Sheep and goats – 21 November 2014

Next Sunday is the last of the liturgical year, and of course we get the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.  It’s stark and uncompromising, and I feel it never improves from one year to the next.  Those who had fed the hungry and the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, visited the prisoners, are at the final judgment set at the Saviour’s right hand in glory.  Those who had neglected these things are consigned, with rejection, humiliation and abuse, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

The worst way to deal with this parable, it seems to me, would be to rush out and feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick and visit the prisoner – in order to be among the sheep rather than the goats.  It won’t work, and it’s not the point.  One aspect that interests me here is that the sheep didn’t know that they had been doing all these things:  Lord, when did we see you hungry…? and so on.  The goats, similarly, didn’t know that they had been neglecting all this.   Everyone was surprised.  This is scarcely welcome news for the overly righteous, the morally scrupulous, because it seems to indicate that what matters is at a deeper level than our actions and fulfilment of duties.

However, this list of benevolent acts is what Catholics call the Corporal Works of Mercy.  They add one more to make the list up to seven, so we have:  Feed the hungry, Give water to the thirsty, Clothe the naked, Visit the prisoner, Visit the sick, Free the captive, Bury the dead.  There are also the seven Spiritual Works of Mercy:  Instruct the ignorant, Counsel the doubtful, Admonish sinners, Bear wrongs patiently, Forgive offences willingly, Comfort the afflicted, Pray for the living and the dead.  There are actually study guides and work sheets on sale for instruction in all this, if you’re having difficulty. 

The realities in life, as we well know, are otherwise.  If we must have labels, which I find distorting and oppressive, then the fact is that most of us find we are sometimes among the sheep and sometimes among the goats.  And that’s on a good day.  We are unsure, also, about this God who separates sheep from goats, according to those criteria, and consigns the goats to perdition.  Something is badly the matter with that.  Christ is the icon of the invisible God, St Paul teaches, and the picture in this parable does not seem Christlike.

But the parable does give us a very timely urgency about social justice, and it links this directly with God’s purposes.  In our contemplative life we expect to be changed, and for the change to continue and develop.  I may not be feeding the hungry or visiting the prisoner right now, but I will be some way involved in healing a broken world and bringing relief where it is needed.  I may be in a position where I can influence decision-makers. 

What also strikes me about this is that all these works of mercy are equally well done by atheists, Jews, Buddhists, Moslems, or people with tattoos – and many do just that.  These are not uniquely Christian acts.  Jesus in this parable expected his disciples in any age, to do what is simply good and necessary – it may be with Amnesty or with Doctors Without Borders, or it may be in our own neighbourhood, family or churches.  But we do it, we see it done, we feel it and we yearn for it, more and more as our egos and ego-needs diminish.

Going on alone – 14 November 2014

For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.  [Matthew 25:14-15]

…the Parable of the Talents.  The servant who had been lent five talents made them into ten; the one with two talents made four; the one with one talent took fright, buried it, and eventually returned it safe and unsullied to his master.  Parts of the American church have a lot of fun with this parable because it is all about capitalism, about wealth and righteousness belonging together, and Jesus even seems to justify usury. 

I think the key to the parable is in the very first sentences, which I read.  The point is the master’s absence.  This is emphasized.  In Matthew he goes away on a journey (Gr. αποδημων – to another country).  Then he went away, Matthew repeats.  It’s the same stress in Mark.  In Luke he is a nobleman who goes off to a far country.  And that I think is the issue – it’s about going on alone, without the immediate sense or awareness of God…?  It’s grown-up faith.  If we want to be really adventurous with this parable, then we ponder living without the presence of someone we love…?  Living without adequate health perhaps, or money, or faith and hope…?  And when you think about it, there are various other points in the gospels where Jesus explicitly stresses his coming absence, as though the disciples need to understand this.  I think this parable does reflect the early church having to come to terms with the fact that Jesus has not returned as some expected – neither will he.  Life as a disciple, as we know, might well be comforted by the perceived presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or by the promise that he will be with us always, even to the end of the world.  But life is equally marked by the presence of absence. Then, says Jesus in the parable, he went away.

“Talents”, by the way, in this parable, certainly do not mean personal gifts and aptitudes, the kind of thing referred to in the unspeakable TV show “NZ’s Got Talent”.  The talent in Greek (ταλεντον) was a measure of volume, generally the amount of wine in one amphora.  “Talent” here may mean a talent of gold, an unimaginable sum, or silver, or wine.  The talent was a lot of whatever it is.  The parable then is about what we do with what we own, certainly our assets in the sense understood by Inland Revenue, but also what we do with the whole environment we have inherited.  It is up to us, because God is not about to appear and make it all right.

Grown-up faith, then, is about getting on with it.  It is about living, not huddling, in the midst of life and risk.  It is not about measuring everything by how we happen to be feeling at the moment – which is no measure at all -- or rushing for safety as did the servant who buried his talent securely in a hole.  It is about risking mistakes and daring to be vulnerable and fallible.  It is moreover about consenting to being made this way in life, even at our advanced stage or age, by God’s wild spirit of resurrection and new life.  Our prayer of silence and stillness, which you must admit is somewhat sparse of reassurances, is for many of us the best and truest way of being, in this kind of world. 

Oil shortage – 7 November 2014

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. [Matthew 25:1-13]

Only Matthew records this parable -- and it bristles with questions.  Who are the bridesmaids? Who is the bridegroom? Is foolishness really a reason for exclusion from the kingdom? Is indeed anyone excluded? Why were the wise bridesmaids so uncaring? Why was the door peremptorily shut and no one else allowed in? What does the oil signify?  This is not my favourite parable.  Is the form in which it reaches us through Matthew the same as the form in which it was told by Jesus?  Or does this form of the parable reflect more the 1^st or 2^nd century church under adversity and wondering how long before the Saviour returns?  I don’t know you, says the bridegroom to the foolish bridesmaids who still asked to be admitted.  He did know them… and that is not my understanding of faith.

It is clearly about being ready when the time comes.  So what time is that?  The time of our need in life, one might think.  Last Friday in our brief discussion, it was mentioned that we experience different seasons in our lives, seasons of experience and maturity which change us, sometimes deeply.  In mindful, contemplative understanding, a major thread which runs through these changes over the years is the constant challenge to our ego.  The young adolescent, we think quite properly, must be thinking about self and the self’s future – perhaps we worry if they are not.  But our prayer of silence and stillness is a daily calling into question of the ego’s requirements of us, examining what we assume to be our needs.  Humility, letting go, relinquishing control, which may have been unimaginable at age 18, may indeed start imperceptibly at first to replace more familiar ways of reacting. 

Nothing stays the same, even if we devote ourselves to control and safety – as indeed some people do.   Change for them becomes our enemy.  But in a climate of prayerful silence, when we have ceased asking for things, and instead are still with empty hands and a consenting heart, the Spirit of God – the oil for the lamp, as it were – is able to continue God’s work of creation in us, replacing fear with love, and making all things new. 

Broad phylacteries – 31 October 2014

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honour at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven… The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted. [Mathew 23:1-12]

Jesus was clearly exasperated, at any rate on that day, by people practising religion.  By any standards his speech is judgemental and dismissive.  He was angry, and what triggers his anger is his awareness of burdened and suffering people for whom this kind of religion is no help at all.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.  And there are examples of precisely that in the Auckland religious scene, and far beyond, today.  That section of chapter 23 morever is tame compared with what he goes on to say.

Jesus calls us to live differently.  It is really a shameful thing when this seems to be understood better by a secular society than in the congregations and councils of the church.   The call of Jesus is a call to live simply and humbly.  Even atheists understand that.  It is not a question of how much or how little we own.  Simplicity and humility become apparent, or not, whatever car we drive and wherever we choose to live. 

Basil Hume was a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey.  More or less out of the blue he was appointed Archbishop of Westminster.  At his ordination and induction, amid great colour and panoply, the preacher was one of his fellow monks who warned his brother: It will make everything harder for you, including your prayer.  A bishop, said Basil Hume, quoting St Augustine, is a man who knows the weakness, fears and anxieties of all people; who, as well as sensing the presence of God, experiences the darkness of his apparent absence; whose job is not to stifle but to release, not to impose but to draw out, not to dominate but to animate.  Basil Hume wrote a book for children, about himself, called Basil in Blunderland.  He once told his priests, Remember, when you die, someone will be greatly relieved.  These are signs of a humility, acquired in the Spirit of Christ, apparent through all the noise and colour of high church office. 

We learn simplicity in our prayer of silence and stillness.  We have set aside for the present all the things other people might admire us for, and things we do for a sense of justification and worth.  We are not seeking here any huge enlightenment – indeed, as Basil Hume pointed out, prayer may often have more to do with the apparent absence of God.  It is only genuine humility which can bear the sense of evil in the world, and the weight of our own personal history in places.  So our phylacteries, you might say, are diminishing.  We are free because the only requirement of us here is simplicity.

What it amounts to – 24 October 2014

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  (Matthew 22:34-40)

Steadily, across the spectrum of Christian faith around the world, and across immense obstacles, a huge shift seems to be happening.  On a perhaps superficial view it is a shift from exclusivism – that is to say, the assumption that you ought to believe the right things and in various ways conform – to a need for inclusivism – that we reduce the rules and remove the fences, and remember that God is the judge of people’s hearts and motives.  Exclusivism is a need to protect the faith and the church.  Inclusivism opens us to difference and risk, and often as not, the need to change.

There is another view, one that goes back to the Hebrew prophets.  It is to remember that God works, constantly, sometimes dramatically but usually not, sometimes with us but often despite us – God works to make all things new.  This is the creator tending and loving his creation.  It is the Spirit of the Risen Christ, continually inspiring and bringing us back to the way of Christ. 

The commandment which, said Jesus, is the greatest of all, the commandment which he said fulfils all the law and the prophets, is plain and simple:  You shall love the Lord your God… You shall love your neighbour.  That is the requirement.  It does not say that we must first be morally blameless or at any rate considerably improved.  It does not say that we must believe the right things.  It does not say that we must first fulfil various liturgical and canonical requirements.  It is a commandment to love – as though the love we have received and practise, however feeble, is what God sees and loves.

Neither is this love a matter of our emotions, of how we feel.  Jesus made that plain.  We often have to go on loving despite how we feel.  This cuts right through the terrible mess our culture and our generation has made of the word love.  Love is something I decide, a response to being loved unconditionally.  Pope Francis is one who apparently sees that the church needs to learn to love again – loving God and loving one’s neighbour are inseparable loves, mutually dependent.  When Mary McAleer, the former President of Ireland, who already had one child, found she was now expecting twins, she was as she puts it underwhelmed.  However was she going to split her love three ways?  In the event, she says, each child came with her/his own river of love.  Love is what we receive.  It is what changes us.  It is what brings us to God and to each other, and works all manner of miracles. 

Give to God what is God’s – 17 October 2014

In the Gospel lesson for next Sunday (Matthew 22:15-22) Jesus answers some local Pharisees, who were religious leaders, and Herodians, who seem to have been part of the court of the Roman puppet ruler, Herod Antipas.  They were trying to catch Jesus in sedition.  If he even hinted that the Jews should not be paying the Roman tax he was in big trouble.  As we know, Jesus asked for one of the coins in which the tax had to be paid, held it up to show Caesar’s image on it – and decreed, Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

…and I remember thinking, as a teenager in church:  Everybody thinks that’s neat and clever, but I still don’t get it.  Presumably we pay our tax – that is what belongs to Caesar – but what belongs to God?  Preachers and commentators seemed to think that was obvious.  It wasn’t obvious to me.  What is God’s? what do I owe God?  Do I owe God my gratitude for good food, for warmth and shelter, for security, for life, health and my next breath, for the love of family and friends, for a peaceful land and all the moods of Kawau Bay…?  No doubt I do – but there are plenty who do not have these things, living in squalor, or danger, or cold.  What do they owe to God? 

And indeed Jesus said this in an occupied country, repressed by a brutal military, to people replete in daily life with misery and terror, starvation and disease.  Perhaps he meant something a bit different… or on the other hand, as old as the Prophet Micah:  What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly…  That is what is God’s, it seems to me, that we do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. 

What does it mean in the attitudes of my heart that I do justice, in my judgements, for instance…?  What has to change in order that I love mercy…?  What might I have to relinquish before I walk humbly…? 

But this is not some rigorous reform of self, amendment of life, which has to take place before we are as we ought to be in God’s sight.  It is what starts to happen in our hearts as we are still and silent, when we set aside the study group chatter, shut the books for a while, give ourselves a rest from worthy activism, and recover the space of waiting and consenting. 

Christian Meditation is the simplest of all disciplines, the spiritual practice which asks us first to cease, for the time of meditation, every attempt to change ourselves and our world, let alone our church.  It asks us to be still, making space for God to do in us and around us what God is always seeking to do, but blocked and hampered by all our best intentions, plans and motives.  What we owe to God is what the Bible calls μετανοια, change, conversion, returning to where we truly belong, consenting to love and grace.

Both bad and good – 10 October 2014

Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. (Matthew 22:10)  The Gospel for next Sunday is the parable of the wedding feast.  This one should have wide appeal in today’s church – it’s about food.  The story is a bit fanciful, but it images a culture in which all the right people, all the beautiful, successful people, all the privileged with status, all the ones who dreamt of being at George Clooney’s wedding in Venice, somehow, unaccountably, are now so bored and sated with their lifestyle that they can’t be bothered showing up at the wedding of the king’s son.  It reflects perhaps the ultimate tedium of a life spent answering the demands of the Ego, as on a cruise ship.

But all this food is there and ready, so the king sends his servants out to the streets to gather in all the nonentities, the powerless in society, the poor, the ones who queue up at Winz.  The servants collected, says Jesus, all they could find, both bad and good, and the hall was full.  Imagine that.  (In passing, it amuses me that some modern translations reverse what the Greek says; the Greek says both bad and good; the translators make it both good and bad – as though Jesus was deficient in style.  It’s nicer if you put the good first...)

However, the fact is, admittance to the king’s feast is now no longer a matter of who you are, and no longer a question of what you are like.  Nobody disputes – well, I don’t dispute -- that it’s better to be good than bad, although at times it’s not as much fun.  But indeed, each of us is more or less morally compromised, whether it’s in actions or in thoughts, in our treatment of others, in what we have done or left undone, in matters we can’t mend now, in attitudes...  This is called the human condition, and on a macro scale it causes wars and beheadings.  I have seen it cause the breakup of churches and of families and marriages.  Its walking wounded wander the earth, and most of us are among them or could easily be. 

We are invited and welcome at the king’s feast.  Contemplatives dare to believe, we are there already if we stop, are still and silent, simple and accepting, consenting...we are in there, seated, and at the feast, waiting, content, and the main reality around us is love.  The next reality we know is a reminder of a world of injustice and of hideous violence.  So our stillness is both disturbing and upsetting, as well as relaxing and health-giving.   The kingdom we are in is not the kingdom of power and privilege, strength or status, or social safety.  The king has welcomed all who labour and are heavy laden.   It is not winners and losers any more, it is sufferers and lovers, and all of us who have found how to receive humility and simplicity.