Two Ways of Seeing Things

During my week's work I visit two Schools to do “Bible”. Both schools, Kaeo and Riverview, welcome the Bible-in-schools programme. Both are lovely groups of children (age 9-11), bringing occasional challenges to the abilities of this non-teacher, but a real buzz in compensation.

They also teach me. Recently I learned about differences among peoples within our one nation.

At the moment, the Riverview class is using a different book from that used at Kaeo. It means that when the topic of God came up, there was a different entry point. At Riverview, it connected with the theme of creation – the amazing world we live in. At Kaeo, it started with the story of the burning bush.

At Riverview we began by singing Creation Rap, a favourite song for sure. “God made everything. And it was good.” The kids were buzzing with comments, so I got it focussed by gathering up our questions and listing them on the board.

If God made the world, who made God? Where does God live? Wasn't it our parents who made us? What was there before there was anything? Did God make aliens?

These children don't take God as a given. They are of an age and cultural environment that sees God as a question, specifically the question: is there a God and how do you know?

After a brainstorm on the questions, I talked to them about two ways of looking at the world – science and faith, facts and values, evidence and trust. And the key question for each: science asking “how?” and faith asking “why?” Finding cause and effect, in contrast to discovering worth and goodness.

They spent the whole session on the mat, engaged. At the end a number came to me and said “thank you” and “that was really interesting”.

At Kaeo we began with a children's video of Moses and the burning bush. With appropriate drama and special effects we saw a talking bush that didn't burn up and the fun scary bits too – Moses' stick turning into a snake and back again and his hand getting diseased and then healed.

They were totally engrossed. Then totally in tune with the discussion about what the story says God is like. First the tapu that means you take off your shoes – the wow factor that is also a bit fearful, in the sense of being very careful and respectful; next, power that never burns out; then one who hears cries for help, who listens and cares, and who then does something about it (sending Moses); finally one for whom the word “impossible” does not apply.

For the Kaeo children, in their cultural environment, the question “is there a God?” doesn't come up. Same age and yet a different way of relating to the world. The question that interests them is what this God is like that they simply take as part of reality.

The western world's standard mindset is just one way of seeing things. It's not the only way, nor is it the superior way. It's just different.

It's part of what I grew into through education and interaction in a predominantly Pakeha part of New Zealand. And yet, growing up where I did, on a farm and with the Christian faith as a way of being more than a set of beliefs, meant that “what we call God” (as Dad used to say) was just part of reality. Philosophy at university did nothing to undermine that sense of spiritual givenness.

I thank the classes at Riverview and Kaeo for being different from each other and setting out so clearly these two sides. Two sides, two cultures, that are both part of our country. And both part of me.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom

Robyn

God heard the cry of the child

The big event of this week in NZ was, as I see it, the People's Report of the Glenn Inquiry¹ into child abuse and domestic violence. We might appear a peaceful and civilised country, but I think we are all aware of the reality. Not only has our society been built on violent acts in the past, it is maintained by a culture of fear (or its cousin in camouflage anxiety) that has us seeking the security of powerful friends. But even deeper is the absence of peace and well-being in many homes. Too many children and adults think their experience is “normal”. This week the focus in the Bible readings just happens to be fair and square on the way this disease pervade family culture.

Talk “violence” and many of us likely pull back and think, that's not my experience. A majority feeling can pervade, even without us speaking our thoughts, and those who do know it get silenced. By the way, the report speaks of abuse and violence that is physical, sexual, emotional and psychological, and financial. Manipulation and control in many forms. We must not pull back from it, and let issues like Labour party leadership become more important until something else distracts us, because it concerns people among us. It is “us”, not just “them”. Even more so because at root there is a culture, an attitude that I'm not sure any of us can feel free of: the culture of blame. If something is wrong, the mainstream response is to go for the one who is to blame. That, apparently, is how you sort it. Really? Blame, then punish, and it's over?

No, do that and the cycle continues.

Today's Bible readings really can clarify our purpose – two readings about family. In them are human actions and consequences; God's response and God's way of dealing with issues; and the harder way Jesus leads us on to build life not on power and control but on kingdom values. Put bluntly, Jesus condemns the idolatry of family.

Family Conflict: an ancient example – the story in Genesis 21:8-21

In the background is the promise to Abraham that he, with his wife Sarah, will be tupuna for a great nation. They believe the promise but they are old, and Sarah has not been blessed with a child. So Sarah understandably thinks this is a situation to take initiative and arranges for a surrogate child by her maid, Hagar. Her son, Ishmael, grows strong and Sarah and Hagar's formerly close relationship is disturbed, as happens – you can't really blame anyone. Then Sarah herself carries a child to term and Isaac is born.

Trouble escalates. What if Hagar's son takes precedence as Abraham's first born? This must not happen, thinks Sarah, for God's promise is to her and Abraham. She has to do something (initiative again) to help keep things on track. So she asks Abraham to send Hagar and the child away, effectively a death sentence to be shut off from community support.

For Abraham it was no trouble to have both sons and both women in his life, but Sarah is his official wife, so he must do as she asks. He supplies Hagar with food and water and sends her into the wilderness.

When the water runs out, Hagar cannot bear to see her child suffer. She leaves him under a bush and sits down a distance away from him where “she lifts up her voice and weeps”.

God hears the boy's crying and sends a messenger to Hagar who tells her that God has heard the boy “where he is” – right there in worst suffering. She is to raise him with care, for through him also Abraham will be tupuna of a great nation. When she opens her eyes, she sees a spring: their life continues. As the text says: “God was with the boy...”

We say family is the basis of society. The wisdom of the Tanakh, which we so foolishly call the Old Testament, tells us that family is where violence and blame begin... Adam blames Eve. Cain kills Abel. And Lamech takes the violence further.... (Genesis 4:19-24) The violence escalates.

Andrew Prior, http://harestreetunitingchurch.org.au/the-work-of-easter-is-begun---matthew-10-24-39.html

Abraham's family is a continuation of this. The disharmony that had come into family life with the birth of one son and then of the second son was to be sorted by punishing the cause of the problem. If Hagar hadn't been so confident, blossoming in the role of motherhood, if she'd kept her place as a household slave, then there wouldn't have been a problem. She's to blame; send her away.

Abraham buys into that: he knows no option. Keep the peace of the family, keep the honour of the family, and don't show any weakness that will make the household vulnerable to others.

So much manipulation, control tactics, and bullying happens in the cause of keeping the peace. Focus on who's to blame; find a scapegoat for the problem and work from that. What we do next probably depends on our personality type: confront or withdraw, challenge or pacify, all to deal to the so-called “problem person” but ignoring the real sickness – the relationship between the people.

Not peace but a sword

In the Gospel reading for today we hear these challenging words from Jesus:

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)  

Eugene Peterson begins verse 34 of Matthew 10: “Don't think I've come to make life cozy.” Brokenness in relationships cannot be fixed by making things comfortable and nice. Like a broken leg, what's needed first is traction – pulling it apart. Jesus is speaking this hard truth about relationships, starting at the core in family relationships. And he is showing us how to do it.

In conventional terms, Jesus' society was held together by the dynamics of family honour and shame. In many ways that is still the same for us. “Family values”, “family first”, as a society we come close to treating family as our ultimate concern, our god. Jesus is saying, no, that's not the real ultimate concern. God is, and to be on track with that we need to commit to Jesus. What really holds life together is the way he shows us – the way of the cross.

Andrew Prior proposes an extra verse for our first song:

When the crowds at the cross have gone home
When the stone is rolled from the tomb
When the Lord has come among you and you have seen his wounds
The work of Easter is begun.

Prior continues:

Jesus' refusal to reply to our violence with violence, but replying with forgiveness, is the decisive breaking of such cycles. It is the work of Easter. Look again at the words in that song.

To find the lonely and the lost,
To heal their brokens soul with love,
To feed the hungry children with warmth and good food,
To feel the earth below the sky above!

To free the prisoner from all chains,
To make the powerful care,
To rebuild the nations with strength and goodwill,
To be at one with people everywhere.

Andrew Prior, http://harestreetunitingchurch.org.au/the-work-of-easter-is-begun---matthew-10-24-39.html

Section 2 of the People's Report, on what is working well in our country's government and non-government systems, documents things that fit well with these two verses, for example:

genuine, non-judgmental people

helpful services

agencies collaborating

teachers alert to troubled children and believing them

victim-focussed police response

“There is so much power in just being heard, listened to, believed, and not judged.”² There is so much damage in labelling, acting on assumptions, and overall ignorance of the nature and impact of child abuse and domestic violence.

The section on what is not working is much longer but ideas for change that follow give good direction. The way forward is whole system, whole country, change. All of us seeing things differently, all of us leaving behind the impulse to blame. To break the cycle of abuse, and at all times for us to break the cycle of troubled relationships, we need to break the habit of making blame and punishment the solution.

For us as Christians we have the pattern to follow to do this – the Light of the World. Remember Jesus' key word forgiveness. It is the perfect antidote to the blame impulse, which is my strongest argument for keeping working on it.

For the goal is well-being. The way forward to that is healing, not condemnation.

1https://glenninquiry.org.nz/the-peoples-report

2The People's Report, p.110

Keep on trying to love

I was checking for something among earlier editions of this newsletter and next minute got that terrible sinking feeling. On so many occasions there had been news about our new facility in Kerikeri. Big announcements even. Talk about embarrassment!

But that is not stopping us from presenting in this newsletter, with more pictures than ever before, the plans we now have. It is a facility for church and community. It has changed somewhat – 150 square metres less for one thing – but it is still going to work as a centre for the community with spiritual heart.

Being embarrassed or feeling foolish for taking so long doesn't come into it. It can't be of concern when it's God's work we're working on. God, or however you understand the heart-beat of life, is notorious for being unpredictable and beyond our management. The purpose at hand matters more than our feelings, our commitment to the task of serving the community is much more important than our pride.

Here's something I read at the recent meeting when we had our latest round of discussion on the subject of building. It's called “Trying to love”:

I find that it is better to love badly and faultily than not to try to love at all. God does not have to have perfect instruments, and the Holy One can use our feeble and faltering attempts at love and transform them. My task is to keep on trying to love, to be faithful in my continuing attempt, not necessarily to be successful.¹

Keeping our eye on the bigger picture is my antidote to getting disheartened or succumbing to cynicism. Our task is to keep on trying to love – our community, one another, the world around us in which we're so fortunate to live – and when the time is right our efforts to be faithful will bear fruit. In this and in everything else we're involved in.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

1Morton Kelsey, Companions of the Inner Way

Let one who is without sin...

Let one who is without sin cast the first stone.

This line from John 8:7 is a favourite with so many people I've known. I remember seeing it acted out in chapel when I was training. My classmate Tau (whom I saw in Rarotonga last year – he was visiting his home area, we were on holiday) had the role of the woman “taken in adultery” who was about to be stoned. Jesus came back with these words and they stopped the accusers in their tracks.

When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders...

This I realised is one reason I really enjoy being in churches with older people in them. Youth is great for new ideas and a fresh approach – and we have that. But real progress comes when this sits alongside age, when age has developed wisdom. The judgemental mind-set has been rubbed hard at the edges and what is right and good is no less important, but it's not important before all else.

It was the older ones in the encounter with Jesus who led the way to what seemed a new approach, although it had been around since the dawn of memory. That is, acting with mercy and with grace.

The judgemental mind-set does harm to those who pass judgement as well as those they accuse. Life/the Spirit of life teaches us to temper our principles and certainty to embrace, to awhi, those who need love more than anything else. The event back during our training caused outrage among some – that a man would play this woman, and a man who would be a minister. We were all relatively young and enthusiasts, so I do hope age has brought change!

We have the younger ones among us to pull us into the future with their boldly argued schemes and their strong convictions. The older ones among us keep us on track with being human in the best possible sense of the word – knowing our humanity and ready to forgive others (including ourselves).

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

To tweet or not to tweet

Greetings for the New Year. Me te Atua e manaaki e tiaki koutou katoa i tēnei tau o 2014.

Recently at the Sunday service I quoted from a blog that talked about a tweet sent out by Pope Francis. This raised a bit of interest (myself included, as I don't “tweet”) so I did a bit of research. One assumption was that twitter (the name of the application with which one tweets) is a young people thing. Apparently not, or not just young people.

The Pope is one example, Barack Obama another. In fact President Obama is in the top 10 of “follower” numbers, that is people who choose to receive a person's tweets. All the others in the top 10, however, are people who are just famous for being famous. The bulk of twitter seems to be all rather vacuous and a symptom of our dominant culture of celebrity. However, in its midst, Pope Francis is followed apparently by 11 million people over 9 different language accounts. One of His Holiness' tweets says: “Holiness doesn’t mean doing extraordinary things, but doing ordinary things with love and faith.” In a way his twitter followers are like the crowds who gather in St Peter's Square: they want to hear words of faith and wisdom from someone they respect.

Some years back people used to gather in Cathedral Square in Christchurch to listen to the Wizard. Many years back, John Wesley stood in the midst of town centres to preach the gospel.

Twitter is defined as “a short burst of inconsequential information” and “chirps from birds”, which is exactly how its creators saw their product. But some twitter users are proving it has potential to share messages of value, snappy enough to hold in people's minds. (A tweet is limited to 140 characters.)

So when you tweet, you send forth to any who want to listen your gem of wisdom (or otherwise). I read that 40% is pointless babble, 6% self-promotion, yet what researchers call “conversational” and “pass-along value” together makes up 47%.

Facebook is more my kind of thing. If a tweet is like a soap box, Facebook is like a get together of family and friends. Potentially all of them in the one place at the one time. I don't usually share news about myself on Facebook – I mainly post photos when we go to interesting places. But when my appointment to the parish was renewed, that news I did share which saved a lot of phone calls. Facebook has been great for keeping in touch with people who are good friends but live in other parts of the country. Also I've reconnected with a lot of cousins and it's an easy means for sharing family information.

The key to Facebook, as I see it, is that I choose privacy settings that limit everything on my page to “Friends Only”.

(The Parish Facebook page is different – it's a public page, but publicity is what it is for, sharing news and making ourselves more visible on the electronic platform of the wider community.)

On Facebook we have a conversation as friends; we share interesting things we come across; and we fill in part the gap between the times we meet face to face. I've made the call that every Friend request I accept has to be of someone I have met in person.

Familiar to most readers of this newsletter will be email – which in many ways is an electronic version of letters in the mail – and skype – like telephoning, but with video and, once you have the computer and internet connection, no extra cost to anywhere in the world. Texting is also something of a commonplace, across a range of ages. Maybe it's a bit like morse code – sometimes it feels like you have to learn text code to make sense of it – but it really has taken quick and non-intrusive communication to a new level. Although in making that last point, it does depend on the receiver whether it in fact intrudes into the social interaction they are having when it arrives. When you send a text you are not requiring the person to answer it on the spot. But the sight of people sitting with others in a café and looking at their mobile phones is rather disturbing. What's the point of them being together?

The key to it is that the technology has a purpose. It is not itself the purpose. And that purpose is to communicate. Be it sharing news or views, keeping close as family across the distances, retaining contact and nurturing friendship, the point is people.

What is important is what helps feed relationships: what helps us be people in good relationships with others, with the world we live in, with God, whatever that might mean to each of us.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn