Month: November 2012

Lydford Parish and Community Magazine

December 2012

Maybe Bethlehem was in a ‘deep and dreamless sleep’ when the carol’s original writer, Revd Phillips Brooks, visited there in 1865. But it is hard to imagine that was the case two thousand years previously, when the child his carol celebrates was born. Then, as now, Bethlehem was in occupied territory, with Roman forces terrorising the Israelites into submission and exploiting the land and the people for revenue. As Stephen Sizer writes, ‘It was the despised Roman taxation system which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem on that first Christmas night. The census declared by Caesar Augustus was intended to identify the value of his assets in Palestine and increase the revenue for his empire.’ [2]

So on the night when the angels kept ‘their watch of wondering love’, ‘peace to men on earth’ would have seemed a long way off for Bethlehem’s occupants. In the light of this, it seems apposite to begin Advent with the words of the adult Jesus standing beneath the Jerusalem Temple and predicting its fall: ‘When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come…’  (Mark 13.1-8). Those words do carry credibility, for they speak directly to a real situation, then and now. Furthermore they offer comfort to a people troubled by conflict and violence, in the promise of an end to all their suffering, the intimation of a new dawn. 

Of course, you may be as unconvinced by those words as by the words of Brooks’ carol. For, almost 2,000 years after the fall of the Jerusalem Temple, the lauded ‘end’ seems no nearer. And there seems little comfort in Jesus’ words for the present occupants of the Israeli-occupied territories. But note carefully what Jesus is doing. In contrast to the politicians of his – and every – day, he is deliberately avoiding offering a short-term (and inevitably violent) ‘solution’ to the problems of his place and time. Jesus invites us to take our politics into a whole new arena, where change comes slowly, almost imperceptibly, but as definitely as comes a new-born child. ‘Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,’ he said. ‘There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’

Our troubled land, our aching world, is pregnant, Jesus says. Pregnant and expectant of the birth of a new kingdom in which war and its consequences (famines, disease) will be no more. He suggests to his followers that it is our task to nurture this new kingdom into being. We are to occupy the tension between the present, troubled, reality, and the new, transformed, world which he is bringing into being – through the way we live our lives.

To become midwives to this new creation we first have to recognise, repent of, and leave behind our present idolatries: our conviction that lasting political change can come through force, and that all we need to establish peace is a hero who will come to save us. The theologian Walter Wink, who died earlier this year, termed this obsession of ours the myth of redemptive violence  – the idea that a final violent act can save the world for us. This myth permeates popular culture from James Bond to Tom and Jerry. Wink says that our modern world believes this myth more than any other. He says that ‘Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world.’ Our perpetration of this myth keeps our world spinning in a cycle of endless violence, of which Israel-Palestine is just one example. We can find many other examples in our own communities, in our own lives. 

The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of the many ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human being. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of their actions: ‘The tears in the eyes of veterans during the annual two minutes’ silence may not be for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but for those whose names they never knew’ (Ted Harrison) [3]. We herald such people as our heroes, but their hearts cry for a different and more substantial sort of atonement altogether.

Jesus challenged his followers to be very careful that they didn’t get led astray by people who speak the language of heroism (‘saying ‘I am the one!’’), and to step back from the state of anxiety such language causes. The violent crises these ‘heroic’ leaders create will not redeem the world. They are in no way acts of God. Jesus wants his disciples to tread carefully, to dissociate ourselves from the myth of redemptive violence. The great questions of our day are easily answered by people championing violent means. What do we do about youth disorder? Lock them up and throw away the key; Terrorism? Bomb their countries; Asylum-seekers? Travellers? Move them on, send them away. But Jesus says, ‘beware that no one leads you astray’. He offers a different kind of moral leadership altogether.

Jesus urges us to disbelieve all rapid and dramatic solutions to the problems of the world. He urges us to embrace the good news that the kingdom of God will come – but will come slowly and almost unnoticed. And he invites us to contribute to its coming, for the kingdom of God will emerge through tiny acts of grace and love, through modest lives lived faithfully; it will develop by means of a community of faith whose members encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds, it will grow each time we do something which demonstrates our love for enemies, each time we offer prayers for those who persecute. Through the gentle witness of Jesus’ followers the new kingdom will come, slowly and almost silently, to all nations. 

The Christian watches for signs of God’s kingdom emerging as we try to engage graciously with the hard questions of our time. The Christian is deeply privileged to be not only present at the birth of this new age when it comes, but to be actively involved in its gestation. Mary’s pregnancy and Jesus’ birth presage all this – and so this Christmas, will you, like that young mother, keep all these things and ponder them in your heart?

John Davies 

In homage to the late Walter Wink, author of Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination.

Notes

[1] Simon Leah, O little Town of Bethlehem, quoted in Sizer, below.

[2] Stephen Sizer, The dark side of Christmas

[3] Ted Harrison, Whom and what are we remembering? Church Times, 9 November 2012

The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of the many ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of their actions: 'The tears in the eyes of veterans during the annual two minutes’ silence may not be for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but for those whose names they never knew.' (Ted Harrison, Church Times, 9/11/2012) Such people are made heroes by the myth of redemptive violence, but their hearts cry for a different sort of atonement altogether.

James Bond, Jesus and the myth of redemptive violence  - my talk today, in homage to the late, great Walter Wink.

Hebrews 10.11-25, Mark 13.1-8 

Bratton Clovelly, Sourton, Second Sunday before Advent, 18/11/2012

The new James Bond film is out now. Skyfall, starring Daniel Craig, has been well received by critics and at the box office. Now, whether you’ve seen it or not I imagine that you know what you’re going to get in a James Bond film. And sure enough, the plot of Skyfall is the familiar mix of attack and counter-attack, intrigue, spectacular shoot-outs and death-defying stunts, flirtatious dalliances and dangerous alliances. As in every Bond movie, Bond’s nemesis traps and tries to kill him, Bond escapes, and thwarts the evil plot by killing his opponent. The key to every James Bond film is this: Bond saves the world from apocalyptic madmen – and he always does it by using violence. [1]

The idea that we can be saved by a hero who overcomes evil by force; the idea that we can be redeemed by an act of violence – this is the plot of virtually every thriller you can think of. Hollywood loves this plot. It uses it all the time: whether Superman, or Tom and Jerry, there’s good guy with whom we identify, and a bad guy who represents all that is wrong with us. In the story the bad guy gets the upper hand – it looks like the dark side is going to win. But always, by an act of violence, the good guy overcomes, and the world is safe again. 

The writer Walter Wink calls this this storyline the myth of redemptive violence [2]. The idea that a final violent act can save the world for us. And this is not just a Hollywood thing. He says that our modern world believes this myth more than any other. He says that “Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world.” And though its devotees are not aware of it, violence is a religion to them. 

The leaders of nations believe it. Hence the violence reigned on Iraq after 9/11 in the faith that this would redeem the West; the pursuit to the death of Osama bin Laden, in the belief that his death would atone for the deaths in the United States and put things right again. 

This myth of redemptive violence is in fact the oldest story of all. Way before Christianity, way before Babylon, the very first people believed in a story of a god who by brutally killing his mother brings about creation. Evil came first but – by violence – good overcame it, and the world was born. In every culture, every religion, ever since, this myth has provided stories of creation, and also stories of the end times, sometimes called apocalyptic or millenarianism, the belief that society is soon going to be transformed, and that after this change all things will be better than they are now. 

Millenarian believers claim that the current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, or otherwise wrong. And so they will soon  be destroyed by a powerful force. In this popular storyline, a disaster or battle to come will be followed by a new, purified world in which the true believers will be rewarded. 

The Plymouth Brethren, the Mormons and Seventh-day Adventist Church each believe that we are living in a time when Christian prophecies of a final divine judgment are coming to pass. And in the best-selling Christian novel by Frank Peretti, called This Present Darkness [3], the people of a small town fight a New Age plot to subjugate them by using the power of prayer to conjure up an avenging angel who – by acts of violence – saves them. 

The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of the many ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of their actions:

The tears in the eyes of veterans during the annual two minutes’ silence may not be for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but for those whose names they never knew. [4]

Such people are made heroes by the myth of redemptive violence, but their hearts cry for a different sort of atonement altogether.

In Jesus’ time people were as concerned as we are to find a hero who would overcome evil and transform the world. And they were as liable as we are to look for that hero in the wrong place, to search for a hero who would redeem the world through violence. 

Jesus challenged his followers to be very, very careful that they didn’t get caught in that trap. He told those closest to him not to be led astray by people who come as Messiah, or some sort of saviour, saying ‘I am the one!’. Jesus wants his followers to understand that his own coming will not be like this at all. There will be no doubt about his coming, but he won’t be coming like a Messiah, like an avenging angel, like a 007. 

Now, when things are in crisis, when the signs of the times we see alarm us, we long for a hero of this sort to come and dramatically save us. But Jesus urges us to step back from this state of anxiety. He says, 

‘When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; 

this must take place, but the end is still to come…’

Jesus says, don’t let these wars, battles and portents alarm you. These violent events will not redeem the world. They are in no way acts of God. And this speaks directly to the questions of our day.

The attacks on the World Trade Center – were they God’s judgment on a greedy rich nation? Jesus says, don’t be tempted to think in that way. The execution of Saddam Hussein – was that God’s way of bringing about justice and peace for the people of Iraq? Jesus says, such thoughts are not God’s thoughts. 

Of course, such things are going to happen, and Jesus knows very well that there will be wars, and nation will rise up against nation: he predicts the coming violence in his part of the world that will result in the destruction of the Temple. 

But through all of this Jesus wants his disciples to tread carefully, and to dissociate ourselves from the myth of redemptive violence. For his kingdom is distinct from the kingdoms which are founded on such violence. His story denies the myth which underlies the James Bond stories. 

The great questions of our day are easily answered by people championing violent means. What do we do about youth disorder? Lock them up; Terrorism? Bomb their countries; Asylum-seekers? Travellers? Move them on, send them away. But Jesus says, ‘beware that no one leads you astray’. He offers a different kind of moral leadership altogether.

Jesus urges us to disbelieve all rapid and dramatic solutions to the problems of the world. He urges us to embrace the good news that the kingdom of God will come – but will come slowly and almost unnoticed. And he invites us to contribute to its coming, for the kingdom of God will emerge through tiny acts of grace and love, through modest lives lived faithfully; it will develop by means of a community of faith whose members encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds, it will grow each time we do something which demonstrates our love for enemies, each time we offer prayers for those who persecute. Through the gentle witness of Jesus’ followers the new kingdom will come, slowly and almost silently, to all nations. [5]

The Christian watches for signs of God’s kingdom emerging as we try to engage graciously with the hard questions of our time. This week in the UK is Prisons Week [6], where the church people working with prisoners ask us to consider carefully current issues around crime and punishment, and respond to them with nuance. It is a difficult task, working out what salvation might mean for the prisoner, the victim of that prisoner’s crime and the society which deals with each of them, and we are asked to pray about these things this week. 

The myth of redemptive violence tells us that salvation comes to the victim of crime when they eliminate the perpetrator; but figures show that when victims choose to participate in restorative justice programs with those who committed the crime against them, a vast majority of victims find satisfaction there; and the frequency of re-offending drops by 14% [7]. This brings us a long, long way from Skyfall but somewhat closer to Mark’s gospel.

James Bond is a great hero. He offers rip-roaring entertainment. But the follower of Jesus keeps a critical distance from the James Bond myth that a final violent act will save the world for us. We look for a different sort of salvation altogether – which comes through Jesus, the gentle and peaceable myth breaker. 

Notes 

This is a rewrite of a sermon preached at Good Shepherd, Liverpool, 19/11/2006 (when the new Bond release was Casino Royale).

[1] Various details regarding James Bond and Millenarianism were culled from Wikipedia 

[2] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination 

[3] Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness 

[4] Ted Harrison, Whom and what are we remembering? Church Times, 9 November 2012

[5] My concluding analysis of kingdom response to myth of redemptive violence, owes much to this week’s Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, particularly the James Alison passages. 

[6] Prisons Week 2012

[7] Restorative Justice Council – What is Restorative Justice in Criminal Justice?

It seems to contradict the spirit of our season, of All Souls’, All Saints’, and Remembrance, but in the face of the evidence of scripture we must affirm that Christ empties tombs, that Jesus unbinds the dead and lets them go. We must embrace a future in which ‘death will be no more’ and in the meantime we must permit God to remove from us ‘the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations’: the heavy weight of death which oppresses us. And we must learn to live as if death is not.

– Not my usual 'remember your granny' All Saints' sermon. Instead, There is no death, in Christ, today.

Isaiah 25.6-9, Revelation 21.1-6a, John 11.32-44

Sourton, Bratton Clovelly, Germansweek, All Saints’ Day, 4 November 2012

I’d like to begin today’s talk where I ended yesterday’s sermon at the funeral of Ron Hopkins. With these words from the Wisdom of Solomon (1:13-15):

‘God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living.’ 

This is an astonishing statement to us, especially in this season of All Souls’, All Saints’, and Remembrance where death is our focus, death is our theme, when many people’s  religious instincts are stronger than at any other time of the year, in our heartfelt appeals to God to sanctify death, to numb its pain. If God did not make death, has he any power over it? Why pray to him over the souls of the departed?

Solomon also says, ‘The generative forces of the world are wholesome’. We might question this, after a week where the news media has often used biblical language to describe the terrifying effects of Storm Sandy [1]. And Solomon writes, ‘The dominion of Hades is not on earth’. But ‘hell on earth’ well describes what life seems like for those who are suffering from a chronic illness or facing the death of a child, it describes what whole societies are going through in lands troubled by economic decline and political unrest.

If God did not make death, if the generative forces of the world are wholesome, then why does it hurt so much that a loved one has died, why is there so much suffering in the world? [2] Solomon isn’t avoiding these questions, he’s addressing them head on. He’s inviting us to look at death in a whole new way. He is doing what other biblical writers do: revealing this astonishing truth – that death does not figure in the ways of God. 

The prophets foretold it – Isaiah offers his listeners a vision of a renewed society. ‘On this mountain’, he writes, God will host a lavish feast for a forgiven and liberated people. And ‘on this mountain’ God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations.’ 

What is it that hangs like a heavy storm cloud over the peoples of the earth, which God will remove? It is death: ‘He will swallow up death forever,’ Isaiah says. Death does not figure in the ways of God; he removes it from above us. We do not need to live under its oppressive weight, its threat, its curse. How different this is from the prophets of today who foretell doomsday destruction, where humanity exhausts all natural resources and the world descends into chaos.

But the Apocalyptic writers in scripture affirm that ‘death will be no more’. In the climactic 21st chapter of the Book of Revelation, God invites his people to anticipate their liberation from the mourning and crying and pain of the old world, to be ready to celebrate the coming of God’s new creation, a new heaven and a new earth, to expect to be living in his presence in a new Jerusalem, a place of undefiled love, ‘prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’. How different this is from the post-apocalyptic films and books and computer games of today, where a shattered world is peopled by the undead: zombified survivors in a condition similar to purgatory but without any hope of heaven.

Perhaps the penultimate statement in scripture about God being outside death, is this  command of Jesus, having drawn his dead friend Lazarus out from his reopened tomb: ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ In Christ, no-one is bound by death. You know the ultimate statement which scripture makes on this subject: the empty tomb of Jesus discovered by Mary Magdalene and the disciples. 

It seems to contradict the spirit of our season, of All Souls’, All Saints’, and Remembrance, but in the face of the evidence of scripture we must affirm that Christ empties tombs, that Jesus unbinds the dead and lets them go. We must embrace a future in which ‘death will be no more’ and in the meantime we must permit God to remove from us ‘the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations’: the heavy weight of death which oppresses us. And we must learn to live as if death is not.

Now please hear me when I say that this does not mean that we should not mourn; this does not mean that we should not remember our dead. Switch back to the story of Lazarus and that unique picture of Jesus at the graveside – weeping. Jesus wept at the loss of his friend, and the onlookers said, ‘See how he loved him.’ When you weep, Jesus weeps with you. When you stand before a stone memorial to remember the dead, Jesus stands there with you.

Learning to live unbound by death means learning to embrace life as fully as we can. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4:16-18), ‘We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.’ He encourages the believers to see that our sufferings in life are ‘a light momentary affliction [which] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.’ 

Learning to live unbound by death is a lifetime’s work. For we are so bound by a culture which is weighed down by death, the fear of death, the use of death as threat, the endless cycle of death through violent retaliation, it is hard to be unbound, and let go from such powerful forces.

Yet at that moment when Mary Magdalene discovered an empty tomb, our world began to learn to live unbound by death, and the influence of the resurrected Christ is everywhere to see. So we can now be critical of death – we can stand at our war memorials with integrity whilst in two minds about the purpose of our ceremonies – questioning the carnage of the trenches whilst honouring those lost. And we can now redefine death, in terms like those of  the German theologian Dorothee Sölle who said that ‘Death is what takes place within us when we look upon others not as gift, blessing or stimulus but as threat, danger, competition. It is not the final departure we think of when we speak of death; it is that purposeless, empty existence devoid of genuine human relationships and filled with silence, anxiety and loneliness.’ [3]

So learning to live unbound by death means being encouraged that in Christ, your life has purpose; that in Christ, you are in a deep relationship of love with him which equips you to develop flourishing relationships with others; your life is full when it is unbounded.

‘God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living.’ 

Let us embrace this terrifyingly powerful truth, and let us cultivate this attitude to life which Paul expressed to the believers in Rome:

‘If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.’ (Romans 14.8)

Notes

[1] BBC website, Hurricane Sandy coverage, October-November 2012

[2] I am grateful to Luis Rodriguez, Hanford Sermons, for his Pentecost 5: “God Did Not Make Death”, which influenced this section of my sermon.

[3] Dorothee Sölle, The mystery of death. Translated by Nancy Lukens-Rumscheidt and Martin Lukens-Rumscheidt. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), p. 121. Quoted in Virginia Sloyan, A Sourcebook about Christian Death (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1989), p.49.