Ekklesia News Service, September 9, 2009
One of the many ironies of modern life
is that, wired in the technology of recognition and representation,
we find it ever more difficult to perceive others, the world and
ourselves in any kind of hopeful way. After God – as many see it –
we are not just wallowing in the dark, we are also blinded by the
light. Recently I watched the extraordinary
film version of Philip K. Dick’s noir fantasy, A Scanner Darkly,
which draws its title (via St Paul’s “through a glass darkly”)
and several of its key verbal references from a scriptural storehouse
of language which fewer and fewer people now recognise in its
traditional context – but which may still turn out to be vitally
important to human flourishing as it is rediscovered in fresh ways. The book and the movie concern a
dystopian, reverse world in which the ability to view everything
leads to top-down control and paranoia, where people end up spying on
themselves, where identities are ‘blurred’ physically and
mentally, and where the one agency that is supposed to be combating
the evil of narcotic dependency is actually promoting it. The readings for the 14th Sunday after
Pentecost (Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146, James 2:1-13, Mark 7:24-37)
also contain a whole series of dramatic reversals concerning darkness
and danger. But in a remarkably different way. In the ancient Hebrew tradition, from
which Christian as well as Jewish understandings are forged, the
prophet is above all else a ‘Seer’, a visionary – one whose
vocation is not so much to predict the future (that belongs to God
alone) as to enable us to see the fullness of reality, the world as
it really is or could be. What the prophetic imagination does is
to “re-describe reality” with what is missing filled in. It
suggests that if the present could be seen truthfully, the
transforming possibilities of God would be all too apparent, inviting
us to repentance – a radical change of heart and direction. In this sense the vision of shalom
presented by Isaiah and by the Psalmist reveals the opposite of what
now is, in the form of a promise. A world of oppression, injustice
and suffering is neither inevitable nor necessary. To defy the order
of death and to envision a realm of peace based on the restoring of
right relationships among people, with the natural world and with God
is – despite all appearances to the contrary – to go with the
final grain of the universe as sheer gift. If only we could recognise it, say the
biblical writers, there is a divine reversal going on. When mercy is
shown, when the stranger is welcomed, when right is done, when
abusive power is resisted, when the hungry are offered food, the
prisoners release and the homeless shelter – in those moments of
faithfulness to God’s underlying purposes, despite the suffering
and brutality around us, a new world beckons. In Psalm 146, the divine call is clear:
to exalt the humble, and to watch over the most vulnerable in the
land (the sojourner, widow, orphan). The creative God is also a
redeemer. The final verse sets the cry for justice and a dramatic
reversal of fortune – the plans of the wicked are thwarted –
within a vision of the gentle realm of God. In Isaiah 35 the Day of the Lord, the
moment where right judgement trumps false pretensions, means
deliverance from the confinement of despair, hopelessness, and
God-forsakenness. The context, as in chapters 40-55, is one of exile
and longing. The theme is not so much vengeance as vindication. Those
who have followed a thorny path, refusing to believe that all is
lost, are proved right after all. Those who put their trust in
thrones and chariots were actually staring at themselves in distorted
mirrors, rather than finding their true selves within the image of
God. Likewise, says the Epistle of James,
when Christian communities are bolstered with self-regard, when they
bask in the approval of the rich and powerful and convince themselves
that the correct belief alone will justify them, they deceive
themselves. This is especially the case when they simultaneously deny
justice and dignity to those on the margins, to labourers, to people
living on the edge – those who present to us the tangible judgement
of God on the way we arrange our lives and our world. In his 1977 book Rich Christians in
an Age of Hunger, which prefigured much of the more recent
concern among evangelical churches for people and planet, Ron Sider
tells the story of a US pastor who causes great offence in the pews
by delivering a fearsome manifesto denouncing the wiles of the rich
and the mistreatment of poor people and workers. His congregation in
turn accuse him of sedition and of ‘pulpit politics’. But he
points out to them that, in fact, every word he has used is sourced
directly from the likes of Isaiah, from Amos and from James. They
call themselves biblical people, but the Word is apparently unknown
to them when it comes to acting justly, seeking mercy and walking
humbly before God as a social reality. Yet the uncomfortable fact is that more
often than not the Gospel reverses our ‘normal’ judgments, our
idea of what is ‘natural’ and ‘right’. If we are to judge
correctly, and not find ourselves hoist with our own legalistic
petard, we need to discover what it is to live and to have faith with
integrity, says the Epistle of James. This means seeking the
knowledge of God that comes to us through merciful action, not
through pious sounding words or recourse to the protection of
religious tradition. In these terms, the Christian message is
un-common sense – something rare and precious – rather than mere
‘conventional wisdom’. Writing about the recent row over the
decision by a Scottish court to allow the terminally ill Lockerbie
bomber, Ali al-Megrahi, to die at home rather than in prison, Quaker
writer Jill Segger (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10119)
cuts to the heart of the matter for those of us who would dare call
ourselves Christians. “Mercy reflects God to us in a unique
manner,” she says. “It invites us to share in the wholeness for
which we were created. If we permit ourselves to become caught up in
the power games between Holyrood, Westminster, Washington and
Tripoli, we will miss the truth.” The Seer stares long and hard at
reality with all its agonising contradictions, but without losing
sight of the deeper reality we call love. That is incredibly hard to
do. Sinking to fashionable cynicism and resorting to realpolitik are
much more acceptable paths, though we often pretend to decry them
when it is convenient to us. Scottish justice minister Kenny
MacAskill is, in the eyes of many who see the world primarily through
the lens of vengeance (either because of their suffering, or less
creditably because of their worldview), a scoundrel or a fool. But
there is surely genuine courage and insight in his way of trying to
weigh the true odds: “Our justice system demands that judgement be
imposed but compassion be available. Our beliefs dictate that justice
be served but mercy be shown.” Of course when we seek to act in the
light of the Gospel’s way of seeing, we will not always know
whether what we are doing is right. Sometimes we will mess things up.
The facts and fallibilities of any given situation will always be
questionable, ‘open to judgement’. What is most important is that
we too are open to judgement, and that we are clear about the
character of right-dealing tempered by mercy that lies at the heart
of flesh which is God’s, made available to us in Christ and in the
quality of community that bears his name. Which brings us back to Mark’s
Gospel. Here Jesus, operating on foreign territory (the Roman-ruled
Decapolis), finds himself on the wrong end of a conversation with a
woman who – the writer makes abundantly plain – is both a Gentile
and, according to the more rigorous religious beliefs of the Jewish
community, ‘unclean’ (because outside the Law). So Jesus rehearses to her the
conventional judgement on her status in the starkest terms
imaginable. Ironic or not, it is little short of an insult. But the
Syrophoencian woman turns the tables and demonstrates a true
understanding of the mercy of God towards those outside the system,
those in desperate need. Her faith brings Jesus up short, and
contrasts vividly with the legalism of some of his own inheritance.
But perfection for God is found in brokenness restored, not in
infallibility and immutability. As Leonard Cohen sings, “Everything
has a crack in it. That’s what let’s the light in.” So it is
that (remarkably, in our limited vision, perhaps) Jesus allows this
woman both to shape and to participate in the Messiahship that people
rightly come to recognise in him. A new kind of wholeness is achieved
– one that was not available at the beginning of the encounter. A
divine reversal takes place. What we discover here is that, in God’s
household, one ordered by grace rather than mortgage, everything that
stands in the way of abundant life and the sharing of that life is
cast aside. This often causes scandal to the conventionally
religious. In Mark’s account, Jesus offers
healthcare to all, including those outside the Law, and cautions
those he heals not to let on lest the authorities find out. But the
Good News and the threat it causes to those who wish to control God’s
mercy for their own purposes will not be contained. The question we need to ask of
ourselves, of our churches, and of the plans we have for the future,
is therefore something like this: Are we willing to receive the
pattern of ‘divine reversal’ that is God’s way in the world?
Are we willing to be vehicles for a love that crosses boundaries,
breaks barriers and inconveniently opens our hearts to others? Or do
we prefer the safety that comes from trying to wrap up the Gospel in
institutions and practices that protect us from the disturbing Word
we meet in Christ? ------------ © Simon Barrow
is co-director of Ekklesia. www.simonbarrow.net
This article is adapted from an address given at St Stephen's
Anglican Church, Exeter, on Sunday 6 September 2009.
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