces our relationships with one another.
The point is not to diminish what other people believe. “There probably is no God,” is not a statement that of itself contributes to constructive dialogue about questions of faith and belief. It’s simply negative. Demanding evidence for claims of faith is not going to be particularly productive either. Acceptance of wonder and mystery allows us to have questions that are unanswered – or even unanswerable – without undermining the foundations of our relationship with God. Accepting the divinity of Christ, and the willingness of God to demonstrate connectedness to humanity through Christ’s incarnation, still allows us to wonder about the manner of its accomplishment.
Of course, as things go on the west coast of North America, the atheist bus campaign is quite likely to fall prey to the same fate that afflicts religious organizations and faith communities: to drown in a sea of disinterest and apathy.
Fortunately for us, the incarnation did occur. Fear may have been a part of Mary’s reaction to the dubious “Good News” of the angel, but she demonstrated wonder and acceptance as well. It is worth noting that she was permitted the question: “How can this be?” God does not, apparently, rebuke questions that seek clarification, just those that are indications of disbelief.
The nativity passages give us a glimpse of the mystery and delight of God’s presence – and the truth in the meaning of these stories is that God is present in our world, in our relationships, and in our being, and willing to reach out in extraordinary ways to demonstrate caring, reconciliation and love.
May this season of Advent, and the following celebration of Christmas, be a time of opportunity to celebrate the surprising wonder and awe of being human on this earth, in this universe, in the presence of divine love, while leaving fear in its place as an instinct to preserve our safety.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the angel. “God has a surprise for you.”

Paul +