Living Wittily

Konference, Kenosis, Kindness and Kinship

  Had a great time with the folk who were at the Minister's Refreshment Conference at Hayes Conference Centre. The folk could not have been kinder in welcoming me .

Met a number of people I'd only had blog contact with before - which continues to persuade me that  virtual community is possible, providing at some stage faces, voices and presence are experienced in encounter. The faces matter  - if only to revise preconceptions of how we imagine people look! Myself included!!

Enjoyed the magazine section when people were able to tell stories of ministry in different ways and places. The common thread seemed to be that however it does it, the church is called to love, to serve and to accompany.

Met and made friends with several folk as we exchanged email addresses and made arrangements to meet or share ideas.

Got the chance to do my paper on kenosis - it was well received and encourages me to pursue further what can sound utterly preposterous, ridiculously pretentious and well-intentioned but hopeless - personal research into the love of God!

Amongst the highlights - a service of communion which included anointing for refreshment of ministry. I was privileged to share in offering this ministry - and at the end to receive it. No need for theological analysis - I am content with humbly receiving whatever God wants to make of such a gift and grace.

And finally. The opportunity to sit and talk at the table, or with coffee holding up a doorpost, or in the corridor or wandering round the lake - to share, listen, recognise that this ministry thing is a lifelong entanglement and a lifetime's investment in ordinary folk struggling to make sense of their lives, looking for comfort and support, and willing to risk belonging in covenant and community with others. So the great purpose of God moves on, towards the renewing and bringing to completion of a creation born and borne - born out of love and borne eternally in the heart of God.

 

Kenosis, Divine Love and the Triune God - a Theological Contribution to Christian Spirituality.

This week I'm at Swanwick where I've been asked to offer the keynote theological address to a gathering of ministers at their refresher course. I've worked on this now for sometime and those of you who read here regularly will know of my current research on kenosis. While kenotic understandings of Christology have had a fairly negative press over the past century, there is something of a revival of interest in kenosis recently. My own interest is in the usefulness of self-emtpying and self-giving as a way of undserstanding what we mean when we talk of the Divine love, or how we interpret the defining statement God is love,in the light of the events of incarnation,cross and resurrection.

If, and I realise it is a rather significant if, but if the love that is the mutual exchange of the three persons of the Trinity is reflected in the obedience and self-giving of Jesus, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, then Kenosis far from being a marginal or unwelcome Christological oddity, may provide a crucial standpoint from which to consider the eternal disposition of the Triune God. The impetus to creation is divine love - creation itself is an act of kenosis, of divine relinquishment of that self-contained existence in which there is nothing other, beyond the life of the Triune God. The Created order, as that to which the love of the Triune God outflows in creative and redemptive gift, further indicates the nature of Divine love as that which enables and allows to exist, that which is other than God. And then not only allows that Creation to persist despite its tragic and marred history, but enters that created history in human form to redeem, reconcile, renew and thus recreate.

Such kenotic love of the Triune God, revealed in history once and for all in the history ofJesus on the cross, but eternally true of God, indicates the intended disposition of those who are in Christ, called to Christlikeness, and called to love one another as God in Christ has loved us. Kenosis is not a Christological novelty, but a clue to the love of the Triune God, and thus a genuine grace and call in Christian spirituality. The call is only possible by grace, is grace enabled, and is a call to graced giving to those others with whom we live and whom we encounter on the journey

That in fairly dense form, is what I hope to explore more fully and practically at the conference. No doubt the feedback will require me to think again - which would be good.

The Wisdom of Desmond Tutu

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.

A kid asked me a few years ago, "What do you do to get the [Nobel] prize?"

I said, "It's very easy, you just need three things - you must have an easy name, like Tutu for example, you must have a large nose and you must have sexy legs." 

The above are randomly chosen words from one of the greatest living exponents of Christian discipleship. No wonder Tutu likes to dance. Humour, humanity and holiness all rolled into one flawed but joyful Christian. Few people can preach an entire sermon, change the course of a conversation or interview, or restore trust to a relationship, with a smile. Tutu is one of those special people whose view of the world is itself a gesture of healing. 

A theology of friendship - who knows where to start?

Radical Believer asked in his comment about a theology of friendship. My own study and thought has tended to explore the wider range of human experiences gathered under the multi-referential term love. Friendship is one expression of human love, and the classic exposition of love, friendship, affection and eros is C S Lewis, The Four Loves. Lewis's book suffers from the qualities and limitations of all Lewis's work. It is sexist, partial and at times infuriatingly condescending, with the tone of the University Common room of the mid-20th Century. But it is also written by a man who had married late, out of compassion which had grown from intellectual companionship to a love the intensity of which makes A Grief Observed one of the most genuine documents ever written on human love and loss. As well as which, Lewis is a moral writer, not moralistic, but ethically alert to those inner mechanisms of motive, human relationships, intellectual and emotional intelligence. So his book is still my starting point - and I've just used it again as a way into a quite significant theological exploration of love as self-giving. The scanned picture is of my hardback First Edition :))

A theology of friendship has been explored recently in several interesting contexts. One in particular is of significant interest to me. Friendship has become a major theme in developing an adequate theology of disability. Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology and Ethics by Hans Reinders is a substantial exploration of what it means to be human. The relation between our humanity and our capacity for friendship is the context within which Reinders explores the theological significance, and ethical implications of what it means to be a friend. In the background are two of the most important figures in the past 60 years, so far as our understanding of humanity and friendship are concerned. Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen live the theology of friendship, and friendship is defined in the actions and dispositions we inhabit as we love and accompany others in life together.

But radical believer is looking for starting points. Can readers of this blog suggest some of these in the comments? Who knows what to read, where to look for theological reflection on friendship? And you poets out there - poems on friendship?
 

Hospitality that distinctly human way of obeying God

If a hospital is where you go when you need looking after, a place of healing and care, then I suppose I can see where the word hospitality comes from, semantically speaking. I came across the picture of the three angels by Marc Chagall again yesterday while looking for something else. This Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah is at once comical and mystical, poignant and puzzling. But the basic theme and the obvious point of the story is the refusal in Abraham's time to refuse welcome, food and refreshment. Entertaining angels unawares might be a miraculous by product - but the first obligation is welcome, provision and the courtesies of care. Even angels need a place to feel safe and be cared for in the desert.

Ever since I read his Reith lectures, The Persistence of Faith, I have read, admired and learned much from the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. He has recently written a commentary on Genesis in which he suggests that the human being is invested with such dignity and value by God, that to welcome and care for another person is more important than obligations of prayer and personal devotion. The suggestion that God will understand our missing prayers while we serve others is a profoundly counter-intuitive move in the exegesis of this passage. But something similar is happening in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The passers by were either watching out for themselves, or focused on doing their religious duty to God. Both were wrong.

Of course hospitality can take unexpected turns. So the announcement of a baby for the octogenarian Sarah is one of those great literary moments of poignant comedy. Sarah laughed. Now mocking the words of a guest is a serious breach of the courtesies of hospitality. But be fair. It did sound far fetched. And so this story lies at the pivotal moment of Jewish history when the promise to Abraham would be fulfilled and would depend on welcome given, food provided, and the courtesy of care to unknown guests.

I am left wondering about the way we live our lives, and whether we live with a responsibility to those who touch our lives, and whether friendship and welcome, trust and provision, care and courtesy, can survive the legitimation of selfishness that lies at the heart of the discourse of recession. Used often enough, and with the persuasive authority of media reported discourse, words like hard choices, severe cuts, reduced costs of welfare provision, are normalised, and the unthinkable becomes thinkable because it is reiterated till we inwardly accede to its inevitability. But not so. Not if this story still has currency as human wisdom and divine revelation.

The care for each other, the looking out for the vulnerable, the necessary championing of compassion as the default response of a civilised society, would be one way of practising hospitality as a social virtue and even as a political value. Wonder if the church of Jesus might have a think about what it might mean to embody welcome, inclusion, the courtesy of care, and like hospitals be places where healing and being looked after are more important than anything else. Back to this word missional again - still don't like it. I think to embody the hospitality of God, to entertain others and discover angels, might make us think again about what is possible for God. Sarah laughed - I don't blame her. Sometimes angels say ludicrous things - like at the Annunciation to Mary, and Jesus birth to shepherds - and at an empty tomb to another Mary. And isn't it interesting that some of the most moving post resurrection stories are about hospitality - Jesus cooking breakfast, and breaking bread before bed time.....

Friendship with God.

Only when God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed.

Each of us is loved.

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful that to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.

(Benedict XVI from the inauguration Mass as Pope on April 24, 2005)

 

 

Coincidence, providence, random Bible verses and guidance or what?

A week or so ago driving down the road and looked at the mileometer.

Total miles travelled, though I didn't reset it before leaving, 114.9 miles.

At the same time I'm passing a petrol station where unleaded petrol is 114.9 pence.

Now I don't do the random open your Bible and see what it says thing, so deduce this is sheer coincidence.

Begin to worry about the word coincidence when providence, or guidance might be more theologically responsible words.

Run through in my head whether this could be a Bible verse - if so, could only be Psalm 114.9.

Still don't do the random Bible verse thing, but just in case....I check, but it's OK.

Psalm 114 only has 8 verses, so couldn't be guidance.

Spoke with a friend about this coincidence, and received the following email reply, which is worryingly worrying!

"As I'm sure you've already checked - Psalm 114 sadly only has 8 verses - however the 9th verse on the 114th page of my NIV says "If it is spreading in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is infectious", is that of any help!! This guidance thing is difficult."

Now supposing petrol goes up in price, what verses might be appropriate guidance from the relevant Psalm.

I've looked - most of them are quite comforting - 140.9 is a good one for my enemies! As are 141.9 and 143.9.

And I like 146.9 as a message of comfort and inclusion for those who have little sense of belonging.

No. I still don't think random verses are the way ahead. Anyway, I hope petrol doesn't go up that much anytime soon!

The Spiritual Quest of John Henry Newman and Lead Kindly Light as a Hymn for Postmodern doubters?

John Henry Newman is by any standards a giant of the Victorian age. A supreme literary artist, a profound religious thinker, a man of delicate feelings and gifted with a conscience which sought and found its magnetic north only after much wavering. His conversion to the Catholic Church shocked and shook the English Establishment to its foundations. His spirituality is rooted in an intellect suffused with deep religious affections, informed by long immersion in the Church Fathers, disciplined and kept alert by a conscience both precise and commanding, nurtured and nourished by prayer and meditation on the mystery and majesty of God. Newman loved God first with his mind, then with his heart, and finally with his whole being. 

Much will be said about him today, and there are over a dozen new books to coincide with his Beatification. But you know, there is probably no more appreciative and careful assessment of Newman in print than that written by Dr Alexander Whyte, in which warm admiration, reverent and restrained criticism, and spiritual affinity are distilled into an essay replete with sympathetic insight and balanced in generous judgement. It is one of the great acts of ecumenical courage that Dr Alexander Whyte, Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, the most influential preacher and churchman in his denomination, a Moderator and Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh, should be one who on his CV had a warm and friendly visit to Cardinal John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory. Whyte was an example of the "hospitable hearted evangelical" a phrase he himself coined, a man of catholic spirit, theologically generous and for these reasons, in the view of many in his denomination, a maverick.

But in Cardinal Newman, Principal Whyte found a kindred spirit. Both were men of principled conscience, devotional constancy, intellectual range and grasp, first class literary and theological scholars in an age of information explosion, loyal and tenacious to their respective church traditions, and exemplary in the living out of their respective spiritual traditions.The Dream of Gerontius Whyte thought the best religious poetry since Dante.

But it is Newman's best known hymn I'm reproducing today. Why? Because it is an honest expression of doubt, uncertainty, wistfulness, self-knowledge, and hard won trust. There are few times I've sung it - it's now too gloomy for contemporary worship tastes, it's plummeting down the list of funeral choices, and as with much else Victorian it's simply too cleverly written for an age more attuned to strap lines, sound bytes and alternative devotional books like The Dark Night of the Soul for Dummies!

But as an articulation of what it feels like to not be sure, to have lost your bearings, to pray for re-orientation and recognisable landmarks;

as an affirmation of trust that is half way between defiance and surrender, and lives the tension between fear and faith;

as a prayer that reads like the experience of looking into a dark night, hands groping forwards to intimate danger, feet inching and feeling their way but going on nevertheless;

as a poem that uses words as a means of grace, and shapes them to the needs of the human heart

All this and much else makes Lead Kindly Light a devotional treasure that belongs to the whole church. Today is a day he would have been embarrassed by. Not because he did not believe the Church should canonise its finest examples of Christlikeness; but because he would never have thought himself worthy. And self-disqualification may be the more important qualification for sainthood. Anyway, as I make my way to church, I read again, slowly, this hymn for pilgrims.

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus,
nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path;
but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me,
sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,
till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Benedict XVI in London, Education, Dialogue and Freedom ( I )

When Tony Blair famously said the priorities for a 21st Century economy were "Education. Education. Education", he said more than he meant, and New Labour delivered less than he promised. Long before him the Scottish Reformation Kirk aimed to have a school in every parish, an historic decision Pope Benedict XVI commended in his response to the Queen's welcome. Education remained closely related to the Church in its various expressions in the following centuries, Catholic, Established and Nonconformist, until from the mid 19th Century onwards the state increasingly took responsibility for universal education. The resources needed, and the economic implications of having an educated, skilled and trained population capable of competing in modern industrialised societies, made it increasingly necessary that Government rather than Voluntary Agencies should drive educational provision.

Alongside state provision in Britain, the Catholic Church has had its own established network of faith schools. Education remains a primary goal of Catholic social policy and theology today, and involves massive commitments of resources worldwide. When Benedict spoke on Friday to several thousand young people at St Mary's University College he spoke of those things that make life good and make for human happiness. To be happy is to be a friend of God. To live well there must be good models, those whose lives are worthy of imitation. There is much in Benedict's public discourse, and in his message here in Britain, that reflects the profound thinking of his encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate. To be friends of God is a description of a relationship in which love is the exchange of divine grace and human response. He spoke of God's love, and God's desire for happiness and holiness as essentials of a full humanity, and did so as one who has thought profoundly, and spoke simply.

This is a Pope whose theological emphases decisively shape his public discourse, and he talks with ease and practised confidence about the love of God, but also about those cultural and intellectual trends that undermine and erode the humane goals of education as a humanly formative activity. To talk theologically, and with a heightened social conscience in a showpiece Catholic educational establishment, is to introduce a quite different level of discourse about the meaning, significance, purpose and practice of education. Whatever arguments there may be about the place of faith based schools in a pluralist culture, they provide an important corrective and in a democarcy a required alternative, to secularised education evacuated of religiously formative education.

John Henry Newman's Idea of a University reads today like an impractical, unaffordable, unwanted and idealistic educational utopia. Unless of course you want to challenge the prevailing secular view that education is a process whose primary goal is economic growth and development, student employability and mass produced graduates. But I'm reluctant to concede the inevitable and final necessity for such educational reductionism, or that these are the only or best educational goals. It may indeed be inevitable that state funded education in our universities has to bend to the economic priorities, and available funding of the Government of the day. But there will still be, in my own view, a place for those institutions which exist to serve more humanising ends, including religious instruction, moral formation, humanising values, intellectual humility, and these explored within a faith tradition both itself open to critique and yet critically aware of alternative worldviews.

Benedict has a similarly rich and humane view of the purpose of religious encounter between different faiths. Such meeting he said yesterday, is a necessary expression of human formation, cultural development and social interaction. Co-operation and dialogue engender mutual respect, and enable faith traditions to support each other in seeking freedom of worship. of conscience and of association. Nor should such co-operation and mutual understanding be selfish, but provide a platform from which faith groups can work for peace, mutual understanding and witness to the world. Living alongside each other and learning and growing in respect and knowledge of each other, provides a fertile soil for peace, justice and works of compassion to grow.

Whatever else can be said about this Papal visit, each time Benedict has spoken he has been generous in spirit, rigorous in intellect and both warm and dignified in his responsiveness. And the issues he deals with are of common concern to all humanity - justice and peace, the foundation of moral standards, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the nature of education, the relations of faith and reason, and of spirituality and secularity. This is a man of courage, conviction and adamantine firmness on dogma; he is also a man of intellectual power, pastoral passion for the global church and ranks as one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the past 50 years. Interesting that the current Pope and the current Archbishop of Canterbury are both regarded as scholar theologians of the first class, at a time when intellectual range and depth are discounted in the markets of contemporary communication culture.

 

Benedict XVI in Scotland - a mass celebration of the Mass, and an occasion of public witness

It isn't often that 70,000 people gather together in a public park to affirm their faith, to share in community and to celebrate the Christian Gospel story in praise and a public act of worship. The exuberance and festive atmosphere, tempered by a cold wind in bright sunshine, bore witness to the place of Christian faith and experience in the lives of many thousands of Scottish Roman Catholics.

Earlier yesterday morning I listened to a discussion on Radio Scotland about the persecution and discrimination against the Scottish Catholic community in the earlier years of the 20th Century. Scottish historian, Tom Devine, put such discrimination in its context, and it wasn't a context Scottish folk, or the Church of Scotland, should be proud of. Then we moved inevitably to what is now referred to as Scotland's enduring shame, the sectarian undercurrent that remains a dangerous and toxic undertow in Scottish life.

Before writing more, let me tell you a story of a young Lanarkshire Baptist, who around 1970 was at night school doing O level English, in an evening class. The class was made up of him, and five nuns from the Sisters of Charity Convent. He had never encountered a nun in person before. Eighteen months previously he hadn't even been in a church before! I remember still, trying to explain my conversion, and that I was a Baptist, and wanted to be a minister - and the smiles and nodding heads. All I ever received from those Sisters was affirmation, welcome, encouragement and the quiet gentleness of those who lived up to the name of their order. I received charity - that old fashioned word for love that combines goodwill and conferred worth, supportive friendship, laughter and a common struggle with Shakespeare, Keats, and practical criticism. I don't remember specific conversations - I do remember looking forward to being there, and very early on discovering that loving and serving Jesus is a substantial enough foundation for fellowship across Christian traditions - habit wearing nuns and me with a denim jacket, very long hair, jeans and yes, high heeled boots! These five sisters encouraged and supported me through a hard year and never once called in question the reality and importance of my personal Christian experience. I wish I'd kept in touch with them, and if they are still around I wish them all blessing.

That is only one, though a deeply significant encounter, that has taught me always to assume friendship, to embrace rather than exclude, to respect difference and look for common ground with other people of faith. And to look with critical eye on the limited horizons, spiritual deficits, and theological distinctives of my own tradition as a Baptist. So the whole sectarian thing, with its latent hatred, chronic prejudice and acid-like social corrosiveness, I find a profound offense to the Gospel of Jesus, and to my own spirituality.

So an occasion when 70,000 Scottish Catholic people celebrate Mass in the presence of the Pope, and singing the praise of God in Christ in the power of the Spirit, I see as an historic act of witness in a culture where mass crowds are usually drawn together for events of far lesser import for human flourishing.

So when a 106 year old Catholic woman from Rutherglen speaks of the humbling privilege of being there with her great grandson; or two cowboy hat wearing women call themselves come-back Catholics and act as if that was actually a good and a life changing thing; or several children are blessed by an 83 year old man whose gentle hand proffered blessing expresses the Church's genuine attitude to its children; or when newly composed music is learned, practised and sung in worship in the open air of our largest city; or when the Gospel is read in public and Benedict speaks with carefully balanced encouragement and warning about the moral, intellectual and economic tendencies of British society, and urges a revitalising of faith and lived Christian values; when all that happens, and more, then the significance of yesterday's Bellahouston event is best understood on several levels.

As a social event it enabled a broad strand of Scottish religious tradition to give public voice to the core values of Roman Catholic faith. In doing so we witnessed freedom of religious expression, an affirmation that such faith and freedom are essential to a healthy society.

As a spiritual occasion, a large number of Roman Catholic people were strengthened in their faith, affirmed in their shared understanding of the Gospel, and given an opportunity to make pilgrimage together in shared worship and celebration.

As an ecumenical occasion, my own view is quite straightforward. Such a gathering indicates there are deep wells of devotion that still hold reserves of refreshing water in Scottish Catholic experience. And as Christianity in Western Europe, and in Scotland, is increasingly marginalised by the "aggressive secularism" that so concerns Pope Benedict XVI, there are important rapprochements and conversations that should be taking place across the traditions of the Christian church. Not an ecumenicity of institutional merger, or theological convergence - true ecumenism is not about dissolving diversity into uniformity. But a recognition that in building the economy (oekumene) of the Kingdom of God, co-operative fellowship, mutual supportiveness, respectful listening, humble learning, confident witnessing, arise not out of organisational fusion, but from a shared loyalty to God in Christ. Benedict talked of the importance of freedom and tolerance in any society which contains diverse faith communities. Equally necessary is freedom and tolerance between faith communities, and where possible co-operative friendship and mutual supportiveness.

I know. Maybe you need to be an 18 year old red hot freshly minted evangelical Baptist, encountering five Sisters of Charity whose patience and tolerance and love for Jesus were so unarguably obvious and so unsectarian in spirit, to write this kind of stuff decades later. Maybe so. In which case I gladly pay tribute to five sisters who, along with many others since, within and beyond Catholic and Baptist circles, have taught me much of what I know of generosity of mind, hospitality of heart and receptiveness of spirit. Through such experiential lenses I watched the Bellahouston celebration, and rejoiced that Christ was proclaimed.