Bible Readings
: Acts 4:32-35, John 20:19-31
A Question of
Belief: reflections on the Lenten Study
We pray: As your Church, as your Easter people may we
be open to your prayer for us. In Jesus
name. Amen.
The first verse of an
Easter hymn by Shirley Murray goes like this:
Church of the living Christ,
people of Easter faith –
speak to the Man who walks
free from the dark of death!
The Christ who burst the tomb apart
comes questioning the Church’s heart.
And I guess in
some ways that is what our reflections over the Lenten time were about –
questioning, laying on the table what it is that is our heart as a church
community – what troubles us, what questions we have, what re-imaging we want
to make of what we believe, what we hold firm and foundational and what excites
new understandings. What is the Spirit
saying to the church, to us?
I tell you those
Monday evening discussion roved far and wide, turned unexpected corners and
were I think fairly stimulating and helpful to all. So today, as we consider what it means to
live in a post Easter faith, I thought it would be helpful to offer back to the
full congregation some of the thinking that came out the discussions around
Bill Loader’s letter to Dear Kim...not a cohesive resume but rather some of the
things that really resonated.
But as we do so, I would ask you to
consider these reflections in the light of this Easter story and our commission
from the risen Christ to re-member him and to continue to live out his love in
the world as we talked about last Sunday.
Today’s reading is an interesting backdrop too – poor old Thomas
labelled for all time as the doubter – it’s really so unfair to focus doubt
onto just this one honest person when all, I suspect, doubted at some time or
other. I wonder if in perpetuating the
myth of this solitary doubter, it makes it easier for us to see doubt as a sin
rather than as a very normal and human way of exploring faith and life. Because that was for me one of the pivotal
understandings that came out of these Lenten discussions – we were given
permission to express our doubts, our questions, our conundrums if you
like. We came at issues from many
different perspectives, heard of differing struggles and interpretations and
were able to express doubts and have self labelled ‘dodgy’ thinking affirmed
And so what
follows are the musings of some of those who attended, including my own.
So some thoughts – first of all from
Philip.
Tui told me of one particular thought that
was important for her – and I quote: “ The
sessions, and discussions with other attendees after the sessions, challenged
the way I conceptualised words like 'theology' and '[bible] commentary'.
Living as we do in North Dunedin we are blessed with a close local department
of (academic) theology. I was surprised to realise that I had come to
view words such as theology and commentary as belonging to the academic
and/or ministerial world (where people use big words that I often do not
understand) rather than be something that I might do or think in more simple
language. I guess I haven't viewed what I read as commentary - just seen it as
books I read, and my thoughts I have just seen as my thinking, not "doing
theology". It has made me wonder about whether non-theologians need to
actually reclaim theology back for ourselves for the good of us all.” End of
quote. She is so right – we each and
every one need to reclaim theology as a personal space, not leave as something
that other people do – for it is imperative in a world that questions the value
of faith that we know what it is we
believe and share our understandings clearly and relevantly.
Affirmation of life after death but not
needing to know anymore – that was a part of the studies where John Allen
welcomed his reticence. In the words of
Loader, “Yet in the choice of denying or affirming life after death, I come
down on the side of belief. My starting
point is God and I am confident that in death I am not cut off from God. I believe that, as with Jesus, I go to be
with God. I don’t think I need to know
any more. God is enough, the rest is
imagery. It was enough for the disciples
to know that Jesus was going to be with God, and that they too would be with
God. Time and energies spent speculating
on what that might look like is time taken from being Christ in this
world. Trust as Thomas trusted when he
knew the presence of the risen Christ was before him.
When we came round to talking about the
bible there was this incredibly wide diversity in how we read and understand
it, as well as which parts speak most directly to us. It helped to remind ourselves of some ways of
thinking of the Old and New Testaments:
·
that
they are made up of gathered writings over time selected or rejected by the
early church for various reasons,
·
that
it is not the infallible word of God but the rather a witness to the life of
faith in God and, in the NT, as made known in Jesus Christ. People wrote from their understanding and
knowledge and faith into the situations they found themselves at the time.
·
It’s
all about context – what is the spirit of Christ saying to the Church in the 21st
century in Opoho, as Jesus words and deeds spoke into the church of 1st
century Palestine
We talked about different ways of reading
the bible – verses, chapters, books – and the contradictions and those parts
that just spoke directly to us of God’s love and faithfulness.
It was interesting that here and in other
places Loader speaks of his early life as a Christian where he had a reasonably
fundamentalist view of faith, a view which he now considers in opposition to
the teachings of Jesus, and that by trying to literally believe all that is
said in the bible, he was subjecting love and compassion to law making – just
what Jesus spent his time rejecting.
And the final topic I would like to share –
this was one that came out of our last discussion on what it means to be
Christian. John’s sermon from Palm
Sunday generated a frank sharing of our relationship with forgiveness – not so much
with our receiving but our struggle with giving. We talked around what forgiving someone
actually meant:
·
Should
it only be given when repentance was expressed? The answer to that was no.
·
Does
it mean that you forget what happened? Also no.
·
How
should we deal with hurts that go very deep?
·
Where
does our unconditional love sit?
·
Is
there some who are beyond redemption?
·
How
much around forgiveness is about our spiritual well being?
·
And more.
We didn’t find all the answers and I am
thinking this a place where we need to continue to explore and open up. I thank
you for that.
May we continue to be open to Christ’s
questioning of our Churches heart and may we respond with wisdom and with
courage. For, as the last verse of the
hymn says:
We are the Body now –
our feet must mark the Way,
our speech declare the Word
and live it day by day,
the resurrection story ours,
disciples gifted with new powers!
Rev Margaret
Garland
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