Small protests to affect large changes

 Today there is a remarkable number of injustices being perpetrated upon the world and its people.  From racist comments to the incarceration of those looking for new homes. From ideological maniacs seeking their own power to those who have rights blocked by bigotry and hatred, with a misplaced and unshakeable understanding that will fracture at the slightest push. In Isaiah God seems to indicate to us that his presence alone will give us the plenitude we long for even in the midst of desolation (Is. 51.1-6). Sometimes we need to assist the changes that God will bring by making a small protest to change the bigger realities. In the midst of trial and labour brought about by the rulers of the day the Israelites managed to assist life by a small protest (Ex. 1.17-20). The world around them seemed to be falling apart for their people and yet by their simple act of defiance they allowed their people to have an opportunity at the start of a journey toward the realisation of becoming God's people. Their protest brought life not death and in doing so secured a new future for the world.

Our instinct is to protest against the injustices of the world, which is right and proper, but sometimes our instincts can lead us astray and we have to take care that we are not being led down the wrong path. However much good we think we are generating or however much we think God is leading, we can and are led astray. This seems to be counter everything that we might think is right. It is often the smallest protest that sparks the road to life and not the major undertakings of change that bring about Christ's freedom in our lives by initiating God's swift deliverance rather than shouldering the issues ourselves (Is 51:5).  The midwives, in the Exodus story, did a small thing, they delayed their coming to the scene of birth and as a result allowed new life into the world contrary to the law.  In allowing life into the world they allowed the seed of hope that was Moses to become a moment of grace and change later in life.  The major protests of the world have been sparked by a small change in someone's attitude, a small protest against and injustice which has slowly built, sometimes over generations. I wonder how many people actually thought that protesting against the issues in the Middle East or the violence and war in the Ukraine were dumb ideas at the time or get fed up with the protests of those wishing to see change in climate policy? Even thinking about the diocese's own issues and the protests over property sales will achieve a new prosperous diocese or an old aging behemoth.

Are you a midwife of life and faith or selfishness and despair?

(https://www.stemfellowship.org/the-history-of-medicine-childbirth/)

Peter confesses Christ (Matt. 16.13-20) but just shortly after this he is rebuked by Christ as in his enthusiasm he reaches out to over protect Christ. For him a seemingly small protest but one that goes awry. Peter's protest was not a protest for righteousness but a protest for self preservation. He protested for himself and for the concern for his future not for the concerns of those who suffered. In comparison the protest of the midwifes was for a community.  In our individual lives we need to be careful about what we are protesting. Our protest, even if it is a small one, needs to be a protest for the wider oppressed community and not for our personal survival in the world. We need to be honest in our reflection of God's justice in the world.  We need to remind ourselves that at the beginning of creation God made humanity in his own image; a humanity that strives towards the life that God has given to us. The signboard outside the Gosford Anglican church is used a a small sign of protest for many things. It names for us those things that we feel ashamed of because we do not say anything. The midwives also named something because the rest were not. Each of us are capable of stepping onto the faith journey and naming the things that are detrimental to life. The moment we do this we invigorate those who are suffering and bring hope into the world and we bring God's righteousness into being. We become the midwives of new birth and new life in faith. In reflecting on the midwives and on Isaiah's message we need to ask for ourselves: In our protest are we protesting for ourselves or for the oppressed and for God's justice?

Ma'en or amen

 It is not often that we are accepting of others within our midst. Unfortunately our innate wariness of things that are different prevent us from seeing the good in others. Often the attitudes of those around us in society are the attitudes that we portray to others. In the Gospel passage today even Christ appears to succumb to the attitudes of the day (Matt 15:23-26), most particularly the reference to "dogs" (Matt:15:26). Each community determines the boundaries that it is willing to accept within itself and those boundaries and prejudices are in built into the society in which we live. Generations of people have passed down their own understanding of who is in and who is out, which leads to our present day issues around the other who is different.

Matthew's Christ eventually comes to the inclusive understanding of community which we need to follow today. His thinking is not so much different from any in society and yet acknowledges that faith can be found outside the accepted boundaries that we the people have put in place. And yes it is we people. Irrespective of when, people have been responsible for the institution of our dogma and our own prejudices determine our reaction to those who are external to us. We can see this in recent movements such as Black lives matter and other movements throughout the world. Today the world is about a people who have been grafted one onto the other through the numerous interconnections that we all share. Paul was only concerned with those who were grafted on to a single root (Rom. 11:17), today we are considering multiple grafts on multiple roots. Our inter-connectedness in the world is greater now then it has ever been in the past.

Recognise the connection through the root stock that is God

Our predispositions to hatred and ostracisation need to be re-evaluated in light of our connections not only with other people but also with our environment. Joseph was sold into slavery and found a way forward but still held a dislike of his brothers which is played out in the story of his trickery and deception when they come to Egypt for relief. This is overcome not through his own immediate insight but rather as a result of his interaction with his brother, Judah. Like most of us Joseph needs proof of the brothers' credibility and honesty after his betrayal; can he trust these men who are his brothers? If he can then he can reveal himself and his connection to them and their family. Just prior to the passage that has been read today we hear Judah's impassioned speech, which for the midrash descriptions, is a re-description of himself which influences Joseph's understanding and thus eventual breakdown before the brothers. Joseph moves away from the need to seek proof towards an acceptance of who they are and their inter-connectedness with with each other. Prior to this he was unable to believe their words, not accepting (ma'en) as opposed to accepting (amen).

It is this moment of change that we need to achieve within us in our own interconnected world. It is an understanding that overcomes the awkwardness of our conditioned response to the other and an acceptance of our own inter-connectedness. We need to be able to say amen rather than our normal ma'en to those that surround us. Christ has a moment of denial before he too can admit the amen and need to establish God's community with those who are exterior to the community. It is only when we become one recognising that the divisions we uphold our of our own making, whether they are a result of selfishness or tribal preservation, are little more than tactics to preserve our individuality as opposed to our acceptance of God in the life of others. We do not have to control everything but rather we need to overcome our reluctance to accept God's presence even if we have no proof of God's presence. Our ideas of self have overcome our ideas of knowing even without grounds, so that we can say "Amen" to God in our lives. In doing so we overcome our reluctance to see beyond the graft and discover the root in others is their connectivity to God.

Imagining faith

  Reliance on our own understanding often leads to issues and challenges in our lives that are frequently beyond our ability to cope. In doing so we may interpret situations and form our own interpretive story that fits with our view. Through our interpretation we form an understanding of the world around us and its impact upon our lives. Joseph's story starts, for many sources, a long and convoluted interpretation not of Joseph but of Jacob and his whole family (Gen 37.1-ff). It is a story of the loss of connection with God leading to a re-imagining of familial and community connections over time. For those interpreting in this manner it is not a simple story of betrayal and remorse but one that sees the actors as caught within God's plot rather their own individual autonomous tale. In seeing this story from this perspective our own interpretive perspective is altered as we in turn look at the story of our lives and our community.

These interpretations point to our own lack of imagination when it comes to our faith and how we engage with our communities. We are in a similar boat to Jacob in that to a large extent we seem to have lost our connection to God as a community. Not just as a parish community but as a community in the much wider sense both nationally and internationally. Peter's attempt to walk on water demonstrates that failure of the imaginative process in our own faith journey (Matt. 14:28-29). Peter is called out of the boat onto the water by Christ but is almost immediately side tracked away from the impossibility by the mundane. There is a certain amount of imagination that is needed when we encompass our own faith journey. An imagination that suggests we can do anything beyond the normal that Christ / God calls us into overcoming the mundane that pulls us away from God.

Allow our faith to follow God's imagining

For most of us we are, like the brothers, unable to come to terms with the imaginative process so that we become caught up within the mundanity of our lives and concentrate solely on the ever increasing calls upon our time that is the world in which we live. Our response to the act of imagination that is the faith journey, is to hide it away in a hole or sell it of to become enslaved to situations that we are unable to comprehend or become involved in. The sleazy normality of the flux and flow of the ties that we have to the modern society prevents us from rising above the waves that overwhelm our lives. The very concept of retreating from the everyday into prayer or reflection or the imaginative process is abhorrent to modernity. The press of society around us is towards an evermore efficient lifestyle that is filled and, at the end of the day, exhausting of our life energy.

The retreat into the imagination to allow ourselves to take the step that enables our feet to walk upon the fluid surface of the water is an almost forgotten understanding. It s being retrieved into modern life by the more esoteric spiritual journeys of the Far East and alternative culture. The church appears to have lost itself within the fabric of modernity without realising that it has lost the imaginative process. This allows it to be divided by the self delusion that a reading of scripture is best interpreted by a literalist or someone embedded in a specific understanding and outlook. This dogmatic thinking is robust but static and does not allow for the breaking in of God's presence to lead us into the wonders that God's love brings to those who dedicate their lives in contemplation and reflection of that love. Our failure in our worship, in our lives and in our understanding of God's fluid and changing nature is re-lived in a lack of commitment to the belief that God can perform the imaginative miracle even while we shiver in the fear of overwhelming mundanity.

Lead from the front or from the rear

 I am not sure about you but when I make any major decision I struggle. I can spend a number of nights and days just coming to grips with the fact that a decision has to be made. In some respects I think we are all prone to this sort of struggle at least once in our lives. In a manner of speaking this is what is represented in the story of the night long wrestling match that results in the change of name from Jacob to Israel (Gen. 32:22-31). The decision from the various rabbinic sources is a decision with regards authenticity and authority rather than something more mundane. The change in name realises the change in Jacob's acceptance of who he is and his relationship to power and authority. This is not just a struggle that makes a decision but rather it is struggle that makes us change. In this understanding lies the challenge due to the fact that the result is a change to ourselves something that we fear that we will become injured and debilitated in the process.

Jacob sends his family and his household ahead of him across the river, like a good general he is leading from the rear by planning and trying to gauge the effects of his coming meeting with his brother. Also like any good leader he looks to rest from the distractions of leadership to have quiet time, like Christ (Matt. 14:13), to review the past and set up for the future. Yet, he is set upon and has to wrestle the night away. His wrestling is within himself, and is allegorically displayed by the "angel", perhaps Esau's guardian angel, as he struggles with his own doubts and fears of the life he is living and has lived. The decision to hold on to what has been or to move into a new life is a large one and is only made after we see the harm holding on does to us. The pain can become physically disabling not only for ourselves but also for the communities that we lead. Acceptance means that we begin to see ourselves in a new light and our ideas mature us towards the person that God wants us to be. In our own wrestling with our selves we begin to understand the needs of the people in the community around us. We place out needs behind us so that we can give to our community in such a manner that the gift becomes life giving. Where others may quail and step back we are able to step forward and find the solution that God has already prepared for us.

Leading from the front takes the pressure off but is a struggle

In many ways when we wrestle with our decisions we are wrestling with God as we are wrestling with a decision that will change our lives. If we are to grow in accordance with God's will then we struggle as our own thoughts and perceptions colour our decisions and deceive us away from what God would have us achieve. While we wrestle with God and our own way of doing things we will naturally change, even our names just as Jacob did. Even if we think we are not leaders or in positions of leadership we are indeed leaders as we portray God's way of love to the world and should be leading in this very thing. If we push people from behind, like Jacob, we will soon loose their interest and our own ability to lead them into new life. At some point we need to have courage to actually lead from the front with our convictions centred in God's presence. God inspired leadership takes us out of ourselves to see and lead with compassion from the front. The disciples come to Christ in a quandary about food even though Christ has been giving his all all day (Matt. 14:15). Instead of telling them to make the decision or moving of for quiet space, sympathy and compassion lead so that others may find comfort. In our own way we need to be able to do the same. We too often allow the attitude of Douglas Adams' SEP to come to the fore and not take the initiative. We often allow ourselves to make suggestions and let others do when often it is needful for us as Christ followers to lead our communities from the front. We then place God's love to the fore and become true disciples. This is where the struggle becomes part of our own being as we overcome and make things smoother for those behind.