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

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(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.

Sunday Post 2

 

Things That I have Unlearned 

 

As I have aged I have discovered a number of things that I have had to unlearn.

 

Here are a few. The list is by no means exhaustive but at least it will give you an understanding of where my thinking is today. Maybe this will give you an opportunity to reflect and perhaps respond. I do welcome comments no matter what they may be.

 

l That God is a (male, white) being separate from humanity dwelling in a separate realm who, like a patriarchal puppet master, controls all that happens for humanity and judges our individual actions.

I don’t think that I have ever believed this in its crudest form but I certainly have had to unlearn some of ‘omni’ prefixes that we generally associate with God the controlling, judging being. God is not a being, and it seems to me that for humans to try to comprehend God is simply us trying to control and limit God. I am happy at this stage of my life just to rest in the mystery of God.

 

l If we have sufficient faith and pray hard enough God will intervene in the world on our behalf to bring about everything we desire provided it is in accord with God’s will.

 

I do believe that God intervenes in the world but not in this way. This is the way to a ‘success ministry’ mentality and we have recently seen where that leads. This is cargo cult ideology. And I do believe that prayer is very important but it is not about ensuring that I get what I want. We have to be very careful about what we pray for in intercessory prayer. I actually think that prayer has much more to do with me than those who I pray about, in centering my thinking and maybe making me more compassionate. God does enter into my life and being always especially when I or those around me or those elsewhere in the world, suffer.

 

l Jesus of Nazareth is the only Son of God, the promised Messiah, God in human flesh

 

I have unlearned much of this. In this regard a quote from Richard Rohr will suffice.

 

“We worshipped Jesus instead of following him on his same path.

 

We made Jesus into a mere religion instead of a journey towards union with God and everything else.

 

This shift made us into a ‘religion of belonging and believing’ instead of a religion of transformation.”  (Richard Rohr)

 

l The Church is always an open community ready to welcome everyone without reservation and includes everyone as a vital member of the family of the Church.

 

For me this is very much a work in progress because I continue to live in hope that this will always be the case. However, my experience over many years has made me realize that the church is rarely an open community because communities seek stability and it is difficult to find that when new people are always coming along and disrupting the status quo especially when they are ‘not like us’. And try suggesting to a person from the LGBTQIA+ community that the church is always an inclusive community.

 

There are many other unlearnings that have been part of my journey into older life but they will have to wait for another day.