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  • Father Raymond Brown and John, the community theologian

    51mhkqniwdl__aa240_ I still remember the first time I picked up the first volume of Raymond Brown’s Commentary on John. It was fat, chunky, untrimmed edges as the early Anchor Bible volumes had, hefty to hold, and crammed with textual, theological and historical information about ( in my view) the greatest book in the New Testament. I was finishing at College, had slowly worked through the equally demanding volume of C K Barrett, and was overcome with the kind of desire only those who love books might not mock! I paid £6 for it – and later went back to buy the second volume after getting permission from Sheila – well £12 was a LOT of money in 1976, and we still had some furniture to buy! Those volumes opened up a broad and exciting world of New Testament scholarship for me. They remain favourite companions on the road towards understanding Jesus more fully, carefully, faithfully.

    Raymond Brown pioneered study of what he called the Johannine community, and in his later even bigger volume on John’s Epistles explored the inner mind of John the community theologian, who argued passionately for the integrity of the theological community to which he wrote. Which brings me back to the community theologian. John’s vision of Christ as the one who reveals God as Spirit, Light and Love, is crystal clear, and deeply antagonistic to the kind of distortions that arise when a community wants Christ without a corresponding life of integrity – walking in the Spirit, living in the Light and being made perfect in Love. As a community theologian he acted as a corrective voice, recalling to the original vision of Christ and what it means to live for Jesus in a culture at best complacent of his demands, at worst hostile to those communities of his followers who seek to walk in the Light, live by the Spirit and perform faithfully the script – ‘if God so loved us we ought also to love one another.’

    Raymond Brown, through his books is one of the community theologians I consult often and gratefully. Not least because he expounds with great learning and care, the Gospel and Letters of John, the community theologian. And he does so, enabling people like us to learn, and then to share with the theological community to which we belong insights that come as corrective voice, clarifying vision, and supportive faith. So through conversation, preaching, prayer and living that is faithful to Christ, and kept faithful by interpreting the script of the one who reveals God as Spirit, as Light and as Love, together we become a community of theologians.

    Still thinking about this………….

  • Community theologians and theological community

    Talking recently with a group of folk about ministry, community and how theology is an important element in a community’s identity. I don’t mean the hard edged, brand name, logo-protected kinds of theology like Reformed, Evangelical, Liberation, Charismatic-Pentecostal, Feminist and Womanist. I mean the theology that is this community’s own self-articulation of what God in Christ, by the Spirit, is doing amongst them, and what they are now doing and planning together in response to what God is already doing. I’m thinking of how a community has come to think of God, of themeselves, of their reason for being who they are, where they are, together, and what that means for their coninuing life and health as a community of Christ.

    Rublev_trinity We began to wonder about each community having community theologians, perhaps each Christian community coming to see itself as a community of theologians. I posted earlier about every believer a theologian – I passionately believe that. So what I’m thinking about is not THE person in the community who does theology, reflects theologically, gives the theological lead; not THE person who is the professionally trained, academically best resourced, and whose theological education exudes an unearned authority. Forget that – theological reflection and conversation is at its best when it is an open shared conversation by a group of people who worship together, read and think about the Bible together, experience God and take that experience seriously – (and the togetherness is part of the experience) – try to serve God and love each other according to the Gospel, and have their own theological take on what God is about.

    0038040908152351_tn But most times someone needs to encourage such conversation; and yes someone needs to resource it with teaching, to accompany it in friendship and listening love. Such a community theologian is one whose gift is to interpret the community’s experience of God, of each other and of what is happening to them, in a way that enables each of us to see and trust God not only with MY life, but equally with our life together; and then to interpret that experience in the light of the Bible, the Gospel story, the call of the Prophets. And it will be a symbiotic relationship of each enriching the other, interpreting together the shared experience of people committed to each other in the risks of love, acknowledging that the theology of a community is not shaped, or directed, or conformed, to any one mind or style. The community theologian is the enabler of spiritual reflection, modelling but never monopolising theological thinking, praying with the heart and mind while in conversation with sisters and brothers, and together interpreting the life of the Spirit, the grace of the Son and the love of the Father as revealed in Scripture and experienced and enacted amongst us.

    In any such community there will always be prophets who see clearly and speak bluntly, sages who think wisely and speak hesitantly, pragmatists who think strategically and speak practically, initiators enthused by the new and conservators who value the way it is. Community theologians are in that sense the ones who take on all of this and more, and encourage theological conversation about who we are, why we are, what is God saying through the life we are living; how do we align ourselves with the movement of the Spirit in the culture and world around us; what is happening in this church, in this city, in the church in other places, that tells us what the Spirit is up to, and what is expected of us if we are to go on living faithfully to God’s call?

    Obedience is about listening and responding – the first presupposes the second. Who are the listeners amongst us, the ones who see trends, discern movement, imagine possibilities, and voice these not as an agenda to impose or pursue, but as a way of inviting further trustful conversation into a shared future?03footwash_s  A community of theologians, reflecting on God in Christ active in the Spirit, builds in a set of constraining and enabling criteria that test the blunt words of the prophet, respect the hesitant caution of the sage, stay alert to the persuasive strategies of the pragmatist, and are neither pushed around by the impatience of the initiators nor demotivated by the cautions of the conservators. Because what makes community theologians so important for us is the shared recognition that we are a community of God – and the two things we should know something about is God (Theology!) and each other (Community!). Anyway, that’s the thinking so far……….hmmmm.

  • ’till by turning, turning , we turn round right

    6716f0d911433174fdb67bd3d9ce173f This is a Shaker community house – symmetrical, precisely crafted, ingeniously practical from the kitchen utensils to the foldaway beds. I mentioned the other day these remarkable people called The Shakers. Below is probably their most famous community song. You can find out more about them easily on the web.

    My interest isn’t in telling their history, but in trying to make sure such a radical community-oriented Christian sect isn’t simply forgotten. They are categorised by sociologists as a utopian sect – maybe they were, but sociologists also need to learn the word eschatological – because they were forward looking in hope of the return of Christ, and for them utopia would be the community gathered to God. Their worship drew its energy, originality and movement from that hope – gathering to God. They still have important things to teach us – about simplicity, about community, about delight in practical things made into spiritual occasions, about choreographed worship (liturgical dance long before it became recently fashionable), and about going against the stream as an act, indeed a lifestyle, of witness, obedience and communal otherness.

    1f8b8b3211433174fd2f16818f4fbf3d When we were in New England for a holiday some years ago we went to the Shaker Revels. Every summer local people re-enact the life and times of the local Shaker community. Up on Mount Pleasant, which was reached by taking us in an open, horse-drawn hay-cart, in period costume a full cast act, sing and tell the story. The preacher was magnetic, electrifying and utterly convincing as he roared and pleaded and warned about judgement; the haymakers had their scythes and rakes in rhythm to the work song; families enacted the simple communal life, and the whole evening ended down on the meadow where a fire was lit. Then the cast walked round it singing, while each took a branch, or some hay, or some other fuel, and added it to the fire. Then we were invited to come and joine hands with them, bring our fuel, and share the making and the warming of the fire – and all to the music of the song Simple Gifts.

    This was community performed before our eyes; this was symbol, fire and fuel, warmth and togetherness, heat radiating at the cost of being consumed, each with their gift of fuel for the fire and hands to hold. Whatever else church is – it is this. Only a couple of other times I can think of, was my heart so thrilled with the possibility of human closeness, to each other, to the hill, the stars, the fire – such an elemental, can I say sacramental, and simple gift – and that hand held dance around the fire, so that evnetually, we turn, and turn, and turn round right – how’s that for enacting repentance, turning round – and conversion. A beautiful event, commemorating a beautiful people….and here’s their beautiful theme song:

    ‘Tis the gift to be simple,
    ’tis the gift to be free,
    ’tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
    And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
    It will be in the valley of love and delight.

    Refrain:

    When true simplicity is gained,
    To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed.
    To turn, turn will be our delight,
    ‘Til by turning, turning we come round right

    ‘Tis the gift to be loved and that love to return,
    ‘Tis the gift to be taught and a richer gift to learn,
    And when we expect of others what we try to live each day,
    Then we’ll all live together and we’ll all learn to say,

    Refrain:

    ‘Tis the gift to have friends and a true friend to be,
    ‘Tis the gift to think of others not to only think of "me",
    And when we hear what others really think and really feel,
    Then we’ll all live together with a love that is real.

    Refrain:

  • Stargazing, the universe, and the long journey of love

    One of my favourite poets is Elizabeth Jennings. Her poetry reflects and refracts the truths and questions of her Catholic faith. It wouldn’t be true to say she wrote Christian poetry – she wrote poetry, as a Christian. "Her vocation  is praise, as a lover praises the things made, the makers and the Maker."

    Sn One of my favourite paintings is the Starry Night by Van Gogh – I also like Don Maclean’s rendering of the song! I’m not a stargazer, but I am fascinated, awed, and moved in my spirit by the images of the Hubble telescope. Here is one of Jennings poems, written long before those Hubble images came to us. In it "the lover praises the things made,the makers and the Maker."

    Delay

    The radiance of that star that leans on me

    Was shining years ago. The light that now

    Glitters up there my eye may never see,

    And so the time lag teases me with how

    .

    Love that loves now may not reach me until

    Its first desire is spent. The star’s impulse

    Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful

    And love arrived may find us somewhere else.

    .

    The wistfulness and the sense of our transience, the longing and the surrender of possessiveness, the mystery, the gift and the maybe of love, are all expressed in the fact that what we now see as light shone light years away and aeons ago – but we still see it. Whatever else love is – it isn’t one of life’s disposable options – it can come to us from a universe away, and so must be cherished. On which enigmatic thought I go to bed thinking of that Love that shines from eternity and arrives here, to find us.

  • Road Tax, Staff Training, Post offices and butterflies in China

    445886150_7028792d84_b_2 Needed money to pay for my road tax and got it at the autobank which is approached from one side by a ramp with steps at the other. At the bottom of the steps one of our senior worthies was leaning on her walking stick and scowling up at the bank doors:

    ‘Is that place no’ open yit son’ she asked me.

    I tried the automatic doors but no, they wouldn’t open. The notice said it opened at 9.45 on Wednesday’s following staff training. It was 9.30. I explained to my friend (anyone who calls me son at my age qualifies as an immediately co-opted friend), that the staff were training.

    Her reply, ‘Whit training dae they need tae open b***** doors.’

    Logo Went to the Post Office to get the road tax. After a longish wait in a longish queue, the teller said, ‘You could have got this at teller 11 or 12 without waiting. They’re dedicated to road tax’.

    Doesn’t matter I said. Anyway I was only there because I’d left it too late to do it online. At which point the teller told me the more people who do it online, the less come to the Post Offices. That affects the Post Office commission revenue and will eventually lead to further cuts in services, staff and Post Offices.

    Then went to my own bank, to find one of its employees standing at the door, locked out, because it was staff training and they were upstairs. It was 9.45 – bank would open at 10.00. Would I hang around for 15 minutes, or just leave it till another time. Blethered a wee while with Jackie (locked out staff member with name on jacket), decided not to wait.

    So on my way back up Paisley High Street, a place where deep pondering on the philosophical options of the good life tends not to happen too often, I thought about all this.

    Hmmmmmm. So staff training means the bank opens later, and customers have to wait. Now is the training to make them more efficient in dealing with the customers? Is it ok then to inconvenience customers, in order to train staff, to better provide a good service? And then the Post Office thing. If Post Offices are dependent on revenue from road tax, then clearly DVLA and/or Govt save that revenue if I do it online. Which means my convenience prejudices the convenience of all those who depend on a local Post Office and would be affected by cut services and closed Post Offices due to loss of revenue. It’s the butterfly that flutters in China that starts off the chain of events felt across the globe.

    Paisleycentral_2  So. I’ve decided. I’ll pay my road tax off line, by walking down the High Street, standing in the queue, and handing over the documentation. This will not be convenient, it will probably be raining, I will think of serial rationalisations for saying, oh Hang, just go with the online flow and let your mouse do the walking. But somewhere deep in the secret places of who I want to be, I’ll know that I’ve made a gesture of support for those whose lives can be made more inconvenient by every convenient click on the DVLA website, including mine. Luddite? Possibly. Quixotic? I hope so – there’s not enough of it. Futile – naw, just think of the nutterfly in China. (I know the third last word in that sentence is spelt wrong -hit the wrong key- but it seems like a word with a chance of being useful!)

    And as for staff training in banks, and consequent later opening for elderly customers wanting to lift this weeks pension, and having to stand in the rain, if there is a last word it should probably go to my pal met earlier, whose response required a series of asterisks to make her language suitable for a genteel blog like this.

  • ‘Tis a gift to be simple…….

     

    Logo Nothing in life is ever simple! Actually I don’t believe that – the laughter of friends is simple; the pancakes, maple syrup and pineapple I’ve just scoffed was a simple dessert; the needs of our cat, Gizmo are simple – food, cuddles, warmth, and the door opened to let him in/out/in/out ad nauseam; ordering yet another book from the US is far too simple – one click ordering is subversive of all budgets…if your clicking finger offends you, cut it off…..might just about be a contemporary warning; and yes, the Gospel is simple….eh, well, haud oan a meenit, Jim!

    .

    When I say the Gospel is simple I don’t mean doesn’t need any thought; I don’t mean come to Jesus and get all your problems solved, simple; I don’t mean following Jesus faithfully today is as simple as saying the sinner’s prayer; and I don’t mean the Gospel of God’s baffling, extravagant, welcoming, forgiving, transforming, heart breaking and heart-mending love can be reduced to a praise song, pure and simple.

    .

    But I do mean that reduced to the bare essentials God’s love is most clearly recognised in Jesus Christ; I do mean that no one needs a portfolio of achievements, a cluster of transferable skills, or any of the other image building paraphernalia that fills the usual impressive curriculum vitae, to get an interview with God; and yes, theological educator that I am, I do mean that to know the love of God in Christ that surpasses knowledge is the most important educational goal of our lives, and quite simply, the only qualification that ultimately matters. At which point the Gospel is no longer simply simple – it is simply incomprehensible.

    .

    Furniture The wonderfully eccentric people called the Shakers, who were also concentric when it comes to community and God, have a beautiful little song, ‘Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free….’ I’ll blog a couple of times in the next week about these remarkable people, who believed everything in life is simply gift. Their furniture is made with loving craft, simple design, and a view to the beauty of usefulness. It expresses the meaning of home, togetherness, the dance of life shared with God. The last communities are now dying out, but their commitment to simple life, community love and worship as the community choreographed in dance and co-ordinated in love, remains deeply, subversively and simply, prophetic. Every now and again I need to hear their quiet defiant advice, ‘Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free….’

    .

    A while ago I copied out some words from a Journal article – and I didn’t keep the reference for it – but now and again, reading it I’m reminded of how in my life ( and, I suspect, in yours) things take on an ‘inordinate complexity’.  Then to ‘flee to the Beloved, is to know ourselves loved, is to learn again the simple truth, the Gospel truth – God is love.

    .

    When in doubt and confusion,

    call in the scholars

    and they will fill your minds

    with such inordinate complexity

    that you flee to the Beloved

    and take refuge in Simplicity

    as the only solution. 

  • Channel 4, Non Justifications and the Emperor’s New Clothes

    Holbein18 ‘Living wittily in the tangle of our minds’ sometimes means thinking in an uncomplicated way about important events and human happenstance. I think a mother of two boys, killed in a car crash abroad, is an important event, and the most tragically life changing event so far in the life of her two sons. I am uncomplicated enough in my thinking, and in my not always successful attempts to be a compassionate and wise human being, to respect the grief, the privacy and the loss of all involved.

    Why should that change when the person killed was Diana Princess of Wales? Channel Four intends to screen previously unseen photographs of the interior of the car, of Diana receiving oxygen in the immediate aftermath, and to broadcast previously inaccessible testimony from photographers. This is wrong, cynical, voyeuristic and deeply exploitative. Which is bad enough. But my uncomplicated take on these things isn’t to be taken as stupidity. Does Channel Four think that the following is in any sense a professional or moral justification, or that it comes anywhere near socially responsible Huh?

    "there is a genuine public interest in the events that followed the crash…."(Sorry, but where is the distinction between public interest and ghoulsih voyeurism? And if by public interest, is meant the more ethically important issue of serving the public good, what good is it going to do me to see a dying mother struggling for life – or to see the mangled mess inside the car where a human being was fatally injured? PUBLIC INTEREST???).

    "We don’t think the pictures are intrusive, and we have thought very carefully about the sensitivities of the families involved" (Sorry, but what other car crash victims would also be fair game for widespread broadcast on our TV screens? And thinking very carefully does not necessarily imply that you have concluded very sensitively, wisely, responsibly or even humanely!!!)

    "Appropriate action has been taken to avoid any unwarranted intrusion in the privacy of the family."(Appropriate action – like what? And what is warranted intrusion, and who decides? A company already compelled to apologise for its mishandling of racist material expects me to believe it actually cares more about avoiding unwarranted intrusion, than it does about the human tragedy that lies at the centre of this whole tangled mess)

    So – the above quotes are Channel Four’s "justification". How does one respond to such a litany of inanities? How do we stop semantic gymnasts from offering – non-justifications as if they were convincing, reasoned and cogent points which any sensible, mature adult can swallow with their cornflakes? Maybe by adopting the uncomplicated response of the young boy, whose perception was clear, and who was innocently unaffected by spin and illusion, and who pointed out bluntly that the Emperor had no clothes on. Channel Four’s contrived "justification" is the identical scenario – naked hypocrisy patronising the crowd by parading its see through gear!

  • Picasso, Pentecost and Haiku

    Picasso’s simple line-drawing, with the biblical allusion of the dove and the olive leaf, I find profoundly moving, and poignant, in a world where violence is often the preferred method of communication. This Pentecost, may the Spirit of peaceful communication enable us to find olive leaves to offer one another.

    Picasso, Pentecost and Haiku

    Invading Spirit,

    Gatecrash our solemnity

    With holy fervour.

    .

    The Church that’s drinking

    Intoxicating Spirit

    Never lost for words.

    .

    Rushing mighty wind,

    Hurricane force holiness,

    Mission impelled church.

    .

    Searing tongues of flame

    "Inextinguishable blaze",

    Purify our hearts.

    .

    Speak in other tongues,

    Of love, of peace, of pardon,

    People reconciled.

    .

    Tower of Babel,

    Communication breakdown,

    New hermeneutic.

    .

    Pentecostal gift,

    As given, Giving, Giver,

    "The Go-Between God".

    Jim Gordon, Pentecost, 2007

  • Music is feeling, then, not sound

    Laurastearoom When stopped for speeding Oscar Levant, the American pianist and composer explained, "You can’t possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven’s seventh Symphony and go slow!"

    When it was premiered, the critics panned Beethoven’s Seventh, one review accusing Beethoven of being as drunk as the music itself when he composed it. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve listened to it – and it never lets me down – it always lifts. Wallace Stevens’ poem about wistful piano playing says something about the spirituality of music:

    Just as my fingers on these keys

    make music; so the selfsame sounds

    On my spirit make music, too.

    Music is feeling, then, not sound.

    Josephkarlstieler_1820 Today, driving back from Laura’s Teashop at Carmunnock, Classic FM played the whole of that last movement. To my knowledge I didn’t speed – but music like that is to me what a double espresso is to some of my pals!! There is a dynamic payload of energy in it that makes Oscar Levant’s mitigation plea perfectly plausible. How a deaf composer was able to celebrate and synchronise sound into such joyful, aggressive, in your face vitality I’ve no idea. Part of the miracle that is Beethoven at his best, I suppose. But for me, Beethoven clinches Wallace Stevens’ argument – when music touches deep in our spirits, "music is feeling, then, not sound."

    And maybe Beethoven was remembering the critics when he said:

    Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

  • Jonathan Edwards – who he?

    Jonathanedwards The name Jonathan Edwards used to be famous and recognisable; he’s the New England late puritan revivalist pastor, now widely recognised as the greatest American theologian, and one of the most intellectually gifted philosophers in American history. It’s a pity most people who’ve heard of him tend to know him best, if at all, because of his famous sermon, ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’. Edwards’ theological writings can never be reduced to such caricature – his theological works are a huge mother lode of Australian (well, New England) gold nuggets. I can still remember reading his sermons on Charity and its Fruits, coming to the last sermon, ‘Heaven is a world of love’. I know of nothing, nothing, that gathers together such rhetorical and spiritual power in his descriptions of the love of God and the overwhelming mercy that suffuses the whole of reality.

    Ggweltklasse_zurich Nowadays the name Jonathan Edwards isn’t as straightforward. Someone by the same name is a retired world-class, olympic gold-medal winning triple jumper, who until recently presented Songs of Praise. Put Jonathan Edwards into an Amazon search and you get a mixture of athletic autobiography and puritan theology, motivational self-help and no nonsense mercy and judgement.

    Joned23123 And then the past couple of days I was down in Manchester meeting with British Baptist leaders and spent time with Jonathan Edwards (a third one) – Jonathan is General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, a highly experienced pastor and a fine reflective church leader.

    41bv41ze32l__aa240_ The puritan, the athlete, the Baptist…..’ The name Jonathan Edwards is to the fore for me again cos I’ve just started the Cambridge Companion to Jonathan Edwards, along with other recent studies of his life and thought. The essays here cover the full range of Edwardsian studies – an essay a day means it’ll take a fortnight to read. As you can see, the book cover does him no favours – probably seemed like a good idea to the graphic artist to use a modern ‘wooden stylised bust’ – doesn’t work as a book cover – just makes him look miserable, scary and…well….wooden!

    I haven’t forgotted my promise to do a couple of posts on Edwards and Moltmann on the Trinity – after Pentecost I’ll get round to it.

    First – on Sunday I’ll post some Pentecostal Haiku!