A Moment for Monday

 

New Year's Day - 2024

Tain, Scotland. 2019

(Photo krb)

Welcome to 2024!

I don't make New Years resolutions, but I do think about my hopes for the New Year a great deal, not so much for myself, though I am looking forward to the potential of becoming a bit more mobile this year. 

No matter whether we are religious or not I hope that we can do our best to create a more peaceful, cohesive world within the limits of the communities over which we can have some influence.  For all communities but particularly the church I do hope we can become less ideologically driven. The pushing of a particular ideological viewpoint has become very divisive when we must do all we can to bring about reconciliation and inclusiveness. That is our primary task in a world with which we must become completely engaged not with any agenda of our own but simply offering ourselves as companions on the journey armed only with peace and unconditional love for all.

Every blessing as you journey through this New Year. May God bless you and be your companion on the way. Please get in touch with me any time to say g'day. 

A Flight of Fancy for Friday - Advent 23

Joy to the World

 (Photo krb - 2022)

By chance I just heard my favorite Christmas Carol - well it is my favorite at the moment but that is always is and should be fluid. I turned on ABC Classic and there it was - the Coventry Carol. It is a carol from the 16th century, sung as part of a mystery play "The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors" performed in Coventry. In so many ways it captures the beauty, wonder and sorrow of Christmas. 

Certainly, Christmas is a time of joy as the birth of a baby always should be whatever the circumstances. And this birth, as we are told in the birth narratives in Gospels of Luke and Matthew, is special. It is a moment filled with wonder to all who witness it. The parents bewildered but filled with joy and hope at the birth of their baby; the shepherds, the most ordinary of people filled with awe and wonder as the skies fill with the heavenly host and soon enough the wise men bringing their special gifts to worship the baby. All are amazed at the unfolding of the story.

But there is always an edge to this story as there is so often around new beginnings. It occurs against a backdrop of terror and oppression. Soon enough the visit of the wise men brings upon the scene the risk to the child and the murder of innocent children around Bethlehem. We must never allow the horror of this tragic scene to pass us by, masked by the inherent joy and wonder of the birth.

So, to my mind Christmas is a time of mixed emotions. We should celebrate with joy this special time but we should also spare a thought for those in our community for whom it is not an easy time; for those who are homeless - an increasing problem at this time; for those who find, perhaps for the first time, that they simply cannot make ends meet; for those who have lost loved ones recently or earlier for whom Christmas brings both special memories but also a great sense of loss.

And this year as in so many years, we celebrate against a backdrop of devastating world affairs. We mourn the loss of thousands of innocent people caught up in a conflict that is not of their making, and which seems to be driven by individual's quest for power. We wonder greatly at the inability of powerful nations to exert their influence to bring a cease to hostilities. We wonder at our own powerless in this situation. But we must balance this against our hope that is reborn every day. Our hope which is born out of our belief that we have the opportunity to be the agents for the coming into being of God's Kingdom on earth - a Kingdom of peace and justice for all - that comes into being whenever we commit ourselves to others in unconditional love.

This is the last in this series of reflections for Advent. Thank you so much for sharing this journey with me. I wish you all every blessing for Christmas and the New Year. I will be back in the New Year with my regular email reflections. Until then.

Advent and Christmas peace and blessings to all.

A Thought for Thursday - Advent 23

Take Your Pick or Maybe both.

 (Photo krb - 2022)

Of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, only two, Luke and Matthew, contain an account of the birth of Jesus and they are quite different. That is because they were passed down through stories from one generation to the next over four decades. The oral tradition that is the basis of Luke is somewhat different than that upon which the writer of Matthew based his gospel. They were both written for different communities and have slightly different slants on what these events meant for them and their communities.

Luke, the earlier of these two Gospels, is quite lyrical in his presentation of the story. It stretches over almost all of the first 3 chapters of the Gospel. He describes the context of the birth in intricate detail and how it 'came to pass' that for example, the birth took place in Bethlehem and why it was that Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem. He also tells that the birth took place in a stable and why and Jesus was cradled in a manger (which I have discovered recently may have been significant) surrounded by animals and witnessed by shepherds coming specially from the fields. It tells of them fulfilling the requirements of the law and their orderly return to Nazareth.

In Matthew's Gospel the details of the birth of Jesus are concise. There is no mention of a journey to Bethlehem or of a stable or a manger or shepherds. There is a whiff of scandal in the air and in the middle of it all, wise men arrive; we assume three but that is probably only because of the number of gifts they bring, so we don't know how many, but the kings are symbolic because they are representative of all people who welcome Jesus into the world. Mary, Joseph and the baby, through a process of exile and return, move to Nazareth. Much of both stories are couched in terms of fulfilling prophecies from the Old Testament. 

These are not nor they can be, eyewitness reports. They are stories that have been passed down by word of mouth over many years. They are included in the Gospels in order to convince the reader that this is a very special birth, this is none other than the long-awaited messiah - the Son of God. They are beautiful stories which confront us of the presence of God intervening in the world on the side of the poor and the marginalized. For this is God who takes on human form not among the powerful and the wealthy but among the ordinary, the poor and those on the margins of society. 

We witness the wonder of Christmas in the lives of children everywhere. But the message of Christmas is for us all. It is the promise of a radical new hope for the world that we may become agents for the coming into being of the Kingdom of God in our world - a Kingdom which brings peace and justice for all as we live in unconditional love for all. We need the message of Christmas now more than ever before.

Advent peace and blessings to all.

A Word for Wednesday

A Child is Born.

 (Photo krb - 2022)

I have to say that despite all the commercialism and associated cynicism Christmas is a wonderful time of year. To some extent it is a time of greater unity in our otherwise fractured world and not just for us, but it seems that that sense of unity extends beyond us and brings people together around the world, regardless of political or religious belief. There is at this time a greater sense of our common humanity and that is a very good thing.

 

It is a story which grew out of the highly contested world of first century Palestine, a nation whose history was one of occupation by the great political and military powers of the surrounding world. For many years Israel had been under occupation by Rome. It was a backwater of the Empire ruled as a vassal state by a strange combination of Roman heavy-handed authority and the local political and religious elite. That elite group represented twenty percent of the population which controlled the political, religious and economic decision-making and had all the power. The remaining eighty percent eked out their existence in a peasant economy in which they were taxed by the landlords, by the elite ruling class and by the Roman authorities. 

It was a world alive with expectations of revolution. The Jewish people had long expected God to intervene, to send a messiah, a political and military leader who would unify the people and throw out the Roman oppressors and to rule the people justly in the line of the great king, David. But we should never think that God will work in accordance with human expectations.  As Ann Weems wrote in her poem "Unexpected"

 Unexpected by Ann Weems

Even now we simply do not expect

to find a deity in a stable.

Somehow the setting is all wrong:

the swaddling clothes too plain,

the manger too common for the likes of a Savior,

the straw inelegant,

the animals, reeking and noisy,

the whole scene too ordinary for our taste.

And the cast of characters is no better.

With the possible exception of the kings,

who among them is fit for this night?

the shepherds? certainly too crude,

the carpenter too rough,

the girl too young.

And the baby!

Whoever expected a baby?

Whoever expected the advent of God in a helpless child?

Had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory

of a legion of angels wielding golden swords,

the whole world would have been conquered for Christ

right then and there

and we in the church-to say nothing of the world!-

wouldn’t have so much trouble today.

Even now we simply do not expect

to face the world armed with love. 

             (From "Kneeling in Bethlehem" Ann Weems. Westminster / John Knox Press 1987)

We pray for true peace and humanity at this time throughout the world.

Advent peace and blessings to all.

A Trifle for Tuesday.

Our Commercial World

 (Photo krb - 2022)

I didn't know that Christmas was for sale. It is the only conclusion that I can come to. With just a few days to go it seems that the entrepreneurial spirit has claimed Christmas as its own. Can we just stop for a minute in the mad rush to make a profit and just think about what we are doing? That after all, is what we are asked to do in this season of Advent - to pause and contemplate the world- changing event that we are about to celebrate again. Yes, I understand the need for the business world to keep ticking over. That is, after all what keeps our economy operating. But it seems that in recent years we have got it all out of skew. Our commercial world has taken control leaving no room for us as a community to take in the true meaning of Christmas.

I don't view the commercialization of Christmas with a bah humbug attitude. All I ask is that maybe it is time we all got things into perspective. Christmas does not belong to any one group. Christmas belongs to everyone, to all people everywhere and maybe it is time to allow that message to get through. Maybe it is time to step back from the bigger, brighter, better attitude and look for something simpler. Something that brings hope in these terrible troubled times. 

For me, at Christmas, we celebrate the moment when God, whatever you may think of that term, turned the expectations of the world upside down. God took on human form in the shape of an ordinary human being , not as a royal prince in a grand palace in some beautiful city but as a baby to peasant parents who lived among peasants, born in the most humble circumstances in a borrowed stable in a small insignificant village at the outer edge of the Roman Empire - a poor man who came to proclaim God's preference for the poor, the oppressed and the outcast.

So, let's make Christmas simpler. Let's give ourselves space, whatever our beliefs, to see the wonder and hope of this time reflected in the delight of little children. Let's give God a chance through the birth of a baby to bring hope, peace and justice to our world.

Advent peace and blessings to all.

A Moment for Monday - Advent 23

 Hark!.....

(Photo krb - 2022)

One of the great things about Advent and Christmas is that we get to sing together intentionally, at least we did until covid arrived. We don't often get to do that so much any more. There used to be lots of occasions in which community singing was appropriate. It was a catalyst for the creation of community. But carol singing was different. It didn't matter the context. It could be church or community or family. In any or all of these situations singing carols was appropriate and still is.  And everyone joined in. Whether you could sing or not it was okay to be part of the joyful noise. And everyone knew the carols. So, all inhibitions flew out the window. 

I have been fortunate to be part of community carol singing all my adult life, from serenading hospital patients with a group of young people in a small country town, to driving around caroling on the back of a truck in another country town. We would probably get arrested if we tried that today.  I have sung with a very fine choir in a church in the city, a church which still maintains its fine choral tradition. It used to have a regular carol service on Christmas night. It was a very special way to celebrate the end of the day. And I have been part of special carol services in a tiny country village. All of these experiences have been a mechanism through which the community has come together in readiness to celebrate the great festival of Christmas.

But all of that has changed somewhat in recent times. Not surprisingly the church is not such an important community building institution it once was. This is particularly because what the broader world sees as the representation of the church tends to be an extreme expression. Spokespeople for the church tend to be from the fundamentalist end of the spectrum. This has certainly undermined trust in the institution. It has become no longer politically correct to pass on the traditions of religion such as singing Christmas carols.  This is unsurprising and probably appropriate in a multicultural world. Generally speaking, carols are no longer allowed to be sung in schools. I wonder how the long tradition of community singing is to be maintained under these circumstances. It too is probably gone forever replaced with the singing of Christmas songs most of which come from American popular music which really does nothing for the development of a unique worldview for our society which allows the inclusion of all in a unique integrated community.

The relevant cartoon that started my thinking along these lines was published by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton. You can find it on their Facebook page or on the web site cartoonchurch.com. It is 'Nine Lessons Learned at the Carol Service'.

Advent peace and blessings to all.

A Flight of Fancy for Friday - Advent 23

 Christmas is Coming the Geese are Getting Fat.

(Photo krb - 2019)

Christmas is a wonderful celebration but let's face it, Christmas is a construct. A celebration of Jesus' birth was not thought of until the 4th Century (CE) and the 25th of December was chosen to counter the pagan festival of the winter solstice. It was chosen as appropriate because at that point, in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the return of the Sun. So, the (re)birth of the Sun marks the birth of the Son. There are many other reasons for 25th of December including that it is 9 months after the feast of Annunciation, although which came first is anyone's guess.  Recent research indicates that the most likely date of the birth of Jesus is September 4th century BCE.  Interest in the festival of the nativity of Christ was slow to catch on and it wasn't until the 9th Century (CE) that it gained any momentum. Even now Christmas is celebrated at different times across the Eastern and Western Churches: some on December 25; some on 6 January and some on 7 January; these last two coinciding with the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus. 

Many of the traditions that are part of our tradition have roots far back in history, like the Christmas Tree dating from the 16th Century (CE) some, like the sending of Christmas Cards from the mid 19th Century, are more recent. This tradition has almost died in very recent times largely overtaken by social media. The exchange of gifts has long been part of the tradition but it has really taken off in the west in relatively recent times one suspects with the growth of the middle class. There is also a hint of the Protestant Ethic there as well. And Father Christmas or Santa Clause is very recent based on the Northern European celebration of the Feast of St Nicholas on 6 December. The image of Santa Clause as a little, plump, kindly old man dressed in red with a white beard comes from a 1930s Coca Cola advertisement, but this popular image has now been almost universally accepted as the standard.

In recent times, while the church has done its best to give Christmas its appropriate place in its liturgical life as it has struggled against the huge secular popularity of the festival as a community and family celebration sadly driven by commercial interest. I remember with great fondness the mad celebration of Christmas in the tiny parish where I was part-time priest-in-charge in the mid 1990s. Services would start at 5:00pm on Christmas Eve in the most isolated location. The church had no electricity, so we needed a daytime start. The normal congregation of perhaps 5 grew to 50 for that service. After a short break it was off to the 10:00pm service in a locality to the north - again with a huge congregation compared to normal. After a traditional Christmas party, it was back to a full church at the main centre for the midnight mass at 11:30pm. Then up early on Christmas day for the small service at 7:00am at a village to the southeast and hopefully grabbing some breakfast in between on to the final service in the main centre at 10:00am. As soon as it concluded I would drive very carefully the 230km home to celebrate our family Christmas. I get the sense that the attitude of the church in recent times has changed. It is almost as though the church has surrendered the celebration of Christmas to the secular world perhaps as church attendance has drastically declined even at Christmas. It is very difficult to communicate the deeply significant religious message of Christmas in a world dominated by the voice of commerce. Even the glorious music of Christmas has lost out in a world that has grown deeply distrustful of religion.

 I hope that as the celebration of Christmas grows closer that you will have an opportunity to pause and think about its significance, of a defenceless baby born not in a royal palace but in a dingy stable, born to displaced parents in an unknown town in the middle of nowhere.

Advent blessings and peace to all.

A Thought for Thursday - Advent 23

Walking backwards to Christmas

.

(Photo krb - 2019)

Advent is meant as a time of reflection, a time of taking stock. On the one hand it is a time of quiet preparation for the coming of Christmas and the birth of Jesus of Nazareth who the Biblical record tells us was born in difficult circumstances in an occupied country in a place of little recognition in an out of the way corner of the world. Yet this is described as a momentous event which was the fulfilment of and yet changed the course of history. There are many layers of meaning in the Christmas story and most of us connect with it at some level. The second reason for this time of preparation is to think about and 'prepare' for the return of the Christ in glory at the end time to bring all things to completion. The many commentaries that I have heard on this idea have ranged from thought provoking to the utterly bizarre. This is a deeply mystical issue that I am sure I will never fully comprehend. If we were meeting together, I would be interested to hear what you think about these issues.

I have to admit that I enjoy Christmas, the music, the joy of celebration in some form as a church community, as a neighbourhood, as a family, the shared food and hospitality. It is all just wonderful - probably because it is a time filled with nostalgia. There are so many stories when we think about previous Christmases. But that isn't for now. Now it is different. I don't feel ready. It is like the photo above. Blackwater River is in the highlands of Scotland. If you can enlarge the photo you will see there is a bridge in the distance. We never got to the bridge. It felt like as we attempted to get there the bridge got further away. That is how Christmas feels this year. Like the Goons song of old "I'm  Walking Backwards to Christmas". There are lots of reasons for this, particularly that after three years we are still dealing with my health issues against a backdrop of continuing covid. It is difficult to engage with the community in these circumstances. But it's okay. I know Christmas will be great as it always is and whatever our changing circumstances we continue to be blessed living in a luckyish country. So one way and another Christmas will be okay.

But I am sure that you don't need reminding that that won't be the case everywhere. It is impossible for us to begin to imagine what Christmas will be like for Christians still living in Gaza. The picture and its message below, I received from a  Catholic community that has been working in Calais, France, to bring humanitarian relief to the thousands of refugees who arrive there. Their work is extraordinary and sustaining to many, against the odds. It is a moving portrayal of the situation for many.

Advent peace and blessings to all.

 

A Word for Wednesday

 

A Worldview for Sale!

(Photo krb - 2019)

Back in the heady days of the mid 1980s I was one of the original members of the Careforce Council. Some of you may remember Careforce. It was the body set up by the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn to coordinate and enable the social welfare activities of the Diocese. It was the precursor in this Diocese to the National body Anglicare. I was a member of the Council because, by then, I had fairly wide experience working in social policy at a national and local level. We were very much finding our way and we had few resources. It turned out that Bill Pearcy, the Council's Executive Officer was the arms and legs of the organization. Without Bill the Council would have been just another talkfest. I stayed on the Council for the first 7 years until it was reorganized in the leadup to it becoming part of the national body Anglicare. Looking back on that time I only have one regret and that is that the formation of a Diocesan body to some extent allowed church communities to disengage with the wider world in providing for the needs of the poor and certainly to walk away from their role in advocacy. Charity without advocacy changes nothing.

In the crisis over declining church membership which began in earnest in the 1990s disengagement became the modus operandi. The first thing to suffer was the end of serious ecumenism. Denominations believed that maintaining the way they did things and looking after their people would see them through the crisis. It didn't. 

As the crisis deepened, the conservative right wing of the church, who saw themselves as the owners of modern orthodox, moved to take control. Their way, the 'right' way, was to dominate, as it does now. It was easy. 'He who pays the piper calls the tune,' and the bottom line became all important. Gone was any serious debate about the issues of the day. They were of no relevance to a church that was disengaged from the community and in any case the church always had a ready answer to any issue. Typical was its response to the same-sex marriage debate where the church publicly threw its weight behind the conservative no campaign. The result is that the church has lost its place at the table of decision-making and the people have lost their advocate for rational decision making on social issues. As the church disengages with the world, more and more people disengage with the church.

The Advent story is not pretty. We await the coming into being of the Kingdom of God through the birth of a baby, born to a refugee couple in an occupied nation, where the ferment of revolution abounded, born in a stinking stable because there was no room for them anywhere else, with the lowest of the low, shepherds - outcasts, to witness the event, and thus the radical action of God to emerges. And whatever happens with the institutional church, as Rachel Held Evans puts it, the whole story of Advent is the story of how God can't be kept out. God is present. God is with us. God shows up - not with a parade but with the whimper of a baby, not among the powerful but among the marginalized, not to the demanding but to the humble.  

Advent blessings and peace to all.

A Moment for Monday - Advent 23.

Come the Revolution!

(Photo krb -2019)

In the last two years of theological studies - many years ago - I studied New Testament Greek. A requirement of my course was that I complete an examination in one of the Gospels and letters of St Paul in Greek or books from the Old Testament in Hebrew. I reckoned that in this case, discretion was the better part of valour and chose New Testament Greek. I knew that there were a number of people who I could ask to work with me in this process and  I chose two people who were very good tutors, one on the basics of the language and the other on its application. I also chose St Mark's Gospel. I knew that it was the first of the canonical Gospels, written in about 70 CE and that it was the shortest of the Gospels. There is nothing like having a sword of Democles  in the form of a 3-hour exam hanging over one's head, so I studied pretty hard. I got a good pass thanks to my tutors and our kids who patiently listened to my rehearsal of Greek vocabulary endlessly over many months.

I have never been naive enough to believe the 'gentle Jesus meek and mild' portrayal of Jesus but any illusions I had about that image were blown out of the water through reading the Gospel of Mark in the original Greek. The first thing that struck me was the immediacy of the action. Everything is happening now and the coming into being of God's kingdom on earth which Jesus proclaims is an imminent event for which we must be ready. The image of Jesus is not quite that of a peasant revolutionary out of the Zealot mould, though some in power certainly saw him as that. More, it is of a radical reformer preaching the 'good news' of the coming kingdom of God in the world, to the poor and marginalised, a kingdom in which the first will be last and the last first.

The first glimpse that we get of the revolutionary nature of Jesus ministry is at the beginning of St Mark's Gospel chap 1 v 15. Jesus proclaims, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near: repent and believe the good news.' (NRSV). I have always thought that the English translations of this verse doesn't fully convey the impact of this verse. Then last week, the Diocese of Grafton published a paraphrase of that verse by Kurt Struckmeyer, an American writer and theologian, on its Facebook page. It reads, 'The decisive time has arrived, for the conspiracy of love is rising up to challenge the unjust systems of the world. Change your whole way of thinking and living and risk everything for this radical message of hope.' For me this understanding of that early proclamation pretty much sums St Mark's message and the message of the Advent season.

Advent blessings to all.