email: whitpresby@charterinternet.com
Spiritual readings "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"
June 2004 Rowan Williams on grief “Sword in Heart” dialogue from “Friendly
Persuasion” Kofi Annan on Evil Trinity Institute conference flyer DaVinci Code commentary Labyrinth prayer Passages in life How do we love our enemies, as Jesus commands in Matthew
5:43? Putting that question
together with the issue of grief that we have explored in these emails over the
last week or so, I found more great help in the short book by Rowan Williams,
“Writing in the Dust; After September 11” Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,
Michigan/Cambridge, U.K., 2002. For
his text in this book, Williams uses the story in John 9 of Jesus healing a man
born blind. Williams says that in
this healing and Jesus’ reactions to what follows, Jesus is “…opening up
something that is not part of the competing systems operated by human beings.”
Then there is this paragraph. “I want to say that it is only here, with the
renunciation of all our various ways of making suffering a weapon or a tool of
ideology, that we are going to learn how to grieve properly. Of course, we just grieve anyway, ‘properly’ or not; but
where does our grief take us? And
what do we mourn for? If, as St.
Augustine says in his “Confessions,” we can fail to ‘love humanly’, then
surely we can also fail to grieve humanly, to grieve without the consolation of
drama, martyrdom, resentment, and projection.
Are there words for grief that can make us more human, so that we mourn,
not just for ourselves, but for those whose experience we have come to share,
even for those whose moral poverty is responsible for murder and terror?” For my money, mourning for those responsible for our murder
and terror is one form of loving my enemy.
9-11-01 provides the most contemporary opportunity for us to exercise the
part of our faith that asks us to love our enemies.
Jesus is not doing armchair theology, or casual wondering about what
might be possible, when he gives that command, but telling us how to respond in
the face of actual enemies, actual attacks.
Most of us in America know of no other situation of attack except Sept.
11, 2001. How do you respond in the face of whatever enemies you
might face? In this Pentecost season, may you find the power of God’s
Spirit to equip you to deal with enemies in faith. Grace & peace Geoff We’ve been watching and studying the movie “Friendly
Persuasion” for the last month or so in our Wednesday Movies class at the
church. The movie is adapted from
the book of the same name by Jessamyn West, a Quaker writer who spent some time
in Whittier. The story is set in
Southern Indiana in a Quaker family during the Civil War. The issues of war and faith provide much of the tension and
drama of the movie. Here is the
dialogue from a particularly powerful scene.
The film uses the 2nd person familiar pronouns throughout,
thee, thou, etc. to reflect the way Quakers spoke in those days. Son: Father,
thee knows we must fight. Father: If
thee has a sword in thy heart son, thee must pull it out and use it.
But there is no sword in my heart. No
man is my enemy. Son: Well, any
man who kills innocent people is my enemy, my mortal enemy. Mother: Thee’s
seen bad things today, thee’s upset. We’ve
got more than we need here, its high time we shared it. Son: If thee
gives all thee’s got to the enemy, thy friends will go hungry.
What’s good about that? Father: Josh,
if thee wants to go out and fight, give thy life for what thee believes, many of
us here are willing to do that, but that’ not what thee’ll be asked to do.
What thee’ll be asked to do now is to kill. Son: I know
that. I’ll kill if I have to Mother: Thou
shalt not kill Son: Mother, I
hate fighting, I don’t want to die. I
don’t know if I could kill anyone if I tried.
But I have to try, so long as other people have to.” Some of the specific scriptural references in the
background here come from Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew
5-7. Given the climate of our
culture these days, with a divisive war being waged, this film provides a timely
opportunity and vehicle to explore themes of war and faith.
I hope my excerpting just a small part of the dialogue conveys the sense
of those themes of war and faith. I
would commend this film to any of you, whether it comes on cable movie channels
or you rent the video. How we
respond to the pressures of war is a central matter for faith, if we take
Jesus’ words seriously. Are there times when you have a sword in your heart?
May you find the help you need from God’s Spirit. Grace & peace Geoff My favorite part of one of my favorite magazines is
“Century Marks” in Christian Century magazine.
Here’s one of the little quotes they pass on, from their June 1, 2004
issue, and I in turn pass it on to you. It’s
a quote from Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General, addressing a May 2,
2004 Trinity Institute conference on “Naming Evil:
An Interfaith Dialogue” “I don’t even think that the word ‘evil’ is a
regular part of my vocabulary. There
is something about the word, when we apply it to another human being—and more
especially to a group of human beings—that makes me uncomfortable. It is too absolute. It
seems to cut off any possibility of redemption, of dialogue, or even
coexistence. It is the moral
equivalent of declaring war.” This issue of Christian Century went to press way before
the death of former President Reagan, who is famous (infamous??) for calling the
Soviet Union “the evil empire” and we are currently under the leadership of
another right-wing president who delights in using the word ‘evil.’
Why is it the right wing that prefers that word?
Re-read Annan’s words and you might get a clue. Words contain great power, despite our often facile uses of
them. Biblically, we believe that
God spoke, and creation came into being. That
tells us something about the power of words. May your words be used carefully and powerfully, as you
live your faith. Grace & peace Geoff Following Tuesday’s email, one of the recipients sent me
the web site for the Trinity Institute, where Kofi Annan spoke the words that
made up Tuesday’s message. Here
is the paragraph explaining the purpose of the conference. “In a climate of terror, our public rhetoric reflects our
anxiety and fear. We lose our capacity for reasoned and reflection and begin to
ascribe "evil" to perceived enemies discriminately. The reality of
evil is not in doubt. It is built (into) the very fabric of our natural and
social existence. Not only are we subject to the randomness of nature and
chance, but we also (visit) unspeakable horrors upon one another. So, every
generation has to come terms with the insidious persistence of evil in our
world. And the time has come to engage the subject through responsible
interfaith dialogue. We have two basic goals in this conference. First, to name
the evils that afflict us today. Second, to seek to understand their origin and
to withstand their power.” You can go to the web site at http://www.trininst.org/conference/
You can snoop around the web site and see I you can find more
information. The two goals of this conference serve as great goals for
any of us facing evil in our world. Just
naming the evil is the first step, and here, both Annan’s words from Tuesday
and Jesus’ words about judging others, provide helpful safeguards.
To withstand the power of evil is one of the reasons we practice
spiritual disciplines. Our most
well-known Christian prayer includes the line “deliver us from evil.” This day, may you be both delivered from and strengthened
to withstand evil. Grace & peace Geoff No emails next week. I’ll
be on vacation. I’ve been reading Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”
just to familiarize myself with the issues that are getting so much attention.
On each of the last two days, our local Whittier newspaper has had front
page stories related to the book. One
has some comments by a professor of historical theology from Fuller Seminary
here in Southern California, who calls it “psuedo-history.”
Another article talks about a baker in Maine promoting a Mediterranean
diet he calls the “Da Vinci Diet” in an attempt to win back many of his
patrons who have forsaken his baked goods for low carb foods.
Needless to say all this publicity has been a bonanza for Brown and his
publisher, Random House. My own understanding of the book (I must admit that I
haven’t finished it yet) is that, like so much popular literature about Jesus
and the Christian Church, it misses the point of the gospel.
Jesus did not come to simply give another way to achieve power, to
outsmart our rivals, or to establish any number of secret societies.
Jesus came to show us a way to live that renounces power for a better
way. I’m reminded of the words of Paul in I Corinthians 1:18-25. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who
are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the
discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater
of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God
decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but
we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those
who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom
of God. For God’s foolishness is
wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. For my understanding, both Jewish signs and Greek wisdom
here are particular avenues of control or power in one’s life.
Jesus’ message is to give the power and control to God.
I’m reminded of the other commercial success based on Christian faith,
Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
The commercial success of this book and this movie testify in an oblique
way to the spiritual hunger in our current culture.
But the call to take up our own crosses does not, nor will it ever, carry
the popular appeal of stories like “The Da Vinci Code.” Is your life a struggle for power or control, or a struggle
to submit to God’s will in your life? May
you find the grace to turn from power to compassion and love today. Grace & peace Geoff No emails next week (June 22 & 25). I’ll
be on vacation. No emails next week (June 22 & 25).
I’ll be on vacation. In reading to prepare for our labyrinth retreat, I went
over a book I used here twice before(March 2 & 16, 2004), “Labyrinths from
the Outside In; Walking to Spiritual Insight, a Beginner’s Guide” by Donna
Schaper and Carole Ann Camp, Skylight Paths Press, 2000. I found this reflection there. “Even though all the points (of a labyrinth) are
different, I like to pray the same prayer:
“let yourself be silently drawn by what you really love.” This prayer opens, clarifies, and amuses me.
It amuses me because what I really love is often quite silly.
It is often quite less than what I thought it should be.
I love recycling. I love
homegrown lettuce. I also love
justice and martinis. I should love
more noble things, but I don’t. I
love fairly silly things. I do not
need to be rich, I just need a salad and a drink from time to time. These completely satisfy me.
Labyrinths help us not to dull and dumb down but to waken and sharpen.
They let us see how silly, perhaps simple, we really are.” Labyrinths, like any devotional or spiritual tool,
help us to see, to prioritize life around us.
They also help us to see the truth about ourselves.
I would like to invite any of you in the Southern California area to join
us at the church on July 16-17, 2004 for our labyrinth retreat.
You can get the needed information about the Labyrinth retreat “Walking
In Jerusalem, Just Like John” on the web page.
You may register by following the directions there.
http://www.whitpresby.org/labyrinth_at_wpc.htm May you find purity of vision and the simplicity of faith
this day. Grace & peace Geoff No emails next week (June 22 & 25).
I’ll be on vacation. My vacation last week was spent partly in San Diego for my
older son’s wedding. This week
will be the first meeting of a confirmation class at our church. Both these
events, a wedding and confirmation, are rituals that mark passages in life.
From what do we pass, and to what? This
question can grow as large as we let it, as we pass from one stage in life to
another, even from life to death. Passages
can be matters of faith, as we work at fitting life into a coherent pattern.
Even passages that happen to us in unplanned ways can give us remarkable
opportunities to grow in faith. I
like to think of passages as enabling me better to discern God’s will for me.
I’m reminded of Paul’s words to the Romans in Chapter 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of
God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” What passages do you make in your life?
What markers or rituals do you use to acknowledge those passages?
How do your passages lead you closer to God?
May you discern God’s will to you in all the events and passages in
your life. Grace & peace Geoff
