Rescuing love…3 – 15 February 2019

Paul has just treated us to a 3-verse hymn in which he insists that however clever I am, or you are, however knowledgeable, however generous, if it is without love, which he calls agapē, we might as well not bother.  And if you or I think he is overstating that, diving into hyperbole, then I should mention that right at the start where he writes, I will show you now a more excellent (or much better) way… that word “more excellent/much better” is indeed the Greek word huperbolēn (ὑπερβολην), hyperbole.  Paul is deliberately “hyperbolising” something the church and its people habitually forget, or simply let lapse:  If we are not reflecting, communicating, God’s agapē/ love, God’s inclusive mercy, or trying honestly to do so, then we have to ask ourselves what we are doing.  But this love is not anything we generate.  We know it and receive it from God.  It is what God is doing in us, as we consent…. as we learn along the way necessary skills of letting go, the essence of love… letting go of infantile images of God, which are forms of idolatry, letting go of possessive or controlling relationships with others, which often masquerade as love, refusing to accept ourselves as loved and lovable.   Agapē/ love is the way we know God.  It is the only way – we love because he first loved us[1].  Agapē/ love then is our credentials, the indication that our hearts are being humbled, changed and brought alive, day by day. 

What follows now in this lyrical passage from Paul is a string of words with which Paul strains to express the inexpressible.  Love, he says, first, is patient.  The Greek word conveys not so much what we would call patient waiting, as in a phone queue, but rather calm and unhurried waiting to understand, suspending judgement, bearing pain it may be – the kind of waiting the Psalmist sings about.  It can also mean persevering.  Then he says, Love is kind.  “Remember to be kind,” said a senior minister to me years ago, when I was a student working in an inner city church.  Love is not envious, or boastful, or arrogant, or rude…  Not envious is a tricky one…  

Agapē/ love does not insist on its own way… does not irritate…  Remember our word “paroxysm”, from near the end of last year…?  Paroxysms of love…?  Here is the word again[2], in a negative sense, this time connoting deliberate or careless, pointless irritating of someone, annoying them.  I think it is a favourite ploy in many families, certainly in politics...  Love doesn’t do that.  …does not tot up wrongs, but welcomes the truth.  The victim culture, so popular today, can sometimes be a matter of carefully cataloguing wrongs, or perceived wrongs, when agapē/love might say it is a burden to be laid down so that life can be reborn, memories brought into order, and we can all move on.

Then Paul gives us a quartet of verbs with agapē/ love as the subject:  Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… love never fails.  Well, If Jesus came singing love, Paul comes singing hyperbole.  We know, it is equally true that in human perversity love can be betrayed, even destroyed.  But the love from God that animates creation, enlivens and inspires us, the love that Wesley called, all loves excelling, joy of heaven… remains just as Paul describes in his hyperbole.

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[1] I John 4:19

[2] See http://nzccmwarkworth.blogspot.com/  for 16.11.2018.

Rescuing love…2 - 8 February 2019

I may speak in the languages of humans -- and of angels -- but if I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  I may have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; I may have faith so as to shift mountains, but if I do not have love, I am nothing.   I may give away all my possessions, hand over my body to be burned, but if I do not have love, I gain nothing. (I Corinthians 13:1-3)

In the previous chapter 12, Paul has been discussing very important teaching about the church, its ordering, its ministries, its gifts, the interdependence of all this – it is here that we find Paul’s great analogy of the body of Christ.  Then he writes:  But now I will show you an even better way.[1]  Church or no church, says Paul, followers of Jesus will live in love, agapē/love.  It will be fragile and variable, even appear hypocritical, but it will be their distinctive characteristic.  Agapē/love will be their charism.  

Paul then supplies a kind of hymn in three verses, each with the refrain, but if I have not love…[2]  Verse 1:  If I speak in the languages of humans and of angels…  Paul certainly knew the languages of humans.  He was a Jew, a pharisee, and a Roman citizen -- he must have been fluent in Hebrew and Greek, in Aramaic and in Latin, and in various dialects.  He ought then to be able to communicate the truth of Jesus.  The language of angels, he mentions… I prefer to think that might be silence… but in any case, without love, he says, in any language, he is a noisy gong or a clanging, reverberating cymbal.  This is strong talk, and it probably makes us uncomfortable because it is uncompromising.

Verse 2 is about knowing everything, and understanding all mysteries.  So… this is for the attention of prophets, seers, professors, politicians, pathologists, pastors, priests, parishioners who read books…  Moreover, he adds, I may have all faith so as to shift mountains…  I suppose this could include the religious miracle workers who prey on credulous or desperate people, or the ones who think that the more people praying for something, praying harder, louder and longer, like the priests of Baal, the more likely God will be persuaded to do what they want… but have not love… well then, they might as well not bother…, I am nothing, he writes.  The Greek[3] means an empty space, a void.  Verse 3 is about giving away all I possess, even my body to be burned… but without love, it is meritless. 

So Paul, in the opening of this chapter, raises a very high banner.  He knows very well that we do not live consistently at the level he is setting.  The church and human society alike are flawed and fallible – the Corinthian church would have exemplified this unmistakably.  The more we continue with Christ and with Christ’s company, and the more we follow the path of contemplative life and prayer, the clearer we find that we approximate rather than attain.  Our best teachers know this, and so we come to learn what faith and grace mean.  We may learn agapē/love, but along with it we learn, as we will see, very necessary gifts of kindness and gentleness, to ourselves and others, gifts of understanding, wisdom and perspective.

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[1] See ch.12:31.  ἐτι καθ’ ὑπερβολην ὁδον – “an even better way”

[2] ἀγαπην δε μη ἐχω – “but have not love”

[3] οὐθεν εἰμι – “I am of no account…”

Rescuing love…1 – 1 February 2019

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye tells his wife Golde that he has just consented to the engagement of their second daughter Hodel to Perchik, a young penniless teacher they don’t approve of.  Golde erupts.  She is pounding a great lump of bread dough, and you know it is generally prudent to stay clear.  I was not consulted, she says.  But they love each other, says Tevye.  Golde snorts… But Tevye asks, timidly, Do you love me…?  He asks it over and over, it becomes a song.  Finally the bread gets a rest:  For 25 years I’ve mended your socks, washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, milked your cow, had your children…  But do you love me, he asks.  Yes, says Golde…    

When this group recessed for Christmas and New Year, I found myself looking ahead in the lectionary for when we would resume in February.  The Epistle, I found, would be St Paul’s great hymn to love in I Corinthians 13.  So I started to look at this afresh, after most of a lifetime of assuming I know what it means.  I read it in Paul’s Greek, and in English, and in Luther’s German… and I am afraid you will get the humble fruits of this in the weeks ahead.

In the Greek of the Christian Bible, love is agapē (ἀγαπη).  There are other words for love.  Philia (φιλια) denotes the brotherly, sisterly, loyal allegiance/love of the tribe, or the social class or the football club… mateship, in Kiwi terms… a strong and satisfying bond, so long as you remain loyal – so philia is not unconditional.  Erōs (ἐρως) is what love is almost universally assumed to be – a matter of hormones, feelings and ego... changeable, very conditional.  Agapē expresses something else.  In St John’s words, God is agapē.  Indeed, says John, if we don’t know agapē/love, we don’t know God[1].  We may think we do.  We may be most deeply offended to hear otherwise.  But the point, says John, is to abide in love… and we will think more about all that in coming weeks.

Now, my hope overall is to centre on Paul’s teaching in I Corinthians 13, and see what emerges for us in 2019 terms.  I do not want to get into definitions of love or even to approach that kind of precision.  Like the prayer of silence which we practise, love, and any of the cornerstones of faith and life, are things we learn by doing them, by choosing them, rather than by studying or examining them first.  The distinctive mark of agapē/love, we might say at this point, is the diminishing of the ego.  I can set self aside.  We do not practise love from the safety of our comfort zones.  Agapē/love is not about me or what I want or how I feel or what my dreams are…  Love is a robust, even reckless choice, of bringing the other within my defences.  It is what our prayer is all about.  We bring God within our defences.  It is what God does with us and all God’s creation.

Love is from God, writes John.  It is a gift.  It is not exclusively Christian – love may be manifest in atheists and agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus and Moslems – but John makes it clear, to be a loveless Christian is a contradiction, an oxymoron.  For a follower of Jesus, agapē/love is where the pathway leads.  We can obliterate love, deface it or distort it, deny it… but discipleship -- contemplative life and prayer -- is very much a clearing of the decks for agapē/love.

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[1] See I John 4:7-8

Recess

OurWarkworth group is now in recess until Friday 1 February 2019.

Advent Canticles 4 – 21 December 2018

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.

(Luke 1:51-53)

Part of the Magnificat…  Mary’s song of joy when the two mothers meet, Elizabeth and Mary.  I am very much on the outskirts of all this.  You know how people often say, “I know exactly how you’re feeling”… when of course they don’t, and they can’t.  What they know is what they are feeling, or felt. We don’t know what these two women are feeling.  We are distant onlookers, rightly hesitant about approaching, and we sense mystery.  But we may listen to Mary’s song.  It is very moving poetry… and it is profoundly subversive.  God, she sings, by the birth of this child has done three things. 

The first is: He has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.  It is in Greek.  “The proud” is a word meaning those who deem themselves naturally superior, the arrogant, the ones who believe they are born to rule.  But there is simply no place at the cradle of this child for proud self-satisfaction or egoism...  wherever it happens, in presidencies or the highest places in church or politics, or in our homes or the secrets of our hearts.  It doesn’t belong.  It is simply inappropriate here.  Mary sees such people “scattered”, she says, with all their pretensions.

Secondly, He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.  This is about power.  “The mighty” means those not only wielding power but enjoying knowing others are powerless – the Greek word denotes powerful dynasties.  Mary sees such power defused, cancelled – as in the end, in history, it always is.  It is the meek, the humble, said Jesus, who inherit the earth.

And thirdly, he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.  This is more than turning on Christmas dinner for the city’s needy… it is more than foodbanks… admirable and all as they are.  It is a vision of justice, equity in which no one is hungry, children are nourished… in which there is no culture of flaunted affluent greed or the diseases of over-indulgence. 

Mary’s vision… we scarcely see it happening in fact.  There is the poetry… and there is the reality.  Human arrogance, the misuse of power, greed and inequity, continue to thrive.  Eventually the followers of this child began to realise that the kingdom, as he indeed taught, is within.  The same Spirit who inspired Mary’s vision sets about changing hearts.  Mary knew what Jeremiah had prophesied[1]: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.  Or Ezekiel[2]:  I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh… I will put my Spirit within you…  These, in ancient terms, are the changes to which we consent in the stillness and silence of our prayer. 

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[1] Jeremiah 31:33

[2] Ezekiel 36:26

Thankfulness – Advent 3, 14 December 2018

You will say in that day: I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, and you comforted me… With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.  Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth.  Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.  (Isaiah 12:1-6)

The Principal of Mahurangi College, on sabbatical, spent five weeks in South Sudan, a war-torn place, schools destroyed along with much more of the infrastructure, children now having lessons under trees or in the ruins, bringing their own chairs…  But David MacLeod found students “bright-eyed and eager to learn”.  He went on to Canada, with schools better equipped and financed than here in NZ.  There he found students “disinterested, poorly motivated and contributing to a youth mental health crisis… The Canadian kids just had a dullness in their eyes by comparison”, said David MacLeod.  Of course, those are generalisations, but still, I imagine, we are not entirely surprised. 

The passage from Isaiah is the Lectionary Canticle for worship on the 3^rd Sunday in Advent.  It is about joy and thankfulness.  Isaiah is filled with gratitude… this is the 8^th century BC, when the Assyrian was coming down like a wolf on the fold.[1]  Gratitude is a principal marker of grown-up faith – but the gratitude we mean is decidedly not on the level of counting your blessings, naming them one by one.  That is more on the level of Aunt Daisy than Jesus or Isaiah… if your blessings outnumber your disasters, so the story goes, then you’re ahead – but that’s not faith, it’s accountancy.  A related cliché says: There’s always someone worse off than you…  Believe me, there are situations, some of them quite common, in which there is no one worse off.  Nevertheless, gratitude was not unknown in Auschwitz.

Real gratitude flows from God.  It is a gift of faith, not something we generate ourselves, like remembering to say thank you to Aunty Agatha.  Gratitude and praise is a grace we receive.  It is a sharing of God’s joy in creation and in constant re-creation.  To say “Grace” at meals, for instance, though we may do it perfunctorily, if at all, is a “kairos”, a spiritual moment.  The food before us is a gift, part of the gift of life and love.  So we pause, properly, to think however fleetingly how all is gift – and of the atrocity of famine in the world God made and gave to feed us.  Neither is this gratitude giving thanks because we are safe and privileged – that is what the pharisee did.  We give thanks that food is there at all.  We give thanks for the hope that is in us, which is often “hope against hope”.  We give thanks for life and breath, for love and goodness, and kindness, for second chances and the lessons of adversity.  We give thanks for light on the horizon, the promise of Advent. 

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[1] Byron: The Destruction of Sennacherib.

Advent Canticles 2 – 7 December 2018

The Song of Zechariah, more commonly known as the Benedictus, normally gets said or sung in morning worship – but on Advent II it is given a special place.  Zechariah, a priest in the temple, so the story goes, sang this at the circumcision of his child John, whom we know as John the Baptist.  This was remarkable because Elizabeth his wife had long been labelled “barren”, which in practice meant useless.   They were elderly people – Luke stresses all this -- they may even have had their names down for Summerset Falls.  We are also told that Zechariah had been struck dumb, before John’s birth, for having expressed doubt to the Angel Gabriel that any of this was possible.  So Zechariah’s song was the first thing he had been able to speak for quite a while.  I do hope you are keeping up with me…

For some two-thirds of his song he lyrically celebrates his belief that God is about to intervene and deliver Israel from the hands of their oppressors, the Romans.  The Deliverer will be from the royal house of David.  Everything God promised to Abraham, and ever since, is about to be fulfilled.  Then suddenly he directly addresses this baby, his baby, the whole point of the observance in the temple today.  Luke renders this in Greek as an emphatic shift of focus… and you, little child…[1]  Have you ever noticed that abrupt change, as you recite the Benedictus?

It is difficult to resist, as a father, interpreting this in 21^st century terms.  What is Zechariah expecting of his son?  A worthy replica of himself…? a young hero…? a dutiful prospect on which the father will spend a fortune for education and formation…? a sporting icon perhaps…? a credit to the family…? a loyal assimilator of his father’s goals and ideals and values…? Zechariah is not, he is letting go of his son.  Certainly he will do all that is expected of a father and a parent, in love, in nurture, in care and provision, in counsel…  But fatherhood does not mean ownership and control.  Fatherhood eventually means letting your child go.  Your child is another person, not under constraint to replicate anyone or anything.   Zechariah’s child will serve faith and hope and goodness in his own ways. 

The Benedictus ends in sublime poetry about God.  Zechariah sings of the tender compassion of our God – the Greek literally says “bowels of mercy”[2].  He pictures the dawn suddenly rising in the east, enlightening, shining on those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, guiding our feet into the way of peace.  It is a lovely prophecy that Zechariah weaves over this newborn child, utterly mysterious, profoundly hopeful and faith-filled.  Advent waits for the dawn, never more needed than in the 21^st century… a dawn of mercy and truth, light in the darkness, hope for those who see nothing but the shadow of death, a discovery of ways to live in peace.

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[1] Καὶ σὺ δέ, παιδίον… very focussed and emphatic.

[2] We have encountered ancient anatomy before.  τα σπλαγχνα (ta splagchna) means bowels, innards, heart and lungs.  It is seen as where our deepest feelings and reactions come from.  The word is used here, of God.