A fresh start

 ‘…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace..’ (John 1:16)

John 1:1-18 (Year C: Christmas 2)

                                                       pic:  Front Royal United Methodist Church

Fresh Start is the name of a recent political agreement in Northern Ireland. Whatever that agreement will represent in the future annals of history there is nothing stopping you and me making a ‘fresh start’ this first Sunday of 2016.  For now, the gyms may be busy, the joggers out in extra force, the new year’s resolution list pinned to the fridge (however I suspect not in most cases!) and lots of people determined to make 2016 a different year. The demarcation of years, months and weeks is an arbitrary human construct as we inherit ancient customs of marking out time in harmony with the seasons or the moon, etc.  Here in the northern hemisphere, new year’s day has an added significance in that spring is only weeks away and there is going to a very gradual and slight lengthening of the days from here on.  It is close to the ‘end of the holiday period’ for those ‘lucky’ enough to have structured jobs, activities and studies as the case may be.  Soon, Christmas trees will be deposited in assigned collection places (can anybody think of the environment please!) and the Christmas decoration (or will we have to say ‘holiday’ period in order to be politically correct as in North America which means it is only a matter of time that such terminology will be applied here in Europe).

Some Christian traditions (e.g. Methodists) mark this Sunday as ‘Covenant Sunday’ – a time for renewal and re-dedication.  The first day of January is also marked as World Peace Day. In the Roman Catholic tradition the 1^st January is the feast of Mary the Mother of God while among Anglicans – never given to excess – the day is marked as the feast of the circumcision of the Lord.  Eastern Orthodox Christians also celebrate the feast of the circumcision.

(That Jesus, the Son of God, was circumcised is a useful reminder that (i) he was flesh and blood and (ii) he remained a Jew throughout his life. For the male portion of humanity thinking too deeply about the former truth may be very unpleasant!).

A fresh start?

The opening verses of the gospel of John – when read carefully – can represent a fresh start in our lives, circles and communities.  It has more than a hint of the seven days of creation in the story of Genesis 1. It also resonate, somehow, with the familiar hymn ‘Morning has broken’.  A light has shone in our darkness. That light was the light of the world and it is the light of our dark worlds  today, Sunday 3^rd January 2016.  No matter how far we have travelled or progressed or regressed or have got side-tracked – we can ‘start again’ to live life in a new way. The startling, exhilarating and shocking aspect of living as human beings is that we have the intelligence, will and understanding to ‘start again’ where we are, how we are and as what we are.  In a spiritual sense we, too, can be born again (John 1:13) whether at the age of 18 or 70. It is never too late or too early.

Perhaps it might be an exercise to write on one side of a sheet of paper our worst fears, disappointments and regrets. Put them into a tin box (or perhaps just throw them into the fire) and revisit them on 31^st December 2016.  Perhaps, then, the sky will not have fallen in after all and the very things we most feared didn’t happen but the things we never really thought of (good or bad) happen. Life is like that.

What can make the difference to our lives in 2016? John 1 gives us a clue. The Light has come into the world. We are not that light. We merely reflect that light. However, we can share in that Life that became flesh as we are and shared our toils, pains and hopes.  We need to get out and about more and see the world full of grace, full of potential and full of the glory of God hidden behind human suffering and environmental chaos.  And when we return in the evening or when we rise early in the morning the Word will be there to greet us and reassure us that we were never alone – neither in the ‘market place’ or in our own abodes.  The point is that we have already received from the fullness of God-who-is-love.  There is a saying that nature abhors a vacuum. But, there is no vacuum in our hearts if we dig deep enough. The Risen Christ already lives there.  ‘Grace upon grace’ awaits us. God desires to fill our hearts and our minds – if we let him. The opening of John hits a high theological note. Jesus was not just an extraordinary human being; he was the Logos or the Word which was with God and was God. This reading of the Good News is grounded in the flesh and blood Jesus we recognise in the nativity story but is also leading us to a faith in a God who has become flesh and blood and overturns our world and lives.

So, as we turn over a new chapter in our lives we can take responsibility for our own fresh start. May we

Thank the past

Experience today 

Embrace the future             (Bronnie Ware)

Dealing with incomprehension

 ‘…Child, why have you treated us like this?..’ (Luke 2:48)

Luke 2:41-52 (Year C: Christmas 1)

This is a story about a family. Custom and tradition. Festival and gathering. A journey back home.  A child goes missing, Worried parents.  Do the cousins know where he is?  Worry. Hell for a time.  Found him. Amazement, relief and anger for a while.  This story has all the hallmarks of one told by Mary to Luke. “Oh I remember the time he was 12. It was unbelievably difficult for me and Joseph.  We were beside ourselves. All the extended family searched for three days in Jerusalem. There were 10,000s of pilgrims from different parts of the world were there like us. Much of the time we could not understand passers-by and they could not understand us.  Some of them thought we were in the city to buy and sell our son!  When we did eventually find him there were words….  He was cheeky and said something about his ‘Father’. I didn’t understand then but I do now. I only wish Joseph were still alive today to understand what happened then. Neither of us could understand what was going on. He was so worried and it had an impact on him for the rest of his life.  But, we gradually began to understand more and more over many years that this child was very special not in a way that all children are special.  The temple officials, theologians and priests even suggested that our son might have a special calling in the Temple given his precociousness and wisdom. But, Jesus had different ideas.”

Dealing with incomprehension was Jesus’s lot in the Temple and it was Mary and Joseph’s lot with the neighbours and cousins ever since Mary was found to be pregnant while not yet with Joseph.

Images of the ‘holy family’ abounded and still abound in religious imagery, poetry and liturgy. Mary, a spotless mother with a Northern European look about her, Joseph carrying a staff or a flower everywhere he goes and Jesus a meek, mild and obedient child as it says in some Christmas hymn. In truth we know very little about Jesus and his family. What little we know is set in the context of Jesus’s ministry, mission and saving power. Family background together with the selection of events uniquely recounted in the first two chapters of Luke and in the first chapter of Matthew is hugely significant for what was the come afterwards and what was foretold according to later Christian faith and understanding of ancient Jewish history and prophecy. Everything fits, somehow, into a story that makes sense of the story of a wandering nomads in the desert (…got that spelling right for once!...) escaping captivity and seeking out a promised land somewhere. Jesus, Mary and Joseph are in that story as they were on the move while seeking refuge in Africa.  How ironic – this Christmas time – that the Saviour of the World as we believe never thought Europe or the America’s a priority. God placed his only son in the Middle East and then Africa among a pilgrim people and a family literally ‘on-the-run’.

We can only image what stresses, tensions and challenges such a way of life entailed for this holy family. It is not the plastic image we so often see and hear about. It is a very flesh and blood and very human family.  The latter-day emphasis on celibacy, other-worldliness and Euro-centric culture and power games may have robbed the story Luke is trying to tell of its vigour and surprise.  Luke was recounting (probably with the help of Mary) a real story about a real family in a real political mess that was and is the ‘Near East’ (note my language here reflects a Euro-centric world view).  Some twelve years later we revisit the family as it undergoes the trauma of losing Jesus for a few days only to find him ‘at his Father’s business’ as some English-language translations have it. Was trauma ever far from the lives of Mary and Joseph?  The little we know suggests that life was a roller coaster of trauma from a potential row over how Mary became pregnant in the first place to fleeing in terror from state terrorists in the ego of Herod Antipas all the way up to Jesus’s crucifixion and the growth of a subversive religious movement that would see Judaism split (but not by intention) and Rome compromised in the fullness of time.  And, at the age of 12, we have another trauma-story.

Some films like ‘Saving Private Ryan’ labour the point that ‘war is hell’.  The story behind Luke and the other gospels is quite different. Yes, war is hell and life can be at times for some people ‘hell’ (use of the word is deliberate here) but over and beyond this ‘hell’ there is a new life and new hope that is born in families and communities across the world.  Organisations like churches need to become more family-like at a local level to provide space for people to rediscover the good news about 21^st century whole-some families.

Surprised by mega-joy

 ‘…Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people..’ (Luke 2:10)

Luke 2:1-20 (Year C: Christmas Day)

Surprised by joy: this is a saying that aptly fits the experience of millions of children this morning. I have clear memories of that both when I was a child and when my own children were of a certain age. A messy, cold living room at 4a.m. in the morning with wrapping, batteries and instruction sheets scattered in all directions even if Santa hadn’t consumed that glass of milk or taken away this carrot for Rudolf!

Surprised by Joy is also the title of a book written by Ulster Irishman, Clive Lewis Staples. He may have taken the expression from a poem by William Wordworth when the poet forgot about the death of his daughter for a moment:

Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind I turned to share the transport — Oh! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss? — That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Ultimately, as we look back on life so far we can say ‘one for sorrow; two for joy’. It is up to us to figure out and reframe our experiences according to this ratio. That one would have let oneself be happier is one of the five top regrets of the dying.   The message of Christmas is that tragedy does not define us. Rather, the news is good. This is a different kind of news to the kind enunciated by the Roman Emperor: it is real good news to the poorest and the least privileged of people – shepherds living a precarious life and earning a precarious living.  It is also good news for those temporarily imprisoned by loss, isolation or loneliness.  A saviour has come into our broken and sick world and we do not surrender to despair. Hope is alive and we will be surprised not just by any old sort of joy but ‘a great joy’. Not just charan (joy in ancient Greek) but mega joy – Megalēn joy.

Mothers and babies

 ‘…the child in my womb leapt for joy..’ (Luke 1:44)

Luke 1:39-44 (Year C: Advent 4)

                                                 pic: Jaccard brothers

This is a story about two mothers and two (yet to be born) babies.  It was, in all likelihood, a story of shared anxieties (not recounted here) and shared joys mixed in, no doubt, with much physical discomfort, sickness and worry. Such is life and such is the experience of mothers and pregnant women – an experience that can only be theorised and described by that half of humanity that will never know what it is really like to be pregnant and, or, to be a mother of a child or to be sick or to be insecure …….. In many respects, nature lets men get off lightly. Tradition has it (but it is only tradition) that the evangelist Luke wrote his gospel with the help of Mary the mother of Jesus. Hence, the unique birth narratives in the gospel of Luke and the memories of Jesus in the temple found in the second chapter of Luke. Whoever Luke was and however he (assuming that it was a he) gathered together his version of the good news we get a sense of a feminine perspective in much of Luke – the role of the holy spirit of God, the central point of compassion, justice, balance, relationship and caring as well as the references to the role of Mary in the Jesus story.

When Mary went to her cousin Elizabeth she brought – in her very own body – the Life that would set the world on fire.  Elizabeth seemed to realise that something extraordinary was happening in Mary’s greetings and presence. The child in Elizabeth’s womb literally jumped for joy. This might seem like poetic licence but there is no reason to exclude this happening given what women know and men don’t and what, moreover, modern science confirms about the amazing behaviour of babies in the womb.

Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting. She saw and she heard and she was attentive. Something stirred in her. Life and Joy moved her to declare ‘And why has this happened to me’ (v.43). She was filled with the Holy Spirit just as we are and can be if we see, hear, listen, attend to what is hidden and what is before us. John did not see from where he was. He heard a voice – that of Mary and through this voice he was connected to that Life that was with Mary through the grace of God. One wonders what sorts of stories were told and shared and retold by these two mothers for many years after. ‘A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets’ as Old Rose said in the film ‘Titanic’. And in the gospel of Luke we are told that ‘Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart’ (Luke 2:19). It is surely the case that she continued to treasure and ponder all these words in her heart for many years before and after the visit to Elizabeth. However, Mary and Elizabeth were not mere mothers behind two great men. Their stories and witness places them as powerful women who challenge doubt, despair and – recounted after this passage in the rallying cry of the Magnificat.

But there is a sting to this Visitation story. The two unborn babies are destined to suffer and to die. One through beheading for the crime of telling it as it is; the other on a cross for ‘turning the tables’ (literally as in the Temple as well metaphorically).  There was, surely, much heart-break for both mothers as matters turned out (even if Elizabeth had died by the time her son was executed). Luke quotes Simeon as saying to Mary:

This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too. (Luke 2:33-35)

The joyful encounter between Mary, Elizabeth, Jesus and John ended in tragedy. Or, did it?  That other great feast of the annual Christian calendar is only a little over 3 months away.  In the resurrection we see hope beyond tragedy; life beyond death and renewal beyond decay. Before we get to resurrection there is flight and there is exodus followed by a long journey through barren places. The story of Israel is our story as she wanders around a desert. But, the story of those are not of Israel is also our story because God’s generosity has no limits then or now. Within months of the encounter with Elizabeth, Mary would be fleeing with Joseph and the child Jesus just as millions are doing this Christmas in various parts of Southern and central Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. And within months of that encounter many children would be massacred in the area around Bethlehem:

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

A voice is heard today in Ramah and the surrounding countries. It is one of wailing and loud lamentation as Rachel weeps for her children and refuses, in front of our TV screens, to be consoled.  Sky News may not be picking this up very clearly today as we watch from our comfort zones of Northern Europe and America.  But, millions of dispossessed, terrorised and hungry brothers and sisters are coming our way. Let’s do practical things to be open and welcoming of all. We never know but we might be entertaining angels. Joy might stir within us as it did in Elizabeth when her cousin called in with Life.

Living simply so that others may simply live

 ‘…Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you..’ (Luke 3:13)

Luke 3:10-18 (Year C: Advent 3)

If each of us collected ‘no more than the amount prescribed’ for us the world would be a different place indeed. If only…

Wars, disputes and conflicts over land, money, houses, honour, status, authority are a feature of human history since the beginning of time.  Part of the problem is that we cannot agree on what is ‘the prescribed’ amount of something. ‘We got here first so that land is ours!’ or ‘We deserve special treatment because we are victims’ or ‘What we have we hold’ or ‘I am/we are entitled to this’ or ‘this person does not deserve that’ or ‘We can do it because we can do it: tough’. Variations of these tunes and many more are played out across human history and across the globe today and even in our homes, workplaces and churches.  There is hardly no better way to start an argument than among supposedly religious persons who claim the fullness of truth and certainty and the right to denigrate or exclude or patronise someone else (in the latter case it might run like this line – ‘they don’t have the full picture or sacraments or truth or….’).

Much of these conflicts are born of distrust. Distrust – in turn – is born of experiences of bad behaviour. It is a deadly vicious circle. Which comes first? – distrust or bad behaviour: It is hard to tell. Insecurity is another driver of conflict as well as a thirst for absolutism (not the absolute).  We reveal insecurity the more we argue for something and against someone else. It is as if their way of being and having is a threat to our fragile hold on something.

Where we are today is on the cusp of a momentous change in the conditions of this mother earth where we have been planted. Love your neighbour takes a particular urgency because it means loving our children – the next generation. There is more than weather extremes and rising temperatures and flooding at stake here. We simply don’t know for sure how much or how long it will take but we can be sure of one thing – unless action is taken at global and local levels the future planet and the conditions for those living there does not look pretty. To put it another way, we are consuming one and half earths. This cannot continue. Eventually, something gives. It becomes a choice of ‘de-growth’ or ‘de-carbonise’ or both. Leaders and peoples can continue to duck and dive on what it takes to begin to fix the underlying causes of environmental degradation but, eventually, the reality and the truth will catch up with us all.

As we spare a thought for the millions freezing to death in various deserts of the middle east, north Africa, the Mediterranean sea and south east Europe do we take seriously the call to share? And, if millions of euros on housing, feeding and clothing millions of refugees is beyond the budget of the most wealthy nations of the earth how come trillions are spent on weapons of destruction which, it would appear, invites more revenge, conflict and displacement if the experience of the last decade is anything to go by? And closer to home we are witnessing the spectacle of a growing crisis in accommodation as billions have flowed through the finance system but it is staid that we cannot afford to fix the problem of homelessness because it is too complicated.

The story of John the Baptist ministering in the desert and, according to other accounts, subsisting on locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6) and preaching a message of repentance may carry an ironic message for all of today.  Though we may not be living in an isolated desert clothed in camel hair with a belt round our waists and with wild honey and locusts as our staple diet as we criticise various supposedly persons in authority as ‘vipers’ (John lacked tact in these matters and was beheaded for this), we need to re-examine the way we live and how our civic participation impacts on the well-being of future generations. We know that the current patterns of globalisation, trade, consumption and energy utilisation are not sustainable. What are we doing about it?  Including a prayer of intercession this Sunday is surely a great idea but doing something about it next week and next year is vital. Laudato Si (Praise be to you) was the title of a historic document issued this year by Pope Francis. If this year is the year of praise let next year be the year of action: Fiat voluntas tua (your will be done …).

Preparing a way in the wilderness (or having it prepared for you)

 ‘…that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Luke 21:36)

Luke 3:1-6 (Year C: Advent 2)

Psalm 141 (or 142 depending on which version you use) opens up with the following lines:

‘ With all my voice I cry to the Lord, with all my voice I entreat the Lord.  I pour out my trouble before him; I tell him all my distress’

The evangelist, Luke, announces the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist ‘in the wilderness’. He quotes directly from the prophet Isaiah 40:3-5:

A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

In our own wildernesses we, too, cry out except that we may not be consciously aware that we are crying out. Even more so, we don’t even know who we are crying out to and why.

The reality about John, a cousin of Jesus, is that he lived wildly and recklessly. He didn’t conform. Yet, people sought him out in the wilderness. Eventually one day his cousin showed up and nothing was ever the same again. John the Baptist continued to do what he did but, now, everything was different. Someone else ‘greater’ than he had arrived on the scene and the task was now to provide signs towards that other.

And so it is at this time of year and whatever time of life you, the reader, find yourself in.  Our pathways should lead to joy, from joy and through joy. Yet, joy often seems lacking in this ‘vale of tears’. As a consequence, we seek comfort in this or that and find little or no joy in ‘this or that’. We may even seek comfort in ‘religion’ which becomes our blanket and prop. Without realising it, Karl Marx was not entirely wrong when he wrote: ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’. Rather, true religion is about something that goes beyond comfort blankets and stories before bed time. It is about costly grace, costly choices and costly lives as Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood discipleship to mean in an increasingly ‘religionless’ world.

‘All flesh shall see the salvation of God’. This is important because the gospel of Luke was, apparently, written for pagans in Greece (that’s us, so to speak).  All flesh – all races, all genders, left and right, straight and gay, ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’, high-church and low-church, broad church and narrow church, liberal church and conservative-traditional church, all peoples – are called today ‘to see the salvation of God’. The writers of the Biblical books were hung up on the idea of ‘all’.  All are called to salvation. Inspired by John Wesley, many Christians attach special importance to four cornerstones and four great ‘Alls’ of our belonging to Christ:

All people need to be saved.
All people can be saved.
All people can know they are saved.
All people can be saved to the uttermost

Are we up to the challenge? Are we ready? Do we care? We can only start with ourselves.  Even if we feel or think that we are not up to the challenge; are not ready and do not care there is a power and a love bigger than each one of us that is preparing a way through our hearts to joy and a peace and a freedom in the midst of this personal and social wilderness.

‘By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

Watch out! We have been warned!

Are we ready?

 ‘…that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Luke 21:36)

Luke 21:25-36 (Year C: Advent 1)

Recently I participated in a retreat given by a kind, gentle, witty, compassionate and ‘grounded’ person more than familiar with palliative care and ageing.  At one point in the discourse – following some banter and chat –  participants were asked if: 

They had made will
They had planned their own funeral service
Discussed with their significant other(s) 'end of life' treatment and arrangements in the event of losing full mental capacity

While this does not make for cheerful consideration on a Sunday morning (or any other morning) we are reminded  in the words of a poem by W.B. Yeats (and engraved on what is believed to be his grave in Sligo) to:

Cast a cold eye on

Life, on Death

Horseman pass by

The question of ‘are we ready’ is central to this gripping passage in the Gospel of Luke. The end-event in the life and ministry of Jesus is at hand. A great trial awaits – the final one in the life of Jesus.

None of us knows what lies ahead. But of three things we can be certain:

Ageing
Illness
Death

The questions of when and how are beyond our knowing. The question of why must be approached through a humble mind and open heart. The question of what might lie beyond the horizons of this small world and life is for God alone to show us in his time and in his way.

During this Advent season the Church invites us to watch and pray. The lines of Luke read as follows:

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.

This is hardly compatible with the ‘festive’ season of frenetic shopping, partying and Ho Ho!  But, the truth is that much of this Northern Hemisphere mid-winter Ho Ho is about sub-consciously putting away some of our all-year winter demons. What are they? They concern our worries – our very real worries about:

• Getting old (eventually)
• Facing ill-health of mind or body now or in the future
• Having lost or possibly losing income or employment in the future (it happens to people who retire for example)
• Relationships past, present or future where wounds may run deep
• Facing some external dangers to body, mind or person (not untypical for many millions of people across the globe)..

We find distraction in sundry indulgences from substance attachment to constant affirmation seeking on social media to projects that demand our all and we wonder why we are still missing something. But, in the midst of all this clamour and un-ease (or should we say dis-ease) we are reminded of what Jesus said according to verse 28 of Luke:

When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

When faced with uncertainty and, perhaps, a load of concerns and worries we do well to:

• Stay calmly grounded in the here and now
• Remain steadfast in love because this is the only thing that matters
• Keep moving forward towards some goal or destination no matter how dim it seems.

The best way to prepare for death is to live life to the full now and to live it well so that we leave a good memory and example and find our well-being in this thought. To conclude with an other line from W.B. Yeats:

I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Giving everyone a chance

‘…for this I was born…’ (John 18:37)

John 18:33-37 (Christ the King)

Kingdom talk is all over the scriptures. This can be a little off-putting to some people as notions of royalty, privilege and submission are foreign to modern-day civic republicanism or constitutional monarchy tempered by a strong liberal democracy and equality before the law – at least in principle.  The idea of royalty only arrives late in the history of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. God reluctantly agreed to making Saul a king (1 Samuel 8). To put it mildly, the behaviour of the various kings that followed was much less than exemplary. In fact, kings, at that time, were very often bullies, immoral and murderous to not put too fine a word on it.  The kings of Israel were almost as bad as if not as bad for much of ancient Jewish history. In this context ‘kingdom talk’ found on the lips of Jesus or in the traditions that followed Jesus’ earthly life must be seen as surprisingly subversive and provocative.

In what sense could Jesus speak of himself as ‘King’? Certainly not in the sense that the term was understood and applied in his time.  Whereas the passage in this Sunday’s reading from the gospel of John is not to be taken as a verbatim transcript of a conversation that happened almost 2,000 years ago we can be sure that somewhere along the line Jesus challenged prevalent notions of royal power and dynasty. He juxtaposed a completely different model and way of ruling based on love, service and justice. One of the reasons Jesus ended up being killed is that he walked, knowingly, into confrontation with the religious and ultimately Roman political authorities with whom the religious were openly collaborating with.  He could have chosen more nuanced language. He could have bit his tongue. He could have curried favours with the ‘powers-that-be’. He could have checked what he said with some legal experts to avoid lawsuits over defamation and libel. He could have avoided making a scene in Jerusalem and especially in the Temple. In fact, he could have stuck to the pious teaching, performed a few miracles and healings and generally led a quiet, sheltered life and not transgressed particular boundaries where the Sabbath, or purity laws or other conventions were concerned.

But this was not Jesus’ way.

His rule is one based on real love. It is a reign of profound gentleness, utter kindness and a loving and free invitation. In other words, it is a type of reigning with which we are very unfamiliar.  However, there is a chance that we can find the spark within us where the Risen Jesus is mysteriously present ever and always.  The first in-breaking of the Kingdom starts with its out-breaking in my heart and your heart and someone else’s heart. Where two or three are sincerely gathered in his name and united in his love there is the Kingdom right now, in our midst.

We have one sure goal - through all the twists and turns of life and through the experiences of earthly kingdoms that oppress not just in palaces but, sometimes, in places of gathering, of worship and at family tables. That light, that truth and that goodness is for each a possibility of witness and life fulfilment. Everyone without exception has some light, some spark of truth and some unique gift to make. Let’s not put obstacles in the way of others so that, truly, at the end of each person’s life they can say:

For this I was born and for this I came into the world.

Regardless of sex, age and religion is everyone’s unique talent acknowledged, affirmed and put to good?

Not knowing

‘…‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (Mark 13:32)

Mark 13:24-32 (Advent -2)

(in some liturgical cycles of readings the choice of Gospel text for this Sunday is Mark 13:1-8 instead of 13:24-32 used here. The context and overall thrust of each passage is not dissimilar, however).

The unknown unknowns

Donald Romsfeld, former US Secretary of Defence coined a few words that will go down in history (to pardon the pun):

there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know

Very often economists, political scientists (note the reference to ‘science’) and social analysts seek to ‘project’ or ‘predict’ the future based on models of observation of past behaviour or outcomes. Some even go far as to say that there is a 35% probability that such and such an event will happen.  This is plain silly.

Not knowing in advance is a major human pain. If only we knew for sure about this or that – our future sicknesses and recoveries, our joys and sorrows, our passing from this life … The insurance and assurance industries as well as the financial markets make a living from uncertainty. The reality of uncertainty (or risk which is a similar idea though not identical) pervades every aspect of life including our religious beliefs and practices. We might be ‘sure’ or even ‘very sure’ but ‘certain’ belongs more to the realm of scientific proofs and evidence. Without some degree of uncertainty and, therefore, unknowing, faith would be redundant. God left enough flexibility and chaos – all within a bigger loving plan – to allow us freedom, choice, decision and risk. That’s life.

At this time of year, in the Northern hemisphere, the days are short, temperatures are sliding down and we are surrounded by the beauty of decaying leaves.  Thoughts of the coming festival of Christmas (or is it more yuletide for many?) may not necessarily evoke positive feelings as memories of past Christmases, loved ones who are no longer with us and on-going hurts can put a dampener on the festive spirit.

There is a time and a place for facing the reality – sometimes brutal reality – of the situations in which we and others around us find ourselves. We don’t know what the future brings and what the new year will hold. Memories of our plans and hopes and anxieties this time last year can be a useful point of reference (some people find the keeping of a diary helpful).

And the unexpected will happen

The traditional saying ‘we not the day or the hour’ is so true. In life and in social and inter-personal relationships the ‘unexpected happens’ all the time. Our worst fears are rarely fulfilled and the very things we never thought of happen while our hopes are sometimes (but by no means always) dashed. Such is life. The key point, in Mark, is to ‘be ready’ always and everywhere.

A poem composed by Minnie Louise Haskins (1876 – 1957) is relevant especially at this approaching season of the year when we begin to think back as well think forward.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.” So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

The ‘not knowing’ is driven home in a special way because, according to Mark, ‘..about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (v.32). The reality that the Son, who according to our faith, is fully human and divine ‘doesn’t know’ emphasises the truth that Jesus was and is fully human and shared with us the limitations of knowledge.  That he was and is fully divine in no way contradicts this even though the fuller realisation and explanation of all this would be a long time after Mark wrote up his gospel. After all, we are told in Luke 2:52 that in his earlier years:

Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour.

But God is in charge

The reassuring truth is that God is in charge no matter what chaos and suffering faces us at this time.

In this passage of Mark we read the signs of the times when that gospel was written up from oral tradition.  The world of Mark’s community was one of darkness, war, calamity and persecution.  Chapter 13 of Mark, as a whole, is a no-fun chapter. There is talk of destruction, cosmic upheaval and of persecution and false messiahs.  To get a sense of this week’s short extract from the chapter it is good to read the whole chapter (and indeed the gospel of Mark but, in the latter case, no all in one session). The 13^th chapter is rich in Old Testament imagery where references to light, darkness, the sun and the moon are founded in many places throughout the Hebrew scriptures. For example the following passage in Joel 2:31-32 is typical of this type of imagery:

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

It was widely believed among the disciples that the end of the world was – literally – near.  Very near. There is no point in trying to manoeuvre around this fact because it is plain not only from Mark but the other gospels and the New Testament itself. Mark does not emphasise, in his gospel, judgment and punishment (compared to Matthew for example). But, the ‘end-time’ and the global upheavals and distress associated with such a time is near, very near.

The five-fold so what of Mark

The implications for Mark’s hearers (and for us today) is the ‘fivefold’ Markan vocation:

1. faith (trust),
2. repentance (changing the way we live and think),
3. healing (by entrusting our deepest wounds to God),
4. following (by living a new way of life that gives space to the in-breaking of God’s kingdom) and
5. mission (being sent into the world in the time that remains to us) to give witness through our actions and practical contributions.

We can read such warnings and outlook in a spiritual sense that for each individual disciple in today’s world life is short and death is relatively near and gets nearer as we age (this does not require mathematical proof!). However, there are some who spring up every now and again and predict with certainty the end of the world on a given date and time. It would be comical if it were not so sad. 

With the global fry-up as a concrete challenge today….

But, there is a sense in which ‘the end of the world as we know it’ might be nearer than we think. You guessed it – the environment and climate change pose major existential threats to our assumptions, our lifestyles and plans.  Even modest further increases in global temperatures will spell catastrophe for millions and this will have knock-on effects everywhere. Nobody knows for sure the scale of the problem. What is clear is that no single Government or organisation wants to take responsibility for seriously cutting their own greenhouse emissions. So, there is potentially an apocalyptic scenario developing before our eyes.

We should act individually and collectively for our sake and that of others before it is too late. But, thinking about the future in this foggy, wet and dark November in Ireland we do well to follow the upbeat message reported in Luke 21:28:

Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

And by the way we believe that

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end ..

(from the Nicean Creed recited by most Christians when they meet together every Sunday).

Showing off

‘…she out of her poverty has put in everything she had’ (Mark 12:44)

Mark 12:38-44 (Advent -3)

The insecurity of the rich

This story from the gospel of Mark contrasts two sets of persons – those who were poor and regarded as less worthy of social distinction and respect and those who were at the top of society by virtue of family, religion or wealth.  It is important to read this passage in its historical context. The poor were, frequently, blamed for their plight. Riches were seen in many quarters as a blessing and reward from God.  The result of all this was that those in positions of authority associated with religion or politics were accorded dignity and security. They were secure in their religious and secular knowledge as well as in terms of financial security. They could afford to be demonstrably ‘generous’ when it came to public manifestations of giving. They were also seen as persons of honour to be greeted in reverential terms wherever they went and given special places (‘the best seats’) at banquets, religious services and other occasions. As for the poor, they had the benevolence of the better off to rely on especially if they had little or no means of a livelihood such as might have been the case for the blind, the lame, the lepers, widows and orphans.

The ‘best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets’ (verse 39) would have been, according to scripture scholars, the bench in front of the ark containing the sacred volumes where those seated faced the congregation. How sweat!

The story today?

Does any of this sound remotely possible or familiar to a 21^st century community never mind a church community?  Have positions and practices of grandeur ever been created in the way business is done in universities, grammy awards, ordinations or State Banquets. We ought not be too hard on others because one way or another we are party to some of this and that on the pretext that ‘it’s the done thing’ and ‘there is no harm in it’.  That may be so but when it comes to real poverty we need to watch our ways of behaving.

And what has poverty to do with me or you?

What has poverty to do with me or you, it may be asked? Isn’t poverty largely abolished in Western European societies? And isn’t much poverty caused by political corruption, environmental factors directly beyond our control and wars and famines that are man-made?

It is noteworthy how attitudes regarding poverty have come almost full circle in the last 100 years. 

There was a time – in the 19^th century – when famines, mass emigration and workhouses were a feature of many European countries including Ireland.  It was seen as somehow natural and tragic and the remedy was identified in terms of ‘charity’ or ‘correction’.  Advances in industry, medicine, education, democracy and the rise of various political movements changed all that (sometimes with the active support and engagement of Christians but very often not). In the process of change the role of the State came to the fore to such an extent that the rich paid a very large proportion of their income by way of taxes to fund social programmes and payments. The calamity of the great depression in the 1930s reinforced the role of public authorities in providing a safety net for those who were out of work, sick, retired or unable to work for one reason or another. There was, also, the rise of the universal welfare state that provided public goods such as education up to and including higher level, national health and various other social supports. All of this began to change radically in the decades following the 1970s. The great recession of 2008-2009 has had the impact of reinforcing a new ideology that stresses a smaller state, more responsibility on individuals and families to provide for themselves. It has also spelt the end of capitalism as we know it because normal rules of capitalism were defied and bankrupt banks were bailed out courtesy of the taxpayer.

What has all of this to do with this Sunday’s gospel reading and why should Christians or other believers bother with the worlds of poverty, environmental change and political instability?  The answer is that God is alive today not only (or if only) in our churches and sanctuaries and choirs and on altars and in tabernacles but in the shanty towns of Sao Paolo, the open seas of the Mediterranean and the streets of Dublin where many people sleep rough. The story of arrogance, presumption and public display on show in the Temple as recounted by Mark in the first half of this Sunday’s gospel reading is being retold, today, in many parts of the world. The wealth supplement to the weekend Financial Times gives some insight into what very rich people like to spend their money on because they have so much they don’t know what to do with it.

While it is true that millions have been lifted out of poverty in absolute material terms compared to what prevailed in the 19^th century it is clear that millions are stuck in poverty particularly in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.  The extent of inequality by, all statistical measures, has soared in countries such as the USA.  Europe may be following in that direction in the longer-term given recent trends since the 1980s. Poverty is associated with material deprivation and lack of access to fundamental goods and services compatible with human dignity and rights.  Two ‘I’s’ characterise real poverty:

• Indignity
• Insecurity

The insecurity paradox

The irony of the scene described by Mark, here, is that those considered secure and with dignity were anything but. Their need to impress others and to command respect and deference showed how insecure they were in themselves. And there is no dignity in behaving this way in the sight of God and people. Here is the paradox: by elevating themselves they revealed their deep insecurities and inconsistencies. In a similar passage in Matthew 12:1-12 Jesus concludes that ‘All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.’ However, this week’s passage in Mark is not, primarily about poverty and riches but about how those who may be rich or poor or neither can be generous with their money, their time and their talents. Alongside this message there is a coherent message that those who use power and wealth to exclude or put down others will answer for this. The conclusion that can be drawn is that generosity extends beyond offering a helping hand or some money from time to time to those in material need. Generosity invites us to consider what sort of society we are creating or helping to sustain. How is this reflected in the way we consume, invest, work, play, travel, vote?  - even pray for those for whom prayer is as precious as oxygen! 

The role of public services and taxes in modern society

One of the ironies of modern day capitalism is that companies sometimes boast of their commitment to corporate social responsibility as well as the payment of a socially agreed hourly ‘living wage’ rate and yet actively manage – legally – to avoid paying taxes in those jurisdictions where they make profits and/or where trading really takes place. All members of societies including corporations have a moral and legal duty to pay an appropriate and fair share of their income and assets for the purposes of supporting those in greatest need as well as investing in education, health and others vital areas of social life which is good for everyone (what is given can be returned). This, too, is part of Christian generosity.

The beggar stretches out his hand not to ask, but to give you the kingdom of heaven, and you do not notice! - Elder Arsenie Papacioc

Clearly, there is a balance to be struck regarding the role of various social actors and the management and delivery of public services should be as efficient and effective as possible.

Empowering the poor

The idea of giving even when you have little or nothing has given rise to the expression of the ‘widow’s mite’ found in the expression ‘.. and there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.’ (Mark 12:42 in the King James Version). Unusually for the gospel of Mark this verse is unique and not to be found in any of the other gospels.

Everyone has something to give and one of the greatest gifts that can be made to those who are materially poor is to provide education, support and power to develop themselves – enabling rather than reinforcing dependency. Each case is different and the demands of love may require a different response on each occasion.