An Emmaus Journey

14 10 2009

My wife and I were on our way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. I think it was the Sunday after Jesus had died. He’d been crucified on the Friday. We were feeling pretty low, and we’d decided that there was nothing else to be done now that Jesus was gone, so we’d left the others and started on our journey home.

The days before Jesus had died were really quite incredible. They had an unreal inevitability about them. And it all happened so quickly – it was like a runaway camel in the market place – no way of stopping it. But at the same time, it was all happening so slowly. It was like when the kids are running around inside the house and one of them runs into the water jar and knocks it over. You can see the jar falling, its all happening so fast that you know there’s nothing you can do about it, but it also seems to happen so slowly – it takes for ever to hit the floor and smash into a million pieces, and then when it does there’s an incredible sinking feeling as you see all the water flowing across the floor – water that you spent two hours carrying up from the well before the sun came up – and now there’s no water for the rest of the day. The few weeks before Jesus died was just like that. We sort of knew what was going to happen, but at the same time we didn’t know. And now the bottom had fallen out of our world.

Well, this particular Sunday afternoon, we were talking about these sorts of things as we made our way to Emmaus, when we both suddenly became aware of someone walking beside us.

Gidday, he said. What are you talking about.

We stopped walking and looked at him. He didn’t look like anyone that we had ever seen before.

Are you the only traveller, who’s been in Jerusalem in recent days who doesn’t know what’s happened, I said

The stranger simply said, Tell me about it.

So we told him all about how Jesus of Nazareth had been this great prophet who we thought was going to be the Messiah; the one to save us from the dominance of the Romans. How he’d been betrayed and handed over to authorities and how he’d been crucified.

A few of the women had gone to the tomb early on that very morning to anoint the body as was the custom, but when they got there the tomb was empty. Later on in the morning, Peter and some of the others went to the tomb and they found it empty as well. The women had even said something about seeing angels and that the angels had said that Jesus wasn’t dead but was risen. We didn’t really believe them. You know what women are like in these situations!

Anyway, the stranger started talking to us about who the Messiah really was. He went through the laws of Moses and the writings of the prophets and he showed us all the places where it talked about the Messiah, and how the Messiah wasn’t going to be a powerful king that would destroy the Romans, but rather he would be one who would live and suffer and even die so that we would know how much God loved us and to show us how God wanted us to live. The Messiah would come not so much to do the work, but to show us how to do the work, so we would understand how God had given us the law to live in harmony, and the words of the prophets to help us understand that it was the spirit of the law that mattered rather than the law itself, how God wanted us to show mercy and sacrifice even if it meant that we didn’t follow the very letter of the law.

So if we saw an injured man on the side of the road, and it was the Sabbath, we shouldn’t walk by on the other side of the road and leave him there, but we should go over to him and pick him up and help him and take him to the inn and make the necessary arrangements to care for him. And if we saw a person travelling on their own or maybe someone who was lonely and miserable outside our gate, then we don’t just ignore them and we don’t just throw them a few coins and send them on their way. Rather we should invite them in, share a meal with them, give them a bed for the night. Make them feel that they are worthwhile people to have around. Make them feel part of the community, part of the family. It was certainly an interesting way of looking at things, and it all had that ring of familiarity about it. A bit of de-ja-vu perhaps. I’d heard all this somewhere before.

Well, by this time, we had reached Emmaus, and were outside our house, because we lived on the main road. The stranger said Goodbye and started to walk on.

My wife turned to me and said, Don’t let him go. Ask him in for dinner. Its getting late.

I said, But he’s a stranger. We don’t really know him.

She said – Don’t you understand. That’s exactly what he’s been talking about.

Hmmmmm. She was right of course. Funny, that. Well, you know how women are in these situations…..

So I called after the stranger, and invited him in.

We didn’t have much in the house because we’d been away for a few days, but we had bought some bread and fish on the way, so we set that out on the table. And we had some wine in the cupboard. I was just about to give thanks, because I was the host, when the stranger picked up the bread and started the blessing, which went something like this:

Almighty and most wonderful God, we praise you and give you thanks for the laws of Moses and for the words of the prophets through which you have shown us your great love. Help us to understand how to allow that love to flow through us and into the wider community around us. Bless o Lord, this bread and this wine to our bodies that it might strengthen us both physically and spiritually, that through it you will empower us to meet the stranger and to know when we do, how to care for them and to help them to feel part of our community. We praise you our God and we thank you for friendship. We thank you for fellowship and we thank you, as we break this bread again, for your love for us that allows us to be part of the ongoing community of people who belong to you.

Just as he said Amen, and as we joined him in saying Amen, he broke the bread, and at that very instant we turned and looked at each other, and were filled with a feeling of great joy. This was no stranger at our table. And both of us at the same instant looked back to where the stranger had been, and sure enough. The stranger was gone.

The stranger was gone.


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The Peace We Seek

15 09 2009

The following piece, The Peace We Seek, was inspired by a recent 9-week course I did. The course was conducted by Scott Vaswer from OnEarth. The course was centred around the SBS series, The First Australians, and consisted of 9 sessions discussing and trying to relate to the First Australians’ experience of white rule in Australia. The course was conducted at the invitation of PeaceChurch, an experimental ecumenical para-church, of which I am a member of the Steering Committee.

 

The indigenous people of Australia are thought to have migrated to Australia from South East Asia around 50,000 years ago, perhaps even as long ago as 100000 years ago. They probably first encountered this country near modern day Darwin or even in the north of what is now Western Australia.

Over time they spread out through the mainland until they occupied pretty much the whole country, living and developing in to distinct cultural and linguistic groups, which became individual nations.

These nations engaged in trade and cultural exchange and developed complex legal, social and spiritual systems that knew boundaries similar to the boundaries that exist between nations today around the world.

They developed a spiritual awareness which permeated every part of their culture and socio-economic systems. This spiritual awareness as we can see in many of their stories extended to a deep understanding of and communion with the natural environment that surrounded them.

For 40-50,000 years these social religious environmental economic systems developed in a way that seems to have been almost at one with the country in which they lived.

Into this system, came firstly the incidental explorer and trader, but then 220 years ago this country was invaded by a totally different, almost opposing culture that had developed literally on the other side of the world.

Naturally, problems arose from the beginning. Health, land and cultural issues caused a great deal of pain within the indigenous population, exacerbated by the fact that those who came saw the indigenous inhabitant as less than nobody, less than human and the country as ‘Terra Nullous’ – a land inhabited by nobody.

Move on 221 years to a little church in Wembley Downs in Western Australia.

About two years ago, this church involved itself in somewhat of an experimental para-church project, which we have called PeaceChurch. PeaceChurch’s mission is to explore non-violent resolution to conflict. We recognise conflict exists in all aspects of life and that sometimes we need to accept that conflict will continue to exist, but hopefully we can find ways to move through the conflict and hopefully come out the other side with ways of moving forward even though the conflict itself is still there. We can accept differences, we can accept differing views, we can even accept differing goals, but within that we can still move forward with a Christ-centred common experience. We can both change but also not-change.

Over the two years we have explored this idea of idea of ‘peace within conflict’, we have discovered that one of the keys is to listen. Listen to what each other has to say, listen to what each other’s grievances are, listen to how we view each others’ strengths and weaknesses.

Out of that idea of listening came the idea of travelling on a listening journey – a journey that had no aim of solving problems, no aim of achieving goals and no desire to impose one view over another. Just listen and hopefully, perhaps understand. And then maybe some sort of journey could happen together.

An obvious candidate for a context in which to embark on this listening journey was the story of the inter-twining of the lives of the new white settlers and that of the indigenous population of this, our own country. Hence we began the PeaceChurch OnEarth Listening journey using the SBS series The First Australians as a catalyst for our exploration and listening with Scott Vawser leading from the front or maybe he was pushing from behind.

The course and associated discussion was brilliant and it culminated in a weekend retreat to Mandurah and a wonderful trip to several remote communities in the Kimberley. It was an inspiring experience that opened my eyes to something I vaguely knew about. As I listened to the stories and became more a-tune to listening, it occurred to me that the journey was rather like the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. As the disciples listened and engaged in hospitality, the stranger vanished. If we take the time to listen to our indigenous sisters and brothers, then maybe the strangers among us will also vanish.

 

The Peace We Seek

 

I met the man unexpectedly,

I neither heard nor saw him,

He just appeared behind me, saying

Hey man – is it peace you seek?

 

We walked the dry and dusty road,

And I was so thirsty for the truth,

I listened as He talked about

Living the peace we seek.

 

Acknowledge misdeeds of the past he said,

The misunderstandings and even the hate,

Denying the stealing and the crying children,

Will only darken the peace you seek.

 

As we walked the road together,

His words rang loud and true,

Walk together; share the load, he called.

You’ll see the peace you seek.

 

By exercising your responsibilities,

He said, as we journeyed on,

By building relationships, showing respect,

That’s what will bring the peace you seek.

 

In times of silence with meditation, he said,

Perhaps via tears and inner pain,

Through confession and forgiveness,

‘Sorry!’ a light will be, on the peace you seek.

 

He talked some more, I listened intently,

on that dry and dusty road.

We finally arrived at our destination,

And I could almost feel the peace we seek.

 

It is in the dance and the stories, he continued,

In the trees and in the stars,

It is through the Spirits and the Dreaming,

That you can see the peace you seek.

 

Show some love and understanding.

Work at tolerance and friendship.

Share the joy, the happiness and hope,

For there, in that place, is the peace you seek.

 

A black ‘fella’ carrying a cross, he was.

And as he broke the bread and gave thanks for the wine

This is what it’s all about, he said.

For together, we can live the peace we seek.

©2009 Steve Mellor


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Down to Preside and all I can hear are the Sounds of Silence

8 05 2009

Well here it is – Saturday afternoon. I sit at my computer, staring at the screen, wondering “what can I say?” I’ve got the rest of the service organised, but the introduction to Communion – what can I say? The silence is deafening. But in the silence I realise that the sound of silence is not really silence at all. Rather the silence is filled by the background noises that continually invade our silent personal space.

I can hear the traffic on the road outside; the sound of cheers from the oval across the road; the sound of neighbours opening their back door and putting rubbish in their bin; the sound of the washing machine churning back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, in an almost hypnotic silence; the sound of the kids doing…whatever it is they are doing – what are they doing? The sounds of life, the sounds of the world doing what it does – the sounds of silence. If I let it, the sounds of silence would overtake my desire to get something down for tomorrow’s communion talk. Focus! I have to focus.

The sounds of silence I think to myself. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sang a song about the sounds of silence. How did it go? I think I remember some of the words…

‘Hello darkness my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Because a vision softly creeping, left its seeds while I was sleeping. And the vision that was planted in my brain, still remains, within the sounds of silence.’

My mind is empty. But as I sit and think amidst the sounds of silence, images begin to form; thoughts begin to germinate. A vision, perhaps planted while I was sleeping, begins to invade my sounds of silence.

I remembered that Wendy was arranging some displays which promote the protection of the environment, and which encourage us to do our bit in saving the planet, our home. So the wandering through the dark recesses of my mind takes an uncontrollable environmental turn.

And as the vision of the environment softly creeps into my brain, I become, as I am wont to do every now and then, all gee-d up about reducing green house gases and saving the Orang-utan, and protecting the sharks whose fins are so callously cut from their writhing bodies, by illegal fishermen. I think of the forests that are mercilessly cut from the ground, so large coffee plantations can grow and become ever-more profitable. And what about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest and the never-ending debate about logging in our own Australian forests. And climate change…don’t talk to me about climate change!

And suddenly the sounds of silence are replaced by the noisy gongs of protest. “Death to the whalers” I cry in the silence of my mind! My empty mind becomes filled with the noise of shouts and cries – But what can I do? What can I do? I want to save the planet – but what can I, one single person, do? No, wait! I can’t think of that now. I’ve got a service to prepare for tomorrow. I’ve got more important things to focus on for the moment.

And slowly the noisy gongs stop their clanging and settle into the sounds of silence once more.

I stare at the screen. No words magically appeared. The page on the computer screen, like my mind, remains blank.

And my sounds of silence continue their endless journey to every recess of my mind, every now and then invaded by that song.

“In restless dreams I walked alone narrow streets of cobblestone.” Hmmm…Paul Simon – where is that CD? Wait – I’ve got that song right here on my computer, no need to get up… Ah yes, here it is. “‘Neath the halo of a street lamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp when…”

As the beautiful sound of Art Garfunkel’s voice and the melodic twang of Simon’s acoustic guitar washed over my empty brain, I found myself peering at one of the many news sites on the internet. Headline – “And the Oscar goes to Heath Ledger’s daughter”. Boring! Another boring article about illegal fishing and Ooo! An earthquake in Melbourne – that’s interesting. Oh, and here’s an article about the Salvation Army and their tireless work in feeding rescue workers and fire-fighters after the recent bushfires in Victoria…hmmm…bush fires…rescue workers, fire-fighters …victims!!

“…my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night and touched the sounds of silence”.

Suddenly, somehow, the sounds of silence dissipated and were replaced by thoughts of the poor fishermen who live in the impoverished villages in Indonesia, and even the fishermen who live in our own city. Every day it seems they lose part of their fishing grounds because of environmental concerns. What about their right to work? What about their right to bring home food for their family and their right to earn money to buy clothes and school equipment and toys for their kids? What about the poor villagers who struggle to grow a crop of Palm trees or to work a small plantation producing coffee beans? What about the rights of the poor in the cities to have clean water to drink? We have to build dams to provide water for the cities, but then the rivers dry up and the poor who live out from the cities are forced to walk miles just to get a jug of water for their kids. What about them? And if we close the polluting factories – what about all those jobs. All those people losing their jobs will have mortgages and they’ll lose their houses.

Wow!…Saving the environment has consequences. Make a note – I need to think about this a bit more…but not now. Communion – focus!

And once again, the sounds of silence over take me. My fingers tap the keys without writing anything. What am I going to say? What can I say?

There is a screech of tyres right outside. I wait for the crash. Doh! Missed! The washing machine goes ballistic – sounds like it’s about to explode – unbalanced I thought. Linda will get it. Artie and Paul sing on…

“And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more – people talking without speaking; people hearing without listening; people writing songs that voices never share, and no one dared disturb the sounds of silence.”

I stared at the screen and thought to myself “so this is what an empty mind is like”. Coffee – I need coffee. I walked to the kitchen and turned on the kettle and waited by the kitchen bench. You know, those sounds of silence go everywhere; only now we have the added sound of water heating up. I stared out the kitchen window.

I don’t know, I thought, blocking out the sound of the kettle. What did that Psalm say? Ah yes, that was it – “For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.”

Well, maybe I could say something like this, I thought.

“While ever there is suffering and pain; while ever there is greed and poverty, while ever there is injustice, God will be there, his arms draped around those hurting, feeling the pain with them. God stands alongside the marginalised; God swings in the trees with the Orang-utan in its ever decreasing habitat. God swims in the oceans with the ever decreasing number of fish and sharks and turtles. God waits for us to come.”

I consider this for a second – God waits. All the while, God waits for us to come…waits for us to come and help…but what can I do? How can I help?

Well at least I’ve got something to work with now. But as I pour the water into the cup, the sounds of silence again invade my brief moment of brilliance. The kids are arguing. “Shut up!” I think to myself. I’m trying to think!

“Fools” said I, “You do not know silence like a cancer grows.” The words of Paul Simon again feed into the other sounds of silence. “Hear my words that I might teach you; take my arms that I might reach you.” Almost sounds like words you might hear from Jesus, I think to myself. “But my words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence.”

Having got my coffee I’m back sitting in front of the computer with my fingers poised expectantly over the keyboard. C’mon fingers. Do your stuff. What was that thought I had before? I take a sip of coffee. Damn! That’s hot. Oh yes that was it. God waits. God waits. And then out of the blue, I think to myself – I could add this too.

“God also stands with the impoverished palm-oil farmer and coffee-bean grower. God sits on the boats and wanders the villages of the poor fishermen. God walks with the woman on her 10km trek to the well to get water. God is already tending to the sick and the suffering, the hungry and the burnt. God waits for us to come.”

There it is again. That thought. God waits. And all the while God waits for us to come…waits for us to come and help. But what can I do? How can I help?

For the briefest of moments I have the seeds of an argument forming in my brain.

If we rush out to help the poor and the marginalised without considering the consequences for the environment, then we, like Peter, are no more than Satan. If we rush out to save the environment without considering the consequences for the poor and the marginalised we, like Peter, are no more than Satan. We need to get behind Jesus and follow. We need to constantly consider the consequences of our actions and ensure we are following the Lord.

Hmmm…that could be worth working on. But heck, this is supposed to be an introduction to communion, not a rambling sermon. Dennis can ramble later, I chuckle to myself. And Paul and Art sing their final verse.

‘And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made. And the sign flashed out its warning, in the words that it was forming. And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.” And they’re whispered in the sounds of silence.’

Hmmm…I know what I can do. Short and sweet – to the point. That’s what we need. Not some great treatise on the environment or theology or ecology, but something that says what this bread and wine are really about. I’ll just say this – that will be enough. And it fits nicely straight after the second hymn. Just let me get this down…yeah, I like it. Yeah this is good. I like it.

————

As we share together in this symbol of bread and wine, may it not be a silent witness to a distant memory. Rather may it be a noisy gong that invades the sounds of silence of our lives, driving us to recognise God everywhere and in everything and in everyone and may it lead us to come behind Jesus of Nazareth, following him where ever he leads.

————

© 2009 Steve Mellor

Lyrics of Sounds of Silence © Paul Simon


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Rejoice, People of God

1 05 2009

(a Call to Worship)

 

Rejoice, people of God!

Celebrate the life within you

and Christ’s presence in your midst!

 

Our eyes shall be opened!

The present will have new meaning,

and the future will be bright with hope.

 

Rejoice, people of God!

Bow your heads before the one

who is our wisdom and our strength.

 

Let us place ourselves before our God,

that we may be touched and cleansed

by the power of God’s spirit…….let’s pray….

 

Our great and wonderful God,

It is you we come to worship.

It is you we come to praise.

It is you we come to speak to, O God.

It is you we come to listen to.

 

But our worship and our praise will be stale Lord,

Our words and our thoughts will mean little,

if we do not see you and experience your presence with us.

 

So Lord God, we call on you to show yourself to us

here this morning.

 

Let us feel your presence.

Let us experience your being.

Let us wonder at your greatness….

 

Let us be humbled by your forgiveness.

Let us be touched by your acceptance of us.

Let us know and be filled with your grace.

 

Let us be enveloped by your love,

 

As we share in worship and praise with you Our God,

may we also share in friendship and fellowship with each other. Amen.

© 2009 Steve Mellor


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Lines in the sand

29 04 2009

I sit in the sand, surrounded by rubble – rubble of buildings destroyed, rubble of dispirited lives.  The hot sun burns the back of my neck as I draw in the sand with a stick.  The sun is slowly sinking into the rubble that surrounds me.  It will soon be evening and the cool dry crispness of the dark night will numb the pain of the sounds in my ears and the dust in my eyes.  Those who are against me are on the other side of the rubble.  I fear them, but I have the Lord on my side.  We will triumph.

Images from the past and present flash through my mind and burn through my soul.  In one instant I see so many pictures, so many images.  My mind races to draw them together. 

I see the broken destruction of buildings around me and lives shattered by the devastation.  I watch my stick draw endless lines of random chaos through the sand as my hand wanders aimlessly back and forth.  I see Jesus kneeling before a crowd of people, stones in their hand.  He draws as I do – an endless line of unknown meaning and significance.  His mind must have been filled with random images as is mine.  What do I do?  What do I say?  He stands and says to the people ‘Whoever is without sin, they can throw the first stone’.  As the accused adulteress kneels before them awaiting her fate, silence reigns.  There are no stones are in the many hands that stood ready to condemn. Their owners simply move away in a thoughtful peace.

‘In you O Lord I seek refuge.  Do not let me ever be put to shame.  In your righteousness deliver me.  Incline your ear to me quickly.  Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.’   The words of the Psalm echo in the inner sanctums of my mind.  And then I realise the words are coming from my enemies.  My words, my psalm.  ‘You are indeed my rock and my fortress.  For your name’s sake lead me and guide me.’  The words carry across the rubble as clearly as I hear them in my own mind.

A story I heard in a church flashes images into my brain.  Stephen stands before the crowd having finished a magnificent speech about the unending forgiveness and saving activity of God.  The stones that were held aloft to stone the adultress and then were dropped to the ground now fly through the air towards their target.  They are flung with a vicious hatred and jealousy that drives deep into the soul of the enthusiastic young priest.  As he falls in pain and torture, his mind turns only to love and forgiveness of his tormentors.  In the midst of the pain and the suffering, he sees God standing by his side, and as he falls to the ground, he says to his God – ‘Lord, don’t hold this against them’. 

The bombs fall.  The tanks roar through the streets.  Houses fall, buildings are demolished and the dust mixes with fear as hatred again fills the air.  The sounds of screaming bodies buried in the rubble are a forerunner to the stench of death.  How can I forgive?

‘You hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.’  I continue to  recite the words of the Psalm aloud to myself trying to find some solace, some refuge in their words.  ‘I trust in the Lord’, I say.  ‘I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction.’  The words of my enemy again echo across the devastation.  ‘You have taken heed of my adversities, and have not delivered me into the hand of my enemy.’  I sit and draw in the sand.  How can I forgive?  How can I sit at the table with my enemy?

The images of old stories again flash into my mind.  Saul was standing off to one side and he witnessed the tortuous death of the Stephen.  The peace and forgiving serenity displayed by the young priest only increased Saul’s hatred and determination, and he went forth in the name of God and his sole aim was to destroy these new believers in God.  On a road to destruction, a light shone and the hate-filled man was forgiven and humbled by a man hanging on a cross and the stones drop from his hands.

I look up and I look at what I see, but I can’t believe the inhumanity of what lies before me.  I look down and see again the endless line I have drawn – winding its way through the grains of sand, like a river through a myriad of valleys and tumultuous waterfalls and rapids finally finding its way into the peace of the forest.  The sounds of birds fill the air – the chattering of animals moving peacefully into the security of their burrows seeking the warmth of each other’s bodies for the night.  The water trickles and ripples over the worn stones in its bed.  And then slowly and majestically, the tumultuous roar of the ocean begins its call.   The river that will always be is no more.

‘I trust in you O Lord.’ I cry out almost in despair.  ‘You are my God.  My times are in your hands.  Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.’  From the other side of the rubble the words come. ‘Let your face shine upon your servant.  Save him in your steadfast love.’  I think to myself – “Is he my servant?  Am I his servant?   He is my enemy.  How can this be?”

And again, images from my past flood my mind.  Jesus stands at the foot of a cross and he says ‘In my house there are many mansions.  I go to prepare a place for you.  When it is ready you can follow, because I am the way, the truth and the life.  Ask in my name and it will be done for you.  Peace to you my friends.’

I stare at a TV screen in horror as planes roar into buildings and the buildings fall to the ground.  People are screaming and running.  The world panics.  I stand outside the razor wire and watch as a man jumps from a roof onto the wire below.  Others behind the wire starve themselves and sew their lips together.  I fear they might get out before they can be sent back to where they belong.

Jesus appears in agony on the cross, the pain in his face tearing at the nails, willing them to fall to the ground as stones might fall from humbled hands.  The nails remain stuck fast.  A prayerful cry filled with both pain and triumph flies across the darkened sky.  “Forgive them Lord, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

There is silence.

It is finished.

Or is it?

 © 2002 Steven Mellor (Unauthorised use prohibited)


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People of God

28 04 2009

(a Call to Worship)

 

People of God come near,

People of God come here,

Come into this place – but have no fear

For we wait on the Lord.

She will soon be here.

 

People of God look around

People of God listen to the sound

With the animals on the ground and with the birds in the air,

With the fish in the sea

Our God is working there.

 

People of God look around

People of God, hear the sound.

In the songs that we sing and the prayers that we pray

On the cross on the wall

Our God, here, will stay.

 

People of God rise up.

People of God stand tall

As the poor we help, as the light of peace is shone.

In the deeds that we do

We worship the Holy One.

 

People of God listen to the sound

People of God look around

In the voices that we hear, and in the faces that we see

Behold our God.

‘I am’ is here, ‘I am’ will be.

© 2009 Steve Mellor


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Who do you say that I am?

20 04 2009

Who do you say that I am?

 

When I was hungry, you gave me food

When I was thirsty, you gave me water,

When I was cold, you gave me warmth,

When I was naked, you gave me clothes.

 

Who do you say that I am?

 

When you were sick, I comforted you.

When you were afraid, I gave you support.

When you were unsure, I encouraged you.

When you grieved, I grieved with you.

 

Who do you say that I am?

 

When I was a stranger, you welcomed me.

When I was blind, you helped me to see.

When I was deaf, you helped me to hear.

When I was injured, you cared for me.

 

Who do you say that I am?

 

When you were in prison, I was there too.

When you were insulted I felt the pain.

When you were laughed at I stood by your side.

When they threw stones I was your shield.

 

Who do you say that I am?

 

When I was tired, you gave me rest.

When I was lonely, you were with me.

When I was angry, you listened to me.

When I was lost, you looked for me.

 

Who do you say that I am?

 

When you were wrong, I told you.

When you saw pain and did nothing, I reached out to you.

When you saw me lying by the road and you walked by on the other side, I cried for you.

When you were guilty, I died for you.

 

Who do you say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

 

Our response to that question will help us decide whether we take up the cross and follow Jesus, and it will influence the way in which we become the blood and body of Christ in the world around us.

© Steve Mellor 2009


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Categories : Refractions

A Response to the Stranger

9 04 2009

The Gospels were written primarily as teaching documents that enabled or assisted teachers in the early christian communities to help their students to know the crucified Jesus of Nazareth and to encounter the Risen Lord. The first christians debated not only who Jesus of Nazareth was, but how one could still know him and see him after his death. They wrote their own life stories in terms of the Jesus stories to which they had access. The early christian communities didn’t just talk about theology. They did theology. They lived it. The stories that we find in the Gospels contain the very fingerprints of the individual early christian communities out of which the Gospels arose. They reflect the poiesis, or poetry and meaning, and the praxis, or practical demonstrations, of the community’s theological understandings. They enabled the family of Jesus (Lk 8:21) to refract and reflect Jesus’ life and death into their own lives and experiences as well as into those of the wider community.

This has far-reaching implications within Churches of Christ today. As members of a supposed ‘New Testament Church’, recognising its intrinsic diversities, do we ‘do theology’? Do the Gospel stories ‘live’ for us in the twentieth century? The Gospel Stories remain simple words from myths and legends scratched onto ancient papyrus sheets until we, as the 20th/21st century family of Jesus, re-read, re-interpret and respond to them in a way which reflects, expresses and interprets our own life experiences. The stories of Jesus of Nazareth, and those of the Risen Lord, only become ‘real’ when they are embodied within the lives of those who read them.

One of the keys to the identity of Churches of Christ lies in its weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and almost invariably presidents make the link between that supper and the memory of Jesus’ death and, perhaps less often, his resurrection. Whilst Luke’s interpretation of the Lord’s Supper and of the Resurrection are only one of a diverse understanding that permeates the whole of the New Testament, it is perhaps in Luke’s stories, and in particular the Emmaus story (Luke 24:13-35), that we see one of the clearest images of an appropriate response to one of the earliest christian creeds, ‘Christ is Risen’.

When looking at many of our churches today, outsiders may perecieve that our repsonse to this ancient confession is closer to ‘So What?’ than to anything else. Yet in gaining an understanding of what the early christian communities understood by these events, how they were inextricably bound together, and in examining what it meant for them to see the Risen Lord, perhaps our response might more appropriately be ‘Christ is risen indeed!’

In entering into and becoming part of the Emmaus story, we have the opportunity to walk beside Cleopas and his companion. We are able to enter into their discussions of the events leading up to our mutual hero’s untimely and unexpected death. We listen with The Stranger as Cleopas explains the reason for their sadness. We learn what sort of Messiah Cleopas and the other disciples were expecting Jesus of Nazareth to be. We have the opportunity to listen as The Stranger explains how to see the Lord in the texts that make up Moses and the prophets.

Here is, however, where our story and that told by Luke may diverge. The reaction of the two travelling companions to what the Stranger has said was to invite him in for a meal and provide lodging for the evening. The Risen Lord became visible, not simply because Jesus broke the bread. The two friends engaged in an act of community which involved the breaking of bread. The Risen Lord was present because he was an active participant in the life of the community. Our reaction to what we see and hear within these texts determines whether we too see the Risen Lord by engaging with The Stranger in community, or whether The Stranger simply continues walking the road of life alone.

One of Luke’s major themes is the importance of table-fellowship. Within Luke’s Gospel, meals occur at significant points and often involve the acceptance of the stranger into the community, or the gathering of people from outside into the smaller household circle. (5:27-32, 9:12, 14:1-24, 19:1-10, 12:16-21). Table fellowship was not just a case of eating together and perhaps engaging in a few ‘spiritual activities’. Whilst Eucharist, or ‘thanksgiving’ was an important symbol for Luke in presenting the nature of the Jesus movement, community was not simply meeting together around the Lord’s Table. Table-fellowship for Luke embodies the whole concept of community: sharing of wealth and property, communal meals, distribution of provisions for the poor outside the community, support networks and so-on. By inviting The Stranger in to share a meal, by extending hospitality to the stranger, the travellers respond to Luke’s suffering messiah. But this is not simply a case of feeding and accommodating a hungry, tired traveller. There is a unique and amazing mutuality of community here. To allow a visitor the role of host was a unique sign of absolute and total acceptance within the household. In having The Stranger make the blessing and break the bread Luke indicates that The Stranger was welcomed as a friend and as a valued member of the community.

Celebration of the Lord’s Supper does not simply celebrate the individual person-Jesus-God relationship. The cross had an horizontal beam as well as a vertical one. In almost all images of Jesus on the cross, he has his arms outstretched, reaching out to the physically suffering and the spiritually hurting. Much is made today of the Eucharistic part of the Lord’s Supper, the personal thanksgiving, while the building of community aspects of the agape, the love-feast, have long since been vanquished to the extremities of worship services, and sometimes one would struggle to find them at all.

Luke’s Jesus of Nazareth was one who responded to people’s needs, one who met people where they were at, whereas many of the religious leaders of the day did not. Throughout his Gospel, Luke shows his community their responsibility to respond to the needs of the powerless and the poor, the suffering and the hungry, and yet at the same time recognising that the powerful and the rich had a place at the table provided they were totally committed to the ‘kingdom’ community. For Luke, having wealth and power in the wider community was not immoral. Indeed, many of Luke’s heroes were rich – the good Samaritan, the father of the prodigal son, the man who prepared a great feast to name a few. It was the use of that wealth and power that determined the morality or otherwise of one’s behaviour. In this story, the travellers were expressing the mercy and compassion which God had expressed through the law and the prophets, but which had been lost in the legal interpretations of the law and in the exclusive power and wealth-gathering of the ruling classes.

Luke’s risen Jesus is found in The Stranger, the unrecognised one, the suffering messiah. He is not the Jesus of Nazareth who died on the cross (24:19-21). He is the one who ‘is not here’ (24:5, 24:22-24)). He is the one who is living. He is to be found in the hungry, the needy, the suffering; the people who were outside the gates of Luke’s community (16:20). For the Lucan community, recognising the Risen Lord, or having the competency to see the Risen Lord, involved being an active participant in a community whose members knew both how to be hungry and how to feed the hungry. Unless the community actively seeks to alleviate the sufferings of the wider human community and to speak out against injustice, the Risen Lord ceases to exist. Yet at the same time, when the community responds to the Word of God, the Risen Lord disappears. Each time a hungry person is fully and unconditionally accepted at the table, she disappears, for the needy one is no longer needy. Here on the road to Emmaus, the two travellers listen to Moses and the prophets and respond, not to the walking, talking ghost, but to the love, mercy and compassion of God as expressed in the scriptures. This isolated invitation to community expressed to The Stranger by the community is the climax of Luke’s story of Jesus. This is what Luke’s story of Jesus is all about. This is resurrection. Jesus of Nazareth may have been crucified, but the resurrection happens because the community lives out his life practices and teachings.

As Luke’s community seeks access to Jesus, they find him not in the grave by which to place flowers and shed a tear. They find him in the stranger who accepts the invitation to table-fellowship and who therefore accepts a share of the physical, financial and spiritual wealth that is offered by the community of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, though of course it should be understood that the community may not have been ‘rich’. Emmaus is not about the renewing of a relationship with a dead person, that Jesus of Nazareth character who was crucified on the cross a few days before. Emmaus is much more a story of encountering The Living Stranger. Emmaus involves meeting the one who travels the road of life, who experiences hunger and knows what it is to be thirsty, who may be homeless and friendless, but who can be identified with and accepted regardless of her circumstances, as one seeks ways to alleviate the hunger, to quench the thirst, to provide a home, and above all to provide true friendship and companionship.

Emmaus is Luke’s Gospel in miniature. Within this story Luke presents the gospel as he saw it. It is a story that never happened, and yet it always happens. Luke’s resurrection stories show how the Lucan community was to reflect and refract the stories from their own past into their own present and future. The stories look back to the basis on which the community came into being and on which it exists and they look forward to what is to follow from their experience of Jesus – namely the gift of the Spirit or the ability to see the Risen Lord, and the consequential mission of the church. The resurrection was not something that defines a unique point in human history. Rather, it should be human history. The resurrection never happened unless it continues to happen.

Later in Luke’s story ‘Jesus himself’, not ‘Jesus of Nazareth’, appears to the eleven and their companions, and even though he shows them the physical reality of his being (24:39) and expresses his continued physical needs (‘I’m hungry’) they don’t fully comprehend who is in their presence. Just providing food is not enough. There is more to seeing the Risen Lord than just meeting physical needs. As on the road to Emmaus it is to the Law and the Prophets, the existing texts, that Jesus turns in order to explain the nature of the Gospel to them, but when The Stranger leaves, we are left wondering whether they have correctly identified and responded to the Risen Lord. The response of that Jerusalem group was to go into the synagogue and continually praise God. Is that what Jesus intended?
As proponents of ‘New Testament Christianity’, as Churches of Christ, what is our response to the creed ‘Christ is risen’? Are we only in the temple and continually praising God? Or are we out on the road of life re-encountering the Stranger and building community? ‘So what?’, or ‘Christ is risen indeed!’

SOURCES
Crossan, JD Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, San Francisco: Harper and Collins, 1994
Curkpatrick, S Easter and Hermes’ Conceit, Reo, Iss 2, 1996, pp60-65
Gill, A Life on the Road: The Gospel Basis for a Messianic Lifestyle, Homebush West: ANZEA Publishers, 1989
Moxnes, H The Economy of the Kingdom: Social Conflict and Economic Relations in Luke’s Gospel, Philadelphia, 1988
Sawicki, M Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994

© 1996 Steve Mellor


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Categories : Reflections

Hello world!

4 03 2009

Welcome to reflectionsandrefractions.wordpress.com. Hello World indeed! This is my first personal blog, so it might take a while to get going. So stay tuned and ‘Watch this space’ as they say.


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