On Halloween, All Saints, and the ghosts of the past (All Saints Year C)

My sermon for All Saints Day and Halloween, preached at Tuggeranong Uniting Church on 6 November 2022.

*****

Halloween seems to be a thing that has crept up on Australia more recently. Halloween trick or treating was not something I did as a child, nor was it even considered. But many Australian kids seem to have taken to Halloween including my grandchildren, and roam the street in spooky costumes in search of sugary and chocolatey treats. What they would do as a trick if they were refused is an interesting thought, and I am not sure they have worked that out yet.

We also seem to be having the Halloween equivalent of Christmas lights in streets around us, with house fronts covered in spiderwebs and large spiders, ghouls, witches and ghosts in front yards. My daughter even had three graves in hers.

But what is Halloween really? Is it dancing with the devil? A celebration of something sinister? An import from American culture we don’t need? Or is it imaginative good fun and giving kids a chance to be creative and neighbourhoods to come together and neighbours get to know each other? Is it representing the choosing of life over death, hope over despair, and good over evil?

Wikipedia informs us that Halloween (also known as All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve) is a “celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the departed.”

Some scholars believe that Halloween traditions grew out of Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which is believed to have pagan roots. Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow’s Day, along with its eve, by the early Church in the same way Christmas was. 

Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow’s Day. Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and then through American influence Halloween had spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.

Despite the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties that may have roamed the drier streets of Canberra last Monday, Halloween and All Saints Day are predominantly Christian festivals, still celebrated as such in many parts of the world. Since the time of the early Church, the feast of All Hallows began the night before, as did the feast of Christmas. These days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time when Western Christians honour all saints and pray for departed souls.

It is easy to talk about All Saints Day, but not so easy to get a sermon from Halloween. Yet that is where I am heading. I read a really interesting article in The Conversation on the topic of Halloween. By Alasdair Macintyre, it is on the topic of ‘hauntology’, a study of the memories and dreams that follow us through life. Macintyre writes, hauntology “is that eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost”.

This philosophical concept of “hauntology” was invented by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida for his 1993 lecture Spectres of Marx. Apparently the words “hauntology” and “ontology” both sound identical when spoken in French, something which tickled Derrida’s fancy. Ontology is the philosophical and theological study of existence and being, dating back as far as ancient Greece and important in Christian theology, especially in regard to the Trinity. But in Derrida’s mind, the concept of ontology was shadowed by hauntology, a state of non-being.

French philosopher Jacques Derrida 

I have been thinking the modern day church just might be stuck in hauntology, both haunted by memories of its past practices and by visions of the future that did not eventuate. Nobody 30-40 years ago foresaw that the church would be dwindling and aging. And John and I have found, when you talk to small churches as a Presbytery minister, they are haunted by memories of Sunday school numbers form 1950s and 60s.

It’s an interesting idea, this one of hauntology. The church is not in the place it planned to be 30 years ago. It hasn’t evolved in the way that people thought it would. Not everything that was planned was executed into action. Are these unfulfilled hopes haunting us now as a church?

Apparently such hauntings by unfulfilled expectations is a thing and has been studied. English theorist and academic Dr. Mark Fisher called this concept “cancelled futures” and associated it with a lack of action and cultural stagnation. He believed very little that was innovative was happening in our culture and there was instead an endless repetition and recycling of old ideas, just now in high definition and on social media.

He wasn’t referring to technology (which is advancing) but to the collapse of hopes that politically, economically and socially, the world might be improved.the regular and often startling upheavals of the 1960s have disappeared to be slowly replaced by a culture which struggles to imagine truly the possibility of a better future. Instead, such cultural upheavals and flights of imagination have been replaced by advances in mobile communication technology that have intensified superficiality and isolation rather than brought people together in healthy ways. Community, relationship, logic, and compassion are seen as frighteningly diminished and being replaced by social networking, short-term thinking, individualism and fake news.

To put it another way, being haunted by memories and nostalgia from the past along with unrealised hauntings of unfulfilled dreams has led to a crisis of imagination on our present times. For example, society as a whole has failed in formulating new ways of living in the face of a looming climate disaster. We largely continue with business as usual, though expressing concern over the potential consequences. 

This apathy or fear or inertia or whatever it is will not help us as the climate warms and things worsen. We are creating more ghosts with loss of habitat, loss of species, loss of faith in something. So what needs to be done? How are we to deal with unfulfilled hopes still being all around us, albeit unseen? Whether you believe in ghosts or not, people, traditions and events from decades past continue to appear and influence our minds and our behaviour.

Firstly, we need to rethink our relationship to the past. We can’t stay trapped in it or use it to develop excuses for not addressing the needs of the future. And we can’t just be critical of things such as non-action by governments on climate change. We need to do some re-imagining of what is needed and move beyond critique to alternative modes of living and being – from hauntology to ontology if you like.

Next, we need the skills to deconstruct the memories and stories we have created that no longer serve us well and make new ones. Jesus was a master at this. Derrida saw Jesus as the “greatest” and “most incomprehensible of ghosts.” He saw Jesus as having spectral and life-exceeding attributes. Why? 

I assume it is because Jesus challenged the comfortable institutions of his day with a radical reinterpretation of the narrative of their inheritance and tradition. Refusing to be haunted by the ghosts of comfortable living in the knowledge the Jews were the chosen people, Jesus recast and reframed the narrative of justice and righteousness for his context. “Blessed are you who are poor … who are hungry now … who week now … you will laugh, you will be filled, yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20–21).

Jesus reimagined a future of equity and justice in the vision of the kingdom of God. “I say to you that listen, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27–28).

He inspired followers who caught the vision and ran with it through the Roman empire and beyond. He started a movement that would lead people to transform lives and live in ways that supported fairness, acceptance and justice for everyone. “Do to others as you would have them do to you”, he instructs his followers ( Luke 6:31). 

Jesus was present to his community through relationships and story, focused on being in an ontological sense rather than yearning for the ghosts of hauntology.

What has happened to this movement? What has happened to this story that lives in churches’ past and traditions but seems to have lost its transforming power and its bite? What is the story of the future that church should be telling? How do we reframe the story of the future in the face of instability, uncertainty and failed futures? Can we escape the “eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost?”

Instead of being haunted by things already done or by wistful thinking on unfulfilled futures, we need to listen to Jesus, the messiah who brought in new ways of perceiving life and faith and “who haunts our self-presence, our self-sufficiency, who disturbs the order of the same, who comes to us as the voice of the dead to whom we bear a responsibility, and as the voice of the one still to come.” (John D. Caputo 1997). 

Jesus, as a messianic figure, holds “open the door” of the would-be closed system of empire. He disrupts the legacy of his heritage. He takes a stand with everyone and everything that has been rejected or expelled by heritage and empire, all that are disempowered by these powers, and demands a revisioned future of fairness.

The church, like Jesus, needs to haunt people and society in meaningful ways. Things do not evolve, thrive or disappear in isolation. Something or someone is creating the conditions to allow such things. It is only by transforming our narrative, our lifestyles, our faith stories that the church bring about the radical social change that Jesus was committed to. 

It is only by transforming what we have that we can effectively alter what is bad and what is destructive in our lives and our communities. The ghouls and ghosts of uncritical thinking, fake news, war, patriarchy, racism, individualism, unbridled climate change and non-acceptance of the other have no place in our community, and we as the church are called by Jesus to do nothing less.

Prof. Rosalyn Diprose, from the UNSW, states that “In the extraordinary responsibility of inheriting the future-to-come, it is all of this that we must continue to interrupt, transform, and put at risk.” (2006, 446)

As a church, must develop this new narrative, this story of hope, metanoia and courage. We must take risks for the gospel, and not allow the ghosts of the past or the unfulfilled future to rob us of these things. And we must continue to pray, From such ghoulies and ghosties / and long-leggéd beasties / and things that go bump in the night, / Good Lord, deliver us. Amen.

Reflection on betrayal

 

Jesus. Here he faces a life-ending threat.

Here he accepts the decisions that have to be made, here he sets his face to face the consequences of the decisions he has made.

Jesus, working for the sake of others,

not just for himself or what his donors or backbenchers might think.

He knows the cost of what was coming,

And it all starts with betrayal.

With Judas, one of his closest followers.

Nobody at the table understood why.

Nobody was sure quite what they had just witnessed.

A restless Jesus blurts out the shocking words.

What did he mean?

How could he mean one of those present?

Mesmerised, many eyes watch him dip the bread,

watch his hand stretch out,

watch Judas receive it

to find he has been possessed

by a force beyond himself.

Jesus instructs him to act quickly.

Is he buying food for the celebration?

Giving alms to the poor?

There is no understanding around the table.

Judas walks out into the night.

He would never be back.

He would never live it down.

He went out into the night

to join a sinister dance of shadows

that would wring the light from the moment,

where in dark and dangerous places

deals would be done,

where betrayal and denial would be owned by no one

and yet played by all.

And in the midst of it all

Jesus still loves and lives to a rhythm

that even as it dances so close to death,

is not of the darkness but of the light.

May we hold onto the light, O Jesus.

May we hold on to it tight.

(inspiration from this poem was drawn from Spill the Beans Issue 38 Holy Week)

After the cheering has stopped…..what then?

 This dialogue sermon was written for Palm Sunday 28 March 2021. It canvasses the question about what changes in our world from protest and actions made in faith.

I        Hosanna!                                                        

Father: It was a beautiful sound. I could hear the voices of the children, rising over the top of the deeper sounds of the adults. Hosanna they chanted. ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’. A verse with immense power. For me, it still evokes the excitement of the day, the crowd, and the anticipation in the air.

It wasn’t the first sound that I remember from that day. Before that, Jesus was on a donkey – he had mounted it in the village of Bethphage, and he was riding it towards the city. As he came into the city, a great cheer went up from the people. Now that they were inside the city, the feeling grew; the anticipation rose. Hosanna to the King. Some of the people along the side of the road were joining in with them. It all pointed to a great celebration – that’s what we thought, at first.

Child: Papa, do you remember the Fortress next to the Temple? The Roman soldiers were there. Lots of them.

Father: That’s because there is always trouble at Passover. Crowds of people. Heaps of worshippers, queueing to offer their sacrifices. The Zealots, underground rebels, looking to protest Roman rule.

Child: Was Jesus protesting?

Father: Jesus always supported the poor. Thought they deserved equal rights, and to have a say in things. Maybe he was.

 

Broadcast: HERE IS THE 9.00AM NEWS.

 The NY Times reports

 Myanmar’s Protests, Explained

March 13, 2021. Unrest has gripped Myanmar, with demonstrators pouring into the streets in a challenge to the country’s powerful military after it overthrew the fragile democratic government in a coup d’état on Feb. 1.

Military leaders’ initially restrained response to the first waves of protests, civil disobedience and work stoppages has grown more forceful over time, escalating into a brutal effort to put down the movement that has so far left hundreds injured and scores dead.

Weeks of relatively peaceful protests quickly turned deadly on Feb. 20 when two unarmed protesters were killed by security forces in Mandalay, one of whom was a 16-year-old boy.

https://www.nytimes.com/article/myanmar-news-protests-coup.html

 

 

 II       The children

Child: I was singing with the children, we were so excited; soon we were close to the holy place. I could see the soldiers holding their spears. Then when we reached the Temple, everyone got excited! Our song became louder: Hosanna to the King. Hosanna! Hosanna!

Father: I quickly noticed we were being monitored by the stoney-faced soldiers. Faces scrutinised, distinguishing features noted, building up a dossier of trouble-makers.

Some of the crowd began to vanish. Better not risk it, you could see them thinking. This is far enough. We’ve enjoyed the excitement; let’s just fade away, now. There is always the chance of trouble at Passover; let’s leave before it goes too far and we get arrested.

So dropped their palm branches, buried their faces in their cloaks, and disappeared into the background.

Child: But not us children, though – we sang on, we were smiling. I ask, Papa – those soldiers, Papa – they would never do anything to hurt children, would they? Surely they would not hurt us. We children don’t like the Romans occupying our land either.

News Broadcast:

Israeli authorities killed seven Palestinian children last year. Their parents are calling for justice.

 ABC News

Tuesday, 19 January 2021. [Ali Abu Alia] was shot and killed in the centre of his small West Bank village, 200 metres from his home, on December 4.

Ali was the fifth child allegedly shot by Israeli forces in three weeks and the second from his village, Al Mughayyir, to die in the last two years.

Ali was shot in the abdomen during a confrontation between soldiers and villagers.

The clashes have become a regular feature of village life since Jewish settlers founded an outpost on a nearby hilltop.

Villagers throw rocks and burn tyres, and in response, soldiers fire rubber-coated bullets and tear gas.

A further 127 children were wounded by rubber-coated bullets and 28 by live fire, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-19/israeli-authorities-criticised-over-palestinian-child-shootings/13047688

III      A prayer for freedom

Father: Jesus was walking a dangerous path; I suspect that he already knew it. The cry of Hosanna! which rang forth through the countryside signaled a desire for freedom, a protest against Roman rule of our holy land!

Child: Papa, tell me some stories about men in the past who tried to lead the people to rise up against the Romans.

Father: Yes, there was Simon, of Peraea, a slave of King Herod, who managed to burn down the royal palace at Jericho; he was captured by Gratus, the commander of the royal infantry, and had his head cut off in one fell swoop.

And there was Judas, of Gamala, a village in Galilee; just a few years later, he almost succeeded in staging a successful uprising. But in the end the movement dwindled away. The Romans always knew how to deal with these local uprisings.

So Jesus was walking a dangerous path; he was allowing the claim that he was king! The choice of psalm that they were singing was not accidental. Hosannah! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Words that every Jew knew well.

Child: We sing the words from Psalm 118 every year at the feast of Tabernacles, as well as at the feast of Passover. It celebrates the coming of the king and we praise the Lord for setting us free from slavery in Egypt!

Father: After we had been conquered by other nations, these festivals became times of prayer for freedom, prayer that the Lord would again set us free, free to live the way we wanted, with proper rights for all our people.

As Jesus rode into the city that day, you could be sure that the fervent prayer of many was for freedom from the Roman empire, the occupying power. Freedom from crippling taxes and freedom from all kinds of oppression. That’s what the cry of Hosanna was really saying. Save us! Save us again Lord!

News Broadcast: ITV News Saturday 20 March.

Hundreds of campaigners have gathered in Lemon Quay in Truro to protest the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill.

The bill would change how protests are policed and making some aspects of the Coronavirus Act permanent.

The new bill would mean permission for protests needs to be granted in advance and protesters could be fined £2,500 if they go ahead with a protest without permission.

Protest organiser and civil liberties campaigner Emily said: "So many of the rights that we take for granted have been won by disruptive protest and so criminalising this further is a real attack on our fundamental rights that we have in this country.

"But the Government doesn't seem to care about that, they seem to just want to be able to really try and scare and intimidate people off the streets.”

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2021-03-20/campaigners-take-to-the-streets-for-kill-the-bill-protest-in-truro

IV      Retribution in the holy war

Father: Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. When they sang this out loud, the crowd was really saying, "At long last, here comes the one who will lead us in rebellion against the Romans."

We were ready to follow a leader, we were ready for God's mighty act of salvation, right now. We hoped those Romans were finally going to get what was coming to them.  Look at the way they treated us, treated our women. Jesus told them we could not be silenced! Even the stones would sing in protest with us!

 
News Broadcast:

Australia March 4 Justice: Thousands march against sexual assault

 

BBC News 15 March 2021

Tens of thousands of people have turned out to marches across Australia, protesting against the sexual abuse and harassment of women in the country.

They were spurred by a recent wave of allegations of sexual assault, centred around Australia's parliament.

The cases in parliament have shone a light on sexist cultures and how sexual assault and harassment is dealt with more broadly across all areas of Australian society.

Organisers suggested it could be the "biggest uprising of women that Australia's seen".

Many attendees carried placards and wore black in protest. In Melbourne, protesters carried a long banner listing the names of women killed in acts of gendered violence in the past decade.

Protesters have also argued the government's treatment of those who have spoken out so far has been unacceptable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-56397170

 

V       Call yourself a Messiah ?

Child: I love to sing our Psalms. We all do. Many of these Psalms are symbols of our national pride; symbols of what we hope for as a people.

Father: At this point, things could have got very nasty. The Romans knew there is always trouble at Passover. Jesus only had to say the word, and an full rebellion could have ensued. On that day, as he entered the Temple courtyard, he held in his hand the power of the mob, the power to unite us all against a common enemy.

But just as it seemed that he would pull it off; it just faded away. A few days later, he was seized him and dragged off to see the despised governor, Pontius Pilatus. Those cheering, excited followers abandoned him. Their leader was gone. Their hopes were dashed.

Child: Papa, is it true that Jesus was brought back out from Pilate, in chains, to be….killed? Why did the crowd turn against him?

Father: Maybe they were afraid. Maybe they were disappointed he didn’t raise an army to fight the Romans. Or maybe it was another crowd of powerful people with vested interests, who didn’t want the poor to be raised up, who called for his death.

Child: Did they really mock him?

Father: Yes, they did. “Call yourself a Messiah?”, they said. “What use is a Messiah in chains?” “Call yourself a prophet”, they said? We watched our hopes die that day.

 

 News Broadcast:

Alexei Navalny: 1,000 arrested after protests over jailing of Russian opposition leader

The Guardian

Wed, 3 February 2021

A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure.

The move triggered marches in Moscow and the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters.

In a fiery speech from a Moscow city courtroom decorated with portraits of Cicero and Montesquieu ahead of the sentencing, Navalny had accused Putin of ordering his assassination with the poison novichok and said that the Russian leader’s “only method is killing people”.

He called the court case a “performance”. “This is what happens when lawlessness and tyranny become the essence of a political system, and it’s horrifying,” he said.

VI      Final reflections

Father: How easily human hope is extinguished. How easily adoration becomes hatred.

It might have been easier if he had gone down fighting,
if he'd argued in his defense, if he had pulled off some amazing escape,
if he had called down legions of angels to free him from his captors.

But who respects a man who just marches to his death, with no rousing speeches, seemingly with no stomach for a fight? What sort of protest is that?

Yet, we remember him; he has not faded into the mists of time.
We remember him, and we recall his determination, his passion, his zeal. We remember him because his cause is one which tugs at us,
which calls us to move out of our comfort, to walk along the pathway with him, to step out for the values and principles which we honour and respect.

Child: And so, we have to sing and join in the cry: Hosanna! Indeed, if we do not cry out Hosanna! would not the very stones themselves shout forth this word of praise?

 After the cheering has stopped and the parade is over, what then? Do we continue to follow Jesus and pick up our cross, or do we pick up where we left off, and continue to live in the old way? Do we toss our palm branches aside, forgetting that we are called to be faithful in a broken the world? How much does history repeat, and repeat and repeat itself?

 

Cleansing of the temple or what would Jesus throw out today?

The gospel story we heard today is a familiar one. The story of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple is found in all four gospels. Unlike the other gospels, however, John places this incident at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, as he is flagging that the winds of change are blowing, and through Jesus, the old is about to be radically reformed into the new. 

The Jerusalem Temple at Passover would have been a crowded, busy place. Passover was the most holy of the Jewish festivals, and at Passover, Jerusalem’s population would have swelled from its normal 50,000 to over 180,000.  The Temple would have been packed with people, each person purchasing a Passover lamb there (or, if they were poor, a dove). Imagine the noise and chaos caused by the presence of the crowds, the animals, the vendors, the moneychangers and priests in the courtyard of the Gentiles. It was into this confusion and chaos that Jesus came.

His was a thorough cleansing. The same verb that is used of Jesus exorcising demons from possessed people is used here, implying Jesus is exorcising the Temple, driving out the demons of political power, economic greed and religious domination. 

This Temple action on the part of Jesus was an outrageous act of civil disobedience.  It was a clear and unquestioned attack against the entire Temple sacrificial system – and the people behind that system who maintained it and who used it to further their own wealth and power.  

God's house, Jesus proclaimed, was not to be a marketplace, a business institution. A new prophetic voice, a new spirituality, and a new way to understand what it meant to be obedient to God, was being heard. The disciples do not understand properly what they hear, but they know they hear the voice of a reformer and a prophet.

If Jesus came today to cleanse the modern day Temple, the Christian church, what do you think he would choose to drive out?

The church’s reputation in secular society is not brilliant. Churches are seen as hypocritical, as covering up abuses, as places of privilege. The Royal Commission into child abuse has reinforced this view, with priest, bishops, school principles all indicted of covering up gross misconduct to protect the reputation of the institution at any cost. Our traditions present as arcane and out of touch, our communities as inward looking and insular.

Throughout its history, the church has often encouraged an individual, passive faith is over following the radical teachings of Jesus. The church today, if it is to have any chance of a future, needs to remove these things that block and impede an active faith. It needs to understand that the power to change our world begins by looking outward to the future, not inward to the tradition.

In John’s gospel, when Jesus looked into the temple, he saw priests more intent upon rituals than reform, a dying institution of fading relevance, and a host of victims waiting to be sacrificed. He drove them out, people, cattle and sheep together, to bring them to their senses in order to save them.

What would Jesus see if he looked into many of the mainstream churches today? Would he also see a dying institution, with a host of victims caught up in rituals of fading relevance, just waiting to be sacrificed to the passage of time and the demands of the institutionalized tradition? Would we all be bundled unceremoniously out of the door as impediments to the hearing of the prophetic voice of God and the radical discipleship and obedience to God that the gospel demands?

We can grasp the vision that Jesus offers, of a new temple that radically reshapes our way of being church. We can cast out the traditions that block us from proceeding forward towards the heart of God. We can refrain from supporting any institution that relies on the blood and sweat of victims to sustain it. We can be a part of the wind of renewal that God wants to blow through the courtyards of Christianity.

Or, we can put our tables back up, collect our coins that are scattered all over the floor, rearrange the ritualistic birds and animals that we have for sale, and set up out tables for business as usual. The choice is ours.

A resonable, knowledgable and compassionate Man.

 

This sermon was inspired by a dialogue entitled “A very reasonable man”, found in “Stages on the Way” (pp.29-32, Wild Goose Worship Group). It puts forward the idea that devil was compassionate in wanting Jesus to eat, knowledgeable in the scripture, and reasonable in wanting Jesus to connect to communities using his networks.

“The devil went elsewhere to walk the earth as a very compassionate, knowledgeable and reasonable man.",

Putting aside for the moment whether you personally believe that the devil is a real entity or not, or whether he symbolically represents evil, I would like to spend some time considering the viewpoint offered by the end of the dialogue - the devil is a very compassionate, knowledgeable and reasonable man, off to walk the earth and interact with us.

What do we define as evil in our world? What sort of lures and deceptions and pitfalls exist for the unwary person to fall into? Is temptation always bad and will lead us into evil? Who should we trust? Do we live in a world like Plato describes through his character Phaedrus:

“Things aren't always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many.”

If even the devil can be seen as a very compassionate, knowledgeable and reasonable man, what hope have we distinguishing the truth?

Jesus finds himself hurled forcefully into the wilderness by a powerful spirit where presumably everything is stripped away except his faith. In the Hebrew scriptures, the wilderness has always been the place where the veneer and confusion of civilisation is absent and God is revealed, along with the true self of the character.

In Lents past, we have talked about symbolically entering the wilderness during Lent to discover ourselves and to strip away things that impede personal and spiritual growth and our faith development.

I guess for me the question that I have to ask is how good is the church actually at such a discipline? Do we take the time to discern and pray, fast and self-reflect, read our scripture and wrestle with our demons? Or are we so impeded by the clutter we carry, both material and emotional and spiritual, that we find instead in the desert not our failings and fears to confront but a very compassionate, knowledgeable and reasonable man to soothe our souls and offer solace?

One of the obstacles we face as a modern society is confirmation bias, a phenomenon that causes us to mix mostly with people and read media sources that support our world view, including our religious, political and ethical beliefs. Known as ‘echo chambers’, these symbolic spaces amplify what we think and make us more impervious to different viewpoints. We are reassured by compassionate and seemingly knowledgeable people that we are right, everyone else is wrong and that different information is fake news or maybe just ill-informed people.

We find at the moment that half the voting population of the United States of America is apparently up to their necks in conspiracy theories, where claims about a billionaire developing a virus and a vaccine with a tiny, tiny chip in it to track your everyday movements appears more logical than a viral mutation between species resulting in a highly contagious disease that affects humans--despite this latter option being a well-documented phenomena over many centuries.

We are convinced by ads and photographs that we can be better, look younger, smell better or be a better person if we buy a product that goes on our face or skin or we drink a probiotic.

We can be encouraged to demonise entire races and religions because governments raise our anxiety and fear about terrorism and the intent of those we do not personally know or understand.

We are happy through our inaction on climate change to sell our grandchildren’s future because we fear inconvenience and losing the benefits that come with a well-off western society.  We tolerate governments that continue to support the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels when most of the world is moving to cleaner energy. We really believe that when we throw something away, it vanishes rather than accumulating in landfill and affecting our environment.

We expect people who do terrible things to look like monsters, but Jesus warned about wolves who look like sheep. The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has shown sexual abusers are often people who appear good, talented and compassionate, so that they are allowed to bend or push the safety rules we have put in place because we trust them.

This brings me back to the end of our dialogue again.

The devil went elsewhere to walk the earth as a very compassionate, knowledgeable and reasonable man. And still, the prince of hell and master of disguises appears, incognito, as an angel of light.

How do we distinguish truth from fiction? Grooming from compassion and friendship? Manipulation from honest information sharing? Fact from fiction and science from fallacy? Reporting from propaganda? Who is the real angel of light?

Our once visible wilderness has become shrouded in fog over the last year. Billions of droplets clinging together, covering the landscape. Claiming their truths. Clouding our judgment. Causing confusion. Some droplets are fighting about lockdowns and wearing masks, others are focused on the economy. Some droplets say black lives matter, women matter or all lives matter.

So here we are, surrounded by fog. Should we continue to take things as we see them? Will we fall into the trap of operating at face value—simply because it is easy and suits us to do so? How will we ask the questions that are needed, to pierce through the fog and see the realities hidden by its camouflage?

This Lent, as we journey through our metaphorical wildernesses, perhaps we need to don fog lights that can penetrate illusion and work at learning to see clearly through the distorting properties of fog. We should be prepared to question ourselves and remember that not all compassionate, knowledgeable, reasonable and seemingly truthful people we meet will be angels of light.

 

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Whispering hope at Christmas

 

Christmas is almost upon us, and usually at this time many of us are watching the hope and wonder in a child’s eyes, smiling as we hear familiar carols in our shopping malls, or are preparing and counting down to a day of eating, gift-giving and celebrating. But maybe not this year. This year is different, with a global pandemic closing borders, separating families and bringing the misery of unemployment, precarious housing and illness and death to so many in our world.

So this year I am faced, as a minister, with the daunting task of coming up with a message of goodwill and hope that does not sound trite or stupidly optimistic or has not been said a hundred times before.

In one of the resources I have been using this Advent, it advises that preachers should just let the story tell itself. The Christmas story is certainly one of originality as divine incarnation finds its expression amongst an occupied nation, and it sits within the history and expectations of a people who have known great heights and terrible lows in the preceding centuries. While pointing to the future, the authors of the Christmas narratives contextualise them for their present and use the past to help interpret them.

In the readings we have been hearing from the Old Testament, Isaiah speaks of hope for a people who had known what it was to live in an occupied land, a people who had walked in the darkness of those days. He speaks of a sign for a new period of hopefulness under a new king who is yet to be born. That hope of centuries earlier is carried into the gospel of Luke where Romans occupy the land, and that provides the context of Jesus’ birth.

In our own current state of political turmoil, pandemics and the ongoing fallout from national disasters, where a culture of blaming the other has led to inaction and a shameless irresponsibility amongst our leaders, the story of new hope found in the birth of Jesus is a story that reveals a different and just kind of world. It needs to be told over and over again, to let its message of justice, peace, fairness and hope for the human race and the world sink in.

But it doesn’t stop there. We have an obligation to do more than just tell the story. This celebration of the event of incarnation amidst angelic choirs and visiting shepherds is a moment of joyous and uplifting transformation. But if we forget that transformation by Boxing Day then all we are left with is an empty ritual, no matter how joyful and uplifting it was in the moment.

So Christmas is not just about a baby in a nativity scene. It’s about a whole new way of seeing the world, a world where wholeness, peace, joy and hope can be available for all people.

A minister friend of mine, Phil Newton, describes Christmas as:

that which makes us more human in the midst of the dehumanising powers of the world…[and gives] a fractured glimpse of the heart of all things.

I really like the concept here of "a fractured glimpse of the heart of all things". We can never hope to understand or see the mystery of Christmas clearly and articulate it in plain and logical words. But to catch a glimpse, even a glimpse distorted by the lenses we wear, may be just enough to catch something of the divine hope that there is an inherent sense of goodness and purpose in us and our lives and that can still transform us and our world for the better. 

Phil also goes on to draw parallels between the time this story was written and now, saying that Christmas

looked like an unwed refugee's baby son, born into an occupied land. It was a whispered hope that life was worth the investment. It was the gift of peace to the lost and the downtrodden. It was a glimpse of the divine drawn near to us that we might draw near to the divine.

In the gospel stories, the refugee babe grows into a man who confronts and challenges, heals and restores, teaches and encourages. Might not that give hope to those incarcerated or trapped in refugee camps, who are in war torn lands or who live in poverty?

The story of the incarnation is a door opening to a kingdom ethic that can help guide our faith and discipleship for the year to come. We can make a deliberate investment not only in our lives, but in the lives of those who need those who can to speak  justice, peace, hope, love and joy into the noise and find ways to challenge and transform the unjust structures of our world.

And just maybe, as we ponder the Christmas story's mysteries and paradoxes, we might just find its flickering flame and fragile hope and draw closer to the divine.

 

Go nowhere among the Gentiles: exploring Matthew 15: 10-28

 

These verses are somewhat of an anticlimax to the dramatic scenes on the sea of Galilee. Proclaimed as son of God by the disciples, Jesus has overcome nature as well as healed the sick. From such acclamation, Jesus abruptly finds himself in an argument about law and cleanliness with the Pharisees.

The topic may seem petty to us, though in these Covid days, we would be agreeing with the Pharisees that hand washing should indeed be a priority! But the debate is highly significant, as Jesus and the Pharisees are really defining boundaries in regard to who belongs in the kingdom, and who is excluded.

Jesus refuses to agree that following tradition means being obedience to the will of God, roundly stating that what feeling and thoughts you have in your heart are what is important . So whilst the Pharisees in this gospel follow the law and traditions of their faith, this does not mean they follow what God requires in a faithful person. Motivations are important, says Jesus, and traditions can be very self-serving. Selfishness, love of status and disdain for others cannot be concealed by an external gloss of righteousness, despite the Pharisees’ claim.

But Jesus himself is about to be put to the test here. As he heads towards Tyre and Sidon, he is accosted by a lone woman seeking healing for her demon-possessed daughter. Matthew alters Mark’s gospel here, designating her as a Canaanite, a race that inspired Jewish scorn. Jesus’ first reaction is to follow the social mores of his day, and not only tells her he has come to serve only Israel, but also suggests she is no more than a dog. The claims of the Jews are presented as superior to her own.

But this Canaanite woman, obviously familiar with Jewish stories (she has previously addressed Jesus as Son of David) is also wise. Already emulating Lady Wisdom of Proverbs by being a loud woman shouting for justice in the public roads, she backs this up by pointing out while she might be a dog, she is still entitled to the crumbs that fall from the master’s table. Her retort is clever and funny and true and wise.

And Jesus knows it. He suddenly finds himself in a position where, faced with this challenge, he has to make a choice. Does he stick with the tradition, thereby putting himself in the same position of hypocrisy that the he has just accused the Pharisees of, or does he admit to himself that he needs to put his money where his mouth is and acknowledge that the woman is right in the truth she is proclaiming? There is no choice really, and Jesus pronounces the faith of the Canaanite woman to be great, while instantly healing her daughter. This wise and believing Canaanite woman has caused Jesus himself to transform his thinking and to share the benefits of the messianic age with her.

If the Messiah can allow himself to be corrected and transformed, surely this gives us great hope. Imagine what our world would look like if we emulated this self-reflective behaviour and acted on it. We could transform our world, and change learnt and potentially harmful responses that perpetuate resentment and hatred to stories of grace. Jesus, with his final acceptance of the woman and his gift of healing, has set aside the learnt conventions of ethnic hatred. By doing so, he invites all us also to do the same.

The illustration is a painting by Sadao Watanabe "New Testament Jesus and the Canaanite Woman"