Meditation: WHEN THE TREES CLAP THEIR HANDS by John de Gruchy

WHEN THE TREES CLAP THEIR HANDS

Isaiah 55:12-13

Matthew 24:36-44

"The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

"For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."

Last Sunday, as I was reflecting on my meditation for this, the third week in Advent, a message appeared on my screen from Avaaz, that global network for justice which involves forty-two million people in its various campaigns.  The message read:

Out of great crises, humanity has borne beautiful visions. World War II gave rise to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an enduring standard for our spirit and capacity as one people. The fall of Apartheid led South Africa to the single most bold and progressive constitution in the world.

And now world leaders at the United Nations climate talks in Paris have set a landmark goal that can save the planet.  That is the significance of what was achieved after intense debate and negotiation between virtually all the nations of the world.  Of course, the Paris Declaration still has to be ratified by the relevant national authorities and they have to put it into practice.  It is also true that the Declaration does not go nearly far enough, for even if the targets set are achieved, this will not automatically prevent disastrous weather patterns over the coming years.  Much, much more needs to be done, and sooner rather than later.  But for the first time almost all the nations of the world have agreed about global warming and what must be done to stop it before our planet is destroyed.   

As I reflected on the significance of this event, and its potential to prevent disaster, a verse from the prophet Isaiah came to mind.

 "The mountains and the hills shall burst into song,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

This is part of Isaiah's vision of the coming of God's reign on earth and therefore an appropriate text for Advent when we focus among other things on the Second Coming of Christ when God's glory will be revealed in all its fullness, when creation will be restored, and justice and peace will finally be established.  At last the trees have reason to clap their hands.

While reflecting on Isaiah's utopian vision, another Advent  biblical passage came to mind which refers to the days of Noah when "corruption and violence filled the earth," when people were oblivious to the consequences of their actions and ignored the warning signs. Instead they "were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" and did not know what hit them until "the flood came and swept them all away."  That is all except Noah, his family and the animals that crowded into his ark.  We miss the point of this ancient and universal story if we go searching for the remains of Noah's Ark somewhere in Sinai and try to work out how he got all the animals inside including, presumably two tarantulas and two crocodile.  There probably was a great flood that gave rise to the story, but it was told not to dazzle generations of Sunday School children and then turn them into sceptics about the Bible's truth at the same time as they stop believing in Father Christmas.  No, the story of Noah is a prophetic warning about the dire consequences that inevitably follow corruption and violence.  As such, its message is universal and perennial, and told for our time, perhaps more so than any other when people, as in the days of Noah, have scoffed about global warming and continue to pursue policies that destroy the environment. Suddenly, is seems, people and governments are waking up as floods engulf towns and islands  across the globe.  The significance of the Paris Declaration is that we might just have woken up in time, but only just.   In fact during the Paris Conference the Indian Finance Minister first came out against 100% clean energy.  This was potentially an enormous set-back for the process.  But then a film was screened  the city in the conference hall showing the city of Chennai under water that week along with messages from across India.  A day later, Prime Minister Modi declared that he had changed his mind, and this decisively influenced the discussions. 

There are two approaches to the Second Coming of Christ.  The most popular and widespread among many Christian groups, especially fundamentalists, is that the world will come to a violent end in the final battle of Armageddon.  Then Christ will return to establish God's reign of justice and peace.  This view is based on apocalyptic passages in the New Testament, especially the book of Revelation which are taken literally in a way never intended.  Many Christians think this will happen in their life time -- as many have in previous generations -- and that the sooner the Middle East blows up the better.  They therefore support the wars now taking place because these herald the return of Jesus, and they oppose those who work for peace and justice.  War in the Middle East is part of God's plan, to put it crudely, which is also the view of ISIS which, strangely, also anticipates the return of Jesus in that final battle of Armageddon.  

But is its God's will that the world continues on its present trajectory of corruption, violence and war, leading to death and destruction on such a scale?  Does the God who loves the world really plan to annihilate millions of people through bombs and bullets, as well as devastate the earth, in order to establish his kingdom of justice and peace?  Is God a cynical god for whom the end justifies the means, so that in order to bring about peace you promote war?  That certainly does not correspond to what we know of God's will for the world in Jesus Christ, and therefore does not tally with any notion of a Second Advent of the Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The Christ who is with us and who will come again, is the same Christ who came to Bethlehem.

God's way according to Jesus and the prophets, then, is the way of  justice and the renewal of the earth, not the way of war and devastation; it is the way of loving enemies not destroying them, fighting corruption and evil for the sake of the common good.  That is the way of Christ, and it is to the coming of this Christ of redemption, the Christ who is the healer of the nations.  The message of Advent, then, is one of hope in the coming of God kingdom, but it is also a call to wake up before it is too late!  Too late because we have allowed corruption and violence to get out of hand, too late because we have so degraded the environment that it has got beyond the point of no return.  That is why Advent prepares us for the coming of Christ by calling us to conversion, to a change of heart and mind,  to renew our efforts at being peace-makers and good earth-keepers.  We have every reason to live in hope, but that means keeping awake and, with John the Baptist, preparing the way for the coming of God's kingdom when

"The mountains and the hills will burst into song,

and the trees of the field will clap their hands."

John de Gruchy

Volmoed Advent III, 17 December 2015

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION AS PROTEST

Revelation 22: 16-21

Luke 2:1-8

"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered."

The words are so familiar that we don't give them a second thought. But this is how the Christmas story begins: "In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered."  We don't know when this census took place, or its reason, but it was probably confined to Judaea for the purpose of taxation and control.  King Herod had to raise taxes on behalf of Emperor Augustus in order to control a turbulent country regularly threatened by the uprisings of Jewish zealots.  Herod was nervous and fearful.  Any talk of a messianic leader sent shivers up his spine.  So he decreed that everyone should be registered in their home town.  Mary and Joseph set off from Nazareth for Bethlehem, a town as crowded then as it often has been since, but they had not gone on line to book accommodation.  So Jesus was born in stable in  a town occupied by foreign troops that would soon massacre all the children born at that time, out of fear that what the Wisemen from the East had told Herod would come true.  

Fast forward to Bethlehem today, a town that is normally bustling with Christian pilgrims from across the world at Christmas.  As usual, the massive Christmas tree has been erected and lit on Bethlehem’s Manger Square, but the crowds are not there as in previous years because of the unrest in Israel-Palestine.  There are fewer pilgrims from elsewhere and fewer Palestinian Christians born and bred in Bethlehem.  Many have left to escape the military occupation and others cannot get to Bethlehem because of all the check points.  If Jesus was meant to be born in Bethlehem today, Mary and Joseph would have been turned back by soldiers long before they got there. 

Bethlehem is no longer that little town in the Christmas carol that lies still in "deep and dreamless sleep" as the silent stars go by. But the final lines of the carol remain true: "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."  I am not sure what Philip Brooks had in mind when he penned those words, but it is undoubtedly so that the birth of Jesus brought fear to Herod and others in the hierarchy of power just as his coming brought hope to all who were looking to God for deliverance.  Sadly after two-thousand years fear and hope continue to confront each other in Bethlehem as they do across the globe -- the fear of those who refuse to heed the cry for justice and peace, and the hope of those who bear witness to the Prince of Peace.  But sadly, even many Christians are losing hope. 

Father Jamal Khader of the Latin Patriarchy, which traditionally leads Bethlehem’s Christmas celebrations, wrote on-line this week. “We cannot forget what is going on, that there are people suffering. People are losing hope in a future of peace.”  Those words have seared my soul since I read them. "Losing hope in a future of peace."  Does this mean that fear for the future is winning the struggle against hope?  Even though we live in relative peace, there are many of us who also fear for the future having lost hope in a future of peace.   And yet, is it not true that Jesus was born at a time when fear was rampant and hope a rare commodity?   It was in the midst of an oppressive occupation that the angels sang their protest song "Peace on earth, goodwill to all."   It is, in fact, precisely because the world is in the mess it is, that the message of Christmas is so important.  

To celebrate Christmas today as yesterday is an act of protest, an act of defiance against all the powers that are threatening our future, and that of our children and grandchildren.  That is why Christians in Bethlehem have again raised a huge Christmas tree in testimony to the Prince of Peace, a sign of hope in a fearful world.  Think of it.  Every Christmas tree that we erect in our homes or churches or civic spaces is, rightly understood, an act of protest:  of faith against despair, of love against hatred, of hope against hopelessness.  That is what the celebration of Christmas is all about.

This too, is why, during Advent as we journey towards Christmas, our celebration of the Eucharist concludes with the shout "Maranatha!"  a word with which the New Testament ends.  It means "Come quickly, Lord!"  At a time of intense persecution and suffering, the early Christians were expressing their hope that a new day would dawn, a day of justice and peace.  They looked forward in anticipation to the time when the peace of Christ would reign, when fear would cease and their hopes be realised.  Maranatha was a cry of defiance, a protest action. Such "hope against hope" remains at the core Christian faith, it is  the hope that tyrants will be overcome and violence cease,  a hope that keeps us from despair, a hope that empowers us to act for justice.  For to lose hope and stop working for peace and justice is to surrender to evil, to allow ugliness to conquer beauty, and hatred trump love.  It is to give the king Herods of this world the victory.  It is to stop celebrating Christmas.

 So we continue on our journey to Bethlehem in solidarity with all the Christians gathered there even if we can't be there physically. We stand with them in Manager Square before the Christmas Tree, we enter the Church of the Nativity and visit the place where Jesus was born. And we do so because we refuse to stop believing in Jesus who came to bring a just peace to the world, a peace that the world cannot give us.  In the darkest of times we shout "Maranatha" in protest against everything that stands against the coming of the Prince of Peace.

I conclude with another Advent sonnet written by Isobel:

                He first came as a vulnerable babe,

                Rejected then for how he claimed God’s word,

                They killed him but he rose up from the grave.

                He comes a second time to each one’s heart –

                Who opens it, the Lord comes in to stay

                To cleanse and make it new in every part.

                But we await that great and glorious day –

                He’ll come in power to renew the earth,

                Yet in our waiting do we just okay

                The status quo or do we help to birth

                The new in everything we do or say?

                 God knows our world is full of pain, of need:

                Come, Lord, bring peace and justice now indeed.

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 10 December 2015

Meditation: JOHN THE BAPTIST LOST HIS HEAD BUT STILL SPEAKS by John de Gruchy

JOHN THE BAPTIST LOST HIS HEAD BUT STILL SPEAKS

Matthew 3:1-6

"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

We humans have evolved over millennia.  And just as we can now plot our physical evolution back to the earliest times, so we can also trace our spiritual evolution.  In doing so we discover there were some periods in history when humankind took a giant step forward.  Most notably, between the 8th and 4th century before the birth of Jesus there was an explosion of new spiritual insight across the world not unlike in significance to the time long before when men and women harnessed fire or invented the wheel.  This was the period which saw the birth of Socrates in Greece, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Jeremiah in Israel. What happened during those five hundred years before Jesus was nothing less than a fundamental transformation in our knowledge of what it means to be human. As Karen Armstrong describes it in her book The Great Transformation,  during that period across the world, the frontiers of human consciousness suddenly expanded as humans discovered what Armstrong calls "a transcendent dimension in the core of their being."  Something long known , of course, by the San (or Bushmen) and other indigenous peoples across the globe.

But as often happens, it seems as if after such an amazing spurt in human spiritual consciousness, at least as always only on the part of some, there is a lull, a period not just of consolidation but even of regression.  An absence, if you like, of spiritual innovation.  The great leap forward in understanding seemed to stall during the centuries which followed.  It was as though the spiritual development of humankind came to a halt, not able yet to comprehend what had been achieved, or able to produce the leaders necessary to take the process further.  One symptom of this in ancient Israel was that following Jeremiah and others like him, the era of great prophets came to an end..  This did not mean that there was no longer any  longing or hunger in the hearts of  people for some divine Word that would speak to the heart and soul.  There were always those who longed to hear again an authentic Word from the Lord that would bring renewal to the spirit and justice to the land.  "Is there any Word from the Lord?" was their cry.  Has God forgotten us?

That is why the sudden appearance of John the Baptist caused such a stir, for after several centuries of apparent silence and in a time of barrenness, it seemed that God was once again speaking his Word through this ascetic preacher in the Wilderness. It seemed as though Elijah or one of the prophets had been reborn.  The hope for the coming of God's reign of justice and peace was being rekindled.  That is why people came to hear John preach, and heard him call them to a fundamental change of heart and mind in order to prepare for the coming of one who was even greater than he himself, one who would usher God's earthly reign into reality.  Some even thought that John himself was the promised Messiah.  But when asked, he simply said he was a voice "crying out in the wilderness" preparing "the way of the Lord," making his paths straight."

Sometimes people ask why did Jesus only come when he did to save the world?  Why did God not send him earlier to sort things out?  John the Baptist is the reminder that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, took a great deal of preparation.  This was not something that could be achieved in a few weeks like our preparations for Christmas each year.  The preparation in fact went back at least to that period in history when human consciousness across the globe became aware in a new way of the significance of the transcendent.  Humankind had to be prepared for the coming of the Christ.  The advent of Jesus had to wait for the right moment in the evolution of the world, in history and human consciousness. As St. Paul put it: "when the fullness of time (kairos) had come, God  sent his son..." (Gal. 4:4)  We don't know precisely when Jesus was born according to the calendar.  But it was at the right time, a time when at least some were ready to receive him.  The opening chapters of Matthew and Luke tells us something about them.   And John the Baptist was on hand to prepare them for Jesus' coming.  And John knew only too well that without a change of heart and mind, without repentance, in other words, no one could cannot grasp the significance of what was about to happen for the salvation and transformation of the world.

The simple truth is this.  The coming of God's kingdom or reign of justice and peace, whether back then or today, requires a quantum leap in human consciousness.  There can be no peace in the Middle East or anywhere else on earth without a fundamental change of heart and mind on the part of the leaders of the nations and those involved in the conflict.  Bombs and bullets won't do it.  That is the mentality of primordial humanity when it seemed that brute force was the only way to resolve conflict, a mentality that prophets through the ages have been challenging and trying to change. In the same way, there can be no solution to the ecological crisis which we now face, a crisis that is reaching toxic proportions and threatens the future of the planet as never before, unless there is a fundamental change of heart and mind on the part, not only of world leaders, but of all of us.  This is the relevance of John the Baptist's message.  The salvation proclaimed at Christmas requires repentance, a change of heart and mind if it is to be grasped.

The message of Advent has never been more necessary.  Christmas, the coming of the reign of God in Jesus Christ, requires a fundamental spiritual change. Without this humanity cannot take the essential step that is no urgently needed.  Advent stops us in our tracks just as John the Baptist intruded into the lives of men and women in his day and said "Repent" or change your heart and mind, "for the kingdom of heaven has come near!"  If we and the world at large are open to John's message, willing to stop wasting billions on armaments or through corruption and therefore willing to change direction, we will be ready to receive the justice and peace that Christmas is all about.  In fact there will be the birth of a new consciousness in our evolving journey into the wholeness that God wants to give us. 

Isobel has written four new sonnets for Advent.  The first appropriately reminds us of John the Baptist:

            The Christmas Season is upon us now,

            It floods our senses with its bright allure.

            The weeks of Advent just get lost somehow;

            Their meaning hidden, their import obscure.

            If John the Baptist cried, "Prepare the Way!"

            It would put a damper on our Festive Cheer,

            Imagine if we Christians had to say

             "Repent! The Day of Reckoning is here!"

            So how in fact can each of us prepare,

            When parties, pageants, baking, buying, feasting

            All catch us up in their entangling snare?

            We do get caught in this, there's no denying.

            Is there at all a way to both combine

            and sanctify the world with the sublime?

John de Gruchy

Volmoed

Advent 1, 3 December 2015