Following God in life

 The hard part of following God in our daily lives is that we can easily be confounded and attracted away to things that look to be more pleasant or at least seem to be more invigorating. We have a certain amount of freedom in our lives and we utilise that freedom for ourselves rather than for the other (Gal. 5:13). In doing so we make for ourselves what we believe is a comfortable and affordable life but is it? In the Galatians letter Paul has pointed out a number of things that undermine the normality of life, as lived then, and indeed undermines the normality of life as we live it now. Our culture is one that favours the instantaneous availability of anything we want if we can purchase or secure it for our own self indulgence. Yet, God calls us in love to become part of a community that shows love to the world not for the benefit of ourselves but for the benefit those who are less than ourselves through poverty, lack of shelter, lack of peace, lack of love, etc.

We all would like what is best for ourselves. Just look at those wishing to become disciples of Christ in Luke's gospel (9:57-62). Each person has a selfish need to complete or undertake first, before they are willing to follow Christ. In each case Christ responds with what appears to be a hardship for the enquirer to first understand and give up before they take up the discipleship. First it is comfort, second it is familial obligations in society and the third is one's attachment to that same family. If we think of the fluidity of society around us it is like seeking an anchor to prevent us from growing and finding Christ ahead of us leading us along forgotten paths and new views in the journey of life. What we believe is a vital part of our lives in the fluidity of the world around us becomes an anchor in the call Christ gives to us to become disciples. We are asked not to look back but forward into the new things that God's call brings to us rather than the creaturely comforts of the past.  Yes, it is often good to have a place of stability but this need not be a singular place, as it often is, as we cling to our historical roots.

Spencer's painting from the series of Christ in the Wilderness held by the WA Art gallery

Elijah knew that his time was at an end but he did not lay his head down and stop but went out to meet the Lord. Elisha followed not allowing himself to be rooted in the various communities that they walked through (2 Kings 2:6-14). In doing so he discovered a new path and new understanding of God's presence. The roots that we put down are the roots that God feeds through into our lives even more so in this day of continual upheaval and change. Change comes in every age it is only faster in our present because of our technological understanding that outstrips our own lives. Yet, if change is becoming faster and we wish to have roots then we must form them in such a manner that enables us to keep our faith firm in an ever changing world. This should not mean rooting and being unable to move but rather rooting in a movable feast to allow us to grow and minister to those who are travelling the road with us. This means that our roots should be embedded in communities that are open to changing circumstances that welcome Christ's presence and leading into a new and wonder filled future.

Christ's call asks us not to be weighted down by the baggage of our own making. In the Lukan story all of the things that the would be disciples are challenged with are of their own or society's making. We all like the comfort that we create in our lives but Christ's call is into discomfort away from the things that prevent us from changing. Familial obligations and our ties to existing members are often the strongest that we have, yet, in repurposing those ties in a manner that loves the other allows us to move into the unknown that God calls us to. This is difficult especially for close kit families and yet when those that are called away go they take the values of that love with them without abandoning the love. It creates something new rather than stagnating and being held back. How extraordinarily difficult is it to leave family and friends to find new opportunities elsewhere? Yet when people do so they do not lose family but gain a greater community as fresh roots are put down that encourages growth. The same occurs but more so when we move with God's calling into a new future where new roots and growth can take place. We must abandon ourselves to God's call even if it brings the disruption of comfort and tradition.

A small voice

 We like to think that we hear God, especially when there is something fantastic happening. Some miracle or some equally gobstopping moment when we can point and say "there was God's presence". Indeed often that is what we look for. Like Jesus and the possessed person (Lk 8:26-39). The moment that the spirits went into the Gadarene swine must have been spell binding. It is from these stories and others in the scriptures that we take our cue as to what we expect from God.  If we do not then certainly the greater part of the public do as they have been brought up on the Marvel Universe where grandiose miracles continue to occur. This is where our culture and civilisation is at with regards to expectations. Even the previous governments election win way back before COVID is seen as a 'miracle' something spectacular.

There is so much turbulence in the world today that we are carried away with expectations of similar turbulence when God comes amongst us. Yet, when our friend Elijah goes out on to the mountain it is not the crashing and turbulence that calls to him but rather a still small breeze of a voice that calls out to him from amidst the tempest (1 Kings 19:12).  We too often neglect our inward looking and time to be alone so that we can hear the voice of God in our lives. We bang about and expect God to speak above the noise of our own lives even while we tune out the noise that is around us, remember COVID, remember lockdowns, remember violence in the Ukraine, remember refugees... Once it falls from the news headlines it becomes nothing but background blather that we ignore like billboards on the side of the road. I know because I am the same, I get cranky with the number of posts about the environment or the Ukraine situation or COVID etc. If we forget the consequential noise from our own society how will we ever come to know the still voice of God speaking to us in the everyday.

We listen to God in the stillness of the day

We are now past all the big bang liturgies as we move now into ordinary time. An ordinary time that we need to make more than ordinary as we move into our lives in the post resurrection life. If we fail to live up to the promptings of Christ then we fail to live up to our own Christian faith journey. It is now at the start of Ordinary time that we need to reset our inner lives so that we may hear the still small breeze blowing through our hearts that is Christ and God's Spirit. It is in the coming months that we work out God's presence in our lives so that we can show God to those around us. It is when our imaginations should come to life in the reality of our everyday. The imaginations that come to us at Pentecost and we strive to fulfil in our imaginations of the Trinity. Only when we can be still can we begin to understand the message from God so that we can fulfil our call into the world. This paradox of movement and stillness is encompassed in the wind amidst the earthquakes and the fires of revelation on the mountain.

Our everyday is the earthquake and the fire. They are noisy. they are difficult to turn away from as they have a mesmerising effect on our lives. We are attracted to the bells and whistles that attend the concealer of God and those that offer gifts of life which lead to darkness and despair. Life is found in the movement of the stillness of God. Due to our perpetual motion in the daily noise of our lives we tend to miss the movement of God as we have no stillness in us. Eastern religions strive towards this stillness but for a different purpose, to eliminate all movement, where we must strive to become still and hear God moving around us so that we may follow God's quiet voice. The attraction of the noise over the silence is due to the fear we feel when confronted with silence. Silence comes across to us in the missed meeting, the missed opportunity as a silence of rejection, of being unwanted whereas the noise draws us in saying that we are wanted we are part of the music so to speak. This is the requirement of God to turn away from the noise of the Golden Calf to embrace the call of God that is not showy and not brazen but rather intimate and loving.

To live the Trinitarian life

 Here we are again at that most fateful day for all preachers as they come to wrestle with an understanding of the archaic but substantive foundation of faith and our patterns of worship, life, spirituality etc. Archaic because it was formulated out of a worldview that did not have the benefit of a thousand years of thinking but had to bring together an understanding of a unitary God who was more than a unit. Their resources for this were Greek philosophers and a background in Judaic scriptures, not really anything substantive from our point of view, to say the least. What they came up with has been expanded and deepened through the ages in such a manner that the average person is left floundering with the apparent philosophic and theologic rendering of a concept that few truly understand. Others ultimately reject this as how can three be one you are obviously worshipping three Gods not one. In some ways we could not fault this thinking as some raise up Jesus, while others speak only of the Spirit often side-lining the third, Father. On top of which it appears to be very masculine and patriarchal in description and operation, where is mum or rather the feminine aspect?

Indeed, often when we speak of the Trinity it devolves down to speaking in analogy in an attempt to impart wisdom and understanding. In doing so we actually constrain God into a box or a number of boxes which we can inhabit to our satisfaction without taking time to explore the whole. But then we are limited by our own humanity when it comes to thinking or theologising about God but more to the point we can handle little boxes. In some cases we label the box as God sticking to our thinking as being the 'right' answer and developing our understanding around the box and not around God. I cannot understand the fulness of God so my box is as good as anybody else's box. So how do we get around this dilemma of trying to speak about a multifaceted singularity that we call God. Are we able to listen to the sounds and words of wisdom (Prov. 8:1-4, 22-ff) as they call to us in truth?

Are we able to discern the truth in the Trinity?

It is mathematically well known that you cannot have a singularity without a multitude. For example you can only ever have one of more, one cannot stand on its own. This being the case we must needs look at what a multiplicity, as we conceive it, looks like as a unity. Here we resort once more to analogy, unfortunately, as we cannot convey a deeper understanding without resorting to the obscurity of the simplistic. In being obscure we can think of the Trinity as relationship but is this enough it is perhaps to shallow, what about relationship within community. This perhaps draws us into a more meaningful understanding of what is meant by the word Trinity. It is somewhat mundane and to the mind of  the Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, somewhat shallow to have considered as they were too deeply entrenched into a philosophical view when trying to elucidate the meaning, which is why we have perhaps lost our way. Yet, for us as we consider the as we consider the Trinity we must ask ourselves what this means living in the world of today.

In order to fully understand how intwined God's presence in our lives is if we are to live into the Trinitarian life there are, perhaps to obviously, three things to consider. Wisdom dictates that the world lacks truth telling and has moved towards the acceptance of peoples lies as a result of power discrepancies. If our lives are to flourish we must revert back to being able to tell the truth as we determine it and accept that it may be painful for others to hear. This courage to speak out in truth comes from the Spirit. In living out the truth in our communities we must also be aware of our own pre-judgements and our foci so that we can show our acceptance of the other. Christ shows us the way in his lived out experience in Jesus and his ability to express love through words of chastisement, Above all whilst we tell our truth and express our acceptance of the other we must do so in the strong arms of love. In neglecting this aspect we tend towards cruelty and a perverse understanding of the truth. We begin to demand of others that they must conform rather than show other aspects of Gods love and truth through their own deeds and actions.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

 Having spent some time away from the life of the Parish I return on a most appropriate day as we celebrate the coming of God's Spirit. A Spirit that remains with us to this day (Jn 14:16) but a Spirit that we often neglect in our own lives probably due to the fact that the Spirit prompts us out of our normal comfortableness into something that is much more drastic and revealing of God's presence in our lives. The reason I say this is that the Spirit is the Spirit of truth (Jn 14:17) something that the world does not understand or know as we can discern very rapidly by looking at our daily news. Other than this it is a Spirit that leads us into love and into acceptance of the other and not away from each other.

In looking at the Genesis reading (Gen 11:1-9) we see a concept of how the world ended up with a multitude of languages and cultures. We can understand that this small story is just a made up version of how earlier peoples perceived the world around them and yet, there is an awful lot of truth embedded within the story. If we sit back and reflect on the story we can see the truth of it in our lives and the lives of those around us. Bigotry and discrimination as a result of difference, language, culture, colour, gender is a continuing presence in our societies today. We only have to look to people such as George Christensen, Donald Trump on the extreme end of the spectrum but others are equally as guilty such as Katherine Deves even if on a more minor scale. However, this is precisely what the story of Babel is referring to. Irrespective of how large or small our bigotry or discriminatory behaviour is it appears to be in built. In all probability the simple explanation is that this behaviour arises from how we have been brought up and conditioned to life around us. We tend to see difference and automatically discriminate in some form as they are not us. In fact, this is often what occurs when we disagree with those around us whether it be about matters spiritual, mundane or scientific. Often such behaviour can devolve into being both unchristian and hypocritical.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us

The turning point for us as Christians should be our celebration today, Pentecost. In all manner of ways Pentecost is about inclusion. We cannot as Christians celebrate today by putting a clause in to say "but first you must agree to..." this is to deny the Pentecost message and return to Babel. In recent weeks this blinkered view has been thrown in the faces of many Christians by those who have a restrictive view of the Scriptures. This is directly contra to the love and acceptance that is palpable within the story of the Holy Spirit's movement in Jerusalem. We cannot be restrictive in our inclusion for God freed us from the restrictions that were put in place at the Tower of Babel so that we can now freely approach God and come to know God's presence in our lives. We are not differentiated by language or any other divisive duality or category that we may conceive of for all is one in God as Christ is one in God. If we hold any thought of duality within us then we separate ourselves from God since God calls us into community and not into individuality. This does not mean that we are bereft of our own selves but rather we are made as a result of our communal roots.

The truth is that we are a species that is built for and based within community. We cannot do without that communal aspect of our lives. This means that we have to begin to accept the other as part and parcel of our lives and not reject them as being different and therefore to be shunned. Inclusiveness is part and parcel of what we proclaim to the world. Whilst the Christian faith is exclusive it is an exclusiveness that is so inclusive that it allows everyone to come before God and celebrate their uniqueness within communal diversity for such is God. In celebrating the coming of the Spirit of God we celebrate the uniqueness of each and every person for God calls us all into being and into love through Christ. It is only when we are able to cast over our prejudices that we will really see God working in the community that surrounds us living as if the Spirit was upon us as it was upon those who gathered in worship and prayer on the first Pentecost.