Monday 29 September 2014

Meditation: THE WAY by John de Gruchy

THE WAY


Acts 9:1-11
Luke 24:13-20, 28-32
"While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them...When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then they recognized him and he vanished from their sight."

There is nothing more shattering than the phone call that tells you someone you love is missing or has unexpectedly died.  Isobel and I received such a call one Sunday afternoon in February 2010, the day Steve drowned in the Mooi River.  We were by no means the first or the last to receive such a call, and some of you are amongst that number.  It happens time and again, as it happened to Tom at the beginning of  the movie "The Way," which some of you have seen, and which the Congregational ministers on retreat watched last night.

Tom, an ophthalmologist in California was playing golf when the call came from the Spanish police.  His son Daniel had died while starting the ancient Camino or pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.  Tom immediately sets off for Spain to identify the Dan's body, and decides that he is going to walk Camino himself to complete the journey that his son had failed to do.  He is a lapsed Catholic, totally unprepared for what lies ahead of him. But using Dan's hiking gear, and carrying his ashes to sprinkle along the path, Tom sets off on the Way to deal with his grief. Along the way he encounters other pilgrims.  But he is in no mood for company and brusquely pushes them away, keeping his story of grief to himself.  But he cannot shake off Joost, an overweight Dutchman who is hiking to lose weight, and in an unthinking moment he tells Joost why he is on "The Way."  Then there is Sarah, a blonde Canadian who is escaping an abusive husband and hopes to stop smoking when she reaches Santiago  de Compostela.  And finally, Jack, a quirky Irish writer suffering from "writer's block" and a perpetual hangover.  His hope is that he will be able to write again. 

Tom's need is obviously the most greatest.  He is grieving for the son he has lost, and wants to be left alone to face the road by himself.  But he can't because the way ahead is full of other people.  You cannot escape people even if you migrate to the Karoo or climb Mount Everest.  Nor can Tom escape the presence of his son who, like the living dead, keeps on appearing to help his dad find his way to healing.  The other three companions have less important reasons for their journey  Losing weight, stopping smoking, being able to write again -- none compare with the gravity of Tom's.  Yet, as they travel together, and begin to share their stories they become a community of fellow-travellers who share a common humanity.  
They laugh, cry, drink wine and eat bread together.  And as they do so we sense that the reasons they give for their pilgrimage are only symptoms of a deeper need. Their lives have lost meaning.  They are seeking for healing.   We can all identify with them because their stories are those of people we know and care about, they could well be our own story even though each of us has a different story to tell. 

"The Way" reminds me of the "Wizard of Oz." Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas is on a journey of self-discovery. Along the way she meets and is accompanied by a scarecrow searching for a brain, a tin man who needs a heart, and a cowardly lion who wants to find courage.  These are not just mythical characters, they are people we know, they are you and me. The first great account of such a journey in English was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Not many of his pilgrims are pious or religious, some are simply rogues and others don't know why they are on the road.  But we hear their tales we begin to identify with them, for each is a human being like us in search for meaning and healing even when they do not know it. The story is, in fact, universal and perennial. 

The first followers of Jesus were known as "followers of the Way."  When Saul set off for Damascus hell-bent on capturing and killing them, he was, so Luke tells, seeking to find "any who belonged to the Way, men or women."  The early followers of Jesus not just believers who talked the talk, they were travellers who walked the walk.  Anybody can believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life,  but we only discover what that means when we set off and travel along the way ourselves, alone and yet in company with others.  We can read about, talk about and discuss the pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela, but only those actually set off on the journey find what they are seeking.  Yet we are all on a journey, and each of us has a story to tell about hurts needing healing, sins needing forgiveness, hopes searching for fulfillment.  "The Way" is a mirror of the human journey, our journey, for all of us at some time have to deal with sorrow and grief, with sadness and loss.  

But to find our way it matters how we walk the Way.  It is often a lonely path, but made more lonely because we push others away, we do not want to talk about our story, it is too personal and painful.  We can sympathize with Tom, and we can learn from the experience of those whom he shunned.  As companions on the way we dare not intrude into the space of those who need solitude.  We have to keep a respectful distance and a knowing silence even when we draw near to embrace.  Yet we also feel for those whom Tom pushed away.  For we are all fellow travellers each wanting to be embraced even as we want to embrace others.  But on the way miracles happen. This disparate group of unlikely fellow-travellers begin to share their tears and their laughter, they share a glass of wine and break bread together, they become a ragbag community of pilgrims helping each other along the way which leads to the cathedral of St. James the apostle who bore witness to Jesus.  For the way does not lead nowhere, it leads to the one who is the Way. 

Is this not really what draws people to travel the Way, perhaps even without knowing it? There is another companion along the path, hidden from sight though present to us in those who travel with us.  The one who draws pilgrims to himself in Santiago travels with them like Tom's son Dan who is sometimes evident but more often not.  We might not always or even often recognize him as we travel, we might not see him in our companions.  But whether we are on the pilgrim journey to Santiago de Compostela, or Canterbury, or Volmoed, or simply on our way to work or home, we may be assured that there is someone else walking beside us, listening to our stories and sharing his own. as he did on the road to Emmaus. Slowly but surely he draws us into his embrace, giving us life and hope: 

"While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them...When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then they recognized him and he vanished from their sight."


John de Gruchy
Volmoed 25 September 2014





Friday 19 September 2014

Meditation: IN LOVE WITH THE EARTH by John de Gruchy

IN LOVE WITH THE EARTH


Song of Solomon 7:6-12
Romans 8:18-25
 "Come, my beloved, come let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom.  There I will give you my love."

Next week there will be a United Nations emergency summit on Climate Change in New York and marches of support across the globe. Listen to this petition drafted by Avaaz for the occasion:

Scientists warn us that climate change could accelerate beyond our control, threatening our survival and everything we love. We call on you to keep global temperature rise under the unacceptably dangerous level of 2 degrees C, by phasing out carbon pollution to zero. To achieve this, you must urgently forge realistic global, national and local agreements, to rapidly shift our societies and economies to 100% clean energy by 2050. Do this fairly, with support to the most vulnerable among us. Our world is worth saving and now is our moment to act. 

Isobel and I have just returned from the Eastern Cape.  We travelled with our friends of many years, Larry and Nyla Rasmussen, who live in Santa Fe in New Mexico. They were here to participate in my colloquium at Volmoed and the conference that followed in Stellenbosch.  Before his retirement Larry was a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York.  He is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant Christian theological voices on the environment.  His recent book Earth-Honoring Faith has been acclaimed as an "eloquent, comprehensive and  compelling articulation of a vision that is sorely needed for our emerging Earth Community."  So we were in excellent company as we travelled across the southern Cape.

We drove along the Garden Route, visited the Great Yellowwood Tree in the Tsitsikamma Forest, spent two days in Addo Game Park, and returned home along a very beautiful blossoming Longkloof Valley.  We rejoiced to see numerous wind farms and thousands of solar panels along the way, signs of a growing concern for the well-being of the earth. We admired the amazing environment in which we live, the  incredible variety of flora and fauna and millions of other forms of life to which we humans are all connected. 

Early one morning we were taken to a big watering hole where a large family of elephants was drinking -- there were grandparents, parents, teenagers and babies each drinking some of the 200 litres they need every day.  Suddenly another family of elephants came over a ridge towards the same watering hole. Soon they were seen by the group already drinking there.  Simultaneously they ran toward each other, greeting one another with excited sounds, dancing feet and flapping ears.  If they could have embraced they would surely have done so!  It was a joyous sight.  It was as though they were sharing the kiss of peace at an elephantine eucharist! The truth is, we might look very different from elephants, but we are all part of the same animal kingdom, creatures of the same earth, branches of the same tree of life, mysteriously connected to its source. We all belong together.  "Each human being," Larry reminds us, "is a little universe, a microcosm of the macrocosm.  We are at home in the cosmos; the cosmos is at home in us.  We're creatures of a planet on which the planet's creatures inhabit and sustain us, inside and out."  We would not and could not exist without all the plants, animals and microbes that inhabit the earth and sustain our bodies. 

Although the scientific evolutionary understanding of our humanity which connects us to all branches of the tree of life has only been established during the past two centuries, biblical writers and early Christian theologians were fully aware that all life is inter-connected and inter-dependent.  The creation stories in Genesis are not scientific accounts of how the world was made, but faith statements about this tree of life, the interdependent character of all life and human responsibility for it.  The story of Noah and his ark is not an historical account of the way in which everything from the dung beetle to the Rhinoceros was preserved on a boat, but a faith statement that our life on earth cannot be sustained unless all forms of life are protected from ecological disaster.  And the prophetic vision of the coming of God's kingdom is of an earth on which all forms of life are restored, where the lion and the lamb lie down together, and cosmic well-being is achieved.  From beginning to end, the biblical picture of God's kingdom on earth as in heaven is one in which all branches of the tree of life are restored to full life.

The bible is not, however, romantic about reality.  St. Paul speaks of the universe groaning because of its subjection to human folly and the bondage of decay, and the book of Revelation depicts the horrors of apocalyptic disasters that continually threaten the earth.  The story of earth's redemption is located in the saga of natural and human-made disasters from flood and earthquake to disease and war.  We increasingly contribute to this tale of woe through our mismanagement of the earth and its resources, not recognising that our salvation is inseparable from that of the earth.  The emergency UN summit on climate change is indicative of this.  Yet within this ongoing saga of humans abusing the earth there is, within Scripture, a love song which celebrates an alternative vision of God's intention for the earth.  To recover this vision, to live by faith in God's ecological and redemptive purpose, and to act in ways that express love for the earth. is central to the message of hope which, as Paul puts it, saves us. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once declared that "the earth remains our mother just as God remains our father, and only those who remain true to the earth are placed by her into the father's arms. Earth and its distress -- that is the Christian's Song of songs."  The Song of Songs (or Solomon) in the Old Testament is a love song of redemption sung to the earth in its distress. It is a joyous song which unites heaven and earth, celebrating the sensual love which God wants lovers to share with each other and the earth.  The Song of Songs is the theme song of our very own Hemel en Aarde Valley:

"Come, my beloved, come let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages; let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom.  There I will give you my love." (7:10-12)

Our love for God and each other is located firmly on earth where the vines bud, the grape blossoms, and the pomegranates bloom.  That is why only those who love the earth as our mother, can really love God as our father.  This is what earth-honouring faith in God is about.  Our love for the earth motivates our inseparable commitment to social justice and responsibility for the environment. Our love for the earth is an expression of our faith in God and our hope for generations to come.  No to love God's earth is not to love God.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  18 September 2014

Monday 1 September 2014

Meditation: RESPECT FOR OTHERS by John de Gruchy

RESPECT FOR OTHERS


Ephesians 2:12-14
Matthew 5:38-39; 43-46
For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one,  and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.


The Marquetters were on Volmoed again last weekend!  Marquetters is the name we give to the students who come each semester as part of the Marquette University Study Abroad Programme.  The university is in the state of Wisconsin but the students come from all over the United States and from other universities as well. They are not theological students, but  are majors in a wide range of subjects.  Two groups of about twenty come each year, one in the first half and the other in the second.  They live together in Observatory, attend various classes at the University of the Western Cape, and work in services projects in the townships.  And they come to Volmoed for a weekend of retreat and reflection.  Originally set up by Judy Mayotte, a good friend of Volmoed, it is a great programme. good to have them here, and a delight for me to share with them in what I call the "Marquette Conversation." 

This means that they can ask any question they like to get the conversation going and to keep it rolling.  Some questions are prompted by what they have read in my books on reconciliation and on being human, but the conversation  develops in many directions: politics, history, spirituality, literature, sport, woodworking,  the bible and bungee jumping!  They also hike on Volmoed, have coffee at Anya's Mum,  and visit the whales in Walker Bay. But they always return to the big questions of life, their dreams and hopes, and what it means to be a Christian in today's world.  A leading question this past weekend was "What is fundamental to reconciliation?"  Justice I replied but then added: respect for others is even as fundamental.  If we do not respect others as human beings, we will treat them with contempt, regard them as an enemy, and if they threaten us we may kill them. 

Respect for the other is respect for each as an individual human beings, an affirmation of their personal dignity; but it is also respect for their culture, ethnicity, language, beliefs, and gender. Disrespect for the other, on the other hand, leads to racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, terrorism and witch hunts.  We give the "other" derogatory and dehumanizing names and value their lives less than our own.  It's OK for thousands of them to die,  but if one of our own is killed we take revenge and massacre more.  There can be no reconciliation, no justice, unless there is respect for the other, respect for life, both our own and theirs.

Of course, there is a problem.  It is easy to lose respect for someone because of what he or she has done, or what their nation or religion or ideology is making them do.  It is difficult to respect a rapist or a murderer, a corrupt official, tyrant, or a militant Jihadist who butchers his enemies.  There is truth in saying that people have to earn our respect, just as we have to earn the respect of others.  We cannot simply stand by when others are being slaughtered or oppressed, doing nothing "out of respect" for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity.  Yet even in doing so there are moral boundaries and conventions that should guide our actions.  Prisoners of war have to be treated humanely and civil prisons are meant to be run according to rules.  The fact that these conventions are flouted does not mean that they are naive; it simply demonstrates the challenge we face in keeping society humane for our own as much as the sake of others.  To dehumanize others soon leads to our own dehumanization.  Making enemies keeps us under threat.

Traditionally and still today, murderers are given the death sentence.  "An eye for an eye," as the ancient law in the Old Testament puts it.  Why, then has there been a move away from the death penalty in Britain, South Africa and elsewhere?  Is it not because we still acknowledge the humanity of murderers difficult as that may be at times.  We may lock them away for long periods but we don't starve them, beat them, or behead them as was the case not so long ago even in England and now in Middle East.  We find that abhorrent precisely because we respect life and the dignity of others.  We have heard  that it was said "an eye for an eye," but we have also heard Jesus tells us otherwise.  Not retaliation and vengeance but finding alternative ways to break the cycle of violence.  Jesus' teaching is not naive romanticism, nor is it the easy way, after all it cost him his life,  but in the end it is the only way to break that cycle.  Without mutual respect for each other as human beings, or love for your enemies as Jesus puts it, there is no basis to resolve conflict.  Israeli and Palestinian negotiators like many others consistently refuse to sit at the same table to resolve their problems.  They know that the moment they have to look each other in the face, they will have to acknowledge the other as human beings and not just the enemy.  We know that from our own South African experience.   

Shortly after my conversation with the  Marquetters, I watched a programme on BBC television in which the renowned Jewish musician,  Daniel Barenboim was interviewed about his famous orchestra which he founded together with Edward Said, the Palestinian author and scholar.  The orchestra is mainly made up of musicians from Palestine and Israel and exists to promote mutual understanding and reconciliation through music.  When the orchestra started, Barenboim said, it was easier, for relationships between Israel and Palestine had not descended into such appalling violence.  It is more difficult but even more necessary now because war has solved nothing, only intensified hatred and mistrust, and Israel's actions have spawned many more enemies.   Barenboim's orchestra is a reminder that it need not be like this if we learn to respect even our enemies, as human beings.  

The church is meant to be such an orchestra!  Here at Volmoed, perhaps without thinking, we express this every day when we bow our heads to each other as we say the grace.  For in this way we acknowledge each other as made in the image of God.  So, Jesus tells us, don't simply greet your family members, even pagans do that;  greet others and even your enemies in ways that affirm their humanity and dignity.  This is a very tough call, but it is part of our calling as Christians, to do so.  And when we do, even enemies can become friends.  This is the message of the cross.  This is what we celebrate at this holy table.  "For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one,  and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us."

John de Gruchy

Volmoed    28 August 2014