 Why we need Jesus (a paraphrase of Sunday's sermon)
I watched a film on Tuesday that had me weeping aloud, shuddering with grief like no other movie since Brokeback mountain,. It was a French film called 'a love to hide' about a gay man who lived with his partner in occupied France, who took in a Jewish girl to save her from the Nazis. He is shopped by his own brother and sent to the camps - his partner is shot resisting arrest, and finally at the end of the war he arrives from Dachau, tortured, given hormone treatment and lobotomised; he died shortly after returning to his family. In total, 100,000 gay men were arrested by the Nazis, 12,00 died in concentration camps.
Let nobody tell you there is no devil; - but let them neither tell you he is an external agency of evil that leads you astray because that lets us all of the hook and furthermore is a fond thing vainly invented - the devil is the undying worm that gnaws at the vitals of man - the devil is the beast inside all of us that lest we rail against it would devour us. The devil is the human urge to trample those we perceive as below - the Jew, the black, the homosexual, the gypsy - and between us and the damnation that we would build for ourselves stands the life and death of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our redemption and lest we cleave to him with every fibre of our being the jaws of hell await. Not a hell of medieval melodrama coming after death, but the true hell of our own reality divorced from God's lovingkindness.
We have an animal inheritance that seems to fight against God's will, the will that calls and nurtures our humanness, but the tension between those two principles can raise up great character in humans; it can also bring us down when we listen to the voice of our animal selves - when we speak gently with it, sit down with it and coddle it; when we listen to it's blandishments. We have all heard them - 'She's out to get you', 'they hate us', they're not like me', 'he's different', 'they brought it on themselves', 'I hate them' and worst of all maybe, the point where we are offered a chance to give in to their urgings completely, and launch ourselves into rage, violence, murder. Be under no illusions, those whisperings are the voice of the beast - but the beast is called Clinton, it is called Trent, it is called Paris - it is not a scapegoat called Beelzebub.
It is the lovingkindness creed that Jesus espoused that stands between humanity and the horrors of the holocaust. When I say Jesus I mean lovingkindness - in Jesus we glimpsed God's grace in flesh and bone. We saw what such grace looked like walking amongst us. The divine word became flesh and dwelt amongst us and that word was hesod! (loving kindness)
Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis. - the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
We can indeed be rescued from the mouth of the beast, and defeat the death it represents, and this rescue comes through the other voice - the other whispering, the one that tells us that we should risk it, risk love, risk kindness - the one that tells us we are loved, that we are the beloved. It is the vision and the creed, and the life and the death and the teaching and the fact of Jesus that can save us all from the brink - from the hell into which we have frequently plunged, and in which parts of humanity even today spend their miserable lives.
We need Jesus because when we turn to all he was and is and was made to be we become fully human - which is, to our surprise, a glorious thing; when we turn away from all he was and is and was made to be our humanness vanishes like the morning mist - God, respectful and requiring our free will allows our free choice - whilst always waiting on our change of heart and grieving over our pain. God loves us even as we descend into the pit; God loves us in all our errors and foolishness, and God will and can and must mend us after our disasters, but those disasters play out in the real world, and have consequences on Earth that can paint paradise in the colors of hell.
In scripture, Satan is an appointed post - the tempter who tests the human soul; not just to say no like Nancy Reagan, but often alas to pass through the refiner's fire like Job and come out more than the sum of our experiences.
I have no problem with the sort of suffering that life sometimes sends us being compatible with a loving God - there is more to life than charting a course around discomfort, and my suffering has been among my greatest gifts. But the idea that God has a rival that causes anything I personally find unpleasant doesn't wash with me, God is transcends my likes and dislikes and works for my good at a level I frequently do not understand - if I don't like it now I must not ascribe it to the devil, I must merely wait until all is revealed! If I don't like what I have done, I must not blame it on the devil - I must change what I am doing or reconcile it with God.
It is me and my God alone - and all that is done is between me and God, no excuses, no get out clauses, no cloven hoofed pagan Gods.
Why do I preach like this? Why do I preach in concepts and underlying truths and not rely upon the easy old certainties of 'religion'? The 'learn this and be saved' school of things.. well, it is because I believe that Christianity can stand comfortably against reason, science, philosophy and all comers - but that 'religion', the doctrine that has accrued around the truths that stand immortal cannot, and unless we base our faith on the immortal truths of God, Jesus and the Spirit then we risk being exiled from our faith by reality, because we preferred a fond falsehood to facing truth. Our faith must be able to be a partner to all other things that point to the truth; including science and philosophy - in reality there is no conflict.
The Catholic church lost millions of adherents after the second Vatican council, because for years it had sold convenient fantasies 'fond things vainly invented' as if they were incontrovertible religious truths. From Limbo to meatless Fridays, one day they were taught as gospel, and the next they were thrown out with barely an explanation. One Saturday millions of lay leaders and priests taught folk they would go to hell for something that by Sunday was a minor infraction. Millions said earnest prayers for the souls of those in Limbo, and the next day were informed that limbo didn't exist. Today, the Catholic Church still teaches that to use a single condom is a mortal sin - enough to consign you to everlasting torture, yet the vast majority of Catholics don't take a blind bit of notice of it, and Italy has the lowest birth rate in the European Union!
If we are ever faced with a choice between Jesus and truth, we must always follow truth, because what we thought was Jesus will certainly turn out not to be.
Sebastian Moore O.P.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
.....They will - just as Jesus is the incarnate word of God, and God is truth.
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PRAYERS FOR BOBBY |
 Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Sigourney Weaver stars in this emotional true story about a 1970s religious suburban housewife and mother who struggles to accept her young son Bobby being gay. What happens to Bobby is tragic and causes Mary to question her faith; ultimately this mom changes her views in ways that she never could have imagined. This movie highlights the work of both MCC and PFLAG and premieres on Lifetime at 9pm et/pt on January 24th
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CHOIR REHEARSALS!!!! Choir rehearsals begins again on Thursday, with added commitment, added variety, and the addition of Ken Harper who has agreed to be our music minster for at least the next year! On our ministry fair several people signed up to join the choir in the new year, so now is your chance! If for any reason you are unable to make rehearsal, always ring Ken on 504 638 6178 |
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Bible Study begins again on Wednesday!
Paris is back with bible study on Wednesday this week at 7.30pm at church. Over the holidays we all get out of good habits as well as getting into bad ones! Let coming to bible study be a good habit that sticks with you in 2009! All welcome, including newcomers....
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