Living Wittily

The Book of Daniel: "subversive power and shimmering with imagery designed to de-construct the political status quo."

My first serious encounter with the weird and the wonderful in the book of Daniel was in College in the mid 1970s. Our tutor was Dr Derek Murray, and we sat around the table with two commentaries, a multi-volume Bible dictionary and notepads. It was fascinating, and it was fun. The stories in the first few chapters seemed straightforward enough, like good old-fashioned Sunday School stories.

Until we started to do what would now be called applying an anti-imperial hermeneutic, and then dived into the theological fankles of apocalyptic and fantastical visions of cosmic turmoil. The whole semester we worked away at making sense of a form of literature laced with subversive power and shimmering with imagery designed to de-construct the political status quo. I loved it, and at times in various ministries preached on Daniel as a declarative and interrogative text.

No wonder one of the best books on Daniel is entitled Circle of Sovereignty, sub-titled Plotting Politics and the Book of Daniel. It is not possible to preach on Daniel and ignore the political realities of power, justice, freedom and the question of "what or to whom do we owe our ultimate allegiance?" The stories in chapters 1-6 are far from simple tales of wisdom and danger, or stories which merely show how to outwit tyrants. Likewise the visions of ferocious devouring beasts, the Ancient of Days, rams and goats, kings and kingdoms, and the end times, were written not as word puzzles or surreal dream stories.

They were each written to be understood. Every chapter is richly woven with imagery to be decoded by those who knew the reality of oppressive power, the fear of political powers let loose without apparent restraint. Daniel is just the book for times of political anxiety, with relevance to humanity facing multiple looming crises, speaking into the developing zeitgeist of cultural flux and the collision ideological enemies.

And so it is that this Sunday morning, I will be preaching at our local Parish Church here in Westhill, and the text they have given is Daniel chapter 2. Nebuchadnezzar has yet another nightmare and wakens with an aftertaste of anxiety and personal menace. He needs someone to interpret his dream, but like many of our most troubling anxiety dreams, he can't remember the details, but whatever it was it has spooked the most powerful man in the world. Into the second half of the chapter and Daniel tells him the dream and what it means.

What's going on in the head of the King of all kings? This image of a vast shimmering statue, Babylon's own Angel of the North, made of gold, silver, bronze and iron, and with feet of iron mixed with clay. And this enormous meteorite not cut out with human hands lands like a missile on the feet and shatters the whole structure. No wonder King Nebuchadnezzar was scared; no matter how impressive the gold head, if the clay feet are smashed the whole structure shatters. And there isn;t a thing the most powerful King of all kings can do.

What are we to make of such a story? Whatever it means, it's an ultimatum for tyrants. There is a sovereignty more ultimate than Nebuchadnezzar's decrees and whims; there is a power beyond that of military, economic and cultural imperialism. The faithfulness of the people of God is earthed in realities that create rocks out of mountains, shatter the platforms of power, and replace the structures of injustice with new ways of justice, new bridges of peace-making, and a kingdom built by One who is expert in the architecture of hope.

How to apply such wonders and stories to the current narrative of our world? Wars in several devastated regions; disasters of flood and earthquake, of fire and drought; economic uncertainties that threaten to undermine global stability, and are experienced locally as anxieties about energy security, cost of living crises, pressures of migration across much of our world. What is the relationship between the God we believe in and the world we live in? Is earth's future entirely in human hands, and dependent on human efforts and decisions? Has God relinquished responsibility for earth as God's created masterpiece, or is there more to be said?

Yes. More is to be said.

About another rock that moved by hands other than human hands.

The Kingdom for which we hope and pray, is brought about by God who moved the rock and raised Jesus from the dead;

God who moved the rock and shattered the feet of clay of all those power structures of judicial killing, inflicted suffering, systemic oppression, and dehumanising indifference to human worth;

God who moved the rock so that through the gate of glory that is the empty tomb walked the One to whom every knee shall bow, whose name is above every name, who taught all who follow him to pray and trust and believe that Gods name will be hallowed and his will done on earth as in heaven.

Why?

• for thine is the kingdom, not Nebuchadnezzar and his long line of successor tyrants
• for thine is the power, not military capacity, economic systems, cultures of manifest self- interest, ideologies of hate and division and untruth
• thine is the glory, not our technological triumphs, not our scientific know-how, not our media saturated reconstructed selves 

What does all that mean in practice? That part still has to be thought out. Enough for now to know that whatever all that text means in practice, those practices will, by the grace of God, be acts of determined faithfulness, prayers of defiant trust, and gestures of decisive hopefulness.          

  As part of a research project on Intercession and Kenosis, and as a way of redeeming the all but meaningless cliche 'thoughts and prayers', I'm exploring ways Christians can pray unselfishly, compassionately, and faithfully.

 

All this, while recognising that in such prayer we are caught up into the life of the Triune God of love, whose mercy and grace, whose love and peace, are already expressed by Jesus 'who ever lives to make intercession for us'.

 

Aware too of the active presence of God in our hearts, the God whose love is already "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit". And more, that when we don't even know what to pray for, "The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8.26)

 

Then there's the imperative, "Carry one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ." (Galatians 6.2) I think that could well describe kenotic intercession.

 

The cartoon above seems to me to capture a lot of the costly experience of praying for each other, and knowing others are, as they promised, praying for us.

Hospitality without grumbling.

I'm currently re-reading Howard Marshall's slim commentary on 1 Peter. Amongst Howard's gifts as a writer was his common sense, and the always asked question, "Yes, but what does the text ask of us?" So, on hospitality, this gem:

"...an area where special tolerance of other people's faults is required -- is hospitality."

The welcome of the Christian community involves 'special tolerance of other peoples faults'. Hospitality is to be generous in spirit as well as in kind, genuine gladness in the presence of this other person. Peter adds a further obligation, in 1 Peter 4.9 "without grumbling".

A lifetime's courtesy informed Howard's comment: "The arrival of guests can be inconvenient for many good reasons, and guests can be awkward people. Therefore Christians must give hospitality without grudging and without grumbling, whether secretly or openly."

Those who knew Howard know perfectly well that he lived that way, and whether in home or study, his smile of welcome was immediate.

Learning to speak properly and listen carefully, with Wendell Berry.

 

I love this poem. I wish many of our politicians would read it, and think about how they use language and words, and reflect on the importance of truth, trust and integrity in who we are and how we conduct our lives.

 

(From 'The Book of Camp Branch', Wendell Berry, in This Day. Collected and New Sabbath Poems, 287-288.

A changing song,

a changing walk,

a changing thought.

 

A sounding stone,

a stopping stone,

a word

that is a sounding and a stepping

stone.

 

A language that is a stream flowing

and is a man’s thoughts as he

walks and thinks beside a stream.

 

His thoughts will hold

if the words will hold, if each

is a weight-bearing stone

placed by the flow

in the flow. The language too

 

descends through time, subserving

false economy, heedless power,

blown with the gas of salesmanship,

rattled with the sale of a needless war,

 

worn by the mere unhearing

babble of thoughtlessness,

and must return to its own

downward flow by the flowing

water, the muttered syllables,

the measureless music, the stream

flowing and singing, the man

walking and thinking, balanced

on unsure footholds

in the flowing stream.

 

(Photo from a favourite bridge and a slow flowing stream - or burn as we call it in Scotland.)

"Exercising many benevolent dispositions."

"A day seldom passes which does not afford us some opportunity of being useful to our friends, or of pardoning our enemies; of bearing with the infirmities of those about us, or of conferring benefits upon them. But a life of seclusion from the world (into which we are sent to prepare ourselves for a better, by the exercise of active virtue) must necessarily prevent the exercise of many benevolent dispositions."

(Marshall's Fenelon, 1821, 130)

 

Remember, this is an educated late Georgian age woman, translating a quite florid style of early 18th Century French, into early 19th Century literary English.

 

Allow for that, and maybe read it again. Then maybe think about what it might mean to find opportunities to 'confer benefits' on others, and to 'exercise benevolent dispositions'!

François Fénelon in Astringent Mood.

A lot of years ago, I was friendly with Gerry, a Catholic bookseller. At the time I was researching Catholic Spirituality and in his shop I found an old and beautifully bound anthology of the writings of François Fénelon. It's the oldest, (1821) and finest bound book I own.

 

It was expensive, but he reduced it substantially, in what he called "an ecumenical gesture."

 

Fénelon was a philosopher, theologian, and spiritual director. He could be intense, affected, and in the tradition of Quietism instructed his 'clients' in submission to Providence, acceptance of life circumstances, and a self-examining introspection. His writings are a taste I've never acquired, his emphases on self-denial push too close to self-abnegation.

 

But sometimes there's an astringent note that is a positive cure for the other extreme of complacency, and not taking life seriously as, well, the journey of our lives! Like this one:

 

"We should constantly strive, without loitering or carelessness, to advance in that path which we shall never be permitted to retrace, with watchfulness and humility, since we have no security for our continuing in it, or any knowledge of the hour when we shall be summoned before our Creator, to give an account of the manner in which we shall have performed our journey." 23.

The Geometry of Compassion and Being Part of God's Answer.

This morning in church we were worshipping as peoples from many nations. A Norwegian choir singing al capello, in the praise band a Persian def instrument brilliantly played by one of our many Iranian friends who were out in force this morning, and also friends from Turkey, Ukraine and Kuwait, and several Nigerian families with their children who regularly gather with us, some friends from Hong Kong, and then there were some Scottish, English and Irish folk as well (not sure we had anyone from Wales).

 

We said the Lord's Prayer together, using the language we are most familiar with, an equally impressive example of speaking in tongues in the fellowship of the Spirit.

 

Last night at Aberdeen airport we welcomed a family of a mum and two children, being reunited after 3 years with husband and dad, who had come over to our country in a small boat, was dispersed to Aberdeen, and has navigated the asylum process over the two years he has been in our country. The tears of joy, the embraces of human beings who love each other and belong together, the struggle to survive and find freedom to live - yes, all of that. And that is only one story from one of the crowd of men who join us for worship every week.

 

The photo is of the rose window at the front of the church. As I looked around at the multi-coloured gathering of people from so many places in our world, I look at that window and its geometry, and think of the geometry of compassion, the intersecting lines of life that bring us into contact with God knows whom.

 

I mean it, God knows who we are and God knows why, in all the possibilities of a human life, we should now meet these people, and they meet us. The harmonies of difference, the possibilities of welcome, the meeting of eyes recognising a common humanity, the shaking of hands and the learning of names, the hearing of stories, and so the beginnings of friendships.

 

The geometry of compassion is that way of seeking understanding without calculation, of looking for and finding that love and generosity and the gift of time are the most important answers to the problems set for others by the circumstances of their lives. To be part of the answer to someone else's prayer, is to be in cahoots with God. And that's always a risk worth taking

Wendell Berry and Harvest Thanksgiving in an Ungrateful World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sabbath Poem 10. 1979, Wendell Berry

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

Standing By Words. That was the title of the book, and the first essay I ever read by Wendell Berry. It becomes clear that this man cares for words, and understands the potency of speech and writing to move, inform, deceive, persuade, wound, renew, encourage, undermine and more generally influence the way human beings communicate and learn to live with each other - or not. The essay is about the abuse of language, the b aleful effects of rhetoric, propaganda, misinformation and the use of media to propagate and perpetuate lies. I may come back to that essay another time.

For now it is the positive, community building and humane constructiveness of Berry's work that is so clearly voiced in poems such as the harvest poem above. Berry's essays, novels and poems all come back to how we live more humanely, sustainably and generously all of which are captured in the ideas of neighbourliness. Except that for Berry neighbours are those who are both near us geographically, and near to us in a shared humanity bearing joint responsibility for the earth, its creatures and its future.

His Sabbath Poems are a category of writing that is deeply reflective, occasionally provocative, and range through the emotional responsiveness of a man who understands gratitude, regret, moral aspiration, love, the urge to dominance, the sin of waste and greed, the joy of growing things and letting things grow. He has a love for the land that is sacramental in its reverence, an outrage at war and mechanised technology as threats to both our human future and the wellbeing of the planet. He wants to beat swords into ploughshares, and combine harvesters after that.

Wendell Berry is that strange mixture of prophet and farmer - actually so was Amos from Tekoa. Few American poets and essayists have been as persistently articulate in arguing for a much more responsible curatorship of the earth and its resources, and in protesting the greed and waste of consumer capitalism as it lays waste the land and the lives of billions in the non-Western world. 

So when I read these Sabbath Poems I am at times re-educated in the syllabus of neighbourliness, attentiveness, and our responsibility to generosity in handling whatever I happen to own. The poem 'Whatever is foreseen in joy' leads us through our personal accomplishments and our work contribution to the necessity of grace, the reality of gift as that which we did not earn and did not make happen. "The field is tilled /' and left to grace..." 

The Genesis creation story lies like ploughed furrows throughout the poem. The sweat of the brow, ten thousand days of work, and the seventh day of Sabbath, and the verdict that "finds it is good." Yesterday, walking beside a centuries old, moss-covered, drystane dyke, looking past autumn berries to a barley field, and beyond the edge of the Scottish Highlands, it isn't hard to think and feel grateful, and wistful with that longing that such a beautiful world deserves much better of us.

It is God's world, not ours. We are stewards, not strip miners of all that we can hoard. If we do our work for ten thousand days, break sweat and feel the ache in our hands, we still need that which is beyond our effort; the gift of life, the grace that gives the growth, the mercy that sustains both us and our earth, God's earth. All of this, and more, from a poet whose voice has been for healing, of the heart, of the neighbour, and of the world. 

Country Music and Those Who Like It.

Just to be clear, I'm one who does like country music - Been to concerts of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Nanci Griffiths, I've had LPs and Cds with lyrics that shred the grammar and syntax of the language, I know at its sentimental worst it's like eating condensed milk, but I've also listened to words that easily slipped into prayers of praise, gratitude, lament and longing. Beth Nielsen Chapman can do that for me as can Carrie Newcomer.

Johnny Cash's Man in Black and San Quentin albums go back 50 years and some tracks still rebuke the nonsense of much of our politics. And for all his dreamy eyed and at times affected lyrics, John Denver was decades ahead on issues of environmental care, love of the animal world, and passion for a more just and peaceful world.

So, yes, I wouldn't like anyone to put me down. If they did I'd denigrate them for their musical snobbery.

Choosing Colours Together, and Trying to Stay Friends!

Years ago, one of the finest Christians I have known, and one of the least typical, once made a suggestion at a Deacon's meeting guaranteed to  make our next Church Meeting problematic. "Why don't we allow the Church Meeting to decide on the colour scheme for the church redecoration?", he asked. The reasons why not were not slow in coming. But he persisted with that sweet reasonableness and reassuring smile that was his known modus operandi. 

So it was that at the next church meeting a range of sample colour schemes were presented to the gathered community, and all heaven broke loose! By which I mean, getting agreement in a church that prided itself in not isolating people by imposing a vote on matters of significance, proved to be harder than herding cats, or getting a camel through the eye of a needle, for that matter. 

The best outcome of the evening was that the meeting ended with everyone still friends, no decision made, and the matter remitted to the Fabric Committee! But. That first bit is important - everyone was still friends. Opinions were inevitably varied, in some cases polarised, and how could they not be? Colour is a deeply subjective form of perception. How do we know what we see is what we think we see? One person's pink is another person's lilac; and those who love green are a puzzle to those who think blue is God's colour - forgetting that grass is green and there's quite a lot of it, and the sky is blue and there's even more of that!

Pivotal in the original constitution of Crown Terrace Baptist Church, agreed in 1839, are words which were once described by a legal and historical expert on Scottish ecclesiastical documents, as uniquely lovely in their Christian spirit. Here is the Fourth and concluding clause that raised her legal and ecclesial eyebrows: 

IV

That it cannot be expected but that differences of opinion will arise upon some particular Church questions that require to be decided in some definite way, it is hereby understood that after an opportunity has been given for objections being stated, the minority shall peacefully yield to the majority, if the endeavours that may be made to procure unanimity shall prove unsuccessful.

Those sentiments were tested often enough in the history of this congregation, sometimes to the limit. The night of the paint sample charts was a further example of the Christian common sense and generosity of fellowship that enables a church to work through differences of far more moment than the colour of the paint. 

It's remarkable how much time the Apostle Paul spent on "endeavours that may be made to procure unanimity", to conserve, or create, or rebuild, or restore community. His letter to the Philippians is one long appeal and argument for "being of one mind, having the same love, being of one spirit..." 2 Corinthians is a distillation of Paul's fractious and sometimes fractured relationship with the Corinthians, laced with sarcasm, anger, regrets, defensiveness, grievance on both sides, and all of this in the same letter that says "we are ambassadors of Christ...", and insists that his ministry is one of reconciliation. 

What I learned from that early Victorian draft of a church constitution, is that the unity of a church fellowship is too essential to the Gospel for anything less important than the Gospel to threaten it. The credibility of any Christian community begins with how well they look after each other, how far the agenda is supported by the love of God poured into hearts by the Holy Spirit, and how open and generous they are to others in the name of Christ and as conduits of the love of God. That's how it begins - and it ends abruptly when a community defaults into division, selfishness, power games and unforgivingness.

Choosing colours is a matter of taste, and decisions all agree on happily don't have to be made. Choosing how we will be to each other, and to the neighbourhood within which God has placed us as a community of Christ-followers - that's on a different level of importance. For that too Paul has a Christological imperative - "Have this mind-set amongst you, which was also in Christ Jesus..."