Meditation: THANK THE LORD! by John de Gruchy

THANK THE LORD!

I Thessalonians 5:12-28

Give thanks in all circumstances

If you have been watching the Rugby World Cup on TV you will surely have noticed that the Springbok coach, Heyneke Meyer, thanks the Lord after every game we win, as he did again last Saturday when we beat Wales.  I think Meyer  must be a very devout Christian, for he gives the Lord the praise when we win, suggesting that Meyer himself thinks he has had little to do with it - and his critics would agree.  If we win, it must have been the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.  

Some of my less devout friends -- which is most of them -- get annoyed with Meyer for his pious refrain on TV, and note that while he gives thanks when we win a match he does not blame the Lord when we lose.  Surely if the Lord helped us beat Samoa, Scotland and Wales, he must have deserted us against Japan.  Or is it because the Japanese have a stronger deity on their side?  But if so, why did Japan not get to the quarter finals?  And if we are to take Paul's instruction to "give thanks in all circumstances," how come Meyer and the rest of us didn't thank the Lord when Japan beat us?  In retrospect we might well do so because losing to Japan woke up the Springboks.  But whatever, we will undoubtedly give thanks to Meyer if we beat the All Blacks this coming Saturday, and I am sure he will thank the Lord again on our behalf.  In any case, to quote St. Paul,  if God is on our side, who can be against us?  Presumably only New Zealand and the referee.  It's all rather confusing isn't it, but then rugby is only a game we play instead making war, and for that we should thank the Lord.

Now I would not have chosen this theme for my meditation to have fun at Meyer's expense.  After all, I am not as good a rugby coach as Meyer even though I captained the Under 11 team, and I am also sure that I am not half as devout a Christian as he is.  But I may be a better theologian, and even average theologians are a careful about claiming that God is on the side of their national rugby team , or more dangerous, that God is on the side of their nation when they go into battle.  Both Germany and Britain claimed that God was on their side in the First World War, but that did not prevent millions from being slaughtered.  And the apartheid government told its foot soldiers the same story.  How foolish that all was as we look back.  How dangerous it is to think in those terms.  You end up shouting  "God is great!" before you slaughter your opponents, or declare "God is on our side" when you and bomb towns to smithereens.  Then, to cap it all,  we hold thanksgiving services which reinforce this belief in the superiority of our divinity, instead of services to confess our sins in going to war in the first place, and mourning not only those of our number who were killed.  but the death of those we killed  And we can't say "sorry, we did not mean to kill them" for that is precisely what we did mean to do. There is no surer way of creating atheists out of thinking people than the kind of theological nonsense that thanks God for victory, and that includes some of the Psalms.  After all, as we know from Jesus, God is not on the side of the strong, but the weak; God is not on the side of those who conquer, but those who are oppressed and suffer.

So back to my text: "Give thanks in all circumstances." That sounds like good advice but when, as Isobel recently wrote:

            ... I wake to a morning

            dark and cold, with pain

            throbbing through my system,

            shutting down all thought of action,

yet opening shafts of memory,

flashes of past failures,

and difficulties still to be tackled,

till all is pain, grief, fear:

how can I be thankful for these?

Yes, it is very difficult for those who suffer, those who are victims of cruelty and inhumanity, to give thanks.  If I was a refugee fleeing my home, or a student unable to pay my fees,  or the parent of a child dying of cancer, I would not automatically say "thank you, Lord!"   But we can give thanks for those who are caring for refugees, those who are fighting for a free education, and those who are caring for the dying and seeking better cures for cancer.  

This week I received a letter from an old friend of ours whose wife of many years died a year ago.  He was still working through his grief, but his long letter was full of thanks, thanks for his memories and thanks that her presence still with him in his loneliness.  He gave thanks because he had learnt over the long haul, which included the tragic death of a son, that being thankful was the Christian way of being human.  It is not something we can turn on and off according to circumstances.  It is learning to live gratefully over the years of hard knocks.  I also recall how at the recent Kairos Conference in Johannesburg, I was deeply moved by the Palestinian Christians present who, despite their suffering oppression, remained thankful to God for all his gifts to them.  Being thankful was for them at the heart of being Christian.

Paul's counsel that we "give thanks in all circumstances" is not an absolute which excludes being angry or anxious.  It is a reminder that gratitude is fundamental to human well-being, something we learn in childhood, something we express at every meal however meagre, and something we celebrate at the Eucharist.  It is easy to be grateful when everything is going smoothly, though we often forget to do so, but it is very difficult when the road is bumpy and the outlook grim.  Paul knew this.  He was hunted and hounded, often beaten and downcast, and spent a good deal of his time in prison.  But gratitude had become ingrained in his flesh and bones.  He knew that giving thanks is often very difficult if not impossible, but he also knew that it was fundamental to human well-being.  I end with a prayer Isobel wrote, which reminds us that this is so:

Lord our God,

Thank you for our eyes that we can see the beauty of your creation,

even though we see so much of ugliness.

Thank you for our ears that we can hear music and laughter

even though discord and prejudice are clamouring to be heard.

Thank you for our tongues that we can sing and communicate love and truth

even though lies and hatred often pour off them.

Thank you for our minds that we can learn and find meaning in a world of chaos,

Thank you for emotions that we can feel joy and well as pain,

Thank you for our wills that we can give ourselves freely to you and follow your way,

to see, hear and talk of all that is beautiful and good,

even though we may find it hard to find,

in the midst of this field of  mud and dirt,

the buried treasure,

the gift of thankfulness.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  22 October 2015

GUN MADNESS

Jeremiah 31:15-17

Matthew 5:1-11

"Rachel is weeping for her children;

she refuses to be comforted because they are no more..."

"Blessed are the peacemakers."

After the shooting of children in a school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December, 2012, Isobel wrote a  poem based on our reading from Jeremiah today.  It is published in her new poetry anthology.

For all of Rachel’s children, weep, oh weep,           

This time a gunman came and with one sweep

Of bullets twenty children hit the floor.                       

Because we see in shock they are no more.

For all of Rachel’s children, weep, oh weep.     

There is no comfort for our grief is deep.

Like the poem goes on to tell,  the story continues, for daily innocent men, women and children are shot dead by guns across the globe.  Hilary Clinton told us this week that 77 people are killed every day in the US by guns, more by far than those killed on the battlefield. But the US Gun Lobby rejects restrictions on buying guns, and a candidate for the Republican nomination as President proposes that school teachers be armed.  Police shoot first and then ask questions, or they are killed by gangsters who want their weapons.  Meanwhile nations around the world are arming themselves to the teeth at an alarming rate, war in the Middle East is escalating, Palestinian youths throwing stones and wielding knives are gunned down, and in every war zone towns and villages, hospitals and schools, are bombed to oblivion.  Fundamentalists proclaim that we are entering the End Times and witnessing the beginning of Armageddon, and they do so with relish because they think it proves that their reading of the Bible is true.  We, on the other hand, are appalled by parts of the Bible that provide ammunition for ardent fundamentalists to justify owning guns by the score and going to war with religious passion, and remind them that Jesus told us to be makers of peace and that God is love not a God of war.. 

Recently I gave a lecture to the U3A on the Battle of Waterloo and recounted how the Duke of Wellington, who commanded the coalition forces, after seeing the slaughter on the battle field, declared that the only thing worse than losing a battle is winning one.  Afterwards the warring nations of Europe came to their senses and a hundred years of relative peace came to Europe.  But this did not extend to the colonies.  Guns continued to be made and tested for their effectiveness as war was exported to the colonies in Africa and Asia.  There were umpteen bloody wars in the Eastern Cape and Zululand, and the Anglo-Boer War brought the century to a violent end.  And then European madness broke out again in 1914 and war has become endemic ever since..  We have come to regard war as normal. Working for peace seems abnormal. Soldiers are applauded for killing the enemy; conscientious objectors are jailed for refusing to do so. We humans are the only creatures it seems who have a strange tendency to self-destruct.

Even though every war is meant to end war, none do.  Instead more efficient weapons are invented, ostensibly as a deterrent, but designed to kill and needing to be tested in combat.  Computerized games glorify war as do some TV programmes and movies, awakening an appetite to participate in the real thing. From the moment boys are born and toy guns placed in their hands, guns become an extension of the arm and deemed essential for security.  And now in the US girls are queuing up to become marines on the front lines.  Guns are the centre piece at national parades; they are fired in honour of visiting dignitaries; they are cleaned and polished in preparation to be used against the foe, whether real or imaginary, teaching children to shoot happens long before teaching them to drive, and even a pastor our son Anton knew in Atlanta wore a gun into the pulpit!  The more guns we have, the more tanks and fighter jets we possess, so the propagandists tell us, the safer we are.  And people gullibly accept such nonsense.  Guns have their uses, such as when people on safari are charged by wild animals, or in other extreme circumstances, but for every person whose life is saved by a gun, hundreds of thousands are slaughtered.  Guns are a fetish, they have a mystique, so they will continue to be made, sold or stolen by the million.  Getting your hands on a gun is like getting a new cell-phone.

For all of Rachel’s children, weep, oh weep,          

Of bullets twenty children hit the floor.                      

For all of Rachel’s children, weep, oh weep.

I know we need to be realistic.  How can a Hitler or ISIS be stopped?  How can terrorism be countered?  How do we stop the violent aggression of nations who want to possess more land and control trade?  How do we deal with armed criminals?  What happens when diplomacy seems to fail and enemies start shooting?  I know we need to be realistic.  But what does it mean to be realistic? Is bombing Baghdad  or Tripoli to smithereens the way to get rid of a despot?   Is not working for peace more sane than preparing for war when you know that it will solve nothing and devour most of the national budget?  Is training people to kill others a more realistic way to bring peace to the world than training them to work for peace?  Are spending vast amounts on weapons a better way to protect our society than building homes, schools and hospitals? Does having a gun in your cupboard really protect you from criminals or prevent family members from shooting themselves or children their playmates? 

Jesus did not come to tell us that wars would cease, in fact he said there would be wars and rumours of war.  He was a realist about human nature, well aware of the causes and consequences of violence and strife.  But he taught us about an alternative way of being in the world.  In the midst of a violent society ruled over by a ruthless empire he told them that peace makers are blessed, that peace makers are truly God's children.  He told his followers not to take up the sword even in his or their own defence.  Was he crazy or was the world insane?  Was he realistic or a starry-eyed dreamer?  In a world gone mad, a world awash with  guns, are not Jesus' words the only bit of sanity left to celebrate and emulate? 

We have come here today to share the peace of Christ with each other, and therefore to commit ourselves as we go out into the world in Christ's name us not just to love peace, but to make it. We have come here to pray for justice, peace and the healing of people and nations, and witnessing to an alternative way of being human in the world. We may not be able to stop wars or the manufacturing of guns, but we can help create a climate of peace, we can help change the gun-made mindset around us, we can in the words of St. Francis, be "instruments of God's peace"  sowing love rather than hatred.  It is a tough ask, but it is essential to what it means to be Christian.  "Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God."

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 15 October 2015

Meditation: CLOSING AND OPENING DOORS by John de Gruchy

CLOSING AND OPENING DOORS 

Philippians 3:12-16

Luke 9:57-62

"No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

"This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead."

Last Thursday I visited Victor Verster prison where Nelson Mandela spent the last few years of his imprisonment, and from which he walked free on 11th February 1990.  We all remember the famous picture of him and his wife Winnie walking through the gate at Victor Verster on his final journey to freedom.  The  prison  has since  been renamed Drakenstein Prison, lying as it does beneath the beautiful Drakenstein mountains on the road between Franschoek and Paarl. But the house, which originally belonged to a farmer named Victor Verster , has been left just as it was when Mandela lived in it, and is now maintained as a heritage site.  

On the tour of the house, our excellent guide regaled us with stories and anecdotes from Mandela's years.   He showed us the lemon tree which Mandela planted as a sign of hope.  He told us about Mandela's first experience of a micro-wave oven which he thought was a TV, and about his decision not to use the very large main bedroom because after living in a prison cell he found it just too much!  He also passed on wisdom he had gleaned from Madiba. Life, he said, was like a journey through those security doors installed in banks.  You go through one door into a secure space, but there is still another in front of you which won't open to let you through until the first door has closed behind you.  He recalled how in the bad old days when South Africa was on the brink of civil war, President P.W. Botha was incapable of closing the door on the past and taking the risk of moving into a different future, but President de Klerk and Nelson Mandela did exactly that. Often in life you have to shut one door and leave the past behind in order for the door to open that leads you into a new future. 

Paul did this after his conversion on the Damascus Road.  He put his previous life behind him and pressed forward as a disciple of Christ into a new life, and new way of being.  Christian discipleship requires that.  As Jesus said, we have to walk through a narrow gate in order to enter fully into life, and he also told us that we cannot keep looking back, just like a farmer in ploughing a field must keep looking ahead.  Following Christ requires that certain things have to be left in the past whether it be selfishness and a lack of compassion for others, racism or a clinging to privilege at the expense of others.  We have to shut the door on such attitudes and actions otherwise the door into life will not open.  St. Paul knew this.  "This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead."

The story of our lives, not least our journey in faith, is marked more generally by doors that close and others that open, like chapters in a book.  As we look back we can discern moments when we had to leave the past behind in order to move into the future, however cautiously.  This, we have learnt, is sometimes difficult and often threatening.  But if we cling to the past we become captive to it, and end up bemoaning the fact that we did not grasp those opportunities which came along, going through doors which opened for us, but which also required us to close others and take the risk of  walking through.  You can't move forward unless you let go.  You can't follow Christ if you are continually hankering after your old life without him.  It is best, as Paul says, to forget about that.  But leaving the past behind is not necessarily mean forgetting the past.  Isobel and I cannot forget our son Steve; we remember him every day in various ways.  But we have had to learn to close the door on that wonderful chapter in our lives in order to turn the page and move ahead.  This is not easy as many of you will know.  But it is a lesson we all have to learn however difficult and reluctantly.  Sometimes doors bang shut behind us leaving us in a empty space like doors in a bank.  But we cannot remain in that empty space.  We have to go through the door that faces us however difficult, and learn to trust that God will leads us through the emptiness into new possibilities.  

It is true that as we grow older most doors have already been shut behind us, and there are  not too many doors of opportunity in front of us.  It is  true that people trapped in poverty see no way of escape, and many young people see no future ahead.  So I do not want to romanticise the notion that when doors close others automatically open, that when people lose their jobs others will simply come along for them.  Life does not work like that.  Yet the human spirit is such that people will go to extraordinary lengths to leave the past behind in order to find a new future.  Consider all those refugees who are fleeing their horrific past in war-torn countries, shutting the door behind them in order to find a new life, hoping and praying for doors to open to them.  And there are many in our own country who are, in remarkable ways, doing the same against all odds.

In thinking about where you are at this moment in your life and your journey in faith, are there doors that need to be shut in order for you to move forward?  This does not necessarily or always mean that you have to stop doing what you are doing, or living where you are living, for leaving the past behind also has to do with forgiving people, accepting fresh insights and healing memories.  Is there a door that God is opening and inviting you to pass through?  And, of course, sometimes we are called to help open doors for other people, and to help them walk through to freedom and a new future as Mandela did.  How can we help others to leave their past behind and walk into a better future?  Is this not what programmes like Sparklekids is all about?

In the first chapter of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe  Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy explore the big house that had become their war-time home like we explored Mandela's house. Looking into,

a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe: the sort that has a looking-glass in the door. .. “Nothing there!” said Peter, and they all trooped out again – all except Lucy.  She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth while trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure it would be locked.  To her surprise it opened quite easily…she immediately stepped in… 

Then Lucy went in further, and further again, until she discovered herself in a new world, a different space with surprises around every corner.  Maybe there is a door we all need to close and a door waiting to be opened, a door that will open quite easily, allowing us to enter into a new space in which God will surprise us.  This is how the Christian journey of faith begins, and how it continues to the end.  For in the end we also have to let go in order to enter the door that leads us through death to life in a new dimension, into the mystery of God.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  8th October 2015