Ambitious love not self pride

 In the letter to the Philippians the writer specifically states "Leave no room for selfish ambition" (Phil. 2:3). It is unfortunate, that in today's world when we mention ambition to anyone then the automatic response is towards an ambition that elevates our own selves, precisely what is spoken against in the Philippians' passage. Does this then mean that we should be ambitionless and live our lives in drear pockets of poverty? Surely we can have some ambition in our lives because that is the driving force towards where we wish to be with our desires and eventual wants. Even Moses appears to have been conflicted on this one, with the flow of water at Meribah (Ex. 17:1-7) as this is thought to be where the prohibition to journey into the promised land originates. It is pride and ambition that is a root cause for disturbances in our path towards where God wishes us to be as we form community with others. Even the Elders and Priests of the nation are not immune to this ambition (Matt. 21.22) which is often still rampant in academia and the Church today.

Let's just spend some time with Moses, so that we are clear as to the causes of the issue for not only Moses but ourselves. It is the result of the underlying questioning that is present in the Israelite people as to the presence of God. Their question is an either/or question around God's presence in their midst. They wish to ascertain God's presence despite everything that has come their way. It is having everything given to them but not understanding where everything comes from as they cannot see God. It is similar to the boy who goes on a journey to find his family's ox whilst riding the animal. He looks all around and finds many things except the one thing he is looking for which requires him to have a change of perspective. In finding God we begin to perceive not with sight but with faith and must be taught this view. Moses' job was to bring his people into faith but tearing his hair out when they do not respond he becomes prideful and ambitious so strikes the rock hard, not as asked. He is unable to change their perspective by example but wishes to impose his will. In doing so he goes against God and is removed from the promise and his ability to enter into the new home.

Our ambitions may make us fail in community

The leaders of the temple were the same they had a viewpoint that was from a theological perspective, which was in keeping with how things were, much as some today. Their view was handed down, it was a view from the past not a view of God's presence. Christ challenges them to have an alternative view of God and not being able to in their pride and ambition they condemn and judge. This seems to be a perennial problem for us as we pride ourselves on our own knowledge and have ambitions about surpassing others that means we look for opportunities to further ourselves. Our own self esteem is more important to us then any other thing. Education is about ensuring that others achieve knowledge so that they can assist and help others not to empower themselves. We enable others in their faith journey by opening their eyes not to our understanding but to the presence of God in their midst, the one thing Moses failed to undertake. it is not sufficient for us as Christians to be ambitious for ourselves but rather we need to be ambitious for our neighbours so that we can enable them in the path towards God.

Christ's criticism of the priests and the elders (Matt. 21.31-32) is that they have not enabled the faith of others but rather hoarded their knowledge of God thinking to grow whilst leaving others in the dust. They are unable to see God's presence in the hearts of those that have no learning yet those whom they despise have a better understanding of God's presence because they show love for neighbour and build community. In the same way many laud it over others with their presumed knowledge without acting out and enabling the knowledge they have in a practical manner. The praxis of our knowledge of God and inclusion of others should be our ambition so that we can enable others to come to an understanding of God. If we are to enable others as disciples of Christ it is not what we know that is important, or how much we know but rather the application of our knowledge so that others may come to faith and understanding. Our ambition should be inclusive of the other not exclusive and only for our own betterment in the eyes of the world.

Needs and wants

 One of the quirks, if you will, about living in South Africa was the ability to hire labour on the street corner. You had to be careful as to who you obtained. If you were lucky or competent and fair in your negotiations the probability existed that you could come away with a good worker. To me this is very reminiscent of the parable that is told in Matthew's gospel (20:1-16). At the end of the day the process was about ascertaining the needs and wants of those looking for employment. Some may have needed to work and were not that fussed as to what they obtained. These were the first ones often to hop on board the tradies ute for the day knowing that they would obtain some money at the end. Others wanted to find a more permanent arrangement and were content to sit back and wait for opportunity to come their way.

We are often to focused on our needs rather than on those things we think are beyond us but that which we want. Obviously, our needs often or should often come before those things we want. Yet when we look at Maslow's pyramid we can see that the next step is moving towards our wants because in reality what we want or desire is at the top of the hierarchy. This can also be seen working within the Exodus story as the Israelites move further and further into the wilderness. Their daily needs are being met but they yearn for what they had and therefore want more. God has given the fulfilled their basic desire that of being free but because they have been used to a certain level of comfort and fulfilment in Egypt they now complain that they are not getting the food. God overlooks their complaints and through God's grace gifts them with manna and quails, bread and meat (Ex. 16:2-13). These are the basic staples of our initial needs when starting out from bigotry, persecution and slavery: freedom, food and shelter. These are the fundamentals of hospitality as we care for the other. In looking beyond our initial needs we move towards our desires and wants, hopefully with gratitude to those who have provided our initial requirements.

Is it just a question of our need or is it a result of the others need being fulfilled first?

However, our desire to get more than what we thought was adequate is an old part of human nature that sits at the pit of our hearts waiting to come forth. The first laborers were having their needs met with an ironclad contract to work for wages. This is often sufficient for most people as our daily need is being fulfilled. However, when we see others gaining, from our view, benefits that we have also been contracted for we see that as unjust and wish to complain. We then begin to want what the other has for it is the next step beyond our needs. The desire and jealous rage, which arises within our hearts, turns our thoughts away from what we have actually promised to undertake. We grasp for what we initially thought was beyond us but now find is unavailable. Often in the African situation the same thing occurred so that when you went back to pick up the contracted labourer you would find others trying desperately to displace him. It is only when we see that our wants can be catered for that we begin to loose what we have asked for. Yes, there is the sense of generosity from the landowner who hires the labourers in the first place but there is more then generosity here over and above the obvious needs and wants debate.

The landowner has seen something beyond the individual. We constantly see the individual here as the beneficiaries of the generosity of the landowner but what of the community? At the heart of the story is not the compassion and grace of the landowner for the individual but the understanding that these are the needy within the community who are receiving justly according to their needs. We do not see the backstory of each of those who are looking for work, we assume laziness rather than seeking alternative possibilities. In a rural community households who are just holding it together often have additional duties / chores that need to be undertaken that are more important than work for these are needs beyond finance. We forget that often other's needs come first such as the old and infirm, the sick and the desperate, the young and the widow. In our modern world we pack them of to institutions to look after so that we can forget them and cater for our own needs and wants. Who fulfilled these duties in an impoverished community other than the single wage owner or the healthy individual who then comes late looking for resources to care for the other. The landowner sees this and rewards them according to their deeds not just on the farm and in the harvest but in building the relationships of community.

Judgement and forgiveness

Our present society is a society that is based on the rationale of judgement. If we take someone to court we expect a judgement to be handed down to us. If we take someone to task about a wrong doing we expect that there is some form of judgement to be handed down. If we  malign someone with intent that intent is surely to bring the community's judgement upon that person. Our goal is to ensure that our petty squabbles are finalised with someone else's judgement and thus allowing us to move forward with our lives not caring about the other only about the fact that they got their just deserves. Often this seems to be the case even in the Hebrew scriptures that God passes final judgement rather than some form of forgiveness (Ex. 14:19-31). Is this solely the case when we look at this passage? The Egyptians have done wrong in the sight of the Lord and have refused God's openness and freedom only seeing the dictates of pharaoh. Dictates that constrain and curtail the freedom that comes from God.

Yet, in some allegorical way at looking at the Red Sea passage we can see it not as retribution on the Egyptians but rather a removal of the past guilt and excess that the Israelites had accrued during their time in Egypt. The washing away of their past is a symbolic understanding that is celebrated on the shores of the Red Sea by the women, immediately following on from this reading in Exodus.  The parable from Matthew (Matt. 18:21-35) seems to instantiate this powerful supremacy of God with a suggestion that God's retribution is still alive and well in the eschaton, if we do not follow God's offer of redemption through forgiveness. This is the power of the bully in the playground who loses face and requires violence to show their strength. It reflects our own judgemental attitudes when it comes to the actions of the other. The passage from Romans asks us "Who are you to pass judgement on someone else's servant?" (Rom. 14:4). God has accepted each person for who they are not for who we think they are. It is not our role to fall into the habit of upholding our power by judging others and utilising our power to condemn whether they have acted in a manner that is contrary to what we believe to be God's purposes.

Open arms embrace the hurt in the other as we forgive the hurt in ourselves

We do not enter into the cycle or circle of forgiveness as more often then not we seek judgement on those who have created the issue for us. In the parable the pain of bearing a debt of such worth and being allowed to let it go is too much for the servant as he attempts to retrieve his own self pity by passing judgement on those that are unable to fend for themselves. Michael Lapsley reminds us that we need to turn to our own frameworks or faith to find healing and a response to hurt. Often it is not only the other that we need to blame but also ourselves who are guilty. We blame all manner of outside influences and people rather than looking first to ourselves, even as Christians, and forgiving our own faults that may have given arise to the situation in which we seek judgement. Our own failings may be a remnant of our own histories that we fail to acknowledge and leave in the past or they may be the result of an in built prejudice gifted to us from our community and our growth into adulthood. No matter which it is these chains also need to be broken through seeking our own forgiveness before we can make the amends that  is required to form community in the present.

God's power comes from forgiveness and the setting of things into right order without the need to resort to violence as love is not violent in nature. We need to avoid the trap of judgement and enter the cycle of forgiveness. The first step on that cycle is to forgive ourselves and to understand that it is often our own faults that bring about the trap of judgement rather than faults in others. By embracing the presence of God's love in our hearts we are able to embrace the love of the other that is inherent in our faith journey. In taking that step and opening our arms to the other we allow God's love to flow and improve the community to which we belong. We also decrease the animosity of the other within the community as they are not judged but rather welcomed and listened to by those around them so that their woes and our woes are eased in forgiveness.

Wait and hasten

 Festina lente I was told by my father. This is what the Israelites do on the night that God leapt over them as they initiated a celebration of the past before the fact (Ex. 12:1-14). It is something we sometimes forget to do in our haste to accommodate or pursue something that appears to be important to us. Often we understand what we want to do and leap into action before making some form of understanding as to how we can get there. There are some people who are able to do that because they see the end result without having to see the way there but for most of us we have to be careful as the end result may not be the one we expect to come from the actions we take.

There is a sense of urgency as the story progresses, from the Egyptians. A wish for the Israelites to disappear from their land as quickly as possible and indeed in a later text (Deut 16:1) it appears as if the Israelites leave in the night. Yet, they stay in their houses waiting as if with bated breath, for the morning when they leave with the gold of their neighbours. In this stillness before the action of leaving takes place they undertake the pesach meal prior to God's leap yet undertaken in remembrance of that leap that is in the future. There is a tenseness in their waiting, girded for flight but not moving in their established dwellings. Only when morning comes does the action of flight take place and with it the recovery of wealth from their neighbours. There appear to be all sorts of paradoxes inherent in the text a remembrance meal before the event, a need and pressure to go yet a waiting in tenseness. All of these things point to a need to control our haste our need to jump in and flee the horrors of life to attempt a plan without that first hesitant stop.

Decide only when we swim like a dolphin whilst being anchored in God

This is perhaps distinguished to a certain extent in the passage from Matthew and our response to those things that occur around us (Matt. 18:15-17). There is a sense of going forward in a manner that is both fast and slow, a paradox. So often in today's world our first response is to go directly to some form of judgement, either a court or tribunal, before even beginning to sit down with the people supposedly in opposition to try and work out the issue. Often times the issues are around how we perceive things and our interpretation of what is required. Unless we can firmly state exactly what is required our words are indistinguishable from threat and violence. Each step in the process that Matthew outlines is a step that slows everything down. In our modern age we will, like Clive Palmer, go directly to the courts. Everything we do is around how quickly can we involve the court system. This does not speed the process but rather slows it till it crawls like a snail and we are left wondering for years as to what the outcome will be. Taking our understanding from Exodus, we still ourselves before God and wait for God's response in our hearts and then follow with the slow response. How often in the past have our actions been quick leading to poor repercussions? The quick response to the insult, the quick response to violence leading to more violence, the quick response to someone pushing an agenda with an opposite response. All of these things we can see in our lives and in the various power levels of the world. China in a hissy fit America responds with one of their own; Liberal policies and Labour spins the opposite way. These are like young teenagers who squabble over the slightest defamatory remark that is perceived to have been aimed at them. No wonder we cannot move forward either in our own lives let alone the lives of our communities.

It is often the consequence of leaping ahead of ourselves that devolves down to a split or a division where there should actually be none. By moving to fast and without understanding we fool ourselves into believing that we are moving forward. We have been fed the illusion that we need to complete everything in the quickest possible time to reap the reward. Just as with any growing thing in nature, maturity takes time, there are no shortcuts either in growing plants or in relationships. If we want a community that is based on the precept of God's presence then we need to take time to listen. to hear, to see, to contemplate and to mature our relationships. Only when we can truly give ourselves can we truly become true citizens and able to obey the laws not only of authority but of love. In order to forward ourselves and grow as a child we must open ourselves to the other in harmony and in understanding which takes time and a hesitancy before action to ensure the consequences are the ones that we desire.