Gathering for Reverence 12 June 2022 - Jesus and the Law and Prophets

Just in case you haven’t read any of our other posts, some are think pieces and some are reports of the gatherings we have held.

For those that are reports of gatherings we have held, it may appear that our gatherings are centred on the reflection given by the person presiding for the day (the president).  In fact, our gatherings are centred around a few bits of practice that we do together, of which only one is to listen to a reflection.  The other, perhaps more useful bits of practice are listening to music, singing, keeping a shared silence (for our own private purposes, such as meditation, decompression, prayer, cogitation), listening to words of wisdom that have survived thousands of years, reciting some agreed words together.  It is easy to see that a reflection by just some person who happens to be there at the time may actually be the least important bit of the whole proceedings.

So, when you read this blog, the reflection assumes an importance it might not really have.  And yet it’s all you have, if you’re not able to come to our gatherings.  I’ll just leave you with that conundrum.  Meanwhile, please take all the other activities as a given, as you have a quick read of what was said.

In the June gathering, we had two readings.  The first was from the Hebrew Bible, in the books of Deuteronomy and Micah (Deuteronomy chapter 5 verses 1-22 & Micah chapter 6 verses 6-8).  It can be summed up as a listing of the famed Ten Commandments, tempered by an observation by the prophet Micah.

The second reading was a combination from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles (Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4-5, Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, & Mark chapter 12 verses 29-31).  This was basically one of the most famous and important sayings of Jesus, preceded by the Hebrew Bible sources that Jesus would have known and which he may have been making reference to.

And the reflection on these readings follows, with the normal caveat that the readings are being looked at, not as immutable words in a framework of belief that we all hold, but, as possible sources of inspiration in our ever changing position on shifting sands, as we journey on in our company together.

“Let’s notice that seven of the Ten Commandments are things God requires people not to do, contrasting with only two commandments being things that are to be done — which are honouring elders and the wisdom they bring, for survival’s sake; and having regular rest every seventh day, for well-being’s sake.  

“So it can be argued that this is actually a very liberal contract between God and the people.  It says that providing you use the handed-down knowledge, and care for those who bring it, provided you care for your own well-being, and providing you avoid doing the few other things listed, you can largely do what you like.  

“Micah, on the other hand, thought there was more to say.  Micah put a style overlay on top of the message that you must act in accordance with the rules: Micah said you must also be kind, be humble. 

“The first five books of the Hebrew Bible contain many other strictures and rules about living, rules which were largely aimed at some form of purity.  Purity of heart, purity of marriage, purity of the relationship between the tribes, purity of the priests who administered the sacred rituals, they go on and on. When we add onto those all the side commentaries, the rich interpretations, that the wise teachers living the Jewish faith added alongside the Hebrew Bible, it could be felt that the rules applying to Jewish people are actually anything but liberal, anything but simple.  Indeed, it could be felt as very constraining.  

“I remember a conversation in the 1990s with a friend, about a work colleague of his who was also a rabbi.  This rabbi was always being accosted by one or other of his congregants with questions — such as how one should eat a custard cream biscuit.  The story pivoted around the legalities of food mixing and food preparation.  As I understood it, the problem with a custard cream biscuit lies in its three-layered, sandwiched nature — biscuit, cream, biscuit.  I think I was being told that, being of different food types, the biscuit layers and the cream layer couldn’t be eaten together.  Worse, it seemed that it was legal to remove biscuit layer from the cream centre, but not to remove the cream layer from the biscuit .... The rabbi was no doubt exaggerating and having fun with his colleague (and remotely, me too), but he had made his point.

“So there were all these laws, which had accreted significantly by the time of Jesus.  It is attributed to Jesus that he said that he came not to sweep away the law and the prophets but rather to fulfil them (Matthew 5:17). Traditional Christians have taken this to mean that he — Jesus in his person, in his character, in his make up, in his very being — somehow is the very point of the law and the prophets.  That Jesus is somehow the bringing to life or fruition of the law and the prophets.

“Unitarians do not take this view. Perhaps that’s an outrageous generalization — I have heard very few Unitarians comment on what Jesus might have meant — or rather, what Unitarians think the authors of the Gospels might have had in mind when they attributed those words to Jesus.

“So might not the Jesus character have meant, 'Look! We already have the law and the prophets, there's nothing more to be given, by way of direct instruction.  But yet we all struggle with it.  Well, I've got a few ideas about what fully living within (not just the letter but also the spirit of) the law and the prophets might actually look like; what living devoutly in covenant with God might entail on a minute-by-minute basis.  I come not to sweep away the law and the prophets but to make your covenant with God fit a wider perspective and to make it more real in your daily lives.' ?

“Moreover, we see Jesus speaking in metaphoric terms, non-legalistic, non-precise.  'You do not light a lantern and hide it under a bowl.  You set it up on a stand where it will light the whole room.' (Matthew 5:15, Luke 8:16, Luke 11:33).  What was that supposed to mean to people who were used to hearing: on such and such a day you must do this and then you must clean the knife in this way according to the teaching of the certain rabbi and after you've done that you must pour the oil and set it aside in a container... etc etc etc. ?

“Again, this character Jesus is written so as to perplex people, with riddles, with stories about imaginary, unlikely characters.  For instance, a son who persuades his father, against all convention, to give him his birthright — his inheritance — early.  Who then squanders it all, yet is welcomed back again by the father (Luke 15:11-32).  This is an imaginary tale.  

“An outsider, an alien, someone normally shunned, is the only one who stops to help a severely mugged man at the roadside (Luke 10:25-37).  This is an imaginary tale.  

“A comment that unless you become as little children (Matthew 18:3) — “Did he just say we must be born again?” — you cannot encounter God. This is an impossible circumstance. 

“A comment that it’s more difficult to find the kingdom than it is for a cable to go through the eye of a needle (Mark 5:25-26, Jubilee Bible 2000).  “Then who can be saved?” asks an incredulous audience, for this is an impossible circumstance.

“These words of Jesus are not legal instructions.  These are challenges to move beyond the law.  To break out of our thought patterns.

“These are challenges to live a whole life, an integrated life, a life of one-through-ness, by way of dismantling our own assumptions about where justice and mercy lie in any given situation.  These are challenges to think about what it means in any moment to be in right relationship, humble and neat and clean and innocent before God.  Humbly walking with God, loving kindness, doing justice.

“Jesus may or may not have lived; he may or may not have been one person.  But, as written, he may be understood as the voice of a wisdom that demands that whilst we know the law of goodness, commitment and conscience we must know also the limits of that law.  A wisdom that demands we seek ever to move beyond law to that unique fulfilment, that ‘bringing to life’, which only we, each and every one of us, can live. 

“A wisdom that advises that we spend our lives challenging our own assumptions and our own behaviours so that we do indeed fulfil — not the law, but — what is pointed at by the law and the prophets.”

“To live is to care

may it be given to us 

to care

and when our need is greatest 

may care be also shown to us — 

not because we have earned it

through act of goodness or strength

nor because we have bought it

by virtue of wealth 

but because we nonetheless 

deserve it 

by grace of our 

nearness to holiness 

closer than the pulse in our own neck

that divine spark which we embody

our inspiration of that breath which we have inherited

that breath which unites us 

to one another 

and to all breathing creatures.”

Rev Jo James, Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, 29 May 2022

The clock is ticking - everything counts but nothing matters

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/645392

 

It has been known for some time that the end for Earth will come when the sun flares up prior to its final collapse.  All will end.  And yet, despite that knowledge, we have seen worth in living generous, virtuous lives along our way - or the way of humankind - towards this final collapse.

It's not that we haven't believed that the world will end in the way Professor Brian Cox and others on the mainstream media have clearly explained to us.  It's that we nonetheless think we can live while we walk towards dying, rather than just sit in the gutter bewailing the final fate of the globe and everything on it.

Faith systems enjoin us to recognise we have an end coming, yet we can and should - for our own well-being during our brief stay here - strive to live good lives: bringing into our connected thinking everyone and all creatures; governing justly; and relieving all forms of poverty.

I admit that, until some years back, I thought I would not see the end of the great human experience and experiment in my lifetime.  I was embarked on the path of 'striving to live in good faith' while here but seeing it as being far over the horizon.  Millions of years away.

Well: I now see a strong likelihood that human life as I know it will disappear only shortly after what I had been content to consider my natural span (which may turn out to be shorter than I had thought).  But does that change anything?

Does it change my thinking, my believing, my behaviour?  Why should it?  Nothing has actually changed, except the timespan.

The clock is ticking.  Everything we do now counts.  

Ultimately, nothing matters.  The Earth is destined for utter destruction.  But let us be the best us we can be, doing the best we can for other creatures and for ourselves, for as long as we can.  Because that would be a good thing to do.

Pentecost and church-building : Three necessary elements for a sustainable Unitarian congregation June 2022

(Postscript dated 9 Jun 2022:  This crosses over very neatly with a blogpost from last year by Francis Elliot Wright, which challenges us to think about what being "a successful Church" means.  You can find it here

https://unitarianchristianark.blogspot.com/2021/09/why-are-we-here.html?fbclid=IwAR2BZnIKuUldg7WKup2NKfSv1MlfCrM7ZuqnnuWN0_qxqVYsd7QqarG5k1s  )

On 5th June 2022, after a super online UCA service about Pentecost by Rev Sheena Gabriel, there was also a rich conversation.

I was asked by others to record a contribution I made, which is my personal assessment regarding the arc that may be experienced by someone coming to Unitarianism, and its link with securing the ongoing life of a congregation.  So, with thanks to Sheena, Ruth and Rob who were in the conversation with me, here goes.

It seems to me that it will be a very rare thing indeed for someone who has not in some prior way experienced a life of wondering about faith, someone who has not already been infused with some style of self-awareness or moral living or both, someone who has not had at least a little exposure to formal faith practice through their upbringing, to try out any kind of spiritual or church movement from scratch.  I know the marketing industry works on the basis that you can make people want something they previously didn’t know existed, merely through clever advertising — that a demand can be constructed from scratch — but we know how much money is involved in the marketing industry.  So let’s set aside the idea of trying to reach people who never previously considered spiritual or religious exploration.

Thus, in my view, a person trying out the Unitarian setting is initially looking for a new setting for their past experience of faith and spirituality — they are looking for something for themself.  A safer space.  A more welcoming space.  Perhaps a place to heal or even mend.

And what the congregation must offer them at that stage is just that : a something for themself.   A place where they can, perhaps for the first time, be openly honest.  A place where they don’t have to define themself in terms of specific doctrines.  A place where they can try out different versions of themself at different times.  A place where they are heard and seen but on their own terms.  A place where they can ground themself again.  Rest.  Space.  Air.  Light.  Warmth.  Time.  As Rob put it yesterday, a place where they can find the holiness of their own person.

The arc progresses.  After the time of healing and grounding, some (if not many or even most) will then find they reach a stage where that motion begins to reverse — where instead of absolutely needing something for themself, they have sufficient resources to want to start to give back.  This is where — perhaps for the first time, or for the first time in a long time — the community as a body assumes importance for our ‘newcomer’.  The co-creation starts.  The holiness of community begins.  The exploration about humility, about service to the community itself and to the neighbours in which the community sits, assumes importance.  The personal needs are met, now what’s next ? — the needs of the group.  At this point the congregation must offer someone a way to be integrated into the life of the community — but again, as on first arrival, it must be on their own terms.  And the community must show that the contribution of the ‘new’ person immediately changes the group : the group is now different and may need to look afresh at how it operates, and respond positively to queries about its aims and activities.  “Ohh!  Now we need a new plan!” should be a happy commonplace, not a negative shock to the system.  To use very old language, if we are to see the spark of the divine, the Christ, in each person, then the opportunity is there to “become new in Christ” each time someone new integrates*.

Then the arc matures.  The ‘newcomer’ may no longer feel that instinctive, emotional giving back is enough.  In my experience, most will want to understand the motives of the group for being a group at all.  What is this congregation actually about?  This is the bit where in my experience congregations can fail, and failure can be most drastic.  The Unitarian movement is not about peak experiences, whether that be in art, music, literature, intellectual study, science, logic and rationalism, meditation, prayer, humility, one-ness, social service, justice making, or self sacrifice.  It’s not about diversity for diversity’s sake.  It’s not even about inclusivity for inclusivity’s sake.  All of these things are essential, are absolutely necessary, but are not sufficient. What are they all for?  Why are we doing this?  Why are we doing what we do?

For me, the only satisfactory answer I have found lies in the book by Stephen Lingwood: Seeking Paradise - A Unitarian Mission For Our Times.  After long and careful thought, Stephen argues (and I agree) that we are seeking to build paradise on earth.  The word ‘paradise' wraps up all those necessary things previously mentioned, and more, but in itself is much bigger; too big to be contained in our minds.  We are looking beyond ourselves, beyond our concepts, beyond our self-image, beyond our own terms of explaining ourselves, indeed, beyond what we are capable of imagining.  We are not worrying about achieving results or about realism.  We are seeking to build regardless of our chances of success.  We are not worried about whether we survive the attempt.  We are seeking to build paradise because that is the only clean motive that makes sense to us.  We are here because of the holiness of the beyond.

And because we are Unitarians, and not inheritors of tradition from the Indian sub-continent or the Arabian peninsula, not direct inheritors of land-based, spirit-filled cosmology (Africa, North America, Australia and other places) nor of political philosophies and wisdom (China); because we are Unitarians, our myths and narratives in common come out of Christianity and sit in the context of western law and culture infused with the demands of the Jewish Ten Commandments and the directive attributed to the teacher Jesus — to love God and our neighbour as we love ourselves.  Because we are Unitarians, the paradise stories and images we come back to again and again are related to the wisdom that we inherit in the Bible.  Spiced up, of course, by fusion with other thought streams : we are truly people of our global times.

To be able to show that line of thought, that anchoring, to someone asking why we do what we do; to be able to point at that, our history; in my view that is the third necessary element that a congregation must be able to provide, for a satisfactory arc of growth of both a person approaching a Unitarian group, and that Unitarian group itself.

~~~~

So, if you ask me, the three elements that a sustainable congregation needs to provide are a safe space for healing (holiness of the person); a living, growing community working together (the holiness of community); and the ‘paradise-building’ purpose beyond itself, anchored in history (the holiness of the beyond).

* 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NRS) So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!