Tell it slant

I am just coming to the end of 'Tell it slant' by Eugene Peterson. This is the 4th book in his series on Spiritual Theology. Towards the end of the book he comments on the words Jesus spoke from the cross. When reflecting on the words 'I thirst'(John 19:28) he suggests: -
'"I thirst" is the sacred witness that there was "no spring of water gushing up to eternal life"(John 4:14) left in him'( p 256).

He is also anxious that we should avoid either trying to spiritualise Jesus and treat him apart from his body( as the gnostics did) or focussing so much on the pain and suffering of Jesus on the cross to a degree that depersonalizes Jesus' pain so that "it becomes a thing, an object to be pitied or admired, or a truth to be preached and taught." (p257).
On reflecting on this he writes:-
"sexual pornography is sex without relationship, the intimacy of sexuality reduced and debased to an object to be looked at or used. Spiritual pornography is prayer and faith without relationship, intimacy with Jesus reduced and debased into an idea or cause to be argued and used". In a footnote he suggests that Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ' was a conspicuous instance of this. All the parts of Jesus' words from the Cross are embedded in the whole story of Jesus.

Economics

At a time when we hear endless speculation about how to deal with the economic problems in the world, the regular email from the Sojourners contained this quote from Rabbi Michael Lerner,

[We need] to embrace a "new bottom line" in which corporations, social practices, government policies and individual behaviours are judged rational, efficient or productive not only if they maximize money or power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, enhance our capacity to treat others as embodiments of the sacred and to respond with awe, wonder, and radical amazement at the grandeur of the universe.

By faith

At the moment I am half way through Eugene Peterson's book 'The Word made flesh'. The first part of the book observes the ten parables that are unique to Luke's Gospel and are part of what Peterson's describes as Luke's travel narrative(9:51-19:44). In describing the parable of 'Lazarus and the rich man', Peterson quotes NT Wright - 'the parable is not, as often supposed, a description of the afterlife, warning people to be sure of their ultimate destination.... the reality is uncomfortably different..... rather what was happening to both rich and poor in the present time. Jesus' welcome of the poor and outcast was a sign that the real return from exile, the new age, the 'resurrection', is coming into being; and if the new age is dawning, those who want to belong to it will have to repent'( 'Jesus and the Victory of God').
Peterson suggests that this parable "enlists our imagination to grasp more than our immediate feelings and surroundings - other lives, other circumstances, other possibilities. Once we are free of being stuck in the mud of our sinful, self-absorbed, self-contained "miry clay" of ego, our imaginations can be a catalyst for faith that the Spirit uses to create something out of nothing, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of "things not seen... that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible"(Hebrews 11:1-3).( p116)
Peterson then quotes from his own paraphrase of these verses in The Message, - faith is "the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living.... our handle on what we can't see... by faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see."

Vocation or career?

Our Thursday evening group is looking at some excerpts from the life of the prophet Ezekiel. At the last meeting we pondered that part of the call of the prophet when he is instructed to 'eat the scroll' (3:1ff). Before that Ezekiel is reminded of how difficult his task as a prophet to his fellow exiles in Babylon would be. He is to proclaim the message whether they listen to him or not, for they are a stubborn and rebellious people. As a job description it is a complete turn off. But this may highlight the difference between a vocation and a career. Ezekiel is being called to this challenging task. He is not being given a career opportunity on which he can build.

On Sunday morning it was the Lectionary reading from the Gospel on which the sermon was based. Mark 1:21-28 is the account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue and dealing with the man who had 'an unclean spirit'. The authority of Jesus is at the centre of the story. The people recognise in the teaching of Jesus an authority unlike what they had experienced before. Jesus then acts with authority when confronted by the man. Within the Church community there are different views as to how we understand what was happening in the synagogue and how we understand the condition of the man. But it is interesting that we do still speak of 'possession'in our everyday language but not in terms of unclean spirits or demons. How often have we said to ourselves 'I don't know what possessed me to do that' or ask a similar question of others? What does possess us at times? What gets into us a times? Could it be 'self', 'career', 'money', 'power' or ????????
To ask that question perhaps prevents us from keeping this Gospel passage at arms length.

Week of Prayer

Sunday was the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. In the town centre group of Harrogate Churches we will meet each lunchtime to share the readings and prayers. The material produced for this year has been provided by the Churches of Korea with the theme, 'that they may become one in your hand'. The theme refers to Ezekiel 37:15 describing how the prophet is instructed to take two sticks and write on them. Each stick is to represent one of the kingdoms into which the nation had divided. Ezekiel is then told to hold the sticks in his hand so that they look like just one stick. He is to proclaim the word of hope to the people that this is what God is able to do for his people.
It is a powerful image - that in God's hand his people can become one as those who are held in the hand of God. Ezekiel presents a picture where the focus is not on the two sticks but on the one hand that holds them together.

A pleasant piece of 'tradition' has been established by a member of our Junior Church. At the end of every service now Sophie will soon appear in the church vestibule to pass on to me her joke for the day. Yesterday's joke was a classic -

Who plays music on your head? A head band!!!!!!!

Bonhoeffer - Advent

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes … and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Words to ponder

The author, Jeanette Winterson, has an occasional column in the Books section of the Times newspaper on a Saturday. The headline for her article in Saturdays’ edition was - ‘Capitalism’s collapse is on a scale undreamed of at the altars of idols’.

Her article was thought provoking. Here are some extracts to ponder over.

“We laugh at the primitive religious idea of human sacrifice – but whatever fancy words and theories you want to play with to describe this present spectacular collapse of global capitalism, it is human sacrifice on a scale undreamt of at the altars of idols.”

“the kingdom of this world, as the Bible puts it beautifully, can be balanced only by the Kingdom of God. This is not literal; it is symbolic. It is how the inner life checks the outward show. It is how conscience bridles impulse, it means recognising that there is much more to human life than to worship between the twin towers of money and power. The job of religion is to keep this in our sights.”

“At the moment when the empty secularism of the crumbling Roman Empire found no answer in the paralysis of the existing religious attitude, the birth story is the longed-for miracle - not because a militant avenger has appeared, nor a divine avatar, but because a baby – new life - will ask us to understand everything differently. That’s a story worth reading”.

Christians might want to take issue with what she means by 'divine avatar', but she offers some interesting words.