January 28, 2007

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 4     Luke 2:22-40

Happy feet are stomping out the beat trying to convince the children and their minders that penguins have food problems. It's a fun movie about a serious subject: food, the environment, and humans taking too much without allowing for natural restocking. It's about penguin reality.

In a 2002 interview with Ron Suskind of the New York Times Magazine one of President Bush's senior advisors dismissed Suskind's faith in facts. “We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” It's post-modern marriage with capitalism. The penguins are toast.

Many of the airheads that fill the glossy pages of magazines have little understanding of realities other than their own. These celebrities are unfortunately the role models for many in our consuming society. They live, as one writer recently put it, “inside a bubble of their own creation, being driven by the notion that 'me' always has to come first.” This is the 'me' reality of consumerism. 'What do you mean penguins don't have enough to eat?' the airhead asked. 'Someone should open a can of tuna for them.'

Professor Emeritus Lloyd Geering was honoured in the New Year list. A competent and controversial theologian he came to national prominence in 1967 when the Presbyterian General Assembly charged him with doctrinal error and disturbing the peace of the Church. The phrase 'disturbing the peace of the Church' is worth pondering. He disturbed the reality of that 1967 church by offering another.

Jesus disturbed the peace of his hometown. He showed up at Nazareth, read in the Synagogue, and made like a star. The locals commented on the size of his head. Jesus, instead of politely holding his tongue like a good boy, reminded them of Elijah who, although there were lots of Hebrew widows starving, fed the foreigner; and Elisha who, though lots of Hebrew's had leprosy, did the miracle thing with Naaman the foreigner. Jesus message was clear: 'if you guys don't like me, see if I care. I'll go to the foreigners.' His hometown buddies quickly judged that he was a bad boy and deserved a good rocking.

Conflict often arises when competing realities clash. The ecological concerns of the creators of Happy Feet clash with the consumerist culture endorsed by the Bush Government. The reality of a supernatural deity who miraculously intervenes in human affairs clashes with the realities of the Lloyd Geerings who understand the word 'god' as grounded in the power of love. The Nazareth reality of religion serving only its chosen adherents clashes with the Jesus reality of spirituality including all.

Each 'reality' is not equally valid. It is not a case of there being lots of different realities and we all have to learn to live together. Some realities are more right than others; and some realities are plainly wrong. Some realities have no room in their worldview for difference, and when it crops up want to punish the different ones.

At the same time we need to be sceptical of those who would wish us all to conform to universal truths. Such universal truths in the past have been used to colonise less powerful cultures and persecute any diversity. So-called 'universal truths' are still used to promote brands of unaccountable capitalism and religious dogma.

Jesus was forthright with his views. He didn't mince his words. He got up the noses of the religious gatekeepers, their sycophants, and many others. He made them mad. They wanted to kill him, and eventually did. Yet, one of Jesus' abiding sayings, and one that keeps catching us all in our throats, is “love your enemies”.

What does love mean in the context of enemies? Does it mean the penguins have to love the fishing trawlers plundering the Southern Ocean? Does it mean we have to love the brutality of empire as it continues to make a mess of the Middle East and increase its profits? Does it mean that religious fundamentalism has to be tolerated, or religious xenophobia is okay?

One of the evils of our world is generational hatred. There are many places where great injustice has been inflicted upon say a family. The surviving family members grow up and teach their children to hate the perpetuators of that injustice. Eventually some of them have a chance to inflict revenge. Among the recipients of that act of vengeance there are those who likewise feel a great injustice has been inflicted upon them. They too grow up and teach their children to hate. The generational cycle of hate and vengeance continues.

The best of the Christian tradition teaches that the only way to cure hatred, 'to love your enemies', is to make room in your heart for the other. It is called hospitality. By welcoming the enemy to sit, and drink, and talk, you are acknowledging your common humanity. The tradition is also very clear that this is a costly exercise. It involves self-giving. It involves humbly recognising that you might not have the whole truth and that the reality of your enemy may contain some truth too. It involves looking into your own heart, and recognising that all is not perfect and truthful there either. This is the meaning of the phrase in our liturgy: 'the oppressor who lies deep in our own soul'.

Jesus never compromised on his vision. He sought to expand people's understandings of the breadth of God's love and embrace. In particular God's inclusion of the impoverished, sick, and marginalized. Jesus lived this vision by engaging in hospitable table fellowship where the vulnerable were welcome. Jesus also engaged with the rich and powerful – sometimes with a positive outcome, and sometimes not.

Jesus reality conflicted with other realities. He tried to treat his enemies with dignity. He cured the Centurion's servant. Miracles weren't just for the powerless. He cared for the daughter of Jairus, a leader of the Synagogue. Healing happened for Jesus' critics. He dined with Matthew, a tax-collecting thug who supported the Roman regime.

It is presumptuous to think that all these and other members of the military, religious, and revenue collecting elites known to Jesus became his followers. I think it is more accurate to imagine Jesus' vision being accepted by a few, and rejected by most.

The vision that we have is also only accepted by a few, and rejected by most. If we follow in the spirit of Jesus we will inevitably make enemies. People will revile and even persecute us. This is the experience of our forebears in the faith. Yet in order not to return hate with hate we must always make room for the humanity of our enemies.

After the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were shot in 1945 their bodies were hung upside down in a square in Milan. This public display was both an act of revenge for the many partisans who had been hanged in that square and an act of discouragement for those who still supported Mussolini's regime. The parish priest in that part of Milan, upon seeing their bodies, climbed up on a ladder and tied down Clara's dress to preserve some modesty.

That parish priest took a risk. In tying down her dress he treated her as a human being. The partisans could have seen him as a sympathizer and have shot him. The partisans' reality was that of hatred and revenge – a reality that was quite understandable given what they had suffered. The priest's reality though was different. He understood the suffering. Yet he still saw his enemies as human beings and wanted, as best as he could, to treat them as such.