When ANZAC Day occurs on a Sunday, the church’s regular day of worship, we are confronted with a conflict: will we shift our services so that members may attend the ANZAC ceremonies? Will ministers of religion put ANZAC addresses ahead of regular Sunday worship? Will we choose to attend a Christian service of worship or a civic ceremony?
ANZAC Day is a national and civic celebration. On this day, we remember those who have fought and particularly those who died in the cause of national goals, values, ideals, society. Their sacrifice is not meaningless. It is through their sacrifice that we enjoy the society we live in today. However, we need to be careful—ANZAC Day is not necessarily a Christian celebration, although Christian people participate in it. There is a sense in which Christians will always approach ANZAC ceremonies with ambivalence.
Some of that ambivalence will arise when ANZAC ceremonies appear to glorify war and/or military solutions to global conflicts; and indeed many veterans will join us in our ambivalence when that occurs. Probably most of us know or have known veterans who choose not to participate in the ANZAC Day activities because their experiences were so traumatic.
Some of our ambivalence will arise because our regular, formative practice of worship is presumed to be secondary to such civic occasions. At such times, we must think very carefully about what our priorities are and what any of our actions may communicate to our community—does giving up our worship time signal that this is a disposable part of the Christian Life? Does choosing to worship rather than attend ANZAC ceremonies indicate that we do not care for the world around us?
A lot of our ambivalence must also arise around the imagery of sacrifice used in ANZAC ceremonies. For Christian people, the ultimate sacrifice is not the deaths of war and armed conflict as terrible as they are. For us, the ultimate sacrifice is the entry of God into our world as Jesus and Jesus’ participation in our humanity to the fullest extent, i.e. death. In the sacrifice that God makes through Christ, we are shown that no other life sacrifice is necessary. Therefore, on ANZAC day, while we remember the losses of war, and reflect on the apparent gains won through those losses, we must also mourn the fact that any loss occurred at all. For us, the life, death and resurrection of Christ means that the only sacrifice required is a life of honouring God in worship, witness and service—a “sacrifice of thanksgiving” to God.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
A Very, Very Short Catechism
Who are you?
We are the people of God,
the body of Christ, the communion of the Spirit.
What is your calling?
To worship, witness and serve
in the name of our Triune God.
And what does that entail?
Praying, sharing, caring, loving
in the manner of Christ.
To what end do you do this?
For the sake of the new life given to us by God
through Christ in the power of the Spirit.
Then let us honour the God
who has granted us resurrection life
and calls us to share that life
for the sake of God’s world.
We are the people of God,
the body of Christ, the communion of the Spirit.
What is your calling?
To worship, witness and serve
in the name of our Triune God.
And what does that entail?
Praying, sharing, caring, loving
in the manner of Christ.
To what end do you do this?
For the sake of the new life given to us by God
through Christ in the power of the Spirit.
Then let us honour the God
who has granted us resurrection life
and calls us to share that life
for the sake of God’s world.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Faith, Hope & Love
In The Cross in our Context (2003), Douglas John Hall asks what a contemporary understanding of Christian mission looks like when it takes the crucified, risen Christ seriously, and avoids triumphalism. He suggests that such a mission is found in Paul’s 3 great theological virtues—faith, hope and love.
Faith is about trust. We do not possess truth. We “bear witness to the living therefore unpossessible Truth”. We proclaim Christ, “the one toward whom [our] faith is oriented” and whom we “experience as being utterly transcendent of [our] faith as such”. “A theology that bases itself on faith alone (sola fide) cannot in its worldly witness legitimately behave as though it were infallible.” Such faith will embrace dialogue, humility, openness, a sense of mystery, questions and doubt in the fundamental disposition of trust, i.e. faith (pp. 193-194).
Hope is not about “finality or consummation”. A mission based in hope will recognise the “expansiveness of divine grace that far exceeds its own grasp and representation of this mission”. Our hope is in God, not in our “own always-limited appropriation of God’s redemptive work”. “Christian mission is a particular, ongoing attempt faithfully to comprehend and participate in the missio Dei… Christians are those who have glimpsed in faith something of the reality and depth of this divine labour and who strive to involve themselves in it.” But it is not our work. We are not a “finished” community. (p. 195). We are a pilgrim people “always on the way to the promised goal” (Basis of Union Para. 3).
The “love that is the pattern and inspiration of the Christian mission is a ‘spontaneous and unmotivated’ love, agape, that is wholly turned toward the other in disregard of self—to the point of suffering and death, the death of the cross.” Mission that is not motivated by love is motivated by power. It is motivated by the will to control or to appear successful or to make everyone think like us. Mission motivated by love will recognise our own failings. It will be ready to beg forgiveness and eager to receive and share God’s word of forgiveness. “Love is the canon by which all or our actions as Christians, including mission and evangelism as well as all social outreach and neighbourliness, are measured” (Hall pp. 197-198).
Faith is about trust. We do not possess truth. We “bear witness to the living therefore unpossessible Truth”. We proclaim Christ, “the one toward whom [our] faith is oriented” and whom we “experience as being utterly transcendent of [our] faith as such”. “A theology that bases itself on faith alone (sola fide) cannot in its worldly witness legitimately behave as though it were infallible.” Such faith will embrace dialogue, humility, openness, a sense of mystery, questions and doubt in the fundamental disposition of trust, i.e. faith (pp. 193-194).
Hope is not about “finality or consummation”. A mission based in hope will recognise the “expansiveness of divine grace that far exceeds its own grasp and representation of this mission”. Our hope is in God, not in our “own always-limited appropriation of God’s redemptive work”. “Christian mission is a particular, ongoing attempt faithfully to comprehend and participate in the missio Dei… Christians are those who have glimpsed in faith something of the reality and depth of this divine labour and who strive to involve themselves in it.” But it is not our work. We are not a “finished” community. (p. 195). We are a pilgrim people “always on the way to the promised goal” (Basis of Union Para. 3).
The “love that is the pattern and inspiration of the Christian mission is a ‘spontaneous and unmotivated’ love, agape, that is wholly turned toward the other in disregard of self—to the point of suffering and death, the death of the cross.” Mission that is not motivated by love is motivated by power. It is motivated by the will to control or to appear successful or to make everyone think like us. Mission motivated by love will recognise our own failings. It will be ready to beg forgiveness and eager to receive and share God’s word of forgiveness. “Love is the canon by which all or our actions as Christians, including mission and evangelism as well as all social outreach and neighbourliness, are measured” (Hall pp. 197-198).
Meeting Jesus
In the weeks following Easter, we are confronted with a series of questions:
• Who is Jesus Christ for us today?
• Where do we meet Christ in our time?
From the scriptures, we hear about encounters with the risen Christ; and some of the great “I am…” statements from the Gospel of John.
So, where do you find the crucified Christ in our world today? Where do you see suffering because of injustice and failure to recognise the value of God’s creation? Where do you find the resurrected Christ in our world today? Where do you find life and hope overpowering death and despair? The crucified and resurrected Christ are one and the same; and we cannot recognise Christ without considering both dimensions.
When we look only for a resurrected, powerful Christ whom we may celebrate with joy without remembering the pain, our Christianity will be “triumphalist”. It will forget that life in Christ makes sense only because of the journey of the life of Christ—the entry of God into the world created by God. God is with us in all of mortal life, that we might be with God in that life which transcends death. God gives life in the face of a world that deals death particularly to the vulnerable.
When we look only for a crucified Christ without remembering the gift of new life, our Christianity will be maudlin and pietistic. It will glory in despair rather than hope; and forget that we are called to participate in God’s ongoing mission in the world and for the sake of the world.
• Who is Jesus Christ for us today?
• Where do we meet Christ in our time?
From the scriptures, we hear about encounters with the risen Christ; and some of the great “I am…” statements from the Gospel of John.
So, where do you find the crucified Christ in our world today? Where do you see suffering because of injustice and failure to recognise the value of God’s creation? Where do you find the resurrected Christ in our world today? Where do you find life and hope overpowering death and despair? The crucified and resurrected Christ are one and the same; and we cannot recognise Christ without considering both dimensions.
When we look only for a resurrected, powerful Christ whom we may celebrate with joy without remembering the pain, our Christianity will be “triumphalist”. It will forget that life in Christ makes sense only because of the journey of the life of Christ—the entry of God into the world created by God. God is with us in all of mortal life, that we might be with God in that life which transcends death. God gives life in the face of a world that deals death particularly to the vulnerable.
When we look only for a crucified Christ without remembering the gift of new life, our Christianity will be maudlin and pietistic. It will glory in despair rather than hope; and forget that we are called to participate in God’s ongoing mission in the world and for the sake of the world.
Against the orders of hate
you bring us the law of love.
In the face of so many lies
you are the truth out loud.
Amid so much new of death
you have the word of life.
After so many false promises, frustrated hopes,
you have, Lord Jesus, the last word,
and we have put all our trust in you. Alleluia.
(from Misa dos Quilombos by Pedro Casaldaligo, Trans. By Tony Graham, Christian Aid; Reproduced in Bread of Tomorrow ed. by Janet Morley, SPCK, 1992, p. 138.)
Happy Easter!
Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Happy Easter everybody!
This day is the celebration of the Christian year. It was probably the first Christian feast; and it was celebrated every Sunday, the day of resurrection, as Christians gathered to read the Scriptures, share God’s Word and participate in the meal of thanksgiving.
In Christian time, Sunday is both the first day of creation and the 8th day of creation—the day of re-creation in Christ. On this day we celebrate all that God has done for us in creation, redemption and sanctification. And on Easter Sunday, we are reminded that all this is revealed to us in Jesus and that our reconciliation with God is accomplished through Jesus.
Janet Morley suggests that the “announcement of the defeat of death by life is strangely problematic for many of us” particularly in western cultures to understand and to celebrate. “We expect Easter to provide an uncomplicated and uncostly source of joy, and are puzzled when it does not… By contrast, it is those who have literally endured the cost and the risk of Passiontide, who are the readiest to hear the message of resurrection and claim it as truth.” For Morley, Easter “points us most vividly the distance that lies between those who have or who have not, as individuals or communities, explicitly confronted the powers of evil, and moved beyond the fear of death to a place of inexplicable freedom and life” (from Bread of Tomorrow, SPCK, 1992, pp. 119-120).
This day is the celebration of the Christian year. It was probably the first Christian feast; and it was celebrated every Sunday, the day of resurrection, as Christians gathered to read the Scriptures, share God’s Word and participate in the meal of thanksgiving.
In Christian time, Sunday is both the first day of creation and the 8th day of creation—the day of re-creation in Christ. On this day we celebrate all that God has done for us in creation, redemption and sanctification. And on Easter Sunday, we are reminded that all this is revealed to us in Jesus and that our reconciliation with God is accomplished through Jesus.
Janet Morley suggests that the “announcement of the defeat of death by life is strangely problematic for many of us” particularly in western cultures to understand and to celebrate. “We expect Easter to provide an uncomplicated and uncostly source of joy, and are puzzled when it does not… By contrast, it is those who have literally endured the cost and the risk of Passiontide, who are the readiest to hear the message of resurrection and claim it as truth.” For Morley, Easter “points us most vividly the distance that lies between those who have or who have not, as individuals or communities, explicitly confronted the powers of evil, and moved beyond the fear of death to a place of inexplicable freedom and life” (from Bread of Tomorrow, SPCK, 1992, pp. 119-120).
Life goes beyond death,
because life is called to life, not death.
That is the plan of its creator.
But life blossoms into full flower
only in those who nurture life
here on this earth;
in those who defend its rights,
protect its dignity,
and are even willing to accept death
in their witness to it.
(From Way of the Cross—Way of Justice by Leonardo Boff, Orbis, 1998; Reproduced in Bread of Tomorrow ed. by Janet Morley, SPCK, 1992, p. 132).
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