Meditation: JOHN THE BAPTIST LOST HIS HEAD BUT STILL SPEAKS by John de Gruchy

JOHN THE BAPTIST LOST HIS HEAD BUT STILL SPEAKS

Matthew 3:1-6

"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

We humans have evolved over millennia.  And just as we can now plot our physical evolution back to the earliest times, so we can also trace our spiritual evolution.  In doing so we discover there were some periods in history when humankind took a giant step forward.  Most notably, between the 8th and 4th century before the birth of Jesus there was an explosion of new spiritual insight across the world not unlike in significance to the time long before when men and women harnessed fire or invented the wheel.  This was the period which saw the birth of Socrates in Greece, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Jeremiah in Israel. What happened during those five hundred years before Jesus was nothing less than a fundamental transformation in our knowledge of what it means to be human. As Karen Armstrong describes it in her book The Great Transformation,  during that period across the world, the frontiers of human consciousness suddenly expanded as humans discovered what Armstrong calls "a transcendent dimension in the core of their being."  Something long known , of course, by the San (or Bushmen) and other indigenous peoples across the globe.

But as often happens, it seems as if after such an amazing spurt in human spiritual consciousness, at least as always only on the part of some, there is a lull, a period not just of consolidation but even of regression.  An absence, if you like, of spiritual innovation.  The great leap forward in understanding seemed to stall during the centuries which followed.  It was as though the spiritual development of humankind came to a halt, not able yet to comprehend what had been achieved, or able to produce the leaders necessary to take the process further.  One symptom of this in ancient Israel was that following Jeremiah and others like him, the era of great prophets came to an end..  This did not mean that there was no longer any  longing or hunger in the hearts of  people for some divine Word that would speak to the heart and soul.  There were always those who longed to hear again an authentic Word from the Lord that would bring renewal to the spirit and justice to the land.  "Is there any Word from the Lord?" was their cry.  Has God forgotten us?

That is why the sudden appearance of John the Baptist caused such a stir, for after several centuries of apparent silence and in a time of barrenness, it seemed that God was once again speaking his Word through this ascetic preacher in the Wilderness. It seemed as though Elijah or one of the prophets had been reborn.  The hope for the coming of God's reign of justice and peace was being rekindled.  That is why people came to hear John preach, and heard him call them to a fundamental change of heart and mind in order to prepare for the coming of one who was even greater than he himself, one who would usher God's earthly reign into reality.  Some even thought that John himself was the promised Messiah.  But when asked, he simply said he was a voice "crying out in the wilderness" preparing "the way of the Lord," making his paths straight."

Sometimes people ask why did Jesus only come when he did to save the world?  Why did God not send him earlier to sort things out?  John the Baptist is the reminder that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, took a great deal of preparation.  This was not something that could be achieved in a few weeks like our preparations for Christmas each year.  The preparation in fact went back at least to that period in history when human consciousness across the globe became aware in a new way of the significance of the transcendent.  Humankind had to be prepared for the coming of the Christ.  The advent of Jesus had to wait for the right moment in the evolution of the world, in history and human consciousness. As St. Paul put it: "when the fullness of time (kairos) had come, God  sent his son..." (Gal. 4:4)  We don't know precisely when Jesus was born according to the calendar.  But it was at the right time, a time when at least some were ready to receive him.  The opening chapters of Matthew and Luke tells us something about them.   And John the Baptist was on hand to prepare them for Jesus' coming.  And John knew only too well that without a change of heart and mind, without repentance, in other words, no one could cannot grasp the significance of what was about to happen for the salvation and transformation of the world.

The simple truth is this.  The coming of God's kingdom or reign of justice and peace, whether back then or today, requires a quantum leap in human consciousness.  There can be no peace in the Middle East or anywhere else on earth without a fundamental change of heart and mind on the part of the leaders of the nations and those involved in the conflict.  Bombs and bullets won't do it.  That is the mentality of primordial humanity when it seemed that brute force was the only way to resolve conflict, a mentality that prophets through the ages have been challenging and trying to change. In the same way, there can be no solution to the ecological crisis which we now face, a crisis that is reaching toxic proportions and threatens the future of the planet as never before, unless there is a fundamental change of heart and mind on the part, not only of world leaders, but of all of us.  This is the relevance of John the Baptist's message.  The salvation proclaimed at Christmas requires repentance, a change of heart and mind if it is to be grasped.

The message of Advent has never been more necessary.  Christmas, the coming of the reign of God in Jesus Christ, requires a fundamental spiritual change. Without this humanity cannot take the essential step that is no urgently needed.  Advent stops us in our tracks just as John the Baptist intruded into the lives of men and women in his day and said "Repent" or change your heart and mind, "for the kingdom of heaven has come near!"  If we and the world at large are open to John's message, willing to stop wasting billions on armaments or through corruption and therefore willing to change direction, we will be ready to receive the justice and peace that Christmas is all about.  In fact there will be the birth of a new consciousness in our evolving journey into the wholeness that God wants to give us. 

Isobel has written four new sonnets for Advent.  The first appropriately reminds us of John the Baptist:

            The Christmas Season is upon us now,

            It floods our senses with its bright allure.

            The weeks of Advent just get lost somehow;

            Their meaning hidden, their import obscure.

            If John the Baptist cried, "Prepare the Way!"

            It would put a damper on our Festive Cheer,

            Imagine if we Christians had to say

             "Repent! The Day of Reckoning is here!"

            So how in fact can each of us prepare,

            When parties, pageants, baking, buying, feasting

            All catch us up in their entangling snare?

            We do get caught in this, there's no denying.

            Is there at all a way to both combine

            and sanctify the world with the sublime?

John de Gruchy

Volmoed

Advent 1, 3 December 2015

Meditation: VENGEANCE IS MINE by John de Gruchy

VENGEANCE IS MINE

Romans 12:9-21

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Dear Presidents, Prime Ministers and Chancellors of the West, and everyone else in their premier league of world politics.  I, John of Volmoed, was lying in my bed early one morning and thinking about the terrible and tragic events that have recently occurred in Paris and elsewhere, and I decided to write this letter to you. Greetings!

I know you probably won't receive this letter but if somehow it lands on your desk, please know that the saints at Volmoed daily pray for you as you exercise your awesome responsibility in times like these when everything seems to be falling apart.  We would not want to be in your shoes, and nobody would want us to be.  We also know that politics is about the art of the possible not the impossible dream, and that you have to weigh up many conflicting interests in making your decisions -- those of the people who vote you into power, big business, the military and armaments industry, international relations and national pride, and your own values, hopes and ambitions. 

We understand that when the enemy strikes and innocent people are slaughtered, then the response the people want, and the gut response of most political leaders and every nation under the sun since Cain took vengeance on Abel, is, to retaliate.  The more threatening your response, the less you will lose face amongst your peers and people.  Therefore  war must be declared and bombers launched to destroy the strongholds of the enemy.  This has invariably happened in history and most people support such action.  In this climate of fear and revenge, daily fed by the media, it is unlikely you will want to read the Bible or listen to the pope before you respond, though you might get religious support from those who are ready to give you their divine blessing.  But if by chance you do listen to the prophets and open the Bible you will find this passage written by Paul to Christians living in Rome, the heart of the Empire, the ancient equivalent of Washington DC.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Of course, these words were not addressed to political leaders responsible for taking care of the weighty affairs of government but to a small congregation of Christians  who were suffering persecution.  They could not really have taken vengeance on the Empire persecuting them; they were powerless.  By contrast you have the power to play God, and your oath of office does not include making a commitment to ,love your enemies. Who can possibly love ISIS, except those thousands of angry, alienated and vengeful Muslim young people and former Sunni soldiers of Saddam Hussein? 

Even though not all of you would claim to be Christian, for political reasons at least it is convenient at such a time to evoke the historical myth of Western Christian Civilization.  Our leaders did that during the dark days of apartheid.  We were engaged, they told us, in a life and death struggle against godless Communism.  But in the end we discovered that we were not defending Christian civilization, we were defending our own interests and that the way we were doing so was anything but Christian.  In fact, Western civilization is not necessarily or normally Christian at all if by Christian we mean following the teaching of Jesus.  After all, the so-called Christian nations of Europe which are now united in a fragile alliance fighting terrorism  have often been at war with each other, killing and maiming millions for the sake of honour and revenge, or control of resources.  There was nothing Christian about the bombing of Coventry or the vengeance that then led to the destruction of the city of Dresden.  We at Volmoed are particularly aware of this because we are part of the Community of the Cross of Nails which grew out of these terrible bombings and the decision of the Dean of Coventry Cathedral to forgive and work for reconciliation.  Vengeance was not Christian; forgiveness and reconciliation was.  You see, to defend Christian civilization means defending Christian values, and acting accordingly. The issue is not about protecting your citizens, that is your duty, but the danger of fostering a culture of fear, hate and revenge in which humanity and dignity is eroded in a spiral of violent reprisal.  The only victors are those who manufacture weapons, which are increasingly used against all of us. 

You cannot always govern according to "Christian principles, turning the other cheek when terrorists blow up taverns.  Hitler has to be stopped in his tracksas does ISIS.  But if vengeance is the driving motive in doing so, it will devour you as much as it devours your enemies, for vengeance begets retaliation.  The bombing of Baghdad begets terrorism in Boston, London and Paris.  So consider the consequences.  The more jihadists you bomb the more are born.  Today's terrorists are the grandchildren of those who suffered from brutal wars in Algeria, Palestine, Iraq, and other countries that were once European colonies, even though these disillusioned and dangerous young men and women have grown up in Europe and now have European passports.   Why is it that after living in and being educated in Europe they have turned against Europe and the West?  What has gone wrong?  Has Western civilization failed in convincing them about the values which we all cherish?  Has the Christian West lost its soul in trying to gain the whole world?

The only long term solution to the crisis we face and defeat the ideology that is threatening to destroy civilization, is one driven by moral values that transcend selfish national interests.  The alternative, the path of vengeance, is war without end.  Is that the kind of world we and future generations really want to live in?  Maybe those who manufacture armaments don't want wars to end, maybe terrorists don't, and maybe those religious extremists who are wanting Armageddon to erupt don't, but sane people do, and those who seriously follow Jesus do. 

So our prayer for you is that you may be able to see beyond the immediate challenge and count the longer term cost and consequences of your actions.  Our prayer for you as you search for solutions is that you do do not compromise your own moral integrity.  Our prayer is that you and we together may cherish those values which are fundamental to human flourishing even in these critical times of terror: justice, compassion, tolerance, hospitality, and a respect for human dignity among them.  If we lose these even in fighting a just cause, we will lose our souls just as empires and nations have lost their theirs the more they have expanded and conquered. That is why the words of St. Paul, even though written to a small band of powerless Christians in the belly of the Empire still speak to all of us today.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 26 November 2015

Meditation: IN CHRIST by John de Gruchy

IN CHRIST

II Corinthians 5:16-20

Acts 19:1-9

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

One of the books I read as a student which has left a life-long impression on me was entitled A Man in Christ.  The book, by a Scottish scholar James Stewart, is about St. Paul, hence "man" in the title!  I took the book off my library shelf again this week and was struck by how much I had underlined, sentence after sentence, passage after passage.  It  is a study of Paul's  understanding of the Christian life and faith based on his conversion to Christ which began so dramatically on the road to Damascus, an experience that turned his life around. The whole of Paul's understanding of what it means to be a Christian was premised on what happened to him that day.  It was the hinge factor which changed the way in which he understood himself, as well as God and the world.  He became a new creation, he saw things in a completely new way, he had a new direction and purpose in life.  "If anyone is in Christ," he would later write, "there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new."

Even though some non-human animals may have something similar, it is generally thought that what distinguishes us human beings from the rest is our self-consciousness .  That is, our ability to reflect on our experience, whether of suffering or love, of fear or of hope, of one another or of God, in order to understand what it all means for us and our lives.   Self-consciousness is the ability to know ourselves, to know what is going on inside, in the deep recesses of our being.  Sometimes when we do so we throw up our hands in dismay and acknowledge that our lives are in a mess, they are falling apart, or as Paul himself put it, "the good we want to do we don't, and the evil we don't want to do, we simply go ahead and do" despite our good intentions.  We may even feel like that this morning.  That is why some people today go as regularly to a clinical psychologist or counsellor as they do to the dentist or doctor.  They need help to put their lives together. The truth is, at some time or other we may all need such help to find an integrating a centre to our lives that will hold everything together and provide stability as well as direction in our lives.

This process began for St. Paul on the Damascus Road.  His old self-disintegrated, and out of the broken pieces a new person began to emerge like clay on a potter's wheel.  To begin with he did not fully understand what was happening to him, even though it was clear that something dramatic had taken hold of his life.  But in due course and with the help of others he began to understand that the Christ he had formerly rejected with a passion had become the centre of his existence.  As a result the direction of his life changed and everything had a new focus.  And as he grew into his new life in Christ over the months and years that followed, so his perceptions changed and his understanding deepened.  He  found the words to express what had happened to him and what could happen to others as well: grace, forgiveness, joy, peace, and a deep desire to share the good news.  In addition, he no longer saw anyone from his old human point of view and within the confines of a narrow ethnic legalism.  In Christ, he declared, there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave or free person, man or woman, for all of them are equally part of the Christian community. 

In one of his prison letters Dietrich Bonhoeffer refers to Christ as the "cantus firmus" of his life.  The term was originally a musical one that referred to the melody line in the work of composers like J.S. Bach.  But it equally refers to all types of music that have a similar structure.  If you watch a jazz band play you will know that there is a controlling melody played by all the instruments together.  But then, one by one, the trumpeter, or drummer, or saxophonist will take centre stage and improvise while the rest of the band keep on playing the melody.  The melody provides the "cantus firmus," it holds it all together, but it also allows each instrument to do their thing -- in musical terminology that is called  "polyphony," the many voices that make the music come alive.  But these many voices are able to do this only because there is a strong core, a centre, a "cantus firmus."  Christ, says Bonhoeffer, is that centre, the "cantus firmus" which enabled him to experience the "polyphony of life," life in all its variety and different parts, but without fragmenting.  With Christ the centre, Bonhoeffer is saying,  things no longer fall apart, there is in fact a new creation which is driven a love for others and a passion for justice.

Some refer to this experience of Christ as the awakening of a "Christ consciousness."  I think that is a very rich and meaningful description as long as it does not become some kind of vague spirituality that has lost its connection with Jesus himself.  For the Christ of faith who becomes the centre of our lives, the Christ who stopped Paul on the Damascus Road and whom he would later describe in Cosmic terms, is the sam Jesus whose story is told in the gospels but in a different dimension.  Whereas before his resurrection and the outpouring of his Spirit, Jesus  was confined to a particular time and space, to the paths of Galilee and the Streets of Jerusalem, now people were encountered by him on the road to Emmaus and Damascus.  Through the Spirit Jesus the Christ had gone viral.  But the Spirit remains the Spirit of Jesus.  So when St. Paul tells the church in Philippi that they should "have the mind of Christ," he immediately reminds them of Jesus, the one who, though he had every right to claim divine status, became the humble servant who gave his life for the world.  Christian formation in Christ is all about the transformation of our minds into the "mind of Christ." That is "Christ consciousness."

Volmoed exists, as our motto has it, to make broken people whole.  And that includes all of us.  The fact of the matter is that all of us continually need to regain our centre in Christ, all of us need to be renewed and become whole, all of us need nurturing in the mind of Christ -- it is an ongoing process, it is the journey into the mystery we call God.  So when we come here on a Thursday to celebrate this Eucharist together, with Christ at the centre, we are centring our lives again in him.  As we listen to the gospel story, eat bread and drink wine together, so Christ enters our lives afresh to shape the way we live in the world.  If any of us begins to live in Christ, we become part of the new creation that God is grinding into being.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  12 November 2015

©  John W. de Gruchy

If you wish to copy or distribute this material please ask for my consent.  Please acknowledge source and do not change content without permission.

Meditation: EMBODIED WORDS by John de Gruchy

EMBODIED WORDS

John 1:1-5, 14

James 1:22-25

Be doers of the word.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (NRSV)

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. (Peterson)

When people who receive my weekly meditation by e-mail, and one of them is an Emeritus Archbishop, write to tell me that I spelt Zwelihle wrong in my meditation last week, I have to take note and gnash my teeth in contrition.  At the very least I should be,embarrassed, as I duly was.  After all,  I don't like it when people call me de Grunchy like most bank tellers, municipal officials, shop assistants  and the like, So I should take more care to remember names, and spell them correctly.  I can hear Isobel in the background saying "famous last words!" But at any rate I now know that there are some people who actually read my meditations, and that Zwelihle means "beautiful place." May the day come soon  when it will become what its name means.

Words are important, as the Book of Proverbs tells us, they can cheer people up and they can make them angry, and a word spoken at the right time can save a life or a nation.   Words are often trite and casually used, but sometimes they are powerful, moving crowds to action whether in a good cause or a bad one.  Words can encourage and comfort, they can also hurt and destroy.  So we need to take care when we use them to avoid misunderstanding, upsetting relationships, provoking bad actions.

Many people prefer the King James or Authorised Version of the Bible to modern translations like Eugene Peterson's The Message because there is something majestic about its language.  Yet, like Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, there are many words in that venerable version of the Bible that we no longer use or understand, words that have changed meaning over time. When last did you use "sanctification" in a conversation?  And when we talk about justification or election we don't mean what St. Paul meant.  Even the meaning of words like "salvation" or "sin", "grace", love or hope", "peace or righteousness" is not always clear, and even the word "God" means different things to different people and in the way we use it. And, of course,, the Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and Jesus spoke Aramaic  So all the words in our Bibles are translations, and the words do not necessarily have the identical meaning of the original.  That is one reason why new translations of the Bible keep on coming, and why we have decided to re-write our Volmoed Prayer Book. 

The truth of the matter is that language develops and the meaning of words change.  Just think about "awesome", which in the Bible refers to holiness and beauty, but for our grandchildren it describes granmas' cooking or a rugby match.  Even the words Christian and Christianity convey different meanings to different people because they conjures up different images, much like the words Islam or Muslim.  The same is true in political discourse.  The meaning of "reconciliation" is highly contested in South Africa, and "transformation" is no longer politically correct in some circles.  That is why we need to find the right words to express our faith today, words that mean something to us and to others.  Words that unpack rather than hide or distort the truth; words that are not simply religious jargon, but actually communicate the message of the good news about Jesus.

This was something that bothered Dietrich Bonhoeffer while he was thinking about the future of Christianity shortly before his death.  He wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge about it:

At the moment I am thinking about how the concepts of repentance, faith, justification, rebirth, and sanctification should be reinterpreted in a “worldly” way – in the Old Testament sense and in the sense of John 1:14.

For him, this meant in a way that ordinary and especially secular people can understand.  And his reference to John 1:14 -- our text for today -- refers to the way God chose to speak to us, not just in words but in the Word become flesh.   "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood."  A profound reminder that the words of faith are not just about ideas or concepts, they are words that have to be embodied in order to communicate what they mean..  When God wanted to tell us that he loves us, he did not just say the word, he became the word. The meaning of love  was demonstrated in action.   "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...it moved into our neighbourhood."

So while we need to find the right words to express our faith and tell about God's love and grace, we need to understand that the words of faith do not mean much in the abstract; they need to become embodied in life in order to have meaning.  You can say you love someone a thousand times, but love is not just a word, it needs to be expressed in order to have meaning.  You can say you believe in God as much as you like, but what faith means for you has to be embodied in the way you live. Yes, we need to find the right words, we need words that speak the truth to our time, we need to clarify what we mean, but in the end words only carry weight when they are embodied. That is why it is very difficult to understand a play by simply reading it, you have to see it acted out on the stage.  That is why we need to know the gospel story about Jesus, the drama of his life, in order to understand what it means to say "God so loved the world." That is why the word Christian has to be expressed in ways that reflect the true meaning of the gospel rather than convey the negativity so many people, for good reason, associate with Christianity today.

How then is the world to believe the good news that we as Christians are meant to share with others?  Or to put it differently, what is evangelism all about?  Is it about words?  Yes, it is, and we need to choose them carefully.  But our words need to be made flesh, our words of faith have to become embodied.  That is why in his letter, St. James tells us to "be doers of the word, and not merely hearers" or, for that matter, "merely speakers."People will never know what a word like "sanctification" means until they have met a real saint.  People will never understand the word "reconciliation" until they see justice restored in our land, or until they have actually experienced a forgiveness that changes relationships. They will never trust the word "transformation" unless things change for the good on the ground.   Zwelihle will not be the "beautiful place" it was intended to be unless there is the will and action to make it so. The gospel will never be good news to people unless they discover the renewing and healing power of Christ, unless they see that those who believe in Christ are truly making a difference for good in the world. Unless the Word becomes flesh and blood and moves into the neighbourhood no one will understand the grace and truth that is in Jesus.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  5 November 2015

PS.  I am always delighted when people find my meditations helpful enough to want to share them with others.  But I have been advised to add the copyright note below, so I do so even if a little reluntantly.

©  John W. de Gruchy

If you wish to copy or distribute this material please ask for my consent.  Please acknowledge source and do not change content without permission.