‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid.’ John 14.27
I have usually had one of my confirmation classes where I spend some
time thinking about the Holy Spirit. I usually begin by
asking if the
Holy Spirit can help us rob a bank, and generally the answer is
no.
The candidates are happy to agree that logically God can’t help us to
rob a bank. Then I muse that we hardly need the Holy
Spirit’s help if
we intend to do nothing. I can do nothing all by myself
without any
divine or human aid. Of course if I’m manic that’s a
different matter
and I will return to this later. Logically the only thing
that God
can help us with, is when we want to do something that God would
want. Generally this is when we are going to help someone,
someone
else, or ourselves when it is not at the expense of someone
else. So
we can reasonably ask for help from God when we are studying for our
own self education.
So the broad parameters of where we might reasonably expect God’s help
have been drawn. However in this complicated world, and
human beings
are especially complex, perhaps some further exploration is helpful.
God cannot help us rob a bank - even if the bank is owned by or
services an enemy. So it doesn’t matter who the other
person is, we
cannot expect God to help us at the expense of anyone else, no matter
who they are, or aren’t. So if we patronise ‘christian’
establishments alone, can we expect God to approve of this when we are
effectively marginalising other retailers we consider to be not
‘christian’?
It needs to be said that God cannot approve of any form of
terrorism.
And ipso facto any teaching that God would condemn anyone to eternal
damnation is untenable. If we can’t do it, God can’t do it
- and vice
versa!
Only recently I heard a ‘christian’ speaker suggest that the only
proper way to read the Bible is to take John 3.16 and 1 John 5.12 to
mean that God condemns people other than ‘christians’ (and only those
‘christians’ who read their bible in the proscribed manner) to
hell.
Well, I think that speaker’s god and mine are rather different.
The conception that we are ‘christian’ and therefore everything we do
is acceptable to the Lord makes a mockery of the scriptural witness
that it was precisely the people of God (in both the Old and New
Covenants) who found it hardest to know the Lord’s will.
Our election
as ‘christians’ does not give us license to treat others with less
respect. Yet how often do we consider ourselves as
practising
‘christians’, practising ‘Anglicans’, even practising members of this
congregation - better than others? My ‘christian’ speaker
to whom I
referred above certainly considers himself (and those who read their
bibles properly) as better than others. Interestingly, he
is the
pastor of a very successful church. Is not this fact a sign of
God’s
blessing? Is this not a sign that this doctrine is of God?
One has to return to basic principles. God cannot help us
where our
doctrines or actions are at the expense of anyone else. The
only
possible outcome for the opposite of this is conflict, where God is
called on to support both sides’ claim to justice. And ever
so subtly
we are immersing ourselves in a teaching which is essentially for the
benefit of myself and those who think like me, worship like me, and /
or live life like me. And expressed in this way, it becomes
clear
that it is really all about me, and through force of character or
whatever, me not needing God’s help at all. The mere fact that he
has
a large congregation is in itself an attraction to adherents. It
means
that money will be plentiful, everything will be successful, people
will get on the ‘winning’ side. After all who wants to join
a
struggling congregation?
So, for what do we need help from God and for what can we reasonably
expect it? I believe the scriptural witness is
clear. The words of
Jesus are: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers ..’ Blessed are
those who
break down walls between people, walls caused by creed, class,
affluence, race, colour, culture, gender or with whom people choose to
be intimate. For me it is precisely when we do this that we
actually
need God’s help because generally we are doing this alone.
It most
often expresses itself not in political action, but in one to one
relationships as we seek to affirm another person. It
doesn’t happen
with trumpets and great fanfares, but quietly in our day to day
interactions. And we need God’s help, because often we are
fighting
against some other people’s interpretation of the Bible, tradition or
upbringing.
I promised I would return to the question of mania. It is
my
experience that a person who is manic is completely unaware of the hurt
they are causing other people. Depression turns the hurt
inward,
mania affects others as well. ‘Normal’ mental illness
usually hurts
only the person themselves and a few around them, of course usually
those closest to the person themselves. Even those with
religious
delusions affect few others. But it is the ‘orthodox’
religious
delusions that affect millions. Those who marginalise women, more
than
50% of the population, alienate gay persons perhaps another 10% of the
population, condemn ‘non-christians’ to eternal damnation - another 69%
of the population of 6.8 billion people. I.e. God condemns 5.8
billion
people to eternal damnation - even without considering which of these
‘christians’ read their bibles correctly, which would increase this
number considerably! Just who is likely to be on the
winning side
now? Just who is the one lost lamb and who are the 99 who
haven’t
strayed? And I suspect the lost lamb needs to be carried on
the
shoulders of the shepherd to stop it kicking and screaming, not wanting
to be returned to the fold with the rest of us! The
religious are
horrified to see terrorism such as that inflicted on the thousands on
September the 11th with no appreciation of the terrorism they
perpetrate on the millions of women, gay persons, and people other than
‘christians’ (of their own sort) using precisely the same criterion, if
a different book!
We can listen to these words and take from them encouragement to reach
out to others, even if we think scripture, tradition, or sometimes
common sense might hold us back.
And I reflect that the religious have ever resorted to scriptural and /
or traditional justifications to marginalise and alienate
others. And
again it doesn’t matter if the marginalisation and alienation is in
this world or the next, the reality is that material for such
marginalisation and alienation will always be present in the sacred
texts and tradition. Jesus himself said: ‘You search the
scriptures
because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they
that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to
have
life.’ - because they realised that coming to Jesus meant coming into
relationship with the outcasts - the tax-collectors, prostitutes and
sinners. (John 5.39,40) It is our relationship with
these, the
outcasts - the tax-collectors, prostitutes and sinners, that we will
find life. One needs scriptural and or traditional
justifications
when marginalising and alienating others, because then those who do so
are blameless - they can blame God!
And if our ‘christianity’ is actually justification of our
marginalising and alienating others in the name of ‘god’, then I
applaud atheists and agnostics who repudiate such a ‘god’.
The question may be asked: ‘Does the Anglican Church proscribe a
particular way of reading the scriptures which might be termed
‘proper’’ - and indeed it does. In the 20th of the 39
Articles it
saith: ‘And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing
that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one
place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.’
So simply
taking two passages of scripture and re-interpreting the rest of holy
writ in the light of these is contrary to the Anglican
formularies.
To take the former of the passages, the speaker interprets John 3.16 as
if it says: ‘God so hates the rest of the world - all 5.8 billion of
them - that he condemns all who do not believe in Jesus in MY way (not
necessarily Jesus’ way) to eternal damnation’ - which is NOT what Jesus
said at all.
And when he quotes: ‘Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not
have the Son of God does not have life’ - he blithely assumes he has
the Son as an exclusive possession denied to others, which is a
remarkably similar desire those who had who had Jesus killed - because
they wanted him as their sole possession and had him killed because he
associated with people other than them as well.
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be
afraid’
says Jesus - reach out to all despite all the nay sayers, and
especially the ones who quote scripture - my scripture! :-)