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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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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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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