‘WHAT MUST WE DO?’

 

‘WHAT MUST WE DO?’

A teacher will not be satisfied simply because their students pass their exams. That helps but it is only the beginning. What really gives joy to the teacher’s heart is when the student is awakened to what life is offering. They think for themselves. In John chapter 6, Jesus is leading his hearers to this point. Yes, they have understood that he has given them bread. They are full. But can they go further? And the good thing is they are curious: ‘What must we do?’ Jesus is pleased with this progress and leads them on. ‘You must believe in the one God has sent.’

At this point their attention wanders – a critical moment for any teacher. They speak of needing proofs. Prophets, like Moses, proved themselves by signs. Very well! Jesus backtracks a bit to be in tune with their request. He agrees Moses gave them food in the desert but they should know it was not Moses but God, ‘my Father’, and the Father is now giving you ‘the bread of life.’ They respond, ‘give us this bread’ though they haven’t a clue what Jesus is meaning.

Jesus waits. And he is still waiting for us to really grasp what God is offering. We look for the basics; food, shelter, clothing, work, schools, hospitals, transport, communications and the rest. We struggle for these things. Some countries have them all – for all their people, like Finland. But, Jesus says, there is more. These are only the basics. We must not stop there. He is offering the ‘bread of life.’ We are not to jump to quick conclusions and say, he means Holy Communion.

Yes, he does mean that but what does that short phrase contain? It contains the essence of the Christian life here and now and a fulfilment in the future that ‘it has not entered into the heart of men and women to conceive.’ The future will be unimaginable happiness but we are not concerned with that now. What we have is the nitty gritty of the daily life of a Christian. This involves, above all, a constant change in the way we think.

As an example, we can take Orthodox Archbishop Anthony Bloom who died less than twenty years ago. He battled in his early life during the Revolution in Russia but later found peace and security in France. The ‘security’ drove him crazy and he found he was much more alive in the struggle! He delved into life in the Spirit and went on to write piercing accounts of what it entails. At one point he talks about forgiveness. It has to be total and unconditional – like crossing the Red Sea, he says. When you forgive, you take on yourself all the pain and evil another has done. He quotes a Jewish prisoner in a concentration camp: ‘… and may we remain in our enemies’ memory, not as victims, not as a nightmare, not as haunting spectres, but as helpers in their striving to destroy the fury of their criminal passions.’ To be ‘helpers in destroying the fury’ we need the bread of life, which the Father is offering through Jesus.     

1 Aug 2021     Sunday 18 B     Exod 16:2…15         Eph 4:17…24              John 6:24-35 

THANK YOU

 

THANK YOU

I thought he was coming to ask me to do something but he wasn’t. He came to say thank you. Why was that a shock? Why does that unsettle me? Somehow it makes me vulnerable. It softens me; reminds me others want to relate to me as I do to them. If I accept their thanks something happens. A relationship is born or is strengthened. Do I accept it? Or do I walk away? People cry out for contact, for a bond. The worst poverty is to be alone – locked up in my cell. No one to listen. No one to talk to.

John tells us Jesus fed thousands. He doesn’t say they thanked him. They don’t get it. John called Jesus’ acts ‘signs.’ A sign points beyond itself. Here it points to an invitation: will you receive what I have to offer? Jesus calls the food he gave the people the ‘bread of life’. He offers bread but he offers life. It would overflow into something unimaginable.

There are people in the Tokyo Olympics like the Tunisian swimmer in the news today who will rejoice in their victory. They will thank all who helped them get to this peak of achievement. Their joy is a sign. Peaks of achievement are for great athletes and artists but they are also for everyone under the sun They are not just for the few. Everyone who responds with all their heart reaches the peak.

There are widows in Tigray today who weep for themselves and for their children. Their life is a misery. God is weeping with them. Those who have caused their weeping have not tasted the bread of life. They are stuck. This is terrible, tragic. They cannot say ‘thank you’ to life. ‘When will we ever learn?’ as Joan Baez used to sing.

The early Christians knew from day one that the Eucharist was central to their new way of life. The word means ‘Thank you’. It is our thanks to God. For what? For the relationship that heals and gives life. It is always offered even if I and my family are torn apart by conflict.   

Twelve baskets were left over. This is also mentioned in the Elisha reading from 2 Kings. Another sign, a sign of abundance. Life simply overflowing - like Victoria Falls at its fullest – that is God’s gift. Can we say, ‘Thank you’ with all that that means? 

25 July 2021               Sunday 17B         2 Kings 4:42-44     Eph 4:1-6        John 6:1-15

LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD

 

LIKE SHEEP WITHOUT A SHEPHERD

 

In a weaving workshop for people living with disabilities in the UK, Samantha stopped work one morning and asked no one in particular, ‘Why are we here?’ When Tom, the one responsible for the group replied, ‘to weave these mats for sale so that we can be a bit self-reliant’, Samantha was not satisfied. ‘Yes, but why? Why are we here?’ After another attempt at a response, Tom became weary of the conversation and said, ‘Let’s all break for coffee.’

Samantha was searching for answers. Handicapped or not, she wanted to know the purpose of life. Tom wasn’t interested in really hearing her question. I am reminded of this in reading this week’s Tablet which records racism in the UK and even in the Church. A person interviewed said,

I think the main problem is that the majority of people just don’t get it. I believe that to really understand someone’s suffering, you have to experience something of their pain. And I am not sure that many white people ever truly ‘get’ racism and understand what it feels like to be discriminated against simply because it is not part of the daily reality of their lives. They don’t experience, as we do, the horrendous racial abuse, bullying, violence, harassment, discrimination, racial profiling and much, much more – all because of the colour of our skin. When we try to discuss these subjects, our perspectives are repeatedly ignored or, worse, even gaslighted. We’re told it’s not a major issue and we should get over it. We’re told not ‘to play the race card’.

Many people, not just in the UK, are not really interested in ‘hearing the question’. In fact, they don’t like hearing any question that probes the world view they assume. If people express their hurt, they are told to ‘get over it’.

We have a psalm sandwich in this week’s Sunday readings; psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) comes between two other passages which say, ‘They are like sheep without a shepherd’. People are aware, for example, of global warming and Covid 19 but few stop to ask why are they happening? We know, or we have a good idea, of the scientific reasons. But, like Samantha, we still have to ask, ‘why they are happening?’ Science does not tell us why human beings prefer ‘not to know’ and remain content to be ignorant rather than do the demanding work curiosity entails. Curiosity is one of the greatest virtues because it leads to knowledge and wisdom. Ultimately it leads us to know there is a good shepherd at work in our world, moulding ‘a new heaven and a new earth’. But the shepherd needs us to bleat a little so as to be helped. Otherwise we will continue to be ‘lost sheep’.

18 July 2021               Sunday 16B                Jer 23:1-6        Eph 2:13-18               Mk6:30-34

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

 

AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

Victor Hugo once wrote, ‘Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.’ I recalled this saying when reflecting on the problems faced by the Chinhoyi Rural Training Centre (CRTC) in Zimbabwe founded in 1979 just as hostilities ceased. By that year, young people in the rural areas of Zvimba, Hurungwe, Magondi and even further afield, finding themselves caught between the demands of the guerrillas, the government and the auxiliary forces of Muzorewa and Sithole, ran away to the urban centres and loitered about doing nothing.

Concerned people in the church and state set about responding to the need by assembling machines and tools from abandoned missions and employing instructors to run a course in agriculture and farm machinery which later morphed into a three-year course of training in metal work, woodwork and machine tools leading to trade tests that qualified the students for skilled work. But Jesuit Brother Hubert Simon, who worked intensely to build up the centre, had to admit towards the end of his time (2008) that a confluence of forces was destroying the work.

With the deteriorating economic situation, the crime rate noticeably on the increase – especially thefts and break-ins -, the daily long-lasting power-cuts, the negligence in respect to maintenance of the workshop machines and tools, the lack of care in handling tools, the failure to feel responsible for general order and guarding against injury … what I often find lacking are these basic yet essential qualities for anyone wanting to learn a trade … we don’t seem to make much progress … I find it rather disappointing…

This description of one project in one corner of the country is mirrored in many others. In 1980, all the conditions seemed to be there for economic and social ‘take-off’ but something vital was missing; the will to make things work. Why it was not there could be a long debate or a short surmise. If the latter, then we can simply say; it was a great idea but its time had not yet come. We go back to Pope Francis’ adage; ‘Time is greater than space.’    

At CRTC they had the space and the tools but not the time. Goethe once said, ‘All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times, but to make them truly ours we must think then over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.’ Ideas, strategic plans, policies and slogans are so much hot air unless they are thought through, affirmed anew and absorbed into our being. Otherwise, ten years from now, we will still be nowhere.

11 July 2021   Sunday 15B                Amos 7:12-15             Eph 1:3-14      Mark 6:7-13

 

THE LIMITS OF OUR POSSIBILITIES

 

THE LIMITS OF OUR POSSIBILITIES

Ferdinand Spit (Ferrie) was a Dutchman who worked with us at Silveira House in Zimbabwe in the 1980s on industrial relations. He often spoke of our ‘reaching the limits of our possibilities’, a phrase a born English speaker would probably not use. They would go for something simpler like, ‘doing our best.’ But it is a striking phrase and I remembered it this week when reading about Fr Henry Swift who was prison chaplain – at first unofficially, then officially and in uniform - in Harare Central Prison from 1935 to the time of his death in 1973.

When the state executes a person, it reaches the ‘limits of its possibilities’. It can give no greater punishment and, while it may welcome the presence of ‘chaplains’ in its prisons, it can not prescribe how they should approach the condemned or what the effects will be. In Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing, Moses murders madam and awaits his arrest, trial and execution with seeming equanimity. Lessing does not give us his thoughts. She too has reached her limits. She leaves us to tease out his motivation.

And we may come up with wildly different opinions. Was Moses’ composure the result of his feeling of triumph at having broken through the great wall of racial segregation and performed a courageous act of expiation for his nation? Maybe. Henry Swift did not speculate. He knew the Moseses he accompanied to the scaffold were God’s children and his only desire was that they finish their journey without fear and at peace. Here is, in part, his own account of what he did:  

… The relays of guards are very considerate towards the condemned …With Catholics, the faith helps them to die well. … After Holy Communion … I tell him that later his hands must be strapped behind him so that he cannot hurt himself – saying nothing about the fall – that his eyes will probably be covered, that he will hear my voice on his right and that he will have time to say the name ‘Jesus’ about three times before the rope is made quite tight, at which moment he will die and should be thinking of going to God. … as he is being strapped, I tell him the executioner will do everything without hurting him…

For Henry Swift, men and women were born for eternity. There were no limits. He was a man of his time and we might demur at some of his choice of words. We would not now, for example, say ‘Catholics’ but, more inclusively, ‘Christians’. But his gentle, respectful attention to the condemned speaks of a world view sans frontiers, without limits.

4 July 2021                 Sunday14B                 Ez 2:2-5           2 Cor 12:7-10              Mk 6:1-6