About Me 
LIAM BANTOCK
A guy living out his life of discipleship in Footscray while following the Melbourne Victory.
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The Thought Matters Conference had a call for papers for the 2012 conference. I submitted an abstract but was selected to present a paper at the conference. As part of preparing a 200 word abstract I wrote a very rough draft of an introduction to where I would head with the paper. The theme of the conference is “Vision for the lost, or a lost vision” which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of William Booth’s death.
As I have been a bit slack with blogging lately, and these rough ideas wouldn’t be presented anywhere else, I decided to post them here. But please bear in mind they are what they are. They are the initial thought process in the preparation of a paper. They precede a first draft even so they are extremely undeveloped. So here goes:
“There is nothing in my scheme which will bring it into collision either with Socialists of the State, or Socialists of the Municipality, with Individualists or Nationalists, or any of the various schools of thought in the great field of social economics – excepting only those anti-Christian economists who hold that it is an offence against the doctrine of survival of the fittest to try to save the weakest from going to the wall, and who believe that when once a man is down the supreme duty of a self-regarding Society is to jump upon him. Such economists will naturally be disappointed with this book.” In Darkest England, William Booth
I wonder how many Salvation Army social programs, let alone corps based programs, could lay claim to that statement today?
The quote comes from the second chapter to In Darkest England. I for one am quite happy to take a historical critical approach to Booth’s work and to suggest that much of the source material behind the canonical material in In Darkest England comes from the Australian Southern Territory’s own James Barker. Yes Booth might have taken this source material and working in collaboration with Barker produced the rough outline of ‘his’ plan. But a strong dose of redaction criticism, allied with reading the dedication inside the front cover of the book, would suggest that W.T. Stead is to thank for the final polished and published version that we have today. But I digress.
In Darkest England is perhaps the greatest single document that exists outlining the breadth of William Booth’s vision for the Salvation Army. And yet I wonder if a quarter of the people in this room have read it cover to cover? And we are the Salvationists interested enough to turn up to a conference on William Booth’s vision for the Salvation Army.
Booth’s vision for the Salvation Army was radical, it was political and it provided a meta-narrative not only for the work of the Salvation Army but a kind of pragmatic theology for our work. I aim to explore the radical and political nature of Booth’s Salvationism and to suggest that the Salvation Army in the 21st Century has lost Booth’s vision primarily because it has lost a meta-narrative.
Before going any further it is important to clarify and define how I am going to use the terms in this discussion. I understand the term radical to be the opposite of conservative and more extreme than merely progressive. But I do not mean these as labels of theological position. Conservativism is that which maintains the status quo. How it is now is pretty much as good as it is going to get. Any attempt at change for the better will in fact just result in change for the worse. On the other hand progressivism and its more extreme cousin radicalism, see change as required to move to a better place. Where progressivism and radicalism differ is the speed at which change is to take place. Progressivism sees change as a slow process where a rolling stone gathers more and more moss as it descends down the hillside. Radicalism on the other hand demands all or nothing change. If we want the world to be a certain way then we must initiate that change in its entirity now. The problem we face in the 21st Century is that radicalism is used pejoritavily of Islamic extremists. Perhaps it is time for a reclamation of the term.
I want to suggest that Booth’s vision for the Salvation Army was a political one. But here I am not defining political as persuing a party political agenda. Rather I use the term political to mean how society is structured and how we go about interacting, on a personal, organisational and societal level, to decide how society is to be structured. Booth and the other early Salvationists saw the Salvation Army in the thick of this dialogue. Their engagement with the body politic was sometimes forceful, sometimes controversial and most always radical. One only needs to think of some of the big ticket historical go tos that we use when discussing the early Salvation Army’s social and political engagement. The Maiden Tribute and purchase of the match factory were political engagement by the early Salvation Army. But it wasn’t just societal level politics that we were engaged in. Converting a drunk and making sure that he didn’t backslide was a political act, albeit at the level of family politics.
Lastly I want to suggest that Booth understood the Salvation Army as part of a grand meta narrative. Booth’s vision for the work of the Salvation Army was informed by his meta narrative, that is the level of meaning that sits above our existence and ties everything together. Sadly for some of our neo-Salvationist friends Booth’s meta narrative was not as simple as your a sinner, Jesus died for your sins, repent and believe, go to heaven. For Booth everything he did was connected to his meta narrative and of course Salvation was the key component. But if one reads In Darkest England one begins to see that in Booth’s use of imagery, like the Cab Horse charter and the lighthouse metaphor, and the practicality of the Scheme he sees Salvation as far broader than pie in the sky when you die. Booth’s vision of a radical politically engaged Salvation Army was about installing Heaven on Earth.
So working top down if you like we come up with Booth’s vision looking something like this: There is a meta narrative that Booth held. Whilst we can’t define all of it we can pick some key points that include God’s involvement in the world, God’s salvific plan for the world including both individuals and structures, a post-millenialist eschatology that suggested Heaven was to come on Earth and it was to be bought about by Human, and specifically Christian (and some might say specifically Salvationist), endeavour. This meta narrative then drove Booth, and by extension the Salvation Army, to become politically engaged. If we are to inaugurate Heaven on Earth then we need to be engaged in the dialogue of how society is to be structured. This need to be politically engaged, aligned with a meta narrative that spoke of the imminency of the eschatological reign of Christ demanded a radical political engagement. Massive change was required and it was required now.
The other day I saw someone posit something on twitter that had me shaking my head. The comment was “If I have free will & can act contrary to Gods wishes, he is not omnipotent. If not, then he is responsible for my “sins” …” It wasn’t so much the comment that got my head shaking but rather the addition of #logic to the end of the tweet.
The idea that a 140 character thought could disprove the existence of God, the tweeter in question (@pillsongchurch) was advocating atheism, is ludicrous. But even more incredulous is the idea that the positing of a question is somehow the epitome of logic. Logic is actually about dealing with tough intellectual challenges not dismissing them. Now I don’t really care for debating the topic of the tweet because the tweeter has some pretty serious preconceptions that need to be addressed before one can even approach that.
If you want to claim that your side of an argument (or in this case your unsolicited statement) is logical then you sure want to do some logical reasoning before making your point. Understanding some of the other sides of the argument might help too. In the case above some pretty heavy thought has gone into it over the last 2000 years of Christian history, and more if you include Jewish religious thought. To summarily dismiss such thinking without even exploring it shows a limited understanding of the whole concept of logic.
But moving more generally this goes back to my previous post about understanding who we are. Very rarely, if at all, are we able to hold a position or viewpoint that is unique. Also no matter what our viewpoint is it has been built upon the foundation of another viewpoint. Understanding how viewpoints and positions have developed over time gives us a good handle on evaluating their ongoing value.
To dismiss another’s view because you haven’t taken the time to even understand the basic tenets of it is a nieve way to understand the world. It also says little about one’s ability to reason your way through a problem.
There a simple answers to all of the complex questions of the world. They are always wrong. It doesn’t matter if the simple answer is “God said it so I believe it” or “bad stuff happens so God can’t exist.”
Over the last two evenings while I have been reading, in two completely different fields, the same idea has cropped up. On Tuesday I was doing some reading on reader response theory and the Bible. Reader response theory is based on a post-structuralist understanding that we, the reader, create the meaning of the text as we read it. Meaning is created in the dialogue between the words on the page and our context as we read. There is no way to read a text, in this case the Bible, objectively. We all create meaning as a result of who we are and where we read from.
Last night I started a new book, Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton. In the introduction Hamilton seeks to outline how with the fall of Eastern European communism Western capitalism has created a narrative that it exists as the only logical way of being. Hamilton’s argument is that we uncritically accept the narrative created by the consumerist, capitalist society. We don’t know who we are and so we fail to see any alternative to that which is presented to us by society.
A few weeks ago I touched on the idea of power and being able to recognise when we hold power. Naming the power that we hold is necessary before we can seek to work towards equality. The challenge that my reading of the past two days presents is that we must go further than just identifying the power that we hold. We must critically analyse our entire context if we are to understand our place in the world.
The more we can understand how we each are individually shaped by our context then the better we are at understanding how we create meaning. For me this is important for two aspects.
The first relates to how we read the Bible. We need to realise that how we understand the Bible is shaped by the context in which we read it. Once we come to this realisation then it becomes important who we read the Bible with. If we only read the Bible with people in the same context then we will be stuck in our own subjective meaning. We need to read the Bible with people who are different from ourselves. The Bible was written by a poor marginalised minority. We must read it with people who come from poor marginalised minorities if we want to find the depth of meaning in the text. Biblical scholars who deal in reader-response theory identify the need for professional (academic), trained (pastors and others theologically trained) and ordinary (untrained & then specifically poor marginalised minorities) readers to dialogue with one another in the quest for the meaning of the Biblical text. For too long white middle class educated males have dictated what the Bible means.
The second aspect for me is how we relate in community. If we begin to understand how we are shaped by our context then we understand that each person in community is shaped differently. We are shaped from the moment we are born and no two people, even twins, share the exact same life experiences. That is why when we bang our head against the wall at other’s inability to see what we are talking about in a disagreement. We blame them for the problem of not understanding us. But how deeply have we reflected on how our context has shaped our position. We are shaped by things that are both easy to see and others that are deeply hidden. How easily do we see that how we responded in an argument earlier in the day was actually shaped by our experience of being bullied in primary school? Or how our preference for working with one person over another is they subconsciously remind us of our childhood best friend? The better able we are to understand ourselves and our context the better able we are to engage in meaningful dialogue.
*This was my talk from our house church yesterday*
Matthew 8:5-13(My own translation)
And as Jesus entered Capernaum a centurion approached him, pleading to him and saying, “lord, my boy is lying at home paralysed, suffering great pain.” And Jesus says to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” And the centurion responded, “lord, I am not worthy for you to come into my home, but merely say the word and my boy will be healed. For I also am a person under authority, having soldiers under myself and I say to one of them, “go!” and he goes and to another, “come!” and he comes, and to my slave, “do this” and they do.” And after hearing this Jesus was amazed and said to those accompanying him, “truly I say to you, among no one in Israel have I found such great faith. And I say to you that many will come from the east and from the west and dine with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the empire of heaven. And the heirs of the empire will be cast out into the extreme darkness, where there will be weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “depart! Because you faithed it happened for you. And the boy was healed in that hour.”
What makes the Bible different from other books? I brought some different books in today. I brought in this history book which is a first hand story of the first people to climb Mt Everest. Now the Bible certainly has some history in it but it isn’t a history book like this one.
I also have this science text book. This book tells us about the human brain and how it works and about what makes us tick psychologically. It explains to us how the world, or one particular part of the world, works. Now the Bible isn’t a science text book but it does set out to explain how the world works. It does tells us why things happen and explores human emotions at a very deep level.
Next I’ve got this novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Who has read this? It is a great book and it is a direct allegory of the Jesus story. The Lion, Aslan, is Jesus and the Witch is Satan. It has the big themes of the gospel stories – sin, sacrifice, redemption, victory – but as Christians we don’t think we should base our lives on it. What makes it different from the Bible, if it just retells the Bible stories?
I also bought in this theology book. It outlines what we believe and what our belief in God means. It explores what are the practical implications of the beliefs that we hold. But this isn’t scripture either, why not?
Lastly I brought in this biography. It tells us about the life of Catherine Booth. The whole point of the book is to help us to get to know who Catherine is and what she was on about. She was a woman after God’s own heart. If we read about her life and how she connected with God we can learn things that we can put into practice in our own life. The Bible tells us about a lot of people’s lives. Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, Paul. So why don’t we consider this biography of Catherine to be part of the Bible?
I think, and nearly 2000 years of the history of the church tells us, that what separates these books from the Bible is two things. Firstly, inspiration. We believe that God inspired the authors of the 66 books that make up our Bible. That isn’t to say that God didn’t inspire the writers of these other books. It just means that there is an even greater level of God’s inspiration behind the books that make up the Bible.
Secondly, acceptance of authority. When they came to decide exactly which books would be in the Bible and which would be left out they simply asked “which books are accepted as scripture in the church?” The books of the Bible are scripture because we accept their authority.
Now I want to move on a little bit and look at what I think is the next question. If we think we should care about the Bible because it is inspired and because it has authority how should we read and understand it? I think people sometimes get overwhelmed when they come to read the Bible.
- Perhaps they don’t read very much or very well. “I don’t like reading so why would I bother reading the Bible?”
- Perhaps they feel like you don’t know enough to read the Bible. “I don’t know enough about God or about religion or about the world where Jesus lived?”
- Perhaps they have tried reading the Bible but found it too confusing
Well I want to talk about a way that we can read the Bible that I hope will encourage us all to read it.
When we read the Bible we are asking ourselves “what does it mean?” Well I think there are 3 places we can look for meaning when we read the Bible.
The first is behind what is happening on the page. We read the story of Jesus talking to the Roman Centurion. We can ask ourselves questions like “what do I know about Roman Centurions?” And it is ok at this point to say “I don’t know anything about Roman Centurions except that they wore funny hats.” It is ok not to know but also if we do know something it might help us understand the story in a different way. We might also, if we are really keen, say “I really like this story and I don’t know much about Roman Centurions so I might try and find something out about them.” If we know a little bit about Roman Centurions we would know that good Jews weren’t really supposed to talk to Romans and definitely were not supposed to visit their houses.
Another way that we can look for meaning behind the text is to go “wait a minute, I’ve read this story before but it was slightly different.” A lot of the stories of Jesus appear in more than one of the gospels. So the story of Jesus and the Centurion appears in Matthew and in Luke but there are some differences. One of the key differences being that in Matthew the Centurion comes to Jesus but in Luke the Centurion sends the leaders of the Jewish synagogue. So we can ask “why are they different, what does it mean?” We might realise then that Luke tries to show how the Jewish leaders were mediating between Jesus and the Roman. On the other hand Matthew shows Jesus disregarding the Jewish prohibition on crossing cultural boundaries.
The second place we can look for meaning when we read the Bible is what is written on the page. If you ever had to do a book review at school or studied Literature then you can use those same skills here. We can look at the characters and how they interact. We can explore the themes and how they develop and unfold. We can look at how the author presents the story, or presents their argument, and how they are trying to persuade us.
Going back to our Bible story we can do this in a few ways. Matthew’s Gospel is structured around 5 major sermons. This story comes straight after the Sermon on the Mount, in a section of the gospel called the ‘Deeds of Power’ section where Jesus performs lots of miracles before launching into another sermon. So at a structural level Jesus is putting into action the words of his sermon. At the level of character interaction we see that Jesus was amazed by the response of the Centurion. Did Jesus heal the boy because he was surprised by the faith of the Centurion’s response? This is the first Gentile that Jesus meets in Matthew so did Jesus change his mind about Gentiles as a result of this meeting?
The last place that we can look for meaning is in front of the text. And again there are a number of ways we can do this. We can ask how has this passage been understood over the history of the church? We can apply different theories or approaches to the text, like feminist theory, post-colonial theory or an ecological criticism. Lastly we can explore how we as the reader create meaning with the text. An example of a post-colonial reading of this story is to see the Centurion as the colonial power. The centurion calls Jesus ‘lord’ and rather than being a religious title we can see it as a title of patronage. The centurion sees that Roman colonial power can not heal his boy and so he must switch his allegiance to Jesus to bring about healing. The ‘healing’ then comes from the throwing off of colonial oppression and acceptance of the way of Jesus. Another way of seeing meaning in front of the text is to see that we create meaning. If language is just symbols then we each interpret those symbols through the lenses we bring. In this way of thinking the text has no meaning until it interacts with the reader and we create meaning from and with it. So the meaning I find in this story will be different to the meaning that a poor woman in Kenya finds in the story because we come to it wearing different glasses.
So what does this all mean for how we read the Bible? Well I want to suggest that we all do some of these ways of reading automatically, without even thinking about it. Some of us are more drawn to some ways of reading more than others. Others are drawn to different ways. There are positives and negatives to all three places of seeing meaning.
If meaning only exists behind the text then only people who have that knowledge can find the meaning. The meaning isn’t available to everyone. If meaning only exists in the text then it is separate from its context. It is like having a Star Trek alien appear in the middle of a Western movie. Or we fall into literalism and bibliolatry. “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!” If meaning only exists in front of the text then we individualise God. My God cares about post-colonialism while your God cares about women and your God cares about the poor. If we create meaning then we are slaves to our experience and context.
But if we look behind the text we can see how the Matthean Jesus is challenging us to cross cultural boundaries. If we look in the text we can see that Jesus didn’t just preach but he also acted and that the author Matthew is trying to get us to act as well. If we look for meaning in front of the text we see that even the powerful and the oppressors need to accept Jesus. As you had heard me say often we need to read the Bible individually and we need to read it together because it is only in reading the Bible with people who are different from ourselves that we come to find the real meaning of it.
Travelling light
We value the difference that can be made when we sacrifice personal gain, pouring out our rich resources as an act of worship. Through simplicity, good stewardship and a common commitment to sharing our lives with others, we seek to lessen the power imbalance in Footscray.
Those that know me well will know that I don’t cry often. But one day, before I was married I was talking to my now wife about where I saw my life heading. I was talking about where I felt God leading me and the broad brush strokes of how I saw my life unfolding. And then I switched to talking about the cost to me of choosing to follow in that path. I cried as I said that the cost for me was that I would have to give up on my dream, as a young Australian red blooded male, of owning a HSV (Holden Special Vehicle, basically a hotted up Commodore). Now it might seem ludicrous to picture me, not much of a crier, crying over an inanimate object. But there was so much stuff wrapped up in my dream of owning a HSV that to give up on my dream car was to give up on everything behind the dream.
The car was purely the status symbol, and boy’s toy, of the lifestyle that I had wanted to pursue but that I knew I had to give up. A lifestyle that was orientated to working in a career that brought self satisfaction and a large paycheck. A lifestyle based on career advancement for financial, status and power gain. A lifestyle based on the accumulation of things at the top of which was a HSV.
When I arrived in Footscray I was so sure of what I had to bring. I knew who I was and what I brought with me, the skills and experiences that had shaped me. I soon found out that the things that I valued, offered and took pride in were not valued as highly by others in the community. As a well educated middle class man the stuff I brought were not tangible objects that could be brought and sold in a shop. But they were still things to be consumed, to be accumulated and to be held onto.
Sacrificing personal gain is not trendy, either inside or outside of the church. When we get to a story in the Bible that commands sacrificing personal gain or material goods we allegorise away the command. “Jesus really didn’t mean the man had to sell everything, he just had to not be enslaved by his possessions.” “When Jesus said take up your cross, he meant be fully committed to your vocation, work really hard at your job and do it to the best of your ability (ie. keep accruing money through efficiency and promotion).” But the command is there and we ignore it at our peril.
The greatest challenge of this value for me is the thought that we “seek to lessen the power imbalance in Footscray.” What I appreciate most about it is that it doesn’t say that we seek to remove it. That would be impossible. Power comes in so many different forms, both coercive and non-coercive. What we seek to do is recognise power in all its forms. We can’t eradicate power but we can recognise it, acknowledge it and work towards lessening it.
I have a job. That immediately gives me power in Footscray. It gives me money which I can use to purchase goods, drive my car and avoid having to line up at Centrelink or Emergency Relief. I have a post graduate University education. That immediately gives me power. I can use big words, I can put together an eloquent argument and dissect inconsistencies in other’s arguments. I am a white Anglo-Australian that was born and raised here. I know how systems work, I know the laws and what my rights are. I am male and that gives me power. We live in a patriarchal culture where maleness is inherently powerful.
These are but a small sample of the power and privilege that I recognise within my own life. Travelling light means choosing to sacrifice that power and privilege to seek to lessen the power imbalances in our community. But even that, choice, is perhaps the greatest power I hold. I choose to be here and I choose to remain here. I choose to be alongside those who lack that choice. Every time I walk past the local Holden dealer I am reminded of that choice and the sacrifice. Somedays I even dream about what it would be like to take one of those HSVs for a spin around the block. But I never have any regrets.
*This is my sermon from the chapel service at James Barker House from this evening*
John 20:19-22
Tonight we are a week on from Easter. Have you finished off all your chocolate yet? I wonder sometimes if we as Christians gorge ourselves on the Easter story only on Easter Sunday and then quickly forget about it. A bit like when we eat too much chocolate we feel like we need a break from the Easter story.
But the story of Jesus’ resurrection is bigger than one day each year. We need to spend more time reflecting on it than just one church service. Our Bible reading for tonight comes from John’s gospel and I think tells us of the continuing importance of the Easter story for each of our lives.
The disciples had come together and locked the door because they were afraid of being caught. They were scared and they were confused. Jesus, the man whom they had followed, had been crucified by the Romans. Were the Romans coming for them? Jesus had been crucified because he challenged the Jewish leaders. Were the Jewish leaders going to come and arrest the disciples? But that isn’t all they had to be fearful of or confused about. The tomb where Jesus had been put was now empty. Mary Magdalene was saying that she had seen Jesus outside the tomb, that’s right he was alive and he had appeared to her. But what did all this mean? Was it true? Could it be true?
While they were all scared and worried, Jesus appeared to them. We shouldn’t pass over that fact. Jesus didn’t appear to the disciples when they had it all together or when they believed the right thing. Jesus appeared to the disciples where they were at. Jesus appeared to the disciples in the messiness of doubt and fear. So if you’re not sure what Easter is all about, if you’re not sure what you believe about Jesus being raised from the dead, don’t worry. You are just like the disciples were and that is when Jesus appeared to them. I think that sometimes being certain of something, especially something to do with Jesus, can prevent us from really seeing Jesus.
Jesus appears to the disciples and the first thing he does is to show them his hands and his side. He shows the disciples the wounds where nails had pierced his skin and the spear had pierced his side. Jesus carried the wounds of the crucificion in his resurrected body. In raising Jesus from the dead God didn’t fix his wounds. Rather Jesus carried the wounds in his hands and his side as proof of what God had done in the resurrection. It was Jesus’ wounds that spoke to the power of God. God didn’t just fix up Jesus’ wounds like a doctor would and resuscitate him back to life. God transformed the very meaning of death, he defeated it. The wounds that Jesus carried in his resurrected body showed that.
Now I don’t know about you, but I know that I have collected my share of scars, both visible and internal, in my life. One of the things that I take from this story of the resurrection is that God doesn’t erase those scars in my life. Jesus told the disciples “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Just as Jesus showed the disciples how the wounds in his resurrected body were a display of God’s power we are to do the same. We can share with others how God has worked in our lives. We can share how God’s power has brought resurrection in the scars of our lives.
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” We are sent into the world to continue the work of Jesus in sharing about God’s power. But we are not sent out alone. Jesus breathed on the disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere in John’s Gospel he tells us that the Holy Spirit is our helper. The Holy Spirit helps us in our walk with God. The Holy Spirit helps us to share with others about how God’s resurrecting power has worked in our own lives.
This Easter I have been challenged about how I can live the resurrection in my own life. Jesus’ words in this story give us the best example of how we can live the resurrection. “As the Father sent me, so I send you” We are to tell others of how God has worked in our lives. We are to receive the Holy Spirit which helps us on the way. We are to live the resurrection in our lives by following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Doing the hard yards
We value servanthood in the big and the small – choosing to do the “crappy” stuff. We want to be people of personal and spiritual maturity (enduring personal cost) in order that the vision is accomplished.
It is amazing how we focus on some aspects of a story and ignore others. For two thousand years the Christian church has remembered the events of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples and ritualised as an (the) integral part of its liturgy the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine. The symbolism, and indeed the sacramentalism, of this ritual cuts to the core of who Jesus was and what his ministry was about. Food, fellowship and the giving of oneself in service to the other encapsulate both the last supper and Jesus’ historical ministry.
Yet there is another element of that meal also symbolically, and sacramentally, encapsulates Jesus’ historical ministry. Jesus washed the disciples feet. Here was this leader, the Son of Man no less, who did the job of a common slave. The act was so offensive that Peter initially refused Jesus’ offer to wash his feet. It was, and continues to be, so offensive that we have not ritualised or sacramentalised it over the two thousand years of church history.
Our values state that we choose to do the hard yards. We choose to do the crappy stuff. I know one person in our community who has the spiritual gift of dish washing. Servanthood is not sexy. It is not powerful. It isn’t even honourable. Jesus took off his outer garment, took a towel and a bowl and washed his disciples feet. It was a shameful act for anyone, let alone the head honcho, hence why it was a job for slaves.
When I think of my own struggles with servanthood two key barriers come to mind. Selfishness and pride. Selfishness that I want to do my thing. Selfishness that my need is greater than others needs. Selfishness that I have done my fair share and it is time for someone else to step up.
Pride is a barrier to servanthood because it tells me that I am better than the person I am called to serve. Pride tells me that there are a myriad of reasons why I am better than the other. I have a greater level of education, a job, more money, a car and I had a shower this morning. Pride tells me that to serve someone else is to give them honour over myself. It is to loose face.
Yet this selflessness and shame was the cornerstone of Jesus’ ministry. He gave of himself to those around him, especially those lower than him in the social pecking order. He existed in an honour-shame society, where every social interaction was an opportunity to either gain or loose honour. Consistently he lost honour in his interactions. He touched women, lepers and foreigners. He gave away his honour like it was candy.
My constant struggle is challenging myself on what vision is most important to me. Is it my own vision or is it God’s vision for our community? What is the cost for me in this place? What do I hold onto that prevents me from experiencing fully what God has in store for this community? Like the ‘rich young ruler’ too often I walk away, sad because I have many riches.
Doing the hard yards requires personal and spiritual maturity. Again and again in the pages of the New Testament is the call for disciples to grow in spiritual maturity. The idea permeates Paul’s letters and the challenge rings forth in the gospels. One thing being in community has taught me is that maturity is not tied to how old you are. Maturity is an attitude, an acceptance of the need for growth and development, both emotionally, socially and spiritually. To be emotionally, socially or spiritually stunted is not going to assist you in doing the hard yards in community.
I can look back over my own life and see the times when I have been forced, or have forced myself, to grow in maturity. Sometimes it has been a crisis event when I have had to seek out advice or take a long hard look at myself to move forward and grow. It has involved recognising the selfishness and pride at work in my attitudes, motivations and actions. Sometimes my growing maturity has been a long slow process where I have taken on the wisdom of others, reflected on my experiences and developed my character.
So I want to be a foot washer. But it is never easy and it is alway costly. I want to challenge myself to grow in personal and spiritual maturity. I want to do the hard yards because ultimately I recognise that I want to buy into God’s vision rather than ask God to buy into mine.
So a few days have now passed since Easter. I have spent a bit of time reflecting on the Easter story and its significance for me these last few days. I have had some good conversations and read some really good articles. But I thought I might pause and reflect on the specific questions and themes that I have been thinking of this Easter.
At church on Sunday we were invited to share what are of the Easter story we struggled with, or that we didn’t get. I shared how I continually struggle with understanding how I, or we today, can experience the resurrected Jesus. The gospels and Paul all present a different picture of what experiencing the resurrected is like and how we do it. For Mark, with the angel’s command to “Go back to Galilee and there you will find Jesus”, we are invited to experience the resurrected Jesus by rereading, reengaging and reliving the life of Jesus. In the Emmaus tradition in Luke we are told that we recognise the resurrected Jesus in the breaking of bread, the sharing of table fellowship. For Luke table fellowship is all about eating with the poor and outcast. Paul tells us that he saw the resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus. In Paul’s own telling of the event he doesn’t suggest this was a bodily appearance, yet he says it was the last of the appearances common to the apostles. For Paul, noone after him can have the resurrected Christ appear to them in the same way. For the early Christian communities their experience of the resurrected Jesus, be it in living the story or sharing table fellowship, was so transformative for their communities. But I struggle to see that level of transformation within my own community or within my own life. Perhaps I idolise too much the transformative nature of the resurrection on Christian communities. But that too doesn’t sit well with me.
We were also asked to share what the Easter story means to us. The reoccuring theme was hope. In the Easter story we see God acting to show an alternate reality. We see God acting to show that death doesn’t win, that this world matters and everything we do in this life has significance. As I reflect on the Easter story I do see hope, I do see God at work in the world and I do see God inviting us to live the resurrection in our own lives, in our community and in our world. Every time we do a good and loving deed we are living and sharing the resurrection.
I have also reflected on the political nature of the Easter story. For some suggesting that the events of Good Friday are at their very core political is challenging yet they are prepared to accept it. But move on to Easter event and we move to the spiritual. But this is to miss the point. Jesus died as a result of the way he lived his life. Jesus was raised by God as a vindication of his life. The resurrection is God’s ‘yes’ to the life that Jesus led. The very life that the Roman and Jewish authorities said ‘no’ to and subsequently put to death. The power of Empire is wielded in death. But the power of God’s Empire is wielded in life. The power of God’s Empire is resurrection. It is a (non-violent) slap in the face to the power of earthly empire.
I have also reflected on the continuing challenge of engaging with a society that says that a rational faith is an oxymoron. Faith and rationalism have been in the news this week thanks to Easter and the QandA ‘debate’ between Richard Dawkins and George Pell. Perhaps the sadest reality is that many within the church believe the stupidity of this position. They cling to the simplicity of blind faith over the challenge of the image of faith seeking understanding. Pell is not the only Christian to dismiss science and its findings on our world. I saw someone state on twitter that the saddest part of the QandA debate is that Pell is the straw man of Dawkins’ arguments. Sadly I know too many straw men and women for Pell to be an isolated case. It does not have to be either or.
I am saddended when I read well reasoned arguments for the necessity of a bodily resurrection from academics like N.T. Wright and Rowan Williams and then open my own denominations discussion of the topic and find an argument that is one sided and limited both biblically and theologically. Or when I read research that shows people of faith are statistically more likely to be politically progressive rather than socially conservative. Yet it is the minority that dominates the stereotype and the microphone.
So this Easter I hope for a new encounter with the resurrected Jesus. I pray for a transformation in my life, in my community and in my world. I know that I must live the resurrection and I must encourage others to join me. The life of faith is a life of faith seeking understanding whilst living with mystery and hope. Surely the Easter story, of all stories of God’s involvement in the world, encourages us to that. After all the New Testament is silent on the event of the resurrection. But it shouts from the rooftop the reality of the communities’ experience of the resurrection.
*This post was a tutorial paper I wrote for a theology (Christology) subject entitled “Who is Jesus”, if you would like a properly formatted and footnoted copy please let me know* **Not to be reproduced without permission**
“It is necessary to dwell on the scandal of the cross in itself and not to rush to dissolve it through the “solution” of the resurrection. It is necessary because history goes on producing crosses …” Jon Sobrino rightly draws our attention to the connection of the cross of Jesus to the continued suffering of people throughout history and in the present day. Any reflection on the meaning of the cross must relate it to God’s action in the present. This paper seeks to outline the historical reality of the cross and the challenge of that brutal reality. It outlines the images of the early Christian communities as they sought to find meaning in the brutality of the cross. In conclusion I seek to suggest a way forward for understanding the cross in our context.
The place to begin any discussion of the cross is to acknowledge that there is a difference between the cross of history and the Calvary of faith. Smail suggests that, “a theory of atonement that is out of relation to the historical record of what Jesus did and saw himself to be doing in his death is disqualified by that fact.” Any understanding of the cross must be tied to the historicity of the event and the Jesus of history. Baillie states that the cross cannot be understood without, “some knowledge and understanding of the person who died on it.” We do well to hold foremost in our mind that Jesus died precisely because he had lived, just as all living things must die. He would have died even if he had not been executed on the cross. However Jesus death was not the end of the story, both of the Jesus event and our understanding of the cross. The Easter event profoundly changed the disciples understanding of Jesus’ death. Smail reminds us that, “Calvary does not stand alone; it is the crowning completion of what goes before it and the basis of what comes after it and can be understood only in that double context.”
When we explore the historical evidence for Jesus’ death we find that he died because of the life that he lived. Kung states that, “Jesus’ violent end was the logical conclusion of his proclamation and his behavior.” Jesus challenged the Jewish religious power brokers. Sobrino reminds us that, “Jesus’ preaching and activity represented a radical threat to the religious power of his time, and indirectly to any oppressive power, and that that power reacted.” The experience of Jesus reflects the experience of so many throughout history. Moltmann draws the confrontation between the messiah of the new world and the violent men of the world that is passing away. Jesus made a deliberate decision to confront the religious power of temple Judaism. His ministry began and flourished in the relative back blocks of Galilee. He toured the countryside and avoided the major Roman towns. But then he made a decision. Moltmann posits, “It would seem that he deliberately took this path in order to bring his messianic message to the holy city.” Jesus, and his disciples, must have known that this action was going to bring him into greater conflict with the religious authorities. It was this conflict, climaxing in Jesus’ action in the temple, that caused his death. Jesus not only dared to challenge the central symbol of Jewish life but also the power, vested in the temple, of the religious authorities.
The final words of Jesus on the cross provide a challenge to a triumphal understanding of both the historical cross and the Calvary of faith. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Moltmann believes that this cry could not have taken root in Christian faith if the words, or at least the sense of them, had not been uttered by Jesus on the cross. Rausch suggests that Jesus fully experienced the absence of God that all of us feel at times in our life. This cry, which is redacted out of the later Gospel traditions, bring deep questions to Jesus’ experience of the cross. Sobrino states that, “there are no grounds for thinking that Jesus attributed an absolute transcendent meaning to his own death, as the New Testament did later.” Jesus crying out on the cross displays no connection in that moment with transcendence or even a transcendence of meaning for what was happening. Smail suggests that, “the God-forsaken Jesus on the cross joins the company of the God-forsaken.” This idea of solidarity is one that I will pick up further later in the paper. Smail states that the picture of the cross in Mark is, “a devastatingly dark picture that is relieved only after he has died by the two signs that suggest that in this dense darkness a great work of God is being performed.” I think Moltmann captures the reality of this cry best saying, “The uniqueness of what may have taken place between Jesus and his God on Golgotha is therefore something we do well to accept and respect as his secret, while we ourselves hold fast to the paradox that Jesus died the death of God’s Son in God-forsakenness.”
It is out of the despair and reality of the historical cross colliding with the Easter event that the early church, and by extension the Biblical witness, grappled with the significance of the cross. Rausch reminds us that, “the manner of Jesus’ death remained a scandal for the disciples.” Anyone who was hung from a tree was considered abandoned by God. Sobrino, keen to remind us that serious questions of power and violence are at play here, calls us to consider the context of those Biblical writers trying to find a positive understanding of the cross. He states, “this approach, though perfectly comprehensible, can also be dangerous if thereby the scandal inherent in the cross of Jesus and the crosses of history is blunted or deprived of its force.” The early Christians were reminded of the redeeming love of God.
The Biblical witness presents a variety of reflections and metaphors for what happened in and through Jesus’ death on the cross. Sobrino points out that the earliest image was to see the cross as the fate of a prophet, as noted in 1 Thessalonians 2:14ff. Schweizer, looking only at the images used by Paul in Romans finds, “Jesus’ death is expiation, sacrifice, reconciliation, vicarious action, an act of liberation, justification of the sinner, example, and prototype experienced by the believer.” Kung notes that judicial, cultic, financial and military categories are all used to describe the cross. Smail highlights that for John’s Gospel, “in the death of Jesus and in the light of his resurrection the long awaited last things have started to happen and that makes his cross into a throne.” As can be seen there is a development of thought in the Biblical witness that uses a variety of images to explain the one historical event. It is one event that is too large, theologically and ontologically, to be described by one image.
I would like to suggest that the way forward in considering the cross in our context is to hold together the tension of the reality of the brutal death of Jesus with the positive reflections of the Biblical witness. The reality of the cross is horrific. Moltmann goes so far as to suggest, “if God the Father was in Christ, the Son, this means that Christ’s sufferings are God’s sufferings too, and then God too experiences death on the cross.” Schweizer states that, “God’s kingdom therefore cannot come in the form of a triumphal church, but only through a summons to discipleship that often enough can outwardly resemble Jesus’ way of the cross.” As disciples we are called to follow in Jesus footsteps, a reality which is too often overlooked. However the first disciples, upon the appearance of the risen Christ, understood that God had been with Jesus, as Schweizer states, “even and especially in his failure.” The way of the cross is not easy, but even when it appears to be a failure it is not. God is present in the reality of the cross, even in the reality of God-forsakenness. Discipleship is to be in solidarity with Jesus on the cross as well as those suffering the experience of the cross today.
The Jesus event culminates in the death and resurrection. Understanding the cross, both as a historical and theological reality, is key to understanding Jesus. It was a horrible death, but one caused by Jesus’ life and mission. In grappling with the scandal of the cross the early disciples used a variety of metaphors to comprehend the event. As disciples we too must grapple with the cross. We must see it as a call to solidarity both with Christ and the oppressed. God is at work in the ongoing reality of the cross.
Bibliography
Baillie, Donald. God was in Christ, London: Faber, 1956.
Boff, Leonardo. Jesus Christ Liberator, London: SPCK, 1980.
Kung, Hans. On being a Christian, London: Collins, 1977.
Moltmann, Jurgen. Jesus Christ for today’s world, London: SCM, 1994.
Moltmann, Jurgen. The way of Jesus Christ, London: SCM, 1990.
Rausch, Thomas. Who is Jesus? An Introduction to Christology, Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2003.
Schweizer, Eduard. Jesus, London: SCM, 1971.
Smail, Tom. Once and For All: A confession of the cross, Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1998.
Sobrino, Jon. Jesus the Liberator, London: Burns & Oates, 1994.
John here provides us with a clear picture of how he understands Jesus’ death on the cross. As I have mentioned previously, John tells us that Jesus’ crucificion was his crowning achievement, his coronation if you will.
It is perhaps easy to miss the role of the Greeks in this passage. They appear at the start but their role doesn’t seem to resolve unless we keep a close eye out. But we will come to that later. This Greeks wish to see Jesus. The Greek word translated as ‘see’ here can also be translated as perceive. The ‘seeing’ they have come to do is not mear spectacle. They have come to find out who Jesus is and what he is up to.
In verse 23 we read that Jesus answered them. Who is he answering? Is it the disciples who have come to tell him about the Greeks or the Greeks themselves? The ‘them’ indicates that Jesus directs this discussion at the Greeks, but with the disciples present in the discussion as well.
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” Jesus says. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem, for John Jesus knows the fate that he is to face. More than that he is practically controlling each step of the journey and knows what is to happen. The Johannine Jesus interprets his own crucificion with the metaphor of a grain of wheat. He must dies so that the fruit will be born. As disciples we are invited to follow in Jesus footsteps, to live with the same attitude towards our own lives. Whoever loves their life will lose it. If we are so caught up in looking after our selves, accumulating things to better our own life and seeking our own happiness then we are destined to miss eternal life. But if we look after others, seek their happiness and share what we have, even life itself, then we will gain eternal life. BUt for John eternal life starts here and now. Eternal life is a life lived in the fullness of God. Life in all its divine and human potential. Eternal life, for John, is encapsulated in the life and death of Jesus.
There is much conjecture as to whether John was aware of the other gospels when he came to write his own. Whatever the case maybe I think we can be fairly certain that he knew of the Gesthmane tradition. But that image of Jesus, suffering from fears and doubts, pleading with the Father to save him but resigned to follow the path set before him, does not resonate with John. He deals with that tradition discively. “No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” There can be no doubt in the Johannine Jesus’ mind. He is here to do this task and there can be no deviation.
Jesus’ mission is confirmed with a voice from heaven. The voice is not for Jesus’ benefit, as the voice at the Baptism is in Mark, but is for our benefit. Verse 32 is the heart of Jesus’ mission in John’s gospel. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Here the Greeks from the start of the story make their reappearance. We are to recall that it was to them that Jesus was speaking. His death on the cross, the grain falling to bear much fruit, is for all people. All people is Greeks as well as Jews. Jesus is breaking down the ethnic barrier to Greek inclusion in God’s plan of salvation. The fruit is to be born from all cultures, all ethnicities, all people.
This Lenten period we are invited to reflect upon the universality of Jesus’ death. In our modern period perhaps we can replace the Greeks with the people who we might question whether they can experience God’s salvation. Perhaps it is boat people, islamic fundamentalists, homosexuals or paedophiles. Perhaps it is someone close to us, a person who has hurt us or whom we know will never accept God’s salvation. Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross will draw ALL people to him.
How big is our understanding of the cross? Is it limited by our ability to forgive even in the face of Christ’s limitless forgiveness? Is it limited by our theology of who is in and who is out, even when Christ says he will draw all to himself?
Are we prepared to follow Jesus into eternal life? Are we prepared to lay down our own understandings and limits in the face of his limitlessness? That is the Easter story. If we cling to our own life, our own understandings, our own petty judgements and limited ability to love then we will miss the bounty of eternal life. But Jesus promises us that in giving up our life we gain eternal life. That is our choice this Easter.
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