CAN WE ABOLISH MANGERS?

 

CAN WE ABOLISH MANGERS?

It was in a manger he was laid, a place of dried grass for cows to feed in harsh climates. From the moment he appeared in our flesh, ‘he had nowhere to lay his head.’ He was one of the countless children born in strange places, railway stations, back streets and migrant camps. It was all a long time ago and the world has moved on. We now have modern hospitals, air travel and instant communications. Our progress has been rapid and all embracing.

 

Yet we still have mangers. For all our progress, we still have the heavy burden of poverty. We have never bridged that divide. In some ways it is worse today than ever because today it is structural, built into the way power and wealth operate. Joe Biden may preside over the wealthiest country in the world and he may want to solve the issue of migration but he seems powerless to do so. Developed countries say they cannot open their doors to migrants as they did a century or more ago.  They would be overwhelmed by the problems created.

 

Nor, it seems, are they able to come up with a policy to eradicate poverty in the countries from which the migrants come. (No migrant willingly leaves their country. They do it because of war, civil unrest or the relentless poverty arising from an economic vacuum).

 

The first response is good, even heroic; relieve the immediate suffering of the migrants by at least rescuing them from the sea and giving them a place to stay and food to eat. That is charity and there will always be a need for it. But it does not solve the problem More is needed and this we call justice. And when we are faced with systematic structural injustice what do we do? The issue is now linked to the big Cs: Covid and Climate.

 

Just as the big Cs do not just affect some parts of the world but not others, so the migrant question is rapidly becoming unavoidable and will simply have to tackled. It speaks in a loud voice about our postponement of the Beatitudes. They were nice words Jesus spoke on the hill by the lake all those years ago. They were all about opening our hearts to others and not counting the cost to ourselves. The fact that they were spoken on a mountain, echoing Moses’s words when God first announced his covenant, and that they were a highly developed version of the Ten Commandments, can easily pass us by.  

 

Each year, at Christmas, we return to the question: are we creating a world that reflects the values of the Kingdom of God or are we waiting for God to do it somehow from on high? He has handed the world over to us. He cannot interfere with our freedom.  It is up to us. He was born in a manger to help us get rid of mangers. As with Covid, as with Climate, we ask; what can I do? There is no simple answer. But when we look, we will be shown the way.

 

25 December 2021   Christmas Day          Is 9:2-7           Tit 2: 11-14    Lk 2:1-14

 

      

 

BELIEVING THE PROMISE

 

BELIEVING THE PROMISE

‘Our hearts are restless’, says Augustine. We yearn for something beyond our reach. Yesterday, I spent time with a young family. The two older children, 8 and 10, were already ‘serious’ about ‘doing the right thing’ at home (helping Mum) and at school (speaking English – no Shona allowed!) The youngest, aged 4, had no such agenda; she just loved exploring everything. She had not yet developed that ache we have for what we want, what is expected.

Israel had that ache. She had been told many times; ‘come to the waters you who are thirsty … I shall make an everlasting covenant with you’ (Isaiah 55:1-3). God has always wanted to fill us with his good things. Long ago, he planted a yearning in our hearts. Israel carried that yearning, that restlessness. Her whole history is one of striving and failing, moving forward and falling back again. In Advent we remember that movement and we feel it in our own time.

We too are restless, longing for something beyond us. We have the words of those who were close to God to encourage us. Take Micah, whom we read today. ‘Out of you, Bethlehem, will be born the one who is to rule over Israel … His origins go back to the distant past. … When the time comes for her who is to give birth, gives birth … a remnant will come back … and he will be their peace.’ Micah’s contemporaries would not have known what he was talking about.

They could not have grasped that God was promising to come and live among them in a human body of flesh and blood (our second reading today, from Hebrews). It was beyond their belief. They could not have grasped it and many people today can’t either. We scarcely can ourselves.

But there was one person who could, even then. Luke tells us today, Mary hurried to ‘the hill country of Judah’ bursting with the news. She had to tell someone, someone she felt would at least begin to understand. She chose her cousin. We are let into their conversation which ends with Elizabeth saying, ‘Blessed is she who believed the promise …’ It all comes down to that. The yearning, the restlessness, the longing – they will all be fulfilled. The most wonderful part of what it is to be human is now going to be realised. God is going to come and live in us and we in him. If we can welcome him – even if our heart is more like a stable than a hotel – he will come and make his home in us (John 14:23).    

19 December 2021       Advent Sunday 4C                   Mic 4:1-4         Heb 10:5-10     Lk 1:39-45                  

 

 

FRANCIS ON LESBOS - FEAR AND JOY

 

FRANCIS ON LESBOS - FEAR AND JOY

An open-eyed smile and look of wonder on the face of a Syrian child greeted Pope Francis on Lesbos last week. The Mediterranean island receives many migrants fleeing their countries because of war and poverty. That smile cut through all the fear and calculation with which many in Europe greet refugees. We can imagine the frustration and anger behind closed doors in Europe’s capitals towards a pope who speaks inspiring words but does not have the political obstacles the continent’s leaders would have to face if they opened their doors.

But is this not the nub where safety and risk meet?  The sensible, prudent and practical thing to do is to close the door, build fences and walls and patrol the roads and seas. ‘We cannot handle all these people.’ But in our hearts, we know this is not a solution. It is like apartheid in the old South Africa or the karabha (colour bar) in the old Rhodesia. We are ‘safe’ behind our walls. But for how long? And at what cost?  Those who built walls then were not safe and those who build them now are not either.

Yet the risk of opening doors fills us with anxiety.  Strangers in our midst, who do not know our language and hold to foreign customs and faiths, unsettle us. Some of them might even have hostile intentions, coming to plant bombs and kill people.

So Francis makes us feel uncomfortable because he is really saying, ‘You of little faith, why do you doubt?’ He is asking us to step out of the boat and do the ‘impossible’. And is it not because we cannot take these steps that our freedom is so much postponed? The kingdom, or reign, of God is ‘kicked down the alley’. We don’t want to deal with the toughest questions. There is a ‘big gulf’ (Luke 16:26) between what we call security and the world of the Beatitudes. And the hardest thing is that we actually have the power to solve this issue of migration, but we do not have the will.

In the third week of Advent our theme turns to joy. ‘Shout for joy’ (Zephaniah), ‘I want you to be happy, always happy’ (Paul). And John the Baptist, ‘if you have two tunics, share with one who has none’. There is joy in sharing. If we can get over our fear of reaching out to others, we will discover great joy.

12 December 2012    Advent Sunday 3C    Zeph 3:14-18   Ph 4: 4-7   Lk 3:10-18

ANDREW AND SARAH

 

ANDREW AND SARAH

The ‘news’ at this time of the year, if we can let it enter into us, is astonishing. ‘Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill laid low.’ As usual, it is hidden parable language – saying something simple, even silly, but unlocking a world view that is life changing.

I came across the story of Andrew and Sarah this week. Andrew is an English prince, born into privilege, money and fame before he has actually done anything. He doesn’t have to work. He can just enjoy himself. He doesn’t have to ask, ‘What do I really want to do with my life?’ He can put that off. True, he served in the navy for a while but not as a total commitment for life. He doesn’t have to make that kind of choice. He can make the most of his position and opportunities. His future is secure. Eventually he settles on one person whom he asks to be his wife. Sarah comes from a family close to the royals but it is a broken family and gives her few guidelines for life and certainly not life in the public eye as wife of a prince.

All goes well for a while but gradually the lack of something solid in their lives leaves them both chasing the frills of life rather than its substance. As the story unfolds, they both go their separate ways, seeking satisfaction in shadows and illusions. Their marriage fails and they divorce and the Queen, Andrew’s mother, calls the year it happened ‘horrible’. The public turn against the couple who, in their different ways, go deeper and deeper into the dark valley of disaster.

But the story ends on a bright note. They have both kept up contact with one another and their children, and have both tasted the bitterness of knowing they have brought all their troubles on themselves. Having reached this low point, like the story of the prodigal son, their eyes are opening and the suggestion of the storyteller is that they are ready to come together again, to ‘remarry’, to make a new start, this time much wiser people, people who have tasted the worst and are now humbly ready for the best. The mountains have been lowered and the valleys filled.

The royal family in England perform a great service. They are up there, like a mirror in a washroom, where we can see ourselves and adjust our ways without anyone noticing. Like the actors in a Shakespearean tragedy, their lives are open for us to inspect and maybe draw some conclusions for our own lives. What Advent tells us is, if we search, we are certain to find. But our choices have to be authentic, that is, we find ourselves in serving others. If we only think of ourselves, we are lost.

December 5, 2021               Advent Sunday 2C              Bar 5:1-9               Phil 1:3…11                         Lk 3:1-6

 

TWO ADVENTS

 

TWO ADVENTS

There are two Advents; the one we know about and is thoroughly written up, especially in Isaiah, and the one we don’t know but we are racing towards. This second one is where we are involved and, in a real sense, have a say. We are not just in the stands, watching, but influence the unfolding of this Advent by the decisions we make. The timing is up to us: the sooner we succeed in making this world in the image of the One who designed it, the sooner that One will be able to ‘gather’ all his people into the peace he has planned for them.

But we keep postponing this universal community of peace. We run away from the implications. One story in the news is of an Iraqi family driven out of their home by the IS who sought refuge in a camp where they had to stay for seven years. They struggled to get to Europe and a better life only to be hounded on the Polish border, sent back to Iraq. The report ends, ‘and there is worst to come.’

The Isaiah reading for the First Sunday in Advent says; ‘I will make a virtuous branch for David who shall practice honesty and integrity in the land.’ It is poetic hidden language but it expresses the times that are coming when God, working with people, will bring truth in relationships. God cannot do it alone. Maybe the people of the first Advent who were looking forward to a Messiah, thought the Messiah would do everything for them. We know they had a narrow focus on Israel. Few had any thought for the ‘gentiles’.

But the first Advent did bring us a Messiah and that is what makes our hearts rejoice this 25 December. Yet this Messiah can do nothing without us. The whole plan is that we wake up and take steps in our lives to bring about community in the world. Sending the Iraqis back to where they came from, washing our hands of them, is certainly not building community. What should we do? Well, it is easy to be an arm-chair strategist and there is no avoiding the problem. But some kind of follow up of the lives of these people, some kind of support for them in their own countries to help them get settled, would be better than sending them back in despair.

We cannot wait around for this second Advent. It calls for our full engagement in doing what we can. If this sounds starry-eyed, one thing we know: if we decide to do something we will succeed, one way or another, and we are not alone. Our five loaves and two fish quickly grow.

28 November 2021       Advent Sunday 1C    Jer 33:14-16   1 Thess 3:12-4:2       Lk 21:25-28, 34-36  

A WORLD VIEW

 

A WORLD VIEW

The feast of Christ the King was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an antidote to the rising secularism and nationalism of the time. The forms these movements took threatened the dignity the Church saw as an integral part of the vocation of human beings as children of God destined to develop their own gifts and so find their way to the Father. The feast announces a world view very different from one that sees human beings as sufficient in themselves.

‘No one is free until everyone is free.’ We used to say this about South Africa and, truly, it was obvious then that white people lived in fear of the ‘black peril’. They were not ‘free’ in any meaningful way. And, of course, it is also true with regard to Covid and climate change, ‘no one is safe until everyone is safe’. Long ago, a war in Viet Nam or Ethiopia did not greatly concern those not directly involved. It was far away and we could get on with our lives without taking much notice. Something similar could be said about famine, droughts, tsunamis and floods. They were localised and the relevant governments would deal with them.

But Covid and global warming changed all that. No one is safe. Literally everyone on the planet is involved and Biden and Xi have to wear their masks too. Is this not an entirely new phenomenon? These two modern threats, whose effects have peaked in the last eighteen months, have made everyone take up a position in response. Some have chosen to ignore them and pretend life can go on as usual; others have got deeply engaged in facing these threats and doing something about them.

It is now clear that Covid will not be banished easily. We cannot put it behind us as we did the flu of 1918-19 which killed millions. No sooner have people begun to relax than a new Covid wave hits them – and there is no end in sight. Similarly with climate change. The Glasgow summit, recently ended, achieved some success but left many people deeply disappointed by the lack of compassion, imagination and courage displayed by many nations.

One lesson stares us in the face: these are global issues not local ones and humankind is painfully learning that pursuing local agendas and short-term benefits is like building on sand. This week-end the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of Christ the King. Everyone on the planet has had a chance to see the 30 meter high huge statue of Christ the King dominating Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because of the Olympics in 2016. It dominates a huge panorama of land and sea. It symbolises something far beyond our limited interests. Can we see it as a sign that this world is God’s world and he has made its fruits available to all of us that we find our way to him?  He invites us to reach out to one another and recognise, at last, that we are one people of God and we are to rise above our divisions and strain for his justice.

21 November 2021, Christ the King   Dan 7:13-14         Rev 1:5-8     Jn 18:33-37

THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED

 

THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED

It is a strange way to begin. The first person to write a gospel starts by describing the end of the world. ‘The sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will fall from heaven’. This, eventually, becomes Chapter 13 after Mark goes back to write the earlier chapters. What are we to make of this? Perhaps we imagine something like the worst outcome of the climate crisis? In 1982, Annie Dillard wrote an account of her experience of a total eclipse (cf. Google).

 

            ‘… I turned back to the sun. It was going. The sun was going, and the world was wrong. The                     grasses were wrong; they were platinum. Their every detail of stem, head, and blade shone                         lightless and artificially distinct as an art photographer’s platinum print.  This colour has never been             seen on Earth. The hues were metallic; their finish was matte.’

This is a taste of a long description of the effect of the eclipse on her. It is a taste too, perhaps, for us of what it the end could be like. Dillard writes of the disorientation and horror of our natural world in convulsion. Another quote:

            ‘The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. … My    mind                was going out; my eyes were receding the way galaxies recede to the rim of space. …   You have                   seen photographs of the sun taken during a total eclipse. The corona fills the print. All of those                  photographs were taken through telescopes. The lenses of telescopes and cameras can no more                cover the breadth and scale of the visual array than language can cover the breadth and simultaneity             of internal experience. … You see the  wide world swaddled in darkness; you see a vast breadth of             hilly land, and an enormous, distant, blackened valley; you see towns’ lights, a river’s path. …

 

            “It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.” Wallace Stevens wrote that, and in the    long run he                 was right. The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The                                mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world,                 and all eternity, and God.’

 

The whole article is worth a careful read. It opens our consciousness to all that is beyond our imagination and comprehension. It is an awesome thought, both frightening and joyful. Frightening, because the onset of the end of the world seems set to be a time of unimaginable turmoil. Joyful, because we know that the gospel message is one, ultimately, of hope. The end will not be a catastrophe. It will be the moment when the ‘Son of Man’ will reveal the final triumph of God and the long foretold ‘gathering’ of his people. It is a message of consolation to close a difficult year.

14 November 2021      Sunday 33B     Dan 12:1-3      Heb 10:11…18            Mk 13:24-32