Growth implies change

 No matter how we look at the world around us there are a couple of certainties other than death and taxes. The most prominent one is the prospect of change in our comfortable spaces. No matter who we are the very thought of change makes us shiver and become somewhat afraid. It does not matter whether the change is one that is sponsored by ourselves, such as a change in direction, home, living arrangement, career, etc or comes to us from an outside source COVID 19, restructure of work environment, new laws, etc. The very mention of the word creates division and this was understood by Christ as he spoke of the future to his disciples (Matt. 10.34-39). As Christians who have died to Christ (Rom 6.3-5) we must expect significant change in our lives, not only when we accept Christ but also when we continue with Christ in our lives.

In speaking about change we seem to accept the enormous change that Christ brings because we have died but wish to negate that change when it effects our more mundane lives. It is as if we believe that what ever spiritual or faith change is undertaken our secular and normal lives must remain unaffected. This is clearly not the answer as the Gospel passage indicates. Christ lets us know, in no uncertain terms, that the traditional place of comfort, the family, cannot remain the same when we take up the cross and follow Christ. If our safe place, our traditional place of comfort and security is no longer a safe haven to retreat to then how can we expect the world to be a safe place amidst change. The disruption that has occurred to our lives and the changes that must happen as we move forward into the unknown future must for us become a force that allows us to increase our resilience in the face of the inconsequential upheavals that we face on a daily basis. Just think of the changes in the life of Hagar and Ishmael faced in the wilderness when cast out by Abraham at the behest of Sarah (Gen. 21:14-21). The indication here is that no matter how cast out from our family we are God has a greater purpose that shows us a path along which we must strive.

We change our diet as we mature otherwise we do not grow

Any young person faces the challenges of change in the  formative years of their adulthood. In leaving home they must strive to find their place in an ever changing society and yes sometimes the challenges in this process of change are significant. At other times we shelter them from the raw experiences of life so that they can find safety in the bosom of their family but... It is a big but for even the family cannot shelter us in the long term. Just as we cannot expect in naivety that what we have always experienced will always remain the same. Christ calls us deliberately into something that changes leading us away from our comforts so that we too can change our own way of thinking to bring the Good news into those areas which are not ministered to as a result of our neglect. We often have to find a new way to express ourselves, away from that which is comfortable, how else can we spread God's love if we do not enter into new places. Remaining within the comfort of what we know and understand places us into the sheltered space. Yes, occasionally we have to place ourselves in that space but we cannot remain there or we will stagnate and die. A pond that does not refresh itself with a stream of water is likely to stagnate and die. If a herd of animals remained in one place they would stagnate and starve. We will not get the same ongoing sustenance if we remain in one way of thought and it is quite often the case that we also stagnate and die.

Even when we want to be fed we automatically want what we have had before or what we believe is life sustaining for ourselves. Once again we fall into a trap because if we are to grow we need to seek out new richness in the food that is provided. Like a child or a baby we require so much more than our initial serving. Baby food cannot sustain our growth into adulthood and so the diet is changed: can we expect any less with our faith journey? Christ calls us to grow into God's presence and life this is not something that can be done if we only have the food that sustained the beginning of growth. Any farmer knows that crops have to be nourished and as they grow they get different feed. This automatically means change, something we need not be afraid of or hostile to but rather open and encouraging so that we can get a fresh vision of God's path.

The education of charism

 Sometimes we think we can do it all.  I can undertake all the ministries in the Church and in the world.  All I have to do is put my hand up and I will be there. If we are excited to participate we jump all over the place and try and put our hands on the wheel, so to speak, in as many different places as we can. What happens is that we get ourselves mixed up and eventually cause a disaster as we tangle everyone else up. Christ sends his disciples out in a deliberate and calculated manner (Matt. (9.35-10.8 ff) having understood what was required.

At baptism we pray that the child / adult will be filled with the charisms of the Holy Spirit. If it is a child, I do not think that we expect him/her to jump up and speak in tongues immediately. These gifts take time to develop and come to maturity just as the child grows. The same is true for an adult, occasionally the gift manifests itself immediately but often there is a period of maturing and discerning before the full gift is manifest in the life of the individual. There are times when we need to set time aside and pray about our situation before undertaking a course of action. This is of course quite easy for a child as it has its parents and God parents to guide it in its first tentative steps towards making a decision in faith. But what of an adult, as we can be extremely impulsive especially when it comes to our likes and dislikes, our comforts and our intrusions, our future and our past. We have a tendency to see where others are not stepping up and feel that we need to fill the gap.  At the end of the day we become rag and bones because we are not doing what God wants us to do but what we want to do.

Only in listening and in harmony with God do we grow

There are a number of questions that we need to ask ourselves as we grow into our charisms and as we educate our children towards the next step in faith that they need to take. In asking these questions of ourselves we take a step back and allow God's Spirit to interact with us through prayer, contemplation and the discernment of others. We need to ask, Is this truly what God is calling me to and how am I to know that this is God's call on my life? In answering these or encouraging our children to answer these questions we actually have to do some work. It is not a question of "Oh this is what I think I want to do"  which is typical of children taking their first steps towards adulthood. It actually means that we have to sit down and discern where God is calling me. How? By listening to what others are saying and reflecting on our decisions, in relation to the choices that we are making. By spending quiet time with God and allowing God to speak (we so often speak and don't actually listen to God). By allowing God's Spirit to call to you in the quiet moments of your life. Only through such a process do we discern a true call into ministry.

We allow our children room to discover these options of listening through their lives if we are being true to our baptismal call. We go out of our way to encourage others to rightly discern the paths of God's Spirit in their lives through encouragement and listening. We are present to the other as sounding boards so that we discern with the community the charisms of our neighbours and our fellow sojourners in Christ. It will be Christ who leads us as he becomes manifest in our lives and as we are encouraged in the path of discernment for ourselves. Only when we recognise the Christ that is indwelling in our own selves will we understand the gifts of the Spirit and how we release them into the community. It is only when the gifts begin to help the other and encourage those who are lost that we can know that the Charisms of the Spirit are invigorating the community.

The rhizomic nature of faith

 We are as a Diocese and as a faith community being called out of our comfortable lives into something new. Abram in the Genesis story (Gen. 12.1-9) is called by God into a journey to a new place. It is not a comfortable call as it means that his current life and understanding will be shattered by answering this call. Family and friends will be left behind as he goes on a journey that is not only a discovery of self but also a discovery of faith. We too are asked to make that break with custom and comfort to move into a new place. Any immigrant or person who comes to a new land will tell you that there is a psychological displacement as well as a displacement in ones body and soul. The familiar turns into the unfamiliar or to put it simply robots turn into traffic lights and circles into roundabouts.

In turning to the offer of new life we are turning towards a step in faith not in legal understanding. The law of the Anglican polity would strangle us and make us bend to tradition. God however offers us the grace to develop according to his requirements not according to a law that creates anger and frustration (Rom. 4.15). We can see the effect of this in our current circumstances as the changes required frustrate the understanding of diocesan independence that is the tradition of Anglican politics and synodial bickering. The call to change is a call that reverts our understanding of church from a model of stasis to a model of growth. Relationships tend to grow in an organic manner as can be seen if we look at the e life found in social media. God's presence is a relational presence as we saw last week and is grown through new interactions in new spaces. Like any rhizomous plant that has inadequate room to expand will stagnate and not produce new growth so we as a rhizomous community stagnates within the concrete walls that we have created around us.

Can we become a rhizomic culture popping up in unexpected places?

 Christ calls not the righteous but the sinner in the first part of the gospel reading (Matt. 9.9-13). The expectation from those in the faith community was to call those who were righteous, aka the leaders of the synagogues and temple because surely this is where God is looking. In turning the expectations around Christ recognises that faith and growth is found in the corners and edges of formed community. The vibrancy of faith that can overwhelm all things, as expressed in the latter part of the reading (Matt. 9.18-26), is found outside the expectations of tradition and formal opinion. The early Christian community was a community that was on the edge of society and the predominant faith groups. The explosive growth of the Christian faith was borne out of the fringe before becoming the central edifice that it became. It is clear that it is to a certain extent losing that central position as its leadership, with few exceptions, no longer speak into the public sphere for fear of doing something that is against tradition and the 'faith'. Yet, Christ sets our example not tradition and Christ ministered on the margins of society. Surely it is then incumbent on us to follow Christ into the margins to find the Spirit that drives us towards God's central community of love. No longer should we hold to a vision that is crumbling in a modern society that is changing rapidly. Our vision must be one that God calls us to that elevates our journey to show how in an ever changing world the priority of love is a consistent state of being to draw us towards the sanctity of peace and the grace that God gives to us in love.

Easy or hard worship?

 At this time of year our thoughts move in the direction of God, if they are not already there.  Once a year we celebrate and worship the Trinity, I believe the rest of the year we celebrate and worship...well perhaps God the father or Jesus God the Son (probably more often than not) and rarely God the Holy Spirit, once a year on Pentecost.  During most of the year, we have in one way or the other seem to have forgotten that God is three in one which is the real difficulty that other monotheist religions have with Christianity.  How can we say that we worship one God but have three who are one?  A definite paradox that we all struggle with at some point in time.

The presentation of this paradox has been enunciated by the various early councils of the Church as they struggled to define the reality of faith in which they lived and is the basis upon which we formulate our understanding of the Trinity.  The challenge for us today is that we hardly understand the meaning and thought processes that went to formulate what we know as the doctrine of the Trinity. The result is that we focus our attention on specifics that we can understand rather than the whole that we cannot understand.  In this way we may focus our lives on an understanding of Jesus as being the Son of God or Christ.  We celebrate this in the incarnation and the story of the Resurrection. Or else we celebrate the Spirit and turn our attention to the spiritual gifts as given in scripture. We concern ourselves with the fact that we are speaking in tongues or are evangelists and if we are not then we are not 'true' Christians. In using our limited expectations in this manner we are able to cope but forget that we are sent out to make disciples and then to baptise in the name of the "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28.19).  One way or another we will focus our proclamation on one of the three and not all three; we will make disciples who follow one of the three not all three; we will teach about one of the three not all three.  How can we do it any other way when we do not understand it in the first place?

The Trinity what is it and who is it? (James Keav-Bright (Welsh, 1965-), Trinity Redemption, 2013)

Let us take a very straightforward and simple issue. My question is: What is One? Just think for a minute within the sphere of mathematics. Yes, I am aware that most people do not like thinking mathematically. One is a very unusual number as it is fully dependent on the understanding of its relation to and distinct from all other numbers. Let's put it another way one can only be as a result of a relationship with the other. It does not matter how you explain it the very fact that you have one means that there must be an other. In the case of Christian faith we suggest that the one can only be as a result of relationship, which we describe for the sake of description, as being Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matt. 28.19b). I say for the sake of description because we cannot fully describe G*d and our best analogy formulated at the early councils of the Church is this analogy. Yet, in this day and age we have to be ever mindful that the formulation to describe G*d in this manner is time dependent. What do I mean by this. Well, whilst we have all grown up and familiar with the analogy it is one that is governed by the discussions of people who only knew Greek philosophy thrown in to a Middle Eastern world view to describe something that is unfathomable. The question raised here is can we with modern philosophy and a modern world view describe the unfathomable in any better way and have we tried or are we sufficiently complacent to rest on our ancestors thoughts on the matter? This actually means that we have to set aside our previous thinking and start from the beginning. Now, that is a tough challenge.

The wisdom of the world, which is found within the indigenous peoples of the world, is the knowledge of our own interconnectedness.  This knowledge was demonstrated by the early Christians and was part of their faith journey as they tried to express this appreciation of G*d.  An interconnectedness that is encapsulated by the discussions and debates that led to the promulgation of the doctrine of the Trinity.  We in the modern secular world have lost, or rather suppressed, the ability to understand this wisdom.  Perhaps, it is because we are moving to fast and have lost our ability to slow down.  Indigenous peoples know this and try to gift it to us within the slow movement of nature to which they are attuned. This has perhaps led to an extensive enantiodromia that has seen a rising mental health crisis within our secular nations. The Trinitarian formulation has, I believe, resulted in an ever increasing divide within the faith community as we each affiliate ourselves closely with one part of the whole (either the Father, or the Son or the Spirit) without claiming the wholeness of G*d that is the underlying foundation of the Trinitarian formulation.  A foundation that is interconnected and not divided, that is a whole and not the sum of its parts. An understanding that has been lost as a result of our own paucity of explanation and understanding as well as our focus on the individual rather than on our interconnectedness that nowadays spans the globe. In glorifying one of the Trinity we tend to idolise that one conception and forget that there is more to G*d.  Until we can get around the idea that G*d is in all; a much greater G*d than we can conceive of, then we will continue to reduce our faith to an ember.  Rather we should allow G*d's wisdom to so infuse our being with wholeness so that we shine as a Christ light in the world.

Communication in a world of Babel

 Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21), in more ways than one, initiates a period of change for the Church. In particular it begins the transformation of a group of people cowering away from the rest of the community in doubt, fear and insecurity (Jn 20:19-23) into an autonomous movement within the Jewish faith system that would eventually evolve into its own established faith group. We often concentrate on the wonders of the Spirit's presence and the movement out into the world with little consideration with regards how this was managed. The Spirit incited a change in behaviour of the disciples to such an extent that they appeared to many as if they were drunkards in the early hours of the day. A change that eventually went on to challenge existing forms of faith and the way people acted within the community. Unfortunately, even in the modern day these changes are so extraordinary that they are both overlooked and looked down upon as not being part of the modern psyche. The journey of faith is based on the premise of change in one's life and behaviour which is then communicated to those around us in the community.

To change oneself so drastically and then to be able to communicate that change to the community around you is both profound and prosaic. It is profound in the sense that it is a deep ability granted by the Spirit to engage in a manner that is both acceptable and engaging to those who have not been affected by the Spirit. It is prosaic because it involves the use of our own skills and abilities to communicate in an everyday manner without clouding the reception of the message being given with intangible meaningless thoughts. Just think about how this played out in the ecstatic moments in the early hours of the day in Jerusalem when everyone heard the message of redemption and peace in a language that they understood despite being from different parts of the world. Place oneself within a place where there is a number of different languages being spoken and you can quickly become disconnected or you sharpen your focus to those conversations / words that are being spoken in a language that you understand.  In South Africa, worship services within the Anglican church can become very confusing if you are not paying attention as anything up to 11 languages can and will be used within the one worship service.  You may find yourself next to a person praying the Lords prayer in Zulu on one side and Setswana on the other while you are trying to pray in English.  Each person hears their own language and responds within that language.  The true gift that is given here at Pentecost is the gift of communication.  The ability to transmit the Christian message within the confines of another's cultural and language norms.  If we want to do this in the normal fashion we have to spend hours, months and days just trying to fathom the internal structure and grammar of the language.  It is the one thing that we are often poor at giving praise for especially to those who have a facility for language. We often do not even think or operate on the fact that this is a gift from God which needs to be truly praised.

The Spirit blazes in our hearts changing our lives

In the normal course of events our words and our idioms lose a portion of our thought as they go through the process of translation. The other language / culture colonises ours in ways that may lead to the misunderstanding of our intent.  In the same way our content is not only conveyed in language but also in tone and in the physicality of gestures and body positioning.  Again in different language and cultures proponents will tell you how different gestures mean different things.  Each of us reads these arcane signs so that they have meaning for us but that meaning may be as diverse as our very lives and our cultural upbringing.  No wonder it appears to be a babble of noise that leads to misunderstanding in the world especially for those who do not belong to the faith community as we speak of love and act in a manner that interprets love differently for each one.  In order to be clear and ensure our message is not misinterpreted by the translation how are we to deliver the message that we need to communicate?

The disciples all spoke and yet the same message was delivered.  The intent was the same for all of them.  They came out of the same place and were embedded within the same reality.  We nowadays do not.  We need to go back to basics we need to be reminded of the message as we turn to Christ and remind ourselves the "I am the way, the truth and the life." (Jn. 14.6).  This is the message that needs to be mirrored in our totality as it was in the disciples.  The act of communication was communicated in terms of their lives.  They acted, spoke and lived in Christ and God.  Their communication was complete as all heard and believed.  They heard intellectually, they heard physically and they heard their faith.  This is how the message becomes realised and is communicated to those around us.  It is only when we act physically in concert with living and speaking the Gospel will we be able to communicate the Gospel message.  This is when the Spirit grabs us, this is when there is growth and renewal, this is when we energise and worship; forgetting ourselves, our needs, our wants.

Left to grow

The direction that we take in the world as Christians is the direction towards living as Christ in a world that is made somewhat complex by a society that no longer believes in things that are connected to the Spirit. One can at best state that the world has very little recognition of what we would deem to be of faith or involved in something that can no longer be measured by the instruments of the day in scientific rigor. In coming to the things that are written in Scripture we have to sometimes open ourselves up to that side, sorely neglected in this modern world, called the spiritual or the non-scientific. It is in such a world that artists and authors delve in some form or another understanding that at heart there is a fullness to our lives that can be found only in the imaginative and spiritual process that is regularly shunned. This is particularly so when we only seek understanding along lines that are said to be 'true' as far as a particular group / denomination / faction state. So what should we take home from such efforts to display something that is over and above that which we consider to be the norm for today's world.

I think that we need to firstly remind ourselves that whatever we understand from the Scriptures that we read they are understood only within our own spiritual life and journey, which is ours to tread and should not be dictated to by others. This does not negate our coming together in community as people who worship and survive together. In stating this it is my belief that the Christian journey is filled with signposts that point towards a way of life which leads to the fulfilment of the Christian story in Christ's Ascension and coming again. One of those signs is the Ascension itself which we must understand within our hearts through the lived life that Christ enables. That life is shown to us by Christ's promise and direction (Matt 28:19-20) to live the commandments and to continue to promulgate this through the making of 'disciples' who will follow the way. We are entrusted as the disciples were with the ongoing demonstration of the commandments given to us.

Seeds leave the mother plant to grow on their own as Christ leaves his disciples to grow on their own

Secondly, it is up to us to follow the path that has been created by Christ's journey on earth that leads to his Ascension. It is not up to others per se although they can guide and coach those that they are encouraging to become disciples. In doing this they fulfil the direction given to all disciples to bring others into the Christian journey. In a manner of speaking the Ascension can be considered to be the precise thing that the disciples required for the new way to become what it is today. Just imagine what life would have been like if Christ had hung around. Just as any person going to university must at some stage graduate so to do those who are apprentices or people learning their profession and calling within the work place. We must leave the teaching behind us and build upon what has been taught in our lives. Sometimes we grow differently and explore difference to bring change but so long as our basics are remembered and adhered to we to will move and live in love. So to the disciples have been shown constantly, and like all of us often getting it wrong, but must do so now without supervision. They must live out that which they have been taught and take on apprentices for themselves so that they can teach others how to live.

No teacher and no master expects their student or apprentice to remain under supervision but rather to take their knowledge out into the world and bring it to others. Indeed, some apprentices go on to become masters in their own manner. However, we need to remind ourselves that the teachings of Christ / God are indeed the only teachings that are important. Those teachings point us even today towards the correct way of living that the Ascended Christ showed us in his life and expects of us as faithful disciples of his way. That way is a lived way and not one that is one of law and interpretation. It is the small things in life that lead us to love more than the larger. Christ's Ascension looms large for us but it is in the reality of his leaving that the seed he set within the disciples that was given free reign to burgeon into new growth that followed his way of living in love that changed the world. In remembering his departure and leaving his disciples for them to find their own path along the way of love we ourselves must also follow

Advocating for love

 Christ's ultimate command to his disciples is to "love" and we as his followers are bound to that commandment. In John's gospel, Christ also is clear in indicating that he will provide his disciples with an advocate (Jn 14.15-17) who is the Spirit of Truth. We need to understand what is meant in the provision of an advocate or paraclete. In modern terminology we often associate this with a lawyer but in reality an advocate is one who speaks for us or defends us and I often think that when we speak of an advocate in connection with this passage we think of it as a person who supports rather than speaks. If we are to realise this meaning in the word, I think, we need to re-look at the message that is being given to us.

Whilst an advocate will support us the main role is in fact to speak or assist us to speak out into the world. If we look at Paul's speaking to the Athenian leaders in the Aeropagus (Acts 17.22-31) we see an opportunity that he utilises to bring the message of the risen Christ into the midst of the the political leadership of the Athenians. In the end it is the Spirit that enables him to speak to these erudite men. The Spirit advocates; he does not save him but speaks through him. The ideas that he uses to convey the message of Christ arise out of his observations which challenges us to understand that the Spirit enables us to see the truth. The courage to follow Christ is enabled (advocated for) but we must put in the hard yards to allow that to come to fruition. The thing we often forget is that it is the Spirit of Truth who is our advocate and perhaps this is the most important aspect we forget. For many of us truth is malleable and conforms to what we want, much as it does in the Acts reading for those listening to Paul. There are two things here that we need to take cognisance of  1) that it was Paul who was enabled to put his observations to the benefit of opening the eyes of some to the presence of God and 2) it was the Spirit of Truth that spoke into the situation through Paul.

Truth is not interpretation nor is it literal but it is what we do in love

If we cannot live the truth and speak the truth then we will not be enabled. So often we live what we want not what God wants in our lives. The truth is in the commandment to love not in our interpretation of that commandment. Once we start playing around with the truth in our lives we begin to fall away from God and our gospel is not supported by the Spirit nor does the Spirit advocate for us. Office bearers, no matter how high in life, tend to look out for themselves and those that they believe will look after them. No matter how much they protest that they follow Christ their deeds point to the truth. The letter 1 Peter talks about our actions towards each other (1 Peter 3:8-9) and yet when we rise to a position that wields power we tend to forget the principles of the Christ-ian ethos of love. We very rarely look to those who are on the marginal end of society but rather we look to our friends and those we think will assist us in our own lives. We only have to look at the bigotry, anti-love sentiment in many of our political leaders to understand this. The issue here is that we find it difficult to utilise the power of love in our relationships rather than the power of might and abuse. We lead in our pride and strength rather than in our humbleness and weakness.

It is when we begin to speak with truth, the truth of love, which is very up front and honest that we begin to realise what God's power is and how the Spirit advocates for us in the time of need. Our truth speaking needs to be in our lives as we are followers of Christ who is the truth. It is in how we mirror Christ to the world accurately and with truth that enables the Spirit of Truth to be our advocate in the world. When we live lives that are false in terms of God and Christ we lose the advocate and are unable to be the Christian people of the way. It is our honesty that bears witness to Christ and it is our honest living that enables us to be bearers of Christ's light. If we bear the honesty in our lives then Christ is ever present to us and the advocate  that is the Spirit of Truth bears witness for us.