Shame & Glory

Isa 50:4-9a; Ps 70; Heb 12:1-3; John 13:21-32

These passages are a study in shame and glory! Jesus, our Lord, 'endured the cross, despising the shame' because of 'the joy set before him', the glory of being the vindicated One exalted at the right hand of the Father and thereby bringing glory to the Father by bringing many sons and daughters into glory too!

St John's account of Jesus' dismissal of Judas precipitates a Satan-inspired betrayal which will be a means of bringing shame upon Jesus for death by Roman crucifixion is death in shame. Yet, Jesus, after the dismissal, immediately speaks of glory for both himself and God. The shame accompanying the finishing of his mission --'It is finished' -- lifts up the name of God!

But, how can such evil glorify God? We only know by faith that it does. Just as the man born blind was not a result of immediate sin, said Jesus, but an occasion for the manifestation of the 'works of God' so the shame of Messiah works to the redemption of all people.

It was moving to hear the German Chancellor speak to the Israeli Knesset identifying the Shoah (Holocaust) as Germany's shame. However, God does not want for our acknowledgment of our complicity in the death of his Son as much as our simple acceptance that He died for our sins.

Waiting on and for God

Waiting.
Waiting is a decided feature of everyday life, however, much we try to avoid it. We wait to get results from medical tests, from academic examinations, from appeals against various rulings. We wait for courts to decide on certain matters, for the cabinet of government ministers to make decisions affecting our lives. We wait in queues, in peak traffic, in doctors' surgeries, in hospital corridors and schools. We wait for the evening meal to cook and be served. Waiting.

Waiting is also very important in our walk with God. It can often be construed as passive but it is also active according to scripture. The idea of waiting on God is an active process where we are desiring to know what God wants of us next. In Psalm 130 the writer talks of waiting for God more than watchmen who wait for the morning (repeated).

I imagine these watchmen staying up all night for their shift and eagerly scanning the heavens for the first signs of light so that they can finish for the night! The psalmist says that he is doing this and more. His eagerness to see the signs of God's gracious presence is greater than these watchmen looking for the beginnings of dawn. In Psalm 123, servants and maids look to the 'hands' of their masters and mistresses to see what is to be done for them. Waiting in these contexts is active.

But, waiting is often just sitting quietly, patiently with God, sometimes feeling nothing, receiving nothing, hearing nothing. I heard a story recently from the experience of a Dr Beuttler, who told of a pastor who heard the Lord tell him to go to his church down the street, in the dead of a snowy night. In obedience he went there and sat on the platform and waited for God. Nothing happened. No religious feelings, no voices, no revelations but he just stayed there until he felt released later that morning to go home.

At the next Sunday service, during the general hubbub that can occur before the start of Christian worship services, suddenly a hush came over the congregation as if the noise switch had been turned off. The pastor preparing some items on the platform looked up and saw a figure walk in through the church doors dressed in white. He walked down the left side aisle, touched a person that had a gift of speaking of tongues but hadn't been used in that gift for a long time who immediately began to speak in tongues. The figure continued on down the aisle, came to the front of the church, paused, looked up at the pastor as if in recognition, continued on and walked up the other side aisle and touched another person who was an interpreter of tongues but hadn't been used for some time in that gift. By that stage, the first speaker had stopped and the second began to interpret. The figure continued up the aisle reaching the front doors of the building and left. At the conclusion of messages, the 'power of God hit the place', and service went on for 3 hours! Oh, that we would listen when the Lord asks us to wait because he who calls has already planted the desire to wait in our hearts in the first place.

Waiting in suffering

Our four bible readings for Lent 5 had many themes binding them together but the one that first came to me was waiting in the midst of suffering.

In Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones vision, the people of God have been waiting for salvation for 70 years and now the Lord purposes to rebuild the nation. In Psalm 130, the lines 'I wait for the Lord' is announced 'out of the depths'. Romans 8 (vv5-11) contrasts those with their inner hearts captive to the 'flesh', human nature that remains in rebellion to God to those living according to the Spirit. Verse 11 may suggest the present or the future or perhaps both. The Spirit dwelling in the Christian means life now and in the future; but in the now, we wait while the Spirit and the flesh struggle within and cause us to suffer (vv 18-25).

And the gospel is according to St John 11, the raising of Lazarus. We note that first Jesus waits two days more after he hears the news that the man whom he loves is dying!! By the time Jesus gets to Lazarus, he has been buried for four days. Suffering is evident in Martha and Mary who question Jesus about his lack of speed. 'Lord if you had been here . . . . . . !

Have we not said that to God in our depths experience? Lord if you had done something differently! If only you would rearrange the universe to suit me! Lord, you ought to be a god who obeys my bidding!! After all, I give to the church and I even go to church! And now I ask for this one thing, and you deny me.

With all these questions we reveal that we still have a long way to go. Interestingly, two of these passages mention the important thing that needs to be driven deep into our hearts but against which our whole socialisation rebels. We are not the centre of the universe. I am not the centre of the universe. We are not what it's all about!! The whole of creation is not about our glory or aimed at getting glory for man.

It's about God's glory! (Man's glory is a derivative of that glorifying purpose!) In Ezekiel 36 (v32) the text says, 'it is not for your sake that I will act'. In John 11, Lazarus' raising is explicitly said by Jesus to be 'for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it' (v 4).

Meanwhile we wait suffering and in our suffering we are changed if we allow God into our suffering. Of course this is hard. Soul-making is hard for us but necessary if we are to be redemptive world-makers.

Anaesthetising ourselves to death

When the Orwellian 1984 arrived, said Neil Postman, people breathed a sigh of relief thinking all is well because we were not oppressed by any 'Big Brother'. But, the earlier prophetic voice of Aldous Huxley had argued in Brave New World (1932) that people would finally choose to be anaesthetised rather than face reality.

And, one of our great modern methods of anaesthetising ourselves against reality is entertainment or in Blaise Pascal's word, diversions. For Pascal, diversions were one way mankind avoids thinking about the reality facing it at death. And the most pervasive entertainment diversion of this age is television. Neil Postman said in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985),

"It is my object in the rest of this book to make the epistemology of television visible again. I will try to demonstrate by concrete example ... that television's conversations promote incoherence and triviality ... and that television speaks in only one persistent voice — the voice of entertainment. Beyond that, I will try to demonstrate that to enter the great television conversation, one American cultural institution after another is learning to speak its terms. Television, in other words, is transforming our culture into one vast arena for show business. It is entirely possible, of course, that in the end we shall find that delightful, and decide we like it just fine. This is exactly what Aldous Huxley feared was coming, fifty years ago."

I am not against television per se. Rather, I fear that our uncritical watching of the magical screen is gradually by stealth squeezing us into the mold of the world by the spirit of this age and deadening us to the urgent, on-going need to be remolded in our inner lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Non-Christian prophets warned us that this was coming but we seem to be oblivious to the juggernaut of entertainment.

We get our news through TV, our 'reality' through TV, our politics through TV, our language through TV but fail to take account of the issue that it wouldn't be on the screen if it didn't entertain. Think of all that has had to be edited out to make sure the final presentation entertains and holds our easily divertible attention. And further, don't we realise that our hearts, our inner selves are being shaped by this form of communication?

The other effect is how this addiction to entertainment works in supposedly non-entertainment spheres such as church meetings. Much complaint about these meetings pivots on the sometimes unspoken assumption that such meetings ought to entertain the faithful. I wonder whether we ever stop in our narcissistic ramblings to realise that the church service is not about us. It's a divine service because in the service we serve the divine. It's entertainment for God if one likes but our entertainment is secondary.

I am not arguing for the inherent piety of boring services because boring preachers (and others) are often afflicted with narcissism. They're boring because they won't shut up, listen to God for a change and die to self. That aside, our primary way of judging church should never be, was it entertaining? To do so, is to have fallen captive to the spirit of entertainment that now holds terrible sway over western culture.

Making a redemptive difference

Interesting modern phrase is expressed in the desire 'to make a difference'. Being somewhat skeptical of all catch phrases, I have regarded this one as something akin to human hubris. We put huff and puff into our work imagining that it matters a damn in the total scheme of things. When we really subject our vaunted imaginings to the rule of sober judgement do we imagine that our dust-like temporality makes a difference in a world beset with the problems this world experiences?

And, what type of difference are we talking about? Is it a difference that we imagine will establish an 'immortality project' that will mean we deny death as the lawful end of this mortal life?

I was at a funeral today and realised again how the liturgical tradition to which I belong stemming from the old catholic faith mentions repeatedly the certainty of death for this present life. Yet, modern man does all it can to avoid this unpalatable fact and instead seeks 'to make a difference in this life' because otherwise, what else is there?

Christians unfortunately are caught up by the same spirit. Funerals ought to be attended more because of their rude reminder that 'in the midst of life we are in death': funerals should shock us into living as if this life were a dress rehearsal not the actual play.

The ancients knew this truth whereas we tend to hide from it. Even the Anglican Church of Australia's prayer book of 1995 no longer has a funeral service within it while the 1978 edition of the prayer book did. No doubt various reasons relating to space will be advanced for this omission but it's interesting that it is the funeral service that is deleted.

However, my cynicism about the phrase 'making a difference' is tempered by the fact that I do think that people are in the world to make a difference, a 'redemptive' difference: redemptive gives change some direction and reduces man's tendency to take prideful centre stage. For if we yearn for redemptive change, then it is the Spirit of God yearning together with our spirit that promotes this desire. This understanding cuts down our tendency to elevate ourselves above our station and calling.

En [light] ed Suffering

The readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, the morning Eucharist, were focussed on light and sight. From the Old Testament reading in 1 Samuel, we see the choosing of David as the next king to replace Saul, how 'man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart'.

The reading from St John's gospel account (ch 9) tells of the healing of the man born blind. The blind man receives his sight but he becomes enlightened over and above the ecclesiastical leaders of the day who are revealed as truly blind as to whom Jesus is. But, to be enlightened costs the once blind man his place in the synagogue. To be enlightened is not to enter a suffering-free zone but to enter into suffering with one's eyes open.

At Evensong, we hear the cries of pain of the Hebrews in Egypt as their burdens are increased because of the promise of deliverance! Later in Matthew 27 we watch the betrayed and abandoned Jesus arraigned before Pilate. Pilate's wife suffers in her dreams. Judas suffers for betraying innocent blood. Pilate washes his hands of 'the blood of this innocent man' and suffers the agony of knowing that he has condemned a righteous man to death. So much for Roman justice! Jesus suffers rejection, flogging and finally condemnation to the cross.

This strange juxtaposition of light and darkness, seeing and not seeing, deliverance and suffering, reveals the life we now live. A surd of joy and sorrow it has been called. Surds cannot be resolved 'rationally' they can only be accepted as part of existence. We can along with all sufferers sigh but we sigh knowing the outcome of all suffering ends in perpetual joy.