It seems to me the message of freedom from the institution is permeating everything, so many conversations, comments and critiques here’s another really interesting article from Simon Barrow from the think tank Ekklesia. I especially like the first two paragraphs…Hope you enjoy it. Jx
Living towards a non-institutional future
“At various tricky junctures in Christian history it has been caustically observed (usually by those under the cosh of popes or prelates) that the message Jesus brings in the Gospels is one of human freedom and possibility through the life-giving of God; whereas what we have ended up with is the church and religion. In other words, the founding impulses of our faith reside in movement, but their continuation has required institutions, with all their temptations towards deadening control.
At one level this is an unavoidable tension. The idea that we can sustain purposeful relationships without organisation is a fantasy. But when money, structures and hierarchy shape our common life – rather than the other way round – the Spirit is rapidly crushed.
The New Testament readings for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity explore this dilemma from different but overlapping perspectives, and propose a radical solution. We are to live in the light of the potential and purpose offered to us in the life of Christ, rather than being constrained by received ideas about how God works within a narrow ‘religious’ framework.
St Paul is writing to the church in Galatia, a region in Asia Minor or modern day Turkey, probably some twenty to twenty-five years after the death of Jesus, in order to try to argue them out of a rather legalistic, ‘traditionalist’ stance on ritual and practice. Luke, on the other hand, is telling the story of Jesus and the dynamic movement around him from a later First Century viewpoint in order to demonstrate why Christianity has authentically found Gentile and not just Jewish expression – a point contested by the Galatians, it seems.
Paul is characteristically blunt. Echoing his argument to the Corinthians, he says in chapters 5 and 6 of this epistle that the fuss about ritual initiation has no value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through active love. “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation,” he declares (Galatians 6.15). Don’t boast about your piety and purity, in other words; focus instead on sharing the joys and sorrows of those around you in the pattern of Christ. This echoes his theme in the First Epistle to the Corinthians.
Controversially, Paul even likens slavish religious observance to “the corruption of the flesh.” By this he is not demeaning earthly existence per se, but rather pointing out the danger of turning towards things which have nothing to do with what Jesus in another context calls “life in all its fullness” – however ‘holy’ they claim to be. Properly understood, Christianity isn’t about what we these days call ‘religion’ at all, but the reorientation of all we are away from a narrow preoccupation with self and towards engagement with others, including our neighbours, who are also loved and cherished by God. That’s a point made in different ways by figures as diverse as Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I should add – lest you think I’ve just made it up out of convenience.
A similar impulse emerges from the story in Luke 10 about ‘the sending out of the seventy’ (or seventy-two, depending on whether you go with certain Old Latin and Sinaitic manuscripts, or the Greek and Syriac texts). Here Jesus defines the mission of his followers in terms of sharing peace with those near and far, participating in hospitality and table fellowship, curing the sick, and telling the ordinary people that God is close at hand. There are no ‘religious’ constraints. It’s about humanity restored. Remember also that those who had fallen prey to illness were defined by the people with power in the faith community as ‘unclean’ and out of sorts. It was the Temple religion that conveyed ritual purity and impurity, inclusion or exclusion. Jesus declines to play this game. Those who cultivate life and share it with others should know that “realm of God has come near to you” (10.9). Those who refuse it are their own undoing. Leave them be.
There is a starkness and urgency here that reflects a sense that an important moment of decision has come into their midst in the shape of Jesus. Things will never quite be the same again. There is also a contrast between the ‘feasting narratives’ in Luke (food shared is again and again a sign that God’s promise of life is at hand) and the overall architecture of the story he tells – which is an ordering of the things Jesus does and says, together with his fate, around an unavoidable journey to Jerusalem, the seat of both religious and political power. Here the simplicity of the Gospel hope meets the distortions and manipulations of institutional life in its most naked form: the imperial capacity to kill those who do not fit in.
For Jesus, however, the future is not defined by the powers-that-be, but by the love of God freely given and received. It is to this life-giving power that he trusts himself at the moment of his death, following his betrayal by one who has been seduced by a very different reading of what and who counts in the world.
The sending out of the seventy – to return to that particular story – is also highly significant in a number of other respects. First, note that the journey of faith is one shorn of power and pretension. God goes with this motley crew (they are not an inner core, but those gathered from around the region), rather than being located in a building or an organisation. It is relationships that are central to God’s purposes. And in the story as Luke tells it – there is no parallel in the other synoptic gospels – the mission of the multitude is rather more successful than that of the Apostles, the ‘official’ emissaries.
Though Luke’s gospel is Gentile in orientation, there is also lurking here a traditional Hebrew preoccupation with numbers. Whereas ‘the twelve’ are related to the tribes of Israel, ‘the seventy’ seem to echo Haggadic assumption that there are seventy nations and languages in the world, based upon the ethnological table given in Genesis 10. The point is that the Good News is for the whole world, not just an in-group, a point emphasised by the Revised Common Lectionary in its choice of Psalm 66, which speaks of “all the earth” as sounding the praise of the God whose eyes “keep watch on the nations”.
Here, then, is a message of biblical hope for a world which is all-too-conscious these days of the way that ethnic, exclusive religion can cause division and conflict, and where the authority of top-down institutions (including many inherited patterns of church life) is facing challenge and criticism.
So where does this gospel message leave us as Christian communities now? In a situation where, I would suggest, bold experimentation is necessary – alongside a commitment to using and re-using the best of what we have inherited in ways that builds bridges rather than barriers. That is precisely the point of something like the St Stephen’s project (http://www.stephenproject.org.uk/). It takes one of the key features of an institution, a beautiful and historic building, and turns it inside out (well, metaphorically, anyway!) so that it becomes a point of contact, service and inspiration for a wider community.
That kind of enterprise is many thousands of miles and a couple of thousand years away from the Jesus movement described in the Gospel of Luke, of course. There is no neat escape route from the entanglements that have been entailed by the long and sometimes tortuous course of Christian history. But that’s not the point. The point is that the same message of human freedom and possibility through the life-giving of God, which is the theme of our readings today, can work itself out in many different cultures and contexts.
What holds it together or lets it fall apart, of course is people… like us. For the same domination-free realm, or kingdom of God, to which Jesus and his earliest followers testified is also near this morning. Near, but not the same as us, identified with us alone, within our control, or ours to possess over and against others. It is a motivating grace that can move us to great deeds, but also keeps us in check.
Perhaps my favourite prayer-poem is one written by Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, not long before he was gunned down in 1980 for speaking out on behalf of the poor. It is called ‘Prophets of a Future Not Our Own’ (http://www.simonbarrow.net/reflect3.html), and in it he reminds us that the realm of God which comes so very close to us when we share peace, hospitality and food (as in Luke’s story) “is not only beyond our efforts, it is” – for the most part – “beyond our vision.” For “[w]e accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete…”
But that, Romero reminds us, is not what counts. We may only be able to do a little, but we can do it well and in a spirit which is open to its completion from a horizon we do not own, but to which we are continually invited by Love – whether we are seventy, seventy-two, many more, or rather nearer a dozen”.
————
© Simon Barrow is co-director of Ekklesia. This address was given at St Stephen’s Anglican Church, Exeter (http://www.parishofcentralexeter.co.uk/), on Sunday 4 July 2010.
Here’s a direct link to the “into the fire” feature that was aired on Premier Radio on the 31st May 2010 with Justin Brierley presenting.
For anyone interested you can now hear the interview / feature I did with Justin Brierley from Premier Radio which was broadcast on the 31st May 2010. Just click here
Happy listening
Jx
June 30th, 2010 in
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There is something wonderfully refreshing about learning to live from a place of rest rather than striving. Jesus did say “his yoke is easy and his burden is light”.
But there’s no doubt to the world rest is perceived as laziness or inefficiency but perhaps yet again this is an example of the topsy turvy nature of the kingdom?
Making time to spend with our heavenly father could be perceived as madness, yet it’s the time spent with God that transforms us, that releases to us the living water that is so desperately needed by us all.
The contrast is busyness, activity, striving…but all these are about me, what contribution can I make to the world rather than what has Christ done already?
Jesus doesn’t need our help, everything is done, all of it. Surely our “job” is to receive the finished works of grace and be transformed by it and then in turn rub along side others so that they can meet Jesus too? We must learn to do what Jesus did and that is do what the father is doing, but it’s hard to see what daddy is doing when we’re busy dealing with our own agendas.
Rest does not come easily, we’re in a constant battle with ourselves, we’re often desperate for significance, influence, status and power? Yet all God ever asks of us it to be ourselves, truly ourselves, in him.
A while ago I felt inspired to write a book, it’s all about me, but it goes deeper than that. It tells the story of a man desperate to belong, searching for purpose, identity and significance and that the only place I can find that is in Christ and in his presence.
I used to think if I only did this or that, had a unique selling point, something to offer I could make a difference, I always had a project bubbling away, a plan or scheme, sometimes to carry a message, sometimes to make money, but the common ground was it was about what can I do, and in reality, there is noting I can do, I’m all done.
Now I occasionally get asked to speak at events and in many ways I wonder why, I don’t do anything, I don’t have any letters after my name, I have no qualifications, I have nothning to sell and nothing to pitch, I just tell my story, live my life and try to be myself and that’s easy really, it’s not hard being me, it’s trying to be something I’m not (whether because of external pressures or my own insecurities) that causes me pain or sucks the life out of me.
I have learned I can walk with Jesus,
Practice his presence,
I can be myself,
I am free.
At peace.
Rested.
Easy.
So often the words we say and the lives we live contradict, I’m really aware there is a contradiction in my life…I can’t stand self promotion ,yet I’ve just written a book about myself, how weird is that?
I really hope that my book speaks more about the realities of Gods presence and grace in our lives than it speaks of me, but it’s hard to tell, I suppose its all depending on the reader?
But what about the way we live? does our message and our lifestyle really tie up or are there huge discrepancies between what we say and what we do?
Consider the message of the gospel, that all are equal under Christ’s leadership, yet do we still manage to find ways to promote ourselves and crown ourselves kings? We still play power games and seek significance, we still long for titles and recognition?
Are we just a people who speak words but don’t live out the realities of the message?
Surely we have to be incarnational people, that the message we speak has to be the very same message we live?
Anything else is just a show isn’t it?
Anything else is a religious performance?
Sure, the Lord can use us even as we perform, after all he can use TV, movies, music and the media to communicate to those who are seeking him but does that somehow qualify the medium used? Is that Gods best for us?
He used an ass to speak in the old testament, does that make the ass anointed or just a tool in the hands of God?
We need to learn to stop putting on a show and learn to live the life, walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
When our words and actions combine together there is so much more authority, reality, resonance, power.
I must not talk of grace and show none, I must not talk of freedom and then control, I must not speak of equality and build an empire.
I need to be the message.
I am a tool, lol.
I’ve been thinking about reputation a lot recently and yesterday I was listening to a podcast from John Scotland….something he said caught my attention, it was along the lines of “when you’ve lost your reputation there’s nothing left to loose, it doesn’t matter what people say”. We spend so much time concerning ourselves with what people say and think it is utterly time consuming and enslaving, and we end up people pleasing rather than doing the business of the kingdom and the King.
Religion is all about image, it’s all about good PR, a good rep. But there’s no power in religion other than the power to bind, enslave and control, it’s a cunning deception.
Real power liberates. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free!
Jesus didn’t have very kind things to say to those who were religious, he called them hypocrites, our word actor comes from the same root as the word hypocrite, religion is all about the show, it’s all about making a good impression, but it couldn’t be further away from freedom in relationship with Christ.
I can have a rep, a good one or a bad one, it’s all subjective and can change on the wind. To allow ourselves to be defined by ones reputation is as foolish as building on sand, yet so much of our western “churchianity” is built on our reputation. We must blend in, we must not look different, we must be accepted, seeker friendly services, audio-visual presentations, large buildings, program after program, but to me that sounds like were living in fear not freedom. The early church had none of these things yet grew massively simply because they were consumed with the intoxicating, powerful presence of God.
Without the presence of God manifesting in us and the kingdom manifesting around us we’re completely powerless, perhaps that is why we’ve spent so much time doing “stuff” and try to build our empires and a good reputation?
The sad thing is that my reputation is all about me, I am smack bang in the center, I / we / our church, ministry or whatever is directly at the centre and by simple consequence, Christ is not!
It’s not to say a reputation is necessarily bad, it’s not down to me what others say, do or perceive, but at times it can come between us and God, a reputation can become an idol, sometimes of our own making and we can consume so much energy trying to defend it.
The message of the kingdom IS complete foolishness, to believe that through Jesus’ life death and resurrection we can actually be filled with the very presence of God, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead and can then commune with the living God who dwells within us and to partner with him to bring about his kingdom here on earth is total madness to those who don’t know God or who have had no experience of God and no amount of religious activity is ever going to replace an encounter with the living God.
I think in our desire to seem less weird or to be cool we try to build a good rep, but consequently we compromise the freedom, fullness and joy of the gospel message.
The gospel is a spiritual message, received by faith, it has huge power to heal, deliver and transform and is full of joy but it’s not a head religion, the head may catch up but it’s the heart that “hears” the message. Jesus said “let all that have ears let them hear”, Paul said to the Ephesians ”I pray that the eyes of the heart will know”, revelation not information.
To be completely consumed by the presence of God is intoxicating and all consuming and the presence of God in our lives should be flowing through us and it will change us and change the things we do.
If we are pursuing the kingdom, if we are pressing for revival and transformation surely we must expect our reputation to be challenged and criticised, we must expect things to change, there will be pressure, and at times we must make choices that take our reputation and lay it down, but surely the joy of walking in a deep communion with the Lord is more valuable than any worldly reward.
Have we replaced the powerful gospel of freedom, liberation and joy with slick presentation and cool imagery because we have lost the presence of God that so utterly consumed the early church?
I do believe revival is here and there is new life emerging, but revival has to go beyond meetings, it has to lead to transformation, it has to ruin us for anything other than the real thing, it has to blow apart our reputation, and it has to reflect Jesus, after all it’s not about me it’s all about Jesus.
It’s all about him.
Once our reputation is ruined, we no longer have to be concerned about our appearance or our ministry or our ego, we can get out of the way and let God be God, we are off the hook, free.
After all freedom is the message of the gospel.
Just a thought
A friend posted this on his facebook page and I thought it was so good I couldn’t help adding it here!
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Sadly this has been removed from YouTube so It will no longer play, in my opinion I think it got a little close to the knuckle for someone so the higher powers pulled it! what a shame..it was very good.
Just been watching the BBC’s morning programme “The Big Questions” the topic was on Proportional Representation v’s the First past the Post voting systems, what is fascinating to observe is just how those who have prospered or benefited from the current system (Lords, the media etc…) are so aggressively opposed to a proportionate system, they ultimately fear change…and rightly so, if real change occurs, many that have simply inherited power, or have been capable of paying for privilege could find themselves ousted…our perhaps not, but that is the risk of real democracy isn’t it?
It’s clear that proportional representation has it’s challenges, you could end up with a variety of colorful characters sitting in parliament, however surely that is representative of our culture and a healthy political system has to allow for the diversity of our culture rather than a controlled and restricted flow of power from the elitist few who believe they are there serving the greater good but who are in fact wholly dependant on the system for their own gains?
It would mean working together, taking time over decisions, and ultimately growing up, learning to listen to each others points of view and finding healthy ways to deal with the tensions? perhaps it wouldn’t be as neat, but it might be fair?
It’s clear there are many challenges ahead, but perhaps now is the time for that change?
It seems to me the message of freedom from the institution is permeating everything, so many conversations, comments and critiques here’s another really interesting article from Simon Barrow from the think tank Ekklesia. I especially like the first two paragraphs…Hope you enjoy it. Jx
