Author: theelvesareheadingwest

Sunday April 3 – Easter 2 “Receive the Holy Spirit”

Sunday April 10 – Easter 3 “Jesus and the Church – the myth of Independence

The Resurrection of the Body

There is something a little relentless about this period – so I am writing this on Good Friday in order to meet our publication deadline – and have just come away from our Morning All Age worship, and in advance of Easter . . .

A couple of things happened there which suggested to me something about the nature of our faith to which we would do well to pay more attention. The first was when our curate, Brett threw ‘pieces of silver’ over the floor and asked the children to count them. Almost before the coins hit the floor, I could hear several of the children calling out – ‘there are thirty . . .’ – which gave me pause. Certainly we might well congratulate ourselves on their being so well informed about the facts of our faith – but that is a very narrow way of knowing anything. Watching them pick them up, join together and count them with the question, ‘How much is a human life worth?’ ringing in their ears – holding the coins, with their human attraction to ‘Money’ – the question and the answer became far denser in its meaning . . .
A little later I was required to play the part of one who put the cross together, hammering nails into wood with a heavy hammer. Feeling the labour of it, and hearing the sound echoing around the bare wood of the chancel, stripped of its furnishings the evening before at Maundy Thursday – again a Knowing far more significant than a mere mental assent to the facts . . . In both these Knowings there was a Participation. The whole body was involved – and indeed must be if our faith is True.

The Easter Story tells us that our ultimate destiny is Embodied. The Word became Flesh, not do to away with our flesh, but that our flesh might itself be saved from its bondage to corruption and decay. Jesus is raised, not as an atmosphere, not a beautiful idea, but as a body, a body which is the dwelling place of God. For the Temple of his body having been destroyed, he raised it in three days.

Growth in faith is every bit as much the transformation of our bodily existence, a Learning of a way of being in the body, indwellt and taught by the Holy Spirit, as it is knowing the facts of our faith. These are Essential, but the greatest essential fact is the fact of the Risen Christ, who has conquered Sin and Death, in His Body.

For many many years now – we have been more and more reduced  to abstract ‘thinking’ beings. Education becomes about what we know in very narrow terms. The current mania over artificial intelligence is largely focussed on the damnable notion that if we can replicate a human brain, we can replicate a human being, as if we were reduced to a brain in a jar and fed the appropriate nutrients we would truthfully exist as humans.
René Descartes who was highly suspicious of our bodily nature, set us down this path wondering what it was that he could be certain of. He finally came to the conclusion that the only thing he could be SURE about was that he had thoughts – so said, ‘I think therefore I am . . .’ (Actually he was even more pessimistic than this and said, ‘my thoughts might themselves be a deception – but at least I can say that there is an I who is deceived!!’)

The Church would respond to Descartes and our culture of ‘thinking beings’ might say our Certainty is indeed enfleshed – the flesh of the Word made flesh, and now Risen from Death. We are, because He Is.

Phil is the National Youth Advisor for Tikanga Pakeha of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, and shared this with us this morning

Here is the first thought provoking video . . . adult and child perceptions?

Here is the second video clip – on how elders helpfully correct those who are younger 🙂

Continued thoughts on going without some of our technological appendages

and indeed, appendages they have become, limb like in their attachment to us. We are rapidly fusing with elements of our technological milieu, to the point where we have become accustomed to speaking in terms of ‘the post-human’, or imagining that AI is perhaps not the horror it was once perceived to be. Do we care if the ‘person’ who is looking after us is actually an advanced latex covered robot, if it seems human?

Although I am taking time to disconnect from a few of my own technological prosthetics – smartphone, tablet and computer – one of my repeated observations is that these ‘tools’ actually disconnect us from one another. I have become so used to seeing ‘friends’ spending half an hour in the same space, whilst sharing barely a word over ‘a coffee date’, staring at their devices. [ I still remember quite clearly how more than a year ago now: I was with my wife Sarah,  in a restaurant. A mother and daughter had brought the grandmother out ‘for a special occasion lunch’. The two younger members of the party were constantly on their phones, picking at their food as texts and emails allowed. The Grandmother was a picture of loneliness on ‘her special occasion’.]

There is such a thing as a companionable silence, which grows out of deep friendship, a mutual trust, and a sense of being known which goes beyond words. A Knowledge that frees one from the anxiety of ‘having to be connected’. Theologically we might express this in terms of God’s radical freedom From us, which is the assured basis of his being For us. God is not always anxiously trying to ‘be in touch’ and his friends worry less and less about ‘what to say’ in His presence. Love does not grasp.

But the technologically induced ‘silence’ is of another sought. Fingers fly over the screens – grimaces and more cross the face as people seek connection with ‘friends’, people whom perhaps they have never met face to face. Research reveals the non-companionability of such interactions. At the neuro-physiological level, there is no response which correlates to the presence of another. When we interact by text whatever our minds say, most of our being is unresponsive – text does not convey the presence of the other to us any deeper than those thoughts that perpetually flick across our consciouness. Silence in such cases is deeply troubling, for we do not actually believe that there is anyone there.

So in a counter intuitive way, disconnecting enables connection. It causes us to wake up to what Is. To God. To be truly human, not by addition, but by stripping away

I know from my own experience how I have lost track of prayer and spacious quiet in the presence of God, as my hand instinctively moved to my phone and its beep as yet another message came in. In my early days of such a device I completely lost my way, and ever since, even if I carry it, which I tend not to, it is always set to silent. The change in my mood has been marked, not least for my family, to whom I am more present.

What we fail to acknowledge, because it contradicts one of the most pervasive and deceitful myths of our age – that of ‘progress’ (magnified by technological ‘Change’ [sic]) – is that tools change us. The internet is awash with videos of how drivers of large cars are less courteous than those of small cars; we do speak far less to one another on those increasingly rare occasions when we are in company – google glass has perhaps not taken off, because we have already adapted ourselves to the cell phone appendage [Undertakers note a new wrinkle under the chin – cell phone glance wrinkle]; someone with a gun is not the same as someone with a gun; or to quote the old aphorism, ‘ to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail ‘ We love to say, because we Need to say ‘it is not the tools, it is how we use them . . .’ but even the simplest of tools come with the promise of Power, and Power corrupts

We have a sense that with technology we become More – we expand the scope of our power over our surroundings – perhaps this is the root of our obsession with The Self. The truth is that we become far less. We become like that which we worship, for it promises everything to us, and we have a hard time resisting the lure. With regards to smartphones etc. this is especially true as we disappear – we are no longer present. (purely having one on your person reduces your attentiveness to that which is around by about 15% . . .) The average smartphone user looks at the screen 80 times a day. We cannot look away . . . I have myself driven a visitor through the glorious scenery of the South Island, with them permanently glued to their screen . . .

But in Lent, we go without – we empty ourselves deliberately – and therein find great treasures in things perhaps long forgotten . . . Hopefully we find we wake up, and carry on doing without, for the Life which emerges.

Technology promises us that in taking more we shall be like gods [Again, a reason why the gnostic evolutionary forms of faith seem so persuasive] . . . but the way of Kenosis, of laying down, of letting go is the way we come to ourselves. The way of the Cross. The way of Jesus

how is it with you soul?

One of the differences between rural ministry and that in an urban context was that in rural communities, Sin was visible, a public category. In a rural context it was rare for a funeral ‘tribute’ to be an entirely glowing word about the saintly character of the deceased. Or if it was you would hear much in the pub afterwards – ‘well that was a white wash if ever I heard one’. The fact that people – all people were sinners was undeniable. Everyone was too well known, even if they lived as recluses. Because of this the word sinner wasn’t one with overly negative connotations

But our world is dominated by the urban – large towns and cities are the places most people now live. And they are places of anonymity, of privacy. In a city one is not a public figure – one is largely unknown. And this shapes our public discourse, even in the church. ‘Sinner’ is not a category we tend to apply, we don’t tend to meet them in the street,
because in truth we meet very few people in the street, for all the people we see. And so we may listen to many sermons, read many ‘Christian’ blogs in this day and age and find no mention of sinners or Sin, or indeed the crucifixion of Jesus for our sins.

As I have commented before, the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ seems to have become curiously absent in accounts of what it means to be Christian, and indeed our understanding of God. We might say ‘the Cross reveals the Love of God’, but try explaining how without mentioning our need of saving from our sin, and you run into trouble. The Love of God is revealed in how God deals with those who do not love Him, by dying for them on the Cross, bearing in himself the wages of Sin, that is Death, the destruction of the Soul. Sin destroys souls

So It is little surprise that the disappearance of Sin, has seen the disappearance of the Soul. The bishop’s charge to a new parish priest ‘Receive this cure of souls, which is both yours and mine’ seem quaint to the modern ear. The Cure, the care of Souls . . . Souls??? In this season of Lent – how many of us, or how few will take the opportunity of confession – to lay bare our Souls?? Well here’s someone . . .
Lucy – the great Soul physician is approached by her brother Linus – he is deeply troubled by the state of his soul. ‘Lucy, I don’t want my heart to be half love and half hate – I want to be all love!’ This is ‘classic cure of souls’ territory. Someone knows and is honest about the state of their life before God. Their Soul. Linus is far far more alive than most of our contemporaries. He is troubled by the Sin that lurks within him. I wonder what counsel we would give. We might imagine trying to talk someone out of this bizarre worry. ‘Who do you hate – what did they do to you? Why, Linus you are so right to hate them!! How did they treat you? You have every right to be bitter? Why did you lie – Oh I so understand – I would do the same in your case . . . Our life before a holy God, our Soul is denied. ‘Guilt? Shame? No! We must do all we can to eradicate these foolish notions Those are so passé!!’ So we ignore those troubling thoughts, symptoms of the state of our soul – we become more insensitive to Sin, and we end up like the Pharisees, Self Righteous . . . not needing and cure of our souls. Pharisees are those who have denied Sin and their souls have withered . . . As Jesus points out – those who chose not to identify themselves as sinners, found themselves outside of the mercy of God. The denial of what was going on within them, meant they would not come into the light.

Jesus associated with sinners – and he still does. Of late we have tend to respin this truth by saying ‘Jesus was with the marginal and oppressed’, but the gospels tell us he was a ‘friend of sinners’, that is he hung out with those who knew their condition – who knew they needed a doctor. He wasn’t against the ‘Self-Righteous’, he just called on them to be honest about their condition – he invited them to join him. ‘You say you haven’t committed adultery? But you have looked with desire at a woman? Come and join the sinners!’ ‘You say you haven’t murdered? But you will call someone an idiot. Come and join the sinners!’, ‘You say you do not love money? But you cry out for what you call justice when your parents give their entire inheritance to your siblings – Your heart is full of greed – come and join the sinners!’ Come to where I am . . . Lent is a time for coming to Jesus with our Souls . . . recognizing, as we face Easter that Sin as a condition is so death dealing that only the death of the only begotten son of God can deal with it . . . yet tragically there are few in the church who have the wisdom to begin to speak to how we respond to it in our lives . . . Lucy for example . . .

We are at the beginning of Lent – a season in which we prepare our souls and bodies together for Pashca – for the Great Feast of Easter – For God’s act of redemption in and through Jesus in which he saves us from our Sin – and in the divine mystery saves the entire cosmos . . .

In Lent, we are invited to go with Jesus into the Wilderness, to lay aside all things, to come to a place where the true nature of our Soul is laid bare. It is in the wilderness that Jesus in his humanity is faced with that which truly threatens his Life, His Soul, and no less threatens ours.
Satan . . . also curiously absent from most accounts of faith . . . is revealed . . . whispering words in the ears of Jesus . . . perhaps Jesus is driven there by the Spirit, because in the wilderness, away from a multitude of disctractions . . . Satan has nowhere to hide. His schemes are seen for what they are.
Yet Satan’s words seem so reasonable – you’re hungry? Turn stones into bread! You want people to get your message? Do something Spectacular like jumping off the temple! You want the kingdom of God to be brought in? Worship me, and you can have the whole world just as you like it, none of the pain, none of the suffering – none of the Cross . . . And after all isn’t that our definition of the Kingdom of God?? None of the pain, none of the suffering – none of the Cross . . . how reasonable Satan sounds
you hate? – you have good cause! You’re resentful? Who wouldn’t be, you poor thing! You deceive? Don’t we all? no, it is not greed or covetousness, these are your rights!! . . .

Those of an earlier age were wiser. They didn’t listen to this voice, they Fled from this to Christ and took up the medicine of the Cross, the Soul disciplines for each deadly sin. Firstly, Lent was always a time for Confession – for the wilderness experience of laying the soul bare, in the company of a wise brother or sister who would provide counsel and support. Struggling with Gluttony? Fast. Struggling with Avarice? Give more money away to the poor. Above all Pray that you enter not into temptation – learn the humility which drives away pride and sends you to Jesus . . . For each of the deadly sins, those things which we allow to grow in our hearts, to the ruination of our Souls, there was a discipline, which would in time lead if not to their immediate eradication, at least to their diminishment.

A priest tells a story of when he was first ordained. He had been ordained straight from college and had never earned any ‘real’ money. When his first pay cheque came he sat down to write out a cheque to the church for a tithe. In the past of course 10% of not very much wasn’t very much – but 10% of his first pay cheque . . . As he wrote he sense resentment growing up within him, against the church, his church . . . so he quickly tore the cheque up, and wrote one for twice the amount. Satan has not afflicted him in that way since 

This ongoing work, the struggle against sin, our participation in the sanctifcation of our souls was what we used to call discipleship – it was written into our baptism liturgy – ‘fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of Christ who has taken hold of you, and do not grow weary in your battle against Sin the World and the Devil, remaining Christ’s faithful soldier and servant to the end of your life . . .’ As we begin Lent – our hearts and minds are directed to the Last things – the death and resurrection of Jesus, the final judgment and in that light, the state of our Souls. The Good News is that Jesus has gone into that place of temptation ahead of us, come out triumphant, and he the great Physician of our Souls will strengthen all those who comes to Him as sinners, in faith.

Glory to God

Readings

Luke 2

Malachi 3