Solid foundations take commitment

 Foundational experiences ensure that we have something to build on for the remainder of our lives. If we undertake the building of foundations we need to ensure that we are preparing the way for our building in an accurate and stable manner. If we begin something and then stop because we are ill prepared for the consequences of our actions then we create our own challenges (Lk. 14.28-29). In the same manner we begin our faith journey at baptism or when we begin our intentional faith journey and need to ensure that the foundations and the journey ahead are understood or else we will find the challenge too much. This is often to be seen that when we begin something and run out of 'puff' halfway through unable to continue the process.

In Jeremiah, the Lord takes Jeremiah to the potter to give him this understanding (Jer. 18.1-11). Like the potter, we begin moulding ourselves into what we perceive as being that which is required. Yet, if we fail to be guided in our understanding of the process by others, and by God, then we produce goods that are damaged. It is often as a result of our underestimating the costs of what we are about to or are doing. For us as Christians we are asked to take up the cross and as we do so we commit ourselves to that undertaking. However, unless our underpinning and foundations are strong we will ultimately fail and turn away from Christ and from God. It is not an easy thing to do but one that can be done easily when we have placed the foundations down. So often, when we begin something we ultimately rush and suddenly find that we are failing or the foundations being laid are not the foundations that God is seeking but those that others have laid. Often it is because we are building on things that have been done before without realising that they ultimately failed as a result of sloppy beginnings or others desires.

First the foundations but even then we may give up and fail to form the vessel of God

We are slaves to what we put down as a our foundation. Just as Paul lays the foundation for Onesimus to live free in Christ so to we must lay our foundations in Christ. We can not be lazy in how we lay our own foundations. Unfortunately, we tend to leave our foundations when we are quite young and never return to complete the building becoming like the man who stopped and walked away (Lk. 14.28-29). It is only when we find that in later years that we have missed out on something that we return to the forgotten projects. In doing so though we have to go through the pain of picking up our crosses the ones that have been gathering dust and weight over the years. We have to re-educate ourselves in terms of the building practices that we once had, we have to start once more.

Once again like the potter we have to throw the clay on the wheel and begin to reform our lives in Christ. Once again we have to have the perseverance to finish what we have started. Once again we find ourselves tempted to move away from the start of something great and move towards our own deaths. The disappointments we seem to gather around us weigh us down and the project of building becomes a drag and a chore that is dull. Yet, Christ is there for us even in the despair of our realisation that we seem not to progress. It is in these times that we must re-evaluate our progress with our foundations. Return to our base in scripture and in reason and in our tradition to find the way forward to build a lasting structure within our lives that harbours Christ's Spirit and allows us to grow into what Christ and God plans for us. Make the mix to sloppy and the jar will not form, make it to stiff and the jar will not form. The consistency of our effort and the material we use must be filled with Christ's love so that we can form the vessel that Christ wants.

The trap of self worth

 In life we often can achieve the our goals through hard work and believe that we have arrived when we our considered by others to have a certain amount of knowledge. However, sometimes and quite often in a faith setting, our knowledge becomes a hindrance and is often not conducive to a happy and sustainable community. In life we are often honored for our knowledge and we allow this honour to become part of our expectations in all of life's settings not just in the situation in which our knowledge is recognised. In Luke, Christ warns against this type of behaviour using the illustration of a banquet (Lk. 14.7-14).

We can see this happening in all walks of life as people position themselves into places so that they can achieve power, authority and often at the end of the day notoriety. It is difficult for us not to promote ourselves within an economy that values those who are deemed to be 'expert'. (I am always reminded of the old definition of an expert which goes something like this. X = an unknown quantity, Spurt = water under pressure, a drip = an unknown quantity of water, hence expert = a drip under pressure). Of course in any discourse that involves the subject matter that is the provenance of the 'expert' it is the purpose of the person to have their knowledge acknowledged and thus their view predominate. In academic discourse this is part of the rough and tumble of academia and is carried out through conferences and forums that the various 'experts' attend.  In everyday life such behaviour tends to lead to cliques, clubs and politics. We can see where that leads to as there is a tendency for those groups to use hierarchical power, the 'expert' at the top, as a means to stop conversation and deny the voice of the other.

Do we consider ourselves as being 'experts' in relationships?

In the faith setting this sort of self proclamation becomes an issue as there is a tendency to once again form us vs them cliques. This can be clearly seen in an over exaggerated form in the issues in Northern Ireland regarding Protestant and Catholic. In this over exaggerated case the situation devolved into violence in much the same way that the extreme fundamentalist does in any religious setting. In the parochial setting the result may not be as vicious, in terms of physical violence, but is just as bad in terms of relational violence. We often do not appreciate the violence that is generated as quite often the group as a whole ignores the issue and bows down to a laissez faire attitude that gives permission for the situation to continue without resolution. Once a 'power base' has been established by the group or individual then this is used to exploit the situation and impose the view of the group/individual on the others within the community.

In many parishes there are Catering groups or Opportunity Shops that are valued as they often bring in a large proportion of the income for the Parish. These groups tend to attract those who have a tendency for this self promotional style of behaviour. The 'expert' is often the person who has been around in the group as a leader for an extended period of time and when attempts are made to curtail or align the group to the new direction a community is taking then umbrage, chaos and upset occurs. Thus, breaking up the communal relationships that have ignored the growing situation as being normal and coming to understand that it is the community that has been 'bullied' into conformance as a result of their reliance on one group or another. This is accepted and normal behaviour in many groups within modern society.  Yet, Christ offers us another and alternate way of behaviour that does not rely on our self proclamation of expertise and need for power / authority to lord it over others in however small a manner and in however 'irreplaceable' we believe it to be.

We are each of us called into ministry by God at our baptism. It is God who calls us into the place where we may have some 'expertise' but it is also God who guides and directs us in that ministry. God is the host who will elevate us into a more prominent position in the light of our peers but it is also God who may decide not to promote us despite what we believe or think of ourselves. Our self recognition as an 'expert' and therefore the right to be heard or even for our viewpoint to be the prevailing viewpoint, has to be one that is counter intuitive to our desires. Our behaviours should reflect a viewpoint that believes "Despite my belief of my own self worth, there are others who may be of more consequence than me."  Only when we realise that our own opinions of ourselves do not matter within the community will we begin to recognise that it is our relationships of mutual understanding and love that are of more importance.

It is pertinent for us, especially for those who think that they know more than others or think because they have been doing something forever, to stop and listen to others in the community.  This can not be a single event in the life of a community but an ongoing understanding of ourselves as a community. In doing so we begin to heal the rifts that our behaviours have caused and begin to listen to God's direction of our ministry and not our own self imposed authority.  But remember as soon as we start to think "I was right all along." and vindicate  a position we have held in our own situations, we fall into the same trap. We are not called to elevate ourselves for the honour and glory which is fleeting but we are to await God's blessing and call for a more lasting satisfaction and blessing on the community as a whole.

Answering God's call

 In the last few weeks there has been a number of passages from the Hebrew Testament that show the beginning of ministry through the eyes of the prophets. In the latest reading we see Jeremiah's call by God (Jer. 1.4-10). We know that such a call has an effect on the lives of those called but also we understand from the material in the scriptures that such a call however powerful, is not without its obstacles. During Jeremiah's time as a prophet he was more likely to be prophesying from prison or in close captivity than not. A total surrendering of himself to God and yet, even he, at the end refuses to listen to God and ends his days in exile. What is it about listening and following God that leads us to obstruct or turn from God's voice?

The writer to the Hebrew's suggests that it is our propensity to turn towards those illicit things that the human heart fails to turn from, that is the cause of our unyielding obstruction of God's call for justice (Heb. 12.15-17). We seek to better ourselves within the confines of the community in which we serve. We do this by suggesting to ourselves that what we do is for the greater good and for the purposes of God. There are rules and regulations that we need to follow or else we are not good members of the group. The leaders are learned and are able to interpret what God wants and what is best for all. There is a certain tangibility about the desires and plans that are placed before us so that we are forever chasing after the eternal fires of Sinai (Heb. 12.18). We are unable to place ourselves outside this tangible sphere to seek after those things which are above are daily desires and wants. If we have a plan or a way to move that involves a strict rule then we are more likely to follow that then we are God's mutable Spirit. Laws and rules are easy to define and are even easier to comply with and so make the society in which we live 'better'. Yes, such things are required but the question eventually arises "who interprets the law and for whose benefit?".

Who are the judges of today? Are they the old of yesterday?

In the reading from Luke, Christ offers an example of going beyond the stated laws so that there is a definite improvement to the community (Lk. 13.10-17). God's purpose is to bring healing and integration to a community not division, even if such healing and integration brings about the appearance of negativity. Such negativity is often as a result of our own minimalist understanding of interpretation. We are narrow in how we see things as this is our coping mechanism. God on the other hand is insistent on a more open view such that it encompasses all not just a few. More often than not we interpret our responsibilities to the narrowest extent, rather than broadening our point of view. We can point to a number of our deepest theological debates to see this. How does our human sexuality in all of its rainbow perspectives debilitate our ability to worship and surrender to God? The only thing is how our perverseness may harm the other rather than bring them into life and God's presence. How does our gender disable our ability to minister in God's name, such that we have to bow to an other in obeisance rather than cooperate in love? This is perhaps a fear of loss of power or authority rather than a community revealing God's love.

We need to remind ourselves that we follow a call by God not by other humans. The Hebrew's writer once again writes with insight when they say that what is of God is unshakeable whilst human desires will wander with their eyes so that we once again put obstacles in the way of God's reign (Heb. 12.28). In looking at how we go about undertaking God's will and answering the call upon our lives we actually need to throw out the rule book that our forefathers have created to follow. Just as the Israelites needed to be reminded time and time again, it is not how we interpret God's law but how God wants us to behave and act. Our responsibility is to God not to the structures that we and the generations that have gone before have interpreted as being God's way. God's action is encompassing not confining, is for all not for some, is life giving not death dealing, is free not expensive. Our views and our attitudes need to see beyond blame and power to find balance and forgiveness. We need to come from a totally different perspective rather than from the one that has been generationally produced as the law.

Disruption for justice

 Last week I spoke about the disruptive influence of God in terms of Derrida's deconstruction. This week we see that disruption occurring in a more specific way despite this being a Gospel of love. Luke's Gospel has an enormous disruptive feel in the current reading as Christ tells us he does not come to bring peace but disruption of existing relationships (Lk. 12.49-).  A disruption that tears the  relationships of families and communities; an unexpected dissonance from a God of love, peace and harmony.

Yet, when we engage with the lament from God over his vineyard in Isaiah (5.1-7) we should begin to understand where this disruption occurs in our lives. That is with the presumption that we are truly living the Christian way. All that God is seeking is justice but finds instead bloodshed (Isaiah 5.7). Justice is a concept that is so elusive for the human that the judiciary and philosophers struggle to pin it down as it escapes in the blink of an eye.  It comes as a disruptive moment in our lives as we seek to do justice.  The historical list of those who have managed this elusive concept are pillars of faith and have journeyed with this concept throughout their lives. Some are outlined in the letter to the Hebrews and finalised  by basically saying the list goes on forever (Heb 11.32).  If we consider our own heroes of the faith or standouts within the faith journey of the modern era we can think of Bishop Trevor Huddlestone, The Arch. more commonly known as Desmond Tutu, Sister Theresa and Rev. Michael Lapsley all who have struggled with this elusive concept as they have journeyed in faith.

Only when we start to understand their passion for a loving God and the elusive pursuit of justice can we begin to understand the disruption, in this word, that this should cause for ourselves.  Yet, we ponder and struggle to overcome our own pet hurts that blind us to the greater call on our lives. We confine ourselves to the irritation of a misleading line in a hymn rather than the actuality of injustice in Palestine.  We concentrate on the tangibility of a border forbidding the undesirables from coming and restricting their access while neglecting our responsibilities as well as the injustices occurring in our name.  It is the tangibility of a border or a hymn that calls us rather than the intangible concept of justice calling from the borders of our sovereignty.  Only when we can overcome our own wants and wishes so as to focus on the greater will we begin to work the will of God's call on us.

Desperation in the face of injustice

The claim on us as we make our way on the journey of faith is not in the past but in the present.  In seeking justice we will disrupt our families and our communities as we stir up the complacency of governments and communities.  The Anglican and faith community live by what is known as Lex orandi, lex credendi, or what we say is what we believe.  If this is the case than it is the call for justice that must be lived out by our daily lives.  This is a greater call than a single focus on Jew, Muslim or sexuality.  Our call is to live acknowledging all as children of God and ignoring the difference that they bring into our lives.  Justice calls to all of us, irrespective of creed, culture or sexuality.  It inspires us to live lives of acceptance that do not dwell on images of the past but build images of the future with hope.  Justice continually calls from the margins of our society not from those living in affluence.  The pursuit of justice calls us into the fray of the dispossessed, the camps and those struggling to survive.  It does not call us to close our hearts and our borders; it does not call us to close our eyes or think only of the past.

If we are to live as faith filled Christians, however small we deem ourselves, we will be at the forefront of disruption as we open the hearts of those closed by comfort and complacency.  Mother Theresa was not a showman or a tele evangelist but a person of large faith and heart who saw injustice and worked towards justice.  For all his flamboyance Archbishop Tutu worked at the coalface of injustice to bring the injustices of apartheid into the light of God's love, not for fame but to honour the call and pursuit of justice that God calls all of faith to. In our comfort and our own lives lived within a society that is consumed by pettiness we are called into the disruptive tear that those who suffer from injustice create as justice calls.  We have seen the blood that flows as a result of injustice in the lives of the abused, are we ready to answer with the salve of love and respond to the call of justice in the world.

L'avenir - God's unexpected future

 In John Caputo's book, 'What would Jesus Deconstruct?', the author outlines Derrida's "least bad" definition of deconstruction one indeed that Caputo himself likes (pg 54). In a nutshell Derrida states that there is a predictable future (a 'future present') and one that is over the horizon of expectancy ('the absolute future') the event that we cannot participate that disrupts our lives; that removes the certainty of our human constructed structures.  In other words, 'There is a future which is predictable...But there is a future to come (l'avenir) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected.' (Derrida quoted in 'Preaching after God' by Phil Snider, pg. 135). In a very real sense this is what we should be preparing for 'the totally unexpected' when we await Christ.  Christ highlights our preparedness in the Gospel (Lk. 12.32-33) and this need to expect the unexpected (Lk. 12.35-40).

We can prepare for most things today.  We have certain expectancies that in life we can plan for, the future that is made present, as it comes to us in the certainty of our careers, our businesses, our home life and our social calendar.  Not least of all in our taxes and our expenditure that for individuals are things that we can guarantee let alone expect. These are the platforms on which we build our daily lives relying on our past experience and our expectations for the future.  We prepare our purses and our schedules in such a fashion that those things that we know are going to be undertaken do not become mountains or impossible tasks, less we submerge ourselves in misery and despair.  In any form of leadership this is the task that is set before us so that we can lead people into a new or better place or at least maintain a certain level of service / comfort that meets the expectations of those we lead.  However, this also points us towards a status quo, a non movement forward, a non growth of our potential and what could be.  It is when we are driven out of our expectations into new places and new things that we become alive once more, alive to the possibilities inherent in the call to be a follower of Christ, to be a Christian.

The Unexpected Guest - by Heather Lara

In (not)-preparing for the unexpected, because as soon as we prepare it becomes the expected, we need to be flexible and listen for that call that leads us into the new and challenging circumstances that confront us as we take on the risk of faith.  This is not an enviable position to be in as leaders and yet if we answer God's call on our lives this is exactly where we will find ourselves as we seek to bring God's people into conversation with that call.  It is a question of allowing our experiences to be present to us and yet not govern us or the moves that we make.  Too often we allow our past to dictate what the future will bring.  Yes, we have an experience that needs to inform our actions but not dictate them.  In confronting our prejudices and our hurts and our dislikes we often find that it is our past that is dictating how we experience the present and the future.  In not allowing the unexpected to draw us into a new sequence of relationships we die to the possibilities that the Christic event opens in our lives.

We are practical people and our focus is on how to rather than on waiting and responding to the event that disrupts our lives.  In leading the family of God into newness of life we ourselves must be prepared to let go of our own preconceptions of the future.  We need to allow ourselves to be prepared in unpreparedness.  We do not know when the event will occur just as we do not know when the thief will come in the night.  Yet we prepare for the thief without making definite plans as to when and where.  So we prepare for the coming of the event of God's grace in our lives with the understanding that it may never come or it may come this second.  We have to be sufficiently ready to grow and go where God's Spirit may call us without enormous preparations before the time.  If we are called into a new experience of God's abiding presence so we need to be ready to respond with an affirmative that does not deny that experience by locking it down.  Rather we need to be opened up to effectively respond in love to that call.

It is often hard to accept that what we strive for may not be what God wishes for our lives or our institutions.  We may all be in agreement about where we think God is calling us but then out of nowhere God comes calling and disrupts our planning as Christ appears to us.  It is only in our (un)preparedness and flexibility to accept the Christic event that we move forward in our faith journey.  We need to listen faithfully for God's ever present Spirit as we formulate our life's goals and the goals of our communities.  The call is always there it is when we do not listen and move on our own that God's presence is suddenly there changing what we thought to what we ought to do.  Let us always be (un)prepared to accept God's insistent call on our lives.

Wealth beyond our dreams

 We are presented on a daily basis with everything that we ever want if we could pay for it. What do we do? We tend to buy what we can when we can or even when we can't and go into debt so that we can have what we want. Be it a car or a house or a phone or a boat or... Then we moan about the debt or about the burden of paying it back, we very rarely think about the future at such times. If we do think about our future then we ensure that we have plenty of financial worth to live of in our retirement years. We give no thought about others in the community and even if we have wealth we tend to ensure that what goes out has some form of benefit to us in the end, whether through recognition or eventual investment payback. The reality becomes all about us rather than anything else and our thinking whether it is in spending or saving is for ourselves much like the rich landowner who saves everything for a rainy day (Lk 12:16-20).

Is this what God wants of us or is this what we have always done and continue to do despite being called into a different mode of living? Paul, seems to indicate that this is what we always do prior to our accepting God's presence through Christ into our lives (Col. 3:6-10). These are the things that are meant to have been stripped from us in our acceptance of the way of Christ. Yet, in our own hubris we have not neglected these but in some ways we have increased their hold on us. We are conditioned by the society we live in not by our enduring faith. For us, as Christians it should be the other way around, we should be conditioned by our enduring faith rather than by the society around us. Yet, over multiple generations the communities that we live in have taken up the understanding that we hoard our wealth rather than use it for the greater good. There have been very few societies that have looked at the greater good of the individuals rather than at the selfish needs of the individuals. In doing so we have engendered this greedy outlook so that justice and peace are purely symbols of something that is unattainable and a constant future state.

We lavish our wealth on ourselves and neglect God's presence in our lives. Yet, God is the one person who persists in loving us irrespective of our neglect of God. God's lament of faithlessness is seen in Hosea  (11:1-9) and how the persistence of love for God's people continues on despite our movement away. God's love is a total outpouring into the world and in favour of those he loves (the whole of humanity who are made in God's image). We are asked to mirror that love in Christ and in action within our own circumstances even if it means beggaring ourselves for the sake of God. In doing so we are being faithful to God and knowing that God will be faithful to us and not allow ourselves to be forsaken. This is a difficult road to walk as we are putting ourselves into the hands of the unknown rather than our own wants and wishes and the comfort of what we have earned. Even when we are on the cusp of wealth and peace within our own lives we must still look beyond to those who are unable to afford what we have. It is pointless for us to hoard our worldly goods when others are being impoverished.

We want it all for ourselves and not for the other

In the Gospel parable, there is nothing about giving to those beyond or outside the community. It is based within a rural community much the same as that which Ruth and Naomi entered. It means that there were rich and poor living cheek by jowl, just as we have in this community and in our surrounding communities. Tragedy strikes at the heart of our comfortable life but is more prominent when it is away from us. We think we are doing our best by contributing towards the other that is apart from us whilst neglecting those that are closest to us. In the story and the context of the time the wealthy person was encouraged and expected to contribute to the welfare of the community. The stored grain was not going to go anywhere except for distribution on his death. There was no point in hoarding it. There is no point in our own hoarding whether it be toilet rolls or our finances or our love, we cannot spend it in the end. We are thus asked to put our love and our lives and our wealth to care for those in the community beyond our own circle.

The covenantal presence in Christic love

 Today all we have to do to attract attention is to proclaim something is fake news. Some politicians are adept at this easily drawing attention to themselves. Then what happens is that everyone and I mean everyone follows what is happening. That really is all we have to do proclaim something is false or fake and we will have all sorts of people visiting us. However, as Christians we build on foundations of honesty and the truth. Of course there is the question of whose truth and what teaching is false. The Colossian's letter is quite specific regarding the fact that we must be constantly on our guard against 'hollow and delusive speculations, based on traditions of human teachings' (Col 2.8). So, how do we tell who is right and who is wrong in terms of how we speak of God.

There are those who will speak of biblical inerrancy and even those who will suggest that there is only one way to read the scriptures whether from the original texts of the Hebrew bible in language or from the New Testament in Koine as they are God inspired. Problem is that when we start to pick apart the scriptures and cherry pick what we believe then we are subject to our own interpretations of the text that is 'God inspired'. In looking at this we need to understand that all of our interpretations are 'fake' Good News as we are not God nor are we necessarily God inspired in the way that those who wrote the scriptures (as some would believe). So what is the criteria that distinguishes our interpretation from fake news and its continual draw upon ourselves and the truth that we proclaim.

Do we prostitute the Gospel for our own purposes?

If we look at the prophet Hosea (1.2-ff) we can see that despite everything, his love for God, determines his course. It is a course that would have brought all sorts of stigma onto him and yet just as in the Gospel (Luke 11.5-10) there is a persistence in Hosea's living and loving arrangements. He is upright before God and is deep within his covenantal relationship. So when we come to determine between fake and Good news we need to look for that persistence in the covenantal relationship with God. In other words we have to ask whether our whole character is based in Christ whom we have taken on in baptism. It is our foundational relationship that is of prime importance as it is this that has to be grounded in Christ (Col. 2.7). This is the important understanding that it is in Christ who is Jesus and not the other way around. The importance of God is paramount when we come to speak of the Gospel. Once we start to place the humanity of Jesus before Christ we begin to lose our way and proclaim those things which are part of our misunderstanding and thus part of that which is Fake.

In the Lord's prayer, which is a reiteration, in some respects, of the shema, we re-insert ourselves into that covenantal relationship as we ask God for his presence in our daily undertakings. This is the covenantal persistence that we require to ground ourselves in Christ. In doing so we reiterate the relationship that is found in the Godhead. In undertaking this relational movement we become part of the body of Christ, not Jesus, and bring God's light into the world. In communion with each other we join the hospitality of the Godhead around the table and invite those that are external to ourselves into relationship with the community that is embedded in Christ. This community which may become the Church, is one that portrays the truth of Christic, covenantal love by accepting all no matter who they may be for it is not for us to bring judgement. Only when we are in as deep as Hosea can we understand the presence of God that is fully present.