STOKING THE FIRE IN THE HEARTH

 

STOKING THE FIRE IN THE HEARTH

If you have ever watched a chick breaking its way out of its shell or a new born calf struggling to stand on its feet or indeed an infant emerging yelling from the womb, then you have some idea of what Paul is talking about when he says creation is ‘groaning in one great act of giving birth’. Essentially, that is what our planet, our universe, is doing; and each of us, throughout our life, is always coming to birth in our unique individual way.

There was a time when Christians understood the Lord’s command, ‘Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations’, as literally baptising every person in every place. After two thousand years of often heroic missionary work, it is now clear to us this is not going to happen. What is happening, in ways that we do not see (Mark 4:27), is that ‘of its own accord the land has produced its crop’.

I remember an old German priest at Christmas, in the downtown Detroit parish of Holy Trinity, telling his congregation, ‘The world is a far better place than it was on that first Christmas night’. Although the baptised are in a minority, the influence of Christianity has been like yeast in society spreading its values wherever it is found. Many argue that the influence of religion has been harmful and held back the flourishing of human freedom. There is no way of winning this argument and it is a waste of time to try.

What is indisputable is the flourishing of good will and self-sacrifice in so many places. The instinct and immediate impulse of so many people is to help without much thought of ‘What do I get out of it?’  There was a time when our teachers used to solve the problem of why so few are actually baptised by saying good people express in their lives a ‘baptism of desire’, implying that they would be baptised if the circumstances were right.

I do not think anyone would hold that view now or even its more recent equivalent of speaking of ‘anonymous Christians’. The implication is that all good people want, even if they don’t know it, to be Christians.  They don’t.

But, despite all our anxieties about life today, there is goodness, honesty, courage and kindness waiting round every corner to show itself. The priests and prophets of this age are those who stand out and are recognised for their courage in seeking truth in every area of life: poetry, music, literature, sport, politics, economics, the social sciences and so much more. Some are actually priests as we normally know them, but most are not.

The role of Christians and all other believers is to journey with people, whoever they are, in their searching. The person of faith will say it is ultimately a search for God and his rule of justice. The person who holds no particular belief, in what transcends reason or science, will also say it is a search for justice and integrity. The two converge. You may climb the mountain by different routes but when you get to the top you meet. The role of the Christian and all people of faith is to stoke the fire in the hearth, though others with no particular beliefs in what is beyond sense and reason may dispute this. Yet, if they love others, as so many do, they love God, even if they do not know him.

October 31, 2021        Sunday 31B                Deut 6:2-6       Heb 7:23-28       Mk12:28-34  

WHEN THE ARCHBISHOP CAME TO BREAKFAST

 

WHEN THE ARCHBISHOP CAME TO BREAKFAST

 

It was the early 1960s and the archbishop was visiting his parishes. The parish council would select one member of the parish to host him for breakfast after Mass. The choice fell on Mr Mushore and in the course of conversation the archbishop told him he was trying to encourage multiracial education in Church schools and would he be prepared to send his children to what was then a school predominantly for whites. Mr Mushore, recognising this was an opening for his children to have many opportunities out of reach in the local school to which they were destined, readily agreed.

The result was that the two children, a boy and a girl, received an education which fast tracked them into careers that up to then were matters for dreams. Leaving aside for a moment the inequality of the system that then pertained, the point here is simply that Mr Mushore grasped a moment that might never come again. His choice instantly changed the life of his children and allowed them entrance to a way of life that would have a ripple effect on their families and on the community.

Blind Bartimaeus was stuck in his drab routine of sitting daily by the wayside until, one day, a large crowd of people passed by seemingly following some renowned person. Curious, he asked who it was and, being told, he began to cry out for help. The people were annoyed at him causing a disturbance and told him to be quiet. But that only spurred him on and he cried out even louder. He got what he wanted and, we’re told, ‘followed Jesus along the road.’ The story ends there but it is not hard to imagine what must have happened later.

They say, ‘learning never ends’, but we can get stuck in a way of thinking that says, ‘there is nothing I can do’. Bartimaeus must have often thought so as he sat by the road. But he did not give in to that thought. He was alert and ready when opportunity came by and he instantly grabbed it. People told him to accept his situation. It was hopeless. But he refused. He ‘threw off his cloak and jumped up and went to Jesus.’

We do not need to say more, except perhaps to remind ourselves that things do not have to be the way they are. We can get so stuck and maybe discouraged. But there is always something we can do. That is the beauty of being a human being. We can always grasp the moment. We are getting towards Christmas, or more specifically Advent, and our readings for the next month are going to hammer us in different ways with the simple message, ‘Be alert!’ Watch! The buck in the bush is alert for danger. We are to be alert for opportunity.    

24 October 2021         Sunday 30B                Jer 31:7-9        Heb 5:1-6        Mk 10:46-52      

 

FEELING OUR WEAKNESSES

Today, October 14, Weaver Press is launching a book[1] called, The Color of the Skin doesn’t Matter. It tells the life of Sr Janice McLaughlin in her own words. The title comes from the greeting of Josiah Tongogara when he welcomed her at the airport in Maputo during the Liberation War in the 1970s. Janice died earlier this year after a long struggle with a lung condition: it was the last of the many battles she embraced in her life of seventy nine years.

Born in the United States, she always wanted to come to Africa and become engaged in the process of liberation of a continent emerging from the shadow of colonialism. Her entry point was teaching journalism in Kenya and Tanzania and from there she was invited to Rhodesia. Without calculating the risks, she threw herself into the struggle and soon found herself in Chikurubi prison. Expelled from the country, she returned to live in the refugee camps in Mozambique before engaging in education programmes in the new Zimbabwe.

What leaps out from every page of her memoir is her generosity in giving herself, ‘welcome or unwelcome’ (2 Tim 4:1). In the process, she gives us a rapid run through of the history of Zimbabwe in the past fifty years. She too ‘gave her life as a ransom for many’ to quote the last words of this Sunday’s reading from Mark.

When we read or hear the lives of outstanding people, there is, I think, a tendency to compare ourselves with them. They seem so great; we seem so small. This can be a distraction. It is surely important to recognise that, mostly, we do the best we can in our circumstances. Each day we can try to improve, a bit at a time, the actual ways in which we live our lives. We may not make the headlines. We may never go to prison for our beliefs. But we can enjoy little victories each day as we struggle to live with integrity and kindness.

The letter to the Hebrews, which we also read this Sunday, has a phrase about ‘feeling our weaknesses’ and it is used in the context of Jesus himself doing just that. He felt his human limitations. These are not handicaps to be somehow ignored and denied. They are the very stuff of our life with which we are to make friends and use as our particular raw material for achieving small conquests each day. Our biggest enemy in all this is what I have recently heard called ‘pleasurable noise’, referring to the constant presence of words and sounds in our lives. These obstruct the power to reflect and can leave us no space to be in touch with our victories and defeats. So perhaps a key victory, to begin with, would be to turn down the volume!

October 17, 2021            Sunday 29B            Is 53:10-11      Heb 4:14-16    Mk 10:35-45

 

 

 

 

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[1] https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84174906540?pwd=U2l4UjZ2Y3ZuYkFScmFMNUdOR2k4UT09

Meeting ID: 841 7490 6540     Passcode: 421620        4.30 Zimbabwe time. October 14

 

On Thursday, October 14^th at  4.30

 https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84174906540?pwd=U2l4UjZ2Y3ZuYkFScmFMNUdOR2k4UT09

 Meeting ID: 841 7490 6540

Passcode: 421620

 

 

SELL EVERYTHING…

I met a man who obtained a small gold snuff box in Italy. He was proud of it and liked to display it in his living room. He had a habit of checking, every time he entered or left the room, whether the box was still there. Perhaps a visitor, or a relative, had pocketed it. 

Someone came to Jesus and said, ‘I’m doing well. I have ticked all the boxes.’ Jesus looked hard at them with love, and said, ‘yes, but you are missing one thing. Go and sell everything and give the money to those in need, and then come and follow me’. But the person couldn’t take it, and left. 

‘Everything’ has multiple meanings. It can literally mean wealth and possessions and there are people who have left these to follow Jesus. But it also means an attitude which seeks security in possessions, qualifications, status and a general sense of who a person is.  We have a hard time learning what Jesus mean by his opening words in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’.

Ruth Burrows, now well into her nineties and frail, often wrote in her books how we keep ‘a deadly hold’ on ourselves. We find it hard to ‘dance on the shore’ like Zorba the Greek, when our plans, literally in his case, come tumbling down.

‘Letting go’ is difficult. We hold on to so much because we feel, if we get rid of it, it will leave such a hole in our life that we can’t go on. ‘Emptying self’ is all very well in the scriptures (Phil 2:7) but let it stay there. Don’t get too close to it. It is a fire that will burn. But it will also simplify, purify, as we see in St Francis whose feast fell this week. It will open spaces. Taking a deep breath and swallowing hurts and slights, frees us to welcome the bigger picture. ‘Selling everything and giving to the poor,’ has a literal and a much wider meaning.

The Church herself has spent decades, maybe centuries, defending her image of herself. Now that has all come tumbling down. News that the French Catholic Church has released the results of her examination of conscience, documenting case after case of abuse, mainly of boys in their early teens, adds to the horror and sadness that has hit us from so many sides. But we can also sense the relief that, at last, the truth is out. Now we can deal with the issues. We are free of pretence. Free to build something new, something closer to the original, the source. Losing our life we can begin to find it. Both collectively and individually.

10 October 2021           Sunday 28B     Wisdom 7:7-11      Hebrews 4:12-13     Mark 10:17-30

WHAT GOD HAS UNITED

 

WHAT GOD HAS UNITED

Human beings have organised themselves in many different ways; in tribal groups, monarchies, republics and the United Nations. Yet the one basic structure they did not choose - it was given to them – is the family. This Sunday we read the description in the Book of Genesis of its origin. ‘A man leaves his mother and father and joins himself to his wife and they become one body.’ They create something new. This is now their doing. But it is also God’s doing. The new couple are fulfilling God’s plan. They bring children into the world – each child a new and wonderful individual, a child of God and a child of its parents. No wonder there is excitement on their wedding day and all their relatives and friends gather to cheer them on.

A new family is a new creation, a capsule of God’s plan. His people are made up of countless families, stamped with the divine image of the Trinity and setting out to reflect his glory in the beauty and integrity of their lives.

That is the plan. Alas, the reality is often different as men and women toss and turn and find themselves in unhappy marriages and want to get out. The Church is slowly learning to be more compassionate and helpful to those who cannot go on in their marriage. She still insists on holding up the ideal of marriage as Jesus gives it today in the gospel of Mark. But she is also quietly putting aside rigour and dealing gently with her sons and daughters.

But there is much to be said. While being compassionate the Church also calls us to believe. A marriage may look impossible from the troubled explanation given to a priest or counsellor, but the Christian message is always one of believing even when we cannot see, even when things look impossible. That is the faith, the risk and the joy of marriage. Abraham set out ‘without knowing where he was going’ (Heb 11:8), and sometimes we are asked to trust that a marriage can survive the turbulence of the present in the belief that a deeper level of union among the partners is just round the corner. There are no rules to govern this. Each case will be different. But we should not rush to seek the easy solution.

This is where prayer and the cross come in. We cannot say, ‘this is your cross’ quickly or easily. We are called to be highly sensitive and discerning. In the end it will be a matter of conscience, of really listening to my heart. Maybe I really should get out of this marriage for a number of reasons. But maybe the Lord is asking me to believe and persevere and the light dawns and a new joy appears.

3 October 2021           Sunday 27B                Gen 2:18-24    Heb 2:9-11      Mark 10:2-16