GETTING IT RIGHT

There was a clip on the TV last night showing a Taliban leader in Afghanistan listening to a question of Lyse Doucet, the BBC reporter, about the role of women in delivering aid to the starving people of the country. His eyes were full of scorn for everything the woman in front of him represented. He was listening but not listening. It was obvious he would not even consider whether his attitude to women was right and good. Yet, it seems, not all the Taliban are like that. There was a subsequent report that some Taliban leaders are listening and opening the door a little.

Jesus began his ministry, Matthew tells us, on a mountain - as Moses did when he received the Law - and his opening words announced the values of the new way of the ‘kingdom’ of God. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ These words say it all. Blessed are those who are prepared to be ‘poor’ about their own ideas, beliefs and practices. They are, what the prophet Zephaniah calls, the ‘humble of the earth.’ They have nothing of their own that they hang on to. They are open.

Paul started out like the Taliban, zealous for ‘the law’, the traditions, the ‘way we do things’. He was pretty good at persecuting this new sect led by an ignorant bunch of Galilean troublemakers. But then God intervened. He called Paul, as we noticed this week on the 25^th of January, to a new way of thinking. And Paul did not resist. He was poor enough in spirit to listen to the voice and interpret the sign (when he became blind).

That is basically what the sayings we call the Beatitudes are all about. They describe a new way of thinking. Am I humble enough to listen to something that might shake me up? Can I put my prejudices and ways of thinking to one side for a moment and listen? These are desperately relevant questions today as we see war, global warming, streams of migrants and other ills in our world seemingly gathering pace, simply because we do not listen with an open heart. And in our personal lives there can be things that we just don’t want to hear.

It would be naïve to suggest that we could easily solve our problems. Obviously, they are often complex and involve painstaking reflection. But a huge step forward is possible if we put our own strongly held opinions to one side and begin to listen. ‘Blessed are those who hunger for what is right.’ Doing what is right? Gerhard Lohfink once wrote; it wasn’t that the owner of the vineyard, in Jesus’ parable, was commended for being generous, but because he did the right thing. It looks crazy to give the same to one who worked one hour and one who ‘bore the heat of the whole day’. But the point is; it was the right thing to do. Lofinck says, ‘Jesus was not crucified because he was generous but because he did what is right.’ Can we do likewise?  

29 January 2023          Sunday 4A      Zeph 4:3-13                 1 Cor 1:26-31              Mt 5:1-12

SWITCH ON THE LIGHT

 

SWITCH ON THE LIGHT

There are many things that thrill us. One is obviously football. Another is music. Watching and listening to Orchestra Kinshasa immediately tells you what a lift if gives people. They have taken to classical music and instruments and adapted them to be their own. ‘With the harp I will solve my problem’ (Psalm 49:4). It has been known since ancient times that music can raise our hearts to higher things and switch on a light in our lives.

Daniel Barenboim from Israel and Edward Said from Palestine met in 1999 to launch the idea of a Israeli-Palestinian Orchestra where musicians from across the Arab-Israeli divide could play music together. Their love for music united them and led to their sharing their different national narratives with each other. It lit a light in the darkness of relations between the two sides but it soon came under attack. They were accused of normalising the abnormal and softening the divide. The majority of people in Israel and the Arab world are against the project. Said died of leukaemia but Barenboim has kept up the orchestra. The musicians find the opposition tough but they keep going.

Barenboim says you cannot be ‘comfortable’ playing music. It calls for maximum ‘thought, feeling and guts’ if it is to be done well. So is working for peace. It meets with resistance and those who engage have to be tough. When Isaiah writes, ‘on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death a light has dawned’, he is not saying something comforting.

I remember, as a child, the day electricity came to our home. We’d been waiting excitedly for the great day but did not know exactly when it would be. Curious, I would occasionally try the switch to see if something happened. The great day came and suddenly there was light!

We know the light, of which Isaiah spoke, was rejected and Jesus ended on a cross. But those who work for peace are energised by the little victories they experience. So it is with the musicians of the ‘West Eastern Divan Orchestra’ – the name of the initiative described briefly here. A member interviewed spoke of the opposition but it was clear she loved what she was doing.    

So, the dawning of light is a breakthrough which shows me the most satisfying and uplifting things come through facing the obstacle in my path. Why the word ‘divan’? The word is of Turkish origin and meant a council of state. In other words, it was a place where people meet to discuss issues. Clearly, that is not what an orchestra is about. But it is something that can come out of music.

22 January 2023    Sunday 3A  Is 8:23-9:3  1 Cor 1:10-17       Mt 4:12-23

A BRUSH MERCHANT

 

A BRUSH MERCHANT

As I walked home, I was overtaken by a vertical collection of brooms. As it passed, I realised it was a man on a bicycle with a neatly bound selection of different sorts and colours of brushes. He skilfully wove his way among the potholes like a dancer on a stage. His demeanour suggested a happy man, confident he knew what he was doing.

We know little of the deeper stirrings in people’s hearts. This week we have a saying in the scriptures; He is ‘the one who is going to baptise with the Holy Spirit’. We can quickly pass by, saying, ‘Oh, I’ve heard that before many times. I know what it means.’ Well, maybe. But what does it really mean for us? Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit theologian who flourished in the late twentieth century, wrote, ‘we may think we find around us too much of the spirit of the world and too little of the Spirit of the Father. While these impressions may frequently be valid, there is usually something false in them. Something false, I say, because the human eye cannot detect the Spirit in us and in the church.’  

We are baptised. But we do not always attune ourselves to the promptings of the Spirit who lives in us. I am always struck by the example of Elizabeth Musodzi and Charles Mzingeli who, in the 1920s and 30s, worked patiently and successfully for the improvement in the living and working conditions of the people of Harare. They were brushed aside because they were not producing quick results. Now, there are sharply different views about that period of our history but the question can, at least, be asked; were we attentive at the time to the deeper workings of the Spirit in our hearts? Ghandi once said (I do not have his exact words), ‘I would be prepared to wait – if necessary, for a long time – for freedom to come if, in doing so, we could avoid violence.’ He was a man who reflected deeply and believed that violence only breeds violence. Patience lays a better foundation.  

We are baptised, yes. But has the Spirit found a place in our bloodstream? Are our reactions and thoughts prompted by a habit of attentiveness to the deeper movements of our heart or are we inclined to follow the crowd? It is a question to ponder as we stand, in our imagination, by the river Jordan this week and listen to the words of the Baptist.

Sometimes we can be helped by a person who passes by, like the man selling brushes.

15 January 2023    Sunday 2 A           Is 49:3-6     1 Cor 1:1-3    John 1:29-34

A SHOWING

 

A SHOWING

A legend is a story invented to describe something true though we do not know what really happened. There is a legend embedded in the opening of the Christian scriptures about three wise men coming from the east to Bethlehem, drawn by a star. They are led to a manger in a stable and shown the ‘light of the world’ long foretold by the prophets. Gentiles came to know Jesus early on.

It is a good story, full of drama and T.S.Eliot wrote a poem about it which begins:

‘A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp.

The very dead of winter.’

 

The wise men made their journey and we make ours and often it is during ‘the worst time of the year’. We take wrong turns and have to retrace our steps and start afresh.

 

We are also told the wise people brought gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. These were precious commodities in the ancient world and we can draw out our own meaning. When Isaiah sketched the origins of this story, he mentioned gold and incense but left out myrrh. If gold is a symbol of wealth, beauty, goodness and love, incense represents homage, prayer and mystery. But myrrh? The dictionary describes it as ‘gum resin used in perfume’ and it was used, I suppose, to offset the smell of decay which corpses soon acquire. Rather inappropriate for a new born child.

 

The Church quickly associated it with the death of Jesus and the spices the women brought to anoint his body (Mark 16:1). Death is a sad thing but the women who came with the myrrh found an empty tomb. ‘Death was swallowed up in victory’ (1 Cor 15:54). At first, they were ‘scared out of their wits’ but they came to be astounded and rejoiced.

In the story of the Epiphany we are invited to we see through our legends, our make-up, our appearances and outward show to the reality that underlies all? God draws us to himself and we set out on the journey offering our gifts, gifts that represent the best we can bring but they also include our suffering and death.  Eliot ends his poem: ‘We returned to our places ... but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods…’                                                                                                    Epiphany, 7 Jan 2023     Is 60:1-6     Eph 3:2-6    Matt 2:1-12

 

A HOPEFUL NEW YEAR

 

A HOPEFUL NEW YEAR

Pope Benedict XVI, who lies between death and burial, once wrote a letter on hope which he called Spe Salvi, we are saved by hope (Rom 8:24). Is this new year going to give us grounds for hope – or more of its opposite, despair? Benedict was writing just before the money collapse of 2008 yet his words spoke of a hope more solid than Wall Street.

He began his letter by remembering a poor Sudanese girl who was wrenched from her family in Darfur while still nine years old and sold into slavery five times. Constantly beaten and abused, ‘she bore 144 scars throughout her life.’ In 1882, when she was thirteen, she was ransomed by an Italian merchant and brought to Italy where she entered a totally new life where she was respected and cared for. It took her time to adjust to this new reality but gradually she gained confidence – she gained hope - and came to know God and, what is far more, that he knew her and loved her. Josephine Bakhita went on to become a nun and eventually a saint and, besides her work with the sisters, she spent her days telling others of her liberation through her encounter with God through the good people who helped her.

‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen’ (Hebrews 11:1). Each of us has their interpretation of our situation in Zimbabwe and our hope for this year. For many there is little hope. It will be just more of the same. The results of the elections are already known. And so, many people just shrug their shoulders and get on with life as best they can. They have lost hope that things might change for the better.

But if we have such an attitude, we are ignoring our Christian heritage, all that we received through our different churches and religions. We may feel as hopeless as Josephine in her days of slavery, but to sit on our hands and accept it is to ‘prefer darkness to light’ (John 3:19).

Hope is not about idly waiting and ‘hoping’ something will happen. It is about changing my way of thinking and exploring every moment as an opportunity to bring light into the world. I cannot change the way things are done in this country but the way I think, speak and act can create, what Bobby Kennedy used to call, a ‘ripple of hope’ that can spread out and inspire others to create their own ripples. And that is what Nelson Mandela did when in prison: he began by insisting on wearing long trousers and he went on to become president of a free country.

New Year 2023     Num 6:22-27        Gal 4:4-7       Lk 2:16-21