March 18, 2012

Glynn Cardy

Lent 4

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Tolkien’s epic, Lord of the Rings, contains a mantra that speaks of centralized power vested in the one ring [‘One ring to rule them all’]. The epic hinges on the quest to destroy it, and the little feisty, unorthodox hobbits do the job. 

Centralization afflicts many political systems, not least the Church. Into Tolkien’s mantra I have substituted ‘ring’ with ‘Father’, ‘Faith’, and ‘liturgy’:

One Father to rule them all,

One Faith to find them,

One Liturgy to bring them all

and in the darkness bind them. [i]

Let’s rejoice in the ministry of hobbits!

Behind every service of worship there are three inter-related questions: what is God, where is God, and what does God do? Although some churches offer pat answers, these questions for many of us are invitations into a lifetime of searching, occasionally being found and frequently getting lost. 

Most Christian answers to ‘what is God?’ fall within three categories. Firstly there is the metaphor of God as an all-powerful Father. This metaphor has become so dominant that I call it the ‘golden calf’ of Christianity. In our desire to imitate prayers of the past, or have God cloaked in familial language, or be dependent upon an omnipotent parent, we have created an idol out of a metaphor. It is this idol that atheists love to critique and laugh at; and so they should.

Secondly there is the ambiguous and challenging metaphor of God as Trinity – one yet three. This is usually portrayed as three lordly beings: the dominant Father, the post-Easter Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. In simplistic language the metaphor alleges that the ‘Father Almighty’ sent Jesus ‘down’ and then ‘raised’ him up, and both [ii] send the Spirit who remains with us earthlings. 

Although I say ‘simplistic’ this is the language that still pervades the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book. While there is some avoidance of emphasizing the maleness of God [especially in the third Eucharistic liturgy], there is no corrective offered – like using female/feminine metaphors.

Apart from gendering God, the problem is making God into a being, or in this case three beings. A heavenly power-packed triumvirate limits and belittles sacredness.

Last there are those who understand the Trinity metaphor quite differently. Rather than three beings, it is the inter-relationship which reveals God. It is the life, love, generosity and laughter that is God, not a group of beings. God is the between-ness. God literally is that love shown by Jesus - a love that is transformative and life-giving.

To the question ‘where is God?’ the first two answers to ‘what is God?’ locate God as removed from us. God is essentially ‘up’ or ‘beyond’. Jesus might have come ‘down’ but now he’s gone ‘up’. The Holy Spirit might reside in us but the locus of the God-head is in heaven, which is certainly not here. The third answer however has God grounded in us, in our relationships, in the poverty and oppression of human greed and human need. God is in the smiles, the tears, and the little deeds. 

To the question ‘what does God do?’ the first two answers have God in the saving business. Some Christians think of ‘saving’ to be like an American celebrity adopting a child from the African Sahel. The saved one is plucked from the ‘sin’ of their circumstances and transferred into a new culture. 

Other Christians have a broader understanding of ‘saved’, incorporating a transformation of that home community. This understanding can also see us as participants in that transformation as “Christ’s work in the world”.

For those who understand God and God’s locus as between-ness, the question of ‘what does God do?’ is understood in the context of human beings loving and initiating change. It would also understand human beings as being the responsible change agents and healers [“Christ’s work in the world”]. The difference is that there are no external heavenly beings directing our thoughts and actions, and who can and might intervene in human affairs by some act of tremendous power [earthquakes for example]. 

Most Christian liturgies frame God as a male being, or group of beings, with almighty powers. Worshippers bred into and steeped in such liturgies often ignore the framing and look through the window into a much bigger God than males, beings, or might. Yet the frame remains.

Some years ago, the leadership here at St Matthew’s decided to do something about the framing. For three reasons: firstly to communicate to those put off church by such male, hierarchical notions; secondly to unfetter the notion of God from anthropomorphic captivity [God is so much bigger than males, being or might]; and thirdly acknowledge and celebrate divinity in our midst, and what it asks of us.

In Hassidic Judaism there is a creation myth that tells of a beginning in which God created a huge clay vessel and blew the Fire of Love into it. God’s breath was so strong that the clay vessel shattered into trillions of fragments, each with a spark of divine love in it. And thus, creation was born. Each of us is a shard of clay containing a spark of sacred love, and it is our mission in life to fan that spark into a flame.

As Joy Cowley writes, “God is with us as a spark of inner light… and I am certain that our relationship with God does not depend on our good works or degree of faith, but on our awareness of that love.” [iii]

Such imagery is so different from the familiar child-father allusion taught in infancy and still liberally sprinkled throughout our liturgies. There is a subliminal message in the traditional language of hoping that we might never grow up to question and challenge the ‘Father God’, and in time bear the responsibilities of divinity ourselves. We are always children, not partners; always subservient, never authoritative; always sinners, never bearers of transformative power. Traditional prayers of confession and absolution have been used to reinforce dependency.

The Hassidic creation myth, like our liturgy this morning, uses the imagery of light, spark, and fire. This Lenten liturgy is set in the context of suffering, and uses the metaphor of darkness to convey this. Into such darkness a single courageous light is lit. This light is symbolic of the God Love, revealed to us in Jesus. 

The Song of Zaccheus presumes our familiarity with the story of the vertically-challenged extortioner who, intrigued by Jesus, climbed a Sycamore tree in order to see him. The Song says that within this physically and spiritually challenged man there was a seed of light, and a longing to let it shine. Jesus recognized both Zaccheus and that seed, and invited himself to dinner. At dinner Zaccheus, letting that light within shine, declared he would give away half his fortune, and repay anyone he’d wronged four times over. [iv]

The Song invites us to identify with Zaccheus in recognizing that spark of light and God within us, and then act on it. But the Song, and the liturgy as a whole, invites us to also identify with Jesus – stopping, listening, meeting someone new, and helping ignite that spark in them. The work, and the hope of Jesus, carries on in us.

The Anglican Church today has lost its formidable power of the past. Membership in many places is sporadic. The Anglican club is in trouble. Some respond by wanting to tighten up the club rules, and get us all to think and act the same. ‘One church, one faith, one Lord’ stuff, or in Tolkien speak: ‘One liturgy… to bind them’.

Others, me included, think we need to let go of centralized thinking [destroy the ‘one ring’], and let the Spirit blow where She wills. We never were one church, we never had just one understanding of faith, and we always had lots of powerful men trying to lord it over us. As for liturgy, wherever there has been revival in the church there has been departure from authorized liturgies.

So let’s continue to dream, discuss, write, explore, and seek that which is life-giving and sacred wherever it is found. And on the way let’s laugh a lot, and feast and sing with neo-pagans and passersby, drag-queens and skeptics, wharfies and hobbits, and all other misfits and nuisances. 

[i] Adapted from J.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings.

[ii] Note that the great divide between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches has been around whether just the Father sends the Spirit, or whether the Father and Jesus do the sending.

[iii] Journeying into Prayer, ed. N. Darragh, Accent, 2012, p.128

[iv] Luke 19:1-10