If you are allowed the Old Testament reading on
Sunday, you will hear one of Jeremiah’s “lamentations”. Judah is under prolonged siege by the armies
of Babylon… cruel times, like today, where conflict destroys life and culture
and leaves a wasteland. Jeremiah is
shattered by the result – the city is gone, crops and fields burned, the temple
is in ruins, and the people are terrified, desperately needy, scattered
everywhere. My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my
poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not
in her?” The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” For
the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the
health of my poor people not been restored? (Jeremiah 8:18-22)
Sarah Bachelard, the Australian Anglican priest of
the Benedictus Community in Canberra, gave five talks at the John Main Seminar
in Vancouver last month. She asked, how
is the Christian church to be from now on?
It’s an interesting question for us, caught as we are now in a strangely
similar context but in the 21st century? What are the church and christian profession
for, as the climate teeters, as power is increasingly misused, truth made
negotiable, as millions become displaced and prey to starvation and disease –
and as the formal church in the west collapses, except in the meantime for where
it is offering excitement, entertainment and credulity to needy people instead
of faith, a kind of credulous idolatry that now needs to be named as such
because however well-meaning in places it misrepresents the way of Jesus.
Another reality in all this for us is conflicting
voices, different opinions, dividing people into parties and sects, deeply so
in religion. Then there is our natural reluctance
to believe the facts. We are products of
a largely stable life and faith now deeply under threat. So, asks Dr Bachelard, from her land of
drought and bush fires, how do we respond to Jesus here?
We have no complete answer, but contemplatives learn
how to let go of what needs now to be thanked and discharged. We let go, not with rancour or loss, but by
grace and with grace, because this is one of the key ways the Spirit of the
Risen Christ opens doors in us to growth and understanding. At this kairos
in history, says Dr Bachelard, we are letting go, for instance, of christian
tribalism, denominationalism, us and them.
We let go of infantilism, the kind of religion that never grows up. Of course, what we let go of won’t change
anything much, except in ourselves. But,
says Dr Bachelard, whatever the church is like from now on, it will need to be
a school for christian maturation, for making disciples who are teachable, open
and humble and hospitable. The way of
Jesus is clear enough from the gospels, and we know that as we learn stillness
and silence, and how to let go of what’s in the way, the Spirit of truth, as
Jesus promised guides us into all the truth, from within. No one knows whether we can save the planet,
but again, contemplatives learn what the Psalmist knew, for instance: waiting
and longing, and being what Jesus taught.
No comments:
Post a Comment