Living Wittily

Catherine Lacugna and a Trinitarian Approach to Preaching and Pastoral Practice

 

 

Amongst the books on the Trinity written over the past 40 years, God For Us by Catherine Lacugna is one of the most creative and fresh.

 

 

The last paragraph is a fine summary of why Christian theology is Trinitarian, what is at stake and why in our preaching and pastoral practice the reality of the Triune God is allowed to inform, inspire and underwrite with the grace of God, the life and spirituality of the Christian community. I've rendered it as a prose poem, which is how it reads anyway:

 

The doctrine of the Trinity succeeds

when it illumines God's nearness to us

in Christ and the Spirit.

But it fails if the divine persons are imprisoned in an intradivine realm,

or if the doctrine of the Trinity is relegated

to a purely formal place in speculative theology.

In the end God can only seem farther away than ever.

Preaching and pastoral practice will have to fight a constant battle

to convince us,

to provide assurances,

to make the case

that God is indeed present amongst us,

does inded care for us,

will indeed hear our prayer,

and will be lovingly disposed to respond.

If, on the other hand,

we affirm that the very nature of God

is to seek out the deepest possible communion and friendship

with every last creature,

and if through the doctrine of the Trinity

we do our best to articulate the mystery of God for us,

then preaching and pastoral practice

will fit naturally with the particulars of the Christian life.

Ecclesial life,

sacramental life, 

ethical life,

and sexual life

will be seen clearly as forms of trinitarian life:

living God's life with one another.

Page 411

 

Adidas - The trainers that scored an own goal!

The post last week on those shackle trainers touted but then withdrawn by Adidas, can now be supplemented by a further very interesting perspective. A friend drew attention to the take of the Guradian correspondent on this consumerist own goal. And his perspective is perhaps the more subversive, powerful and telling. Go to the link below and read for yourself.

What the piece does is identify and expose the hubris and accompanying moral blindness of brand driven companies, so assured of their captive market that they miss the internal critique of one of their flagship designers. Was the designer genuinely making a sociao0ethical statement, or is this a clever piece of social hermeneutics?

So here again is the image of these trainers which purportedly carry the message no matter how hard you kick the ball they won't come off. Except the same trainers carry now the more powerful image of a company scoring an own goal in late extra time!

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/19/adidas-trainers-slave-fashion

From aspirational waffle to hopeful imagination

Rowan Williams is too often dismissed as an otherworldly academic, or an amateurish ecclesiastical politician , or an intellectual mystical theologian. I guess he comes over as each of these on occasion. But they are caricatures - there is substance, spiritual, moral and intellectual in this man. And I can well understand the Government of any day trying to maintain those caricatures, because time and again Rowan Williams has spoken truth to power. And he understands power.

So his comments on the big society idea promoted by David Cameron are likely to annoy and irritate, Good. That's what prophets do - they point out the Emperor's nakedness, and describe expedient moralising as 'aspirational waffle'. And then he goes on -

"And if the big society is anything better than a slogan looking increasingly threadbare as we look at our society reeling under the impact of public spending cuts, then discussion on this subject has got to take on board some of those issues about what it is to be a citizen and where it is that we most deeply and helpfully acquire the resources of civic identity and dignity."

The same day it's leaked that the Prime Minister is consdiering axing housing benefit for under 25's as a further corrective of what he and his Government call the welfare culture. Just how is that fixed by destabilising the provision for young people who are already at the hard end of the employment  and opportunity spectrum of our economy. It isn't the Archbishop who lives on a different planet, or who is out of touchwith the realities of modern life.

In terms of where we 'most deeply and helpfully acquire the resources of civic identity and dignity', I'd be more hopeful of the future if the Government supported and resourced such places, as schools, college and universities to do precisely that. Education for employability is one element of human formation - but only one, and the shaping of character, instilling of virtue, opening of minds in generous critical engagement, creating and sustaining self-confidence alongside respect for others, encouraging the celebration of difference and the importance of welcome. Where does all that happen, and whose responsibility, if not the Government's, to create a context where such human fruitfulness flourishes?

 

The Apostle Paul, the Leveson Enquiry and the Ethics of Communication

This morning I was reading Paul's Prison Epistles - Chrysostom describes Ephesians as "sublimely difficult", James Denney found in Colossians the Christ who is the "last reality of the universe", and Philippians, that masterpiece of pastoral diplomacy and theologically powered subversion of the spiritually overwrought ego!

Ever since I bought G B Caird's wee commentary on the Prison Epistles and worked through them guided by that concisely elegant and pastorally alert volume (which cost me £2.25 in 1975), I've gone back to these letters when I need to get my horizons stretched, my mind lifted above the mundanely essential concerns of getting on with life, and my conceptuality refurbished with dimensions that are eternal, transcendent, and regenerative of faith, hope and love.

The unsearchable riches of Christ in Ephesians, the mind that was in Christ Jesus in Philippians, the Christ who is the Head of all things and the Church in Colossians, and that crucified and risen Lord as the inspiration for the radical liberation of Philemon by Onesimus, - these are realities to place alongside the precarious Eurozone, the terror and brutality of Syria, the commercial hysteria of the Olympics which threaten the very integrity of Olympic ideals, the cynical dissolution of truth, human respect and social responsibility exposed serially in the circumstances giving rise to the Levenson enquiry.

One example - how to close a newspaper in 2012 -

"Finally, 

whatsoever things are true,

whatsoever things are honest,

whatsoever things are just,

whatsoever things are pure,

whatsoever things are lovely,

 whatsoever things are of good report;

if there be any virtue,

and if there be any praise,

think [report and write] on these things. (Philippians 4.8 - King James Bible)

Make that the basis of news reporting and perhaps then phone hacking, bribery, nepotism, corruption of office, invasion of privacy, exploitation of the vulnerable and much else would be disqualified. The irony is, the verse was carved in stone outside BBC House by Lord Reith. A first century exhortation, scratched on papyrus and sent to a tiny religious community in a Greco-Roman city, describing healthy mindedness that sustains community, serves as an ethical benchmark for one of the most respected broadcasting institutions in the world. Not bad Paul, not bad at all.....

What Paul could have achieved with an Ipad.....

 

Natural theology in the Cairngorms

After a weekend in Braemar when it didn't stop raining, I put together some photos and words that are the result of just getting on with it. So we went walking up the back of Braemar to see what we could see, apart from mist and drizzle. I know this blog is mostly a theology blog, this time it's natural theology.

 

Drizzled ice cold steam,
Drifts across dark shadowed moor,
Garland of scotch mist.

Mizzle:water falls,
Trillions of liquid life-gifts
Refresh our tired earth.

 

Slow seeping rainfall,
Prodigal irrigation,
Soaking desert hearts.

 

 

What are Adidas thinking of?

These are called by those who have previewed and condemned them, Slave Trainers. There are times when it is necessary to build a case against cynical exploitation, moral bad taste, ethical vacuums; times when you have to argue that something is socially offensive, gratuitously thoughtless, and commercially unacceptable; times when argument is needed to persuade others that what offends is indeed offensive, and what is deemed clever is really the toxic combination of cruelty and stupidity.

But not this time - these are so crassly conceived that they are self-evidently all the things stated above, produced in a moral vacuum, imagined by minds lacking any sense of history, humanity or humility. They are a disgrace.

Of course it may be a publicity stunt. But doesn't sound like it - you can see here and decide.

Jurgen Moltmann quotes Bonhoeffer - "love and remain true to the earth".

Just started this book. In it I find one of my favourite quotations from Bonhoeffer, an essential inclusion in my personal canon of 'Theologians We Dare Not Ignore', quoted by Jurgen Moltmann, one of my most admired theological conversation partners.

Bonhoeffer wrote to his fiance Maria Von Wedemeyer, "God give us faith daily. I don't mean the faith which flees the world but the one that endures in the world and which loves and remains true to the earth  in spite of all the suffering which it contains for us. Our marriage is to be a Yes to God's earth, it is to strengthen our courage to do and to accomplish something on earth."

Moltmann points out that these words were written under a death sentence, and while allied bombing was razing German cities to the ground, "and the blood of murdered Jews cried out to high heaven".

So, Moltmann goes on, "The important thing today is to live this faithfulness to the earth in the crises in which the man made catastrophes to the earth are being heralded. The important thing is to prove this faithfulness in the face of the indifference and cynicism with which people knowingly accept the destruction of the earth's organism and foster ecological death."

Driving up the road from St Andrews I turned off as I usually do to come from Stonehaven to Westhill across some of the shire. In 20 minutes I saw the red kites,those aernonautic show-offs, a yellowhammer sitting on the fence beside the gorse wearing its designer yellow against the golden background. And a field with over a hundred sheep and lambs, and nearer Maryculter an ostrich. Yes, an ostrich. Every time I see it, I'm reminded of a sentence in a book review years ago, used to describe someone who sees what no one else wants to see. In that sense Bonhoeffer and Moltmann are essential theologians because they "stand with head erect amongst the ostriches"!

Christian Sacrifice and Limited Liability.

The things we talk about at the breakfast table. Had breakfast with some colleagues yesterday and the conversation moved to what it means to make sacrifices for the things we think are important. Eventually we came up against one of the harder to resolve questions about Christian devotion. When  we offer ourselves to God in service, or when we serve others in the name of God and as servants of Christ in the power of the Spirit, what do we actually, and really mean, when we use the word "all"? I've thought about that off and on since yesterday.

"All to Jesus, I surrender, All to Him I freely give...." Really? Truly? Or is the word "all" a rhetorical device to express intention, but knowing that what we offer is an unattainable ideal, an exaggerated sense of our capacity to love without reserve and give without holding back?

When Havergal wrote her hymn "Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee", she of course included the couplet "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withold". Are we sure we mean that when we sing it? Or are we assuming a limited liability, or at least a limited generosity, because to give it all would be impossibly self denying and careless of personal possession? One of the first critics of that hymn asked the question, "But what if there are children to feed and clothe?"

"It's all about you Jesus, it's not about me". No, not much! Isn't it nearer the truth that every step off the path of faithful following after Christ, is not about you Jesus, but all about me? And if we really were more self-aware of what we pray for, long for, work our hardest for, what is that all about, and who is it all about?

OK. Enough subversion for now. When Paul urges his readers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice as reasonable worship, it was always ever only going to be possible "by the mercies of God". The paradox is that I can only take up the cross and follow Christ, in and by the strength of Christ. Self giving love is only reasonable if the love of God is poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit.

Only if I am a new creation can I become a minister of reconciliation rather than a servant of self interest and prolonged, pervasive selfishness.

Only if I recognise that I need to learn stuff, will I acknowledge my burdens and wearinness and come unto Him, take on His yoke, and learn of Him.

Then, and only then will I know what I mean and intend by that word "all", when I learn of the One who "reconciles all things to Himself, making peace by the blood of the cross", and so am given permission to blurt out that word "all", in the exaggerated devotion of the consciously forgiven, unconditionally loved and joyfully liberated. And yes I'll struggle and fail repeatedly, in delivering the full content of that word "all".  But the generous, outrageous, unreasonable love of God will go on working and enabling that continuous presenting of my whole self as a living sacrifice, which is my reasonable worship - and all because of the mercies of God. For which, thank God.

The photo was taken in Glen Dye. The image of the lamb lies at the centre of Christian theological reflection on sacrifice, Agnus Dei - Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world....worthy is the Lamb....

The Beauty of Flowers, the Beauty of Holiness, and the Beauty of the Infinite

 

Floral calculus,

beautiful geometry,

beckoning the heart.

 

Amongst the gifts from my grandfather who grew championship begonias, and from my father who showed me how to take cuttings, propagate and care for pot plants, is an appreciation for flowers. And from my childhood roaming Ayrshire farms and fields a familiarity that has never bred contempt for flowers wherever they grow. When Jesus said consider the lilies of the field it wasn't mere metaphor (if metaphors ever are merely 'mere'). Jesus was urging careful attention to beauty's detail, theological imagination to live with the delicate tension of accident and providence, and the contemplative logic of faith - if such prodigal beauty is God's gift to the world, "how much more" God's prodigal love for all he has made, including me.

So when I photograph a flower, I capture a moment of attentive gratitude, of theological imagination, of contemplative logic that when all are combined, become a wordless prayer of praise to God for beauty. To look at a flower, to really look, is to see and hear within, one of those elusive intimations of what makes us human, and capable of finding in beauty that which both breaks and heals the heart. Alongside the beauty of holiness, is the beauty that creates the longing for it.

You're welcome to write your own Haiku in the Comments. The photos were taken while on a day retreat with our College Staff. 

Reconciliation - the Call to Live the Impossible Possibility

Last week I posted some thoughts on Miroslav Volf's work on reconciliation, peacemaking and questions of human identity and otherness. I omitted to give the quotation from Volf, incorporating his encounter with Jurgen Moltmann. Here it is.

" After I finished my lecture Professor Jurgen Moltmann stood up and asked one of his typical questions, both concrete and penetrating: "But can you embrace a cetnik" It was the winter of 1993. For months now the notorious Serbian fighters called cetnik had been sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches and destroying cities. I had just argued that we ought to embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. Can I embrace a cetnik - the ultimate other, so to speak, the evil other? What would justify the embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat? It took me a while to answer, though I immediately knew what I wanted to say. "No, I cannot - but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to".

That is one of the most courageous and honest theologically anguished exchanges I know in theological literature. Moltmann's own theology has been hammered out for decades, using the raw material of his own experiences in war and imprisonment, supplemented by deep reflection on the nature of hope, the meaning of the cross and the mystery of the Triune God. Volf's theology is equally born of profound suffering, experienced and witnessed, and passed through the lens of Christian theology and discipleship. For both men, what is believed has to be able to be lived, faith issues in action congruent with what is believed, convictions about God have decisive purchase on human behaviour, relationships and community.

It is one of the great ironies of Christian history and contemporary Christian existence that a faith tradition which proclaims a Gospel of reconciliation, is embodied in communities and alternative traditions characterised by grievance, suspicion, unhealed fractures and unresolved differences. It is difficult to maintain credibility when the forgiven resist the call to forgive, and when the reconciled build walls of self justification, and construct a rationale for defining identity over and against "the other". Yet it was ever thus, and it may be that the Gospel of Reconciliation entrusted to the church, and the ministry of reconciliation entrusted to those who seek to follow faithfully after Christ, together provide for all Christians an obvious mission imperative in a fractured world, divided by mutually hostile ideologies; a world in which peacemaking, community building, forgiveness and active compassion are to be given embodied presence through the witness of communities of reconciliation, from which attitudes and actions of willed vulnerability and hopeful courage flow outwards offering a radical alternative utterly earthed in the truth of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

All of which is idealistic - as most far reaching visions of human flourishing tend to be in their origins. The issue is whether these ideals find embodiment, commitment and the willed practices of a community resourced by the grace, mercy and peace of God who, like these his children, hungers and thirsts for righteousness.