.I remember a student anxiously telling me he sometimes felt disconnected from
the reality, his vision went all funny and then got a headache. Ah I said, I think
that’s a migraine headache – I’ve had those.
It’s helpful to know our weirdness is normal weirdness.
How do we experience the totality of life nowadays. How do most people feel
about life. Is my personal weirdness normal weirdness?
I should say there’s been a great intensification of loneliness for most people - a
very fundamental loneliness, the experience of being lonely in the crowd.
Most of my childhood large extended family lived within 10 kilometres ; my
children’s extended family live thousands of kilometres away. Extended family is
very loose now – and even the continuity of the nuclear family is steadily eroding.
Mostly our parents followed the same profession all their life, maybe worked in
the same workplace – now there is little occupational security; our mental and
manual skills, arduously acquired, become redundant
So increasingly people feel there’s just me. And life is about trying to manage the
situation – trying to keep inner loneliness at bay, while outwardly keeping our job
or mortgage going, trying to balance work and home, the present and the future,
fun and responsibility,
- In fact trying to arrive without having been humiliated or failing
conspicuously –
- arrive where ?
at the grave I suppose – so they can put on our gravestone – they managed.
I see the folks walking to work at the offices on Great South Rd, earphones on –
eyes down, thumbs going; they are connected – or disconnected? Perhaps we
need to disconnect more – maybe we should have on our gravestone disconnected at last.
Managing – there’s this terrible illusion about managing – our five years olds are
told, manage your emotions ; junior school kids are expected to manage their
own learning. I’m expected to manage my retirement income. The Bishops have
management tools for the church.
A famous statistican Hans Rosling, has just died of pancreatic cancer aged 68;
rather below statistical life expectancy.
He said, "Fame is easy to acquire, impact is much more difficult i
People raved about his statistical genius; he said . "I don't like it. My interest is not
data, it's the world. Things like human rights, empowerment of women, it's very
difficult to measure in numbers."
He said that the poverty unit at the World Bank which assists countries, trains the
staff, and helps compile poverty data, how many people work there? Four - halftime. For the world. It's a joke, he said
How many people live in poverty in the world – 1.3 billion – give or take half a
billion. That’s how uncertain the numbers are.
We have an illusion that the world can be managed; that the international economy
can be managed; that our life can be managed; that every problem has a solution.
But we are like a rower alone in a very small, boat on a very rough ocean; and the
boat has a lot of baggage in it, and the baggage hasn’t been tied down properly.
- Well you just need good boat management skills
You may actually be a naturally gifted manager; thinking, well Rhys I see what
you mean but I do manage; yes; but what about those you love; can you equip
them all to manage – and if they don’t manage does that mean they are failures – or
that you are a failure; and if they all succeed, well, aren’t things set up so the
success of some automatically requires the failure of others; is that fair.
we were all processed through school, sitting in rows, graded by the exams;
inducted to work, given instructions, supervised by managers; we learned standard
routines; followed instruction books; and we happened to live in that small part of
the world where there has been relative social, governmental and financial
stability for 70 years; and so we have come to – not believe in the management no
– but to have our minds soaked in the idea of managing. The assumption is that life
is manageable.
We manage – or we try to manage ourselves, the narrow borderland of our ego
between our own inner hidden depths – the deep world of feeling, dreams, the
subconscious mind, unrecognised motivations, the anxiety within – between that
and the outer world with its impossible demands – just watch the news every
night; what if you genuinely felt each horror on the news – the murders, the
bombings, the starvation.
And so we try to just – manage . But intensified loneliness is our common
experience
Of course Jesus Christ starts from a completely different point of view about us;
his word is not – lonely, or anxious, or managing – but blessed. The Sermon on
the Mount begins with the roll call of blessings –the grace of God which does for
us what we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus Christ has come and with him the
kingdom of God is coming into the world. He comes for us; responding to him we
are blessed; and as God takes us through this world we grow into those blessings
more and more.
God’s blessing goes ahead. And it’s a blessing of our depths, our spirit which also
takes us out of ourselves into God’s kingdom in the world. He does not bless us
with control however – but with faith in the action and purpose of God wherever
we are.
Verses 13 to 20 told us something important about the blessing and the law. Now
people who feel insecure look around for one of two things – either escape – into
dream, fantasy, drugs or other addictions – or they look for control. And the Law,
good as it is in itself, lends itself to control. We tell ourselves and others - Don’t
do this; don’t do that; your hair is too long;, shine your shoes;
and we give ourselves rules, we think if we keep the rules we’ll be safe. Safe and
rigid.
Now Jesus subverts this law-based mentality by teaching us, not that we are free
from law – not abolishing the law - but the fulfilment of the law. He has come to
fill out the dead letter of the law with the living spirit of God. And the spirit can
make us more righteous than the Pharisees only because our human hearts, our
inmost depths, will be engaged with God the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life, of truth,
of righteousness, of grace
The fulfilment of the law is simply illustrated in what Jesus says about murder. The
law says you shall not murder; and we can at least tick that one off, most of us,
easily enough. We are on the right side of the law there
But to fulfil the spirit of law requires something much deeper; what’s inside us; it
means we face up to the fact that sometimes we are inwardly filled with wrath - we
literally see red about someone; our spirit is filled with internal violence towards
someone; I speak from personal experience. We have a murderous heart.
And this is not just on rare occasions – because Jesus says, whoever says to their
brother or sister, you idiot, will be subject to judgment – judgment based upon the
attitude of contempt in our hearts for one of God’s creatures;
And so the righteousness of God’s kingdom extends far beyond a law about this
and that – it extends to the inner landscape of our being, our thoughts, to our nature
in fact, so far from God
Its not just what we do but what we are really like inside is that matters to God;
what we think and feel. There are many ways of being internally murderous;
gossip and lies; suppressed anger, bitterness; contempt and jealousy; coldness
And so what are we to do
1 What we must not do. We must not be discouraged or dismayed; mustn’t think
that’s too hard; or –God must hate me for feeling like this.
2 We mustn’t pretend we don’t feel angry when we do;
3 We mustn’t think we can become righteous in day; it’s a lifetime project to be
transformed into the image of Christ
4 We mustn’t think all anger is bad. Anger at poverty and starvation; anger at
injustice – this kind of anger gives us an energy – and as long as we convert that
energy into doing something good and positive, such anger can be a good thing.
But don’t fester in bitterness
5 If your job involves being authotitative – as say a teacher’s does; then at times
you have to make a display of deep displeasure on behalf of the authority you
represent. This involves a demanding managing of the boundary between righteous
anger and personal anger
6 but We mustn’t worry too much about our passing surges of anger; they are to be
overcome, not feared. We mustn’t become afraid of having emotions – but reedcate our emotions
And what we must we do
Well ask God to forgive us ; pray for God’s grace, God’s help to be different; work
out why we react, and how we might react differently; talk about it to someone we
trust, family friend or clergy..
Jesus wants to go down deep with us, help us understand ourselves and to change
us.
Then Practice doing the right thing;
practice patience – and not just weary patience - positive patience. Ask God to put
positive things in place of the negatives
And expect that God is at work as he promised. The fruit of the spirit is patience,
gentleness, self control – and we know fruit takes time to grow. Again, don’t be
discouraged by anything; you are forgiven; Christ died for you; God sees you
living in Jesus, sharing in Jesus righteousness – so live that out expectantly.
And so our righteousness will exceed that of those who just keep rules; it will
spread within our inner being. Jesus is seeking to get deeper into the workings of
our hearts.
And he is also moving to push us out beyond our narrow strip of self interest, self
management; he is pushing us out to involvement with our neighbour, our world.
In all I have said, do not think I’m asking you to stop having plans or working
through problems – not at all. God has given us minds to use. Scripture tells us to
seek understanding and wisdom. We are to be responsible.
But its about fundamental assumptions; Jesus once said – with humans things are
impossible – but with God, nothing is impossible. Our dream that we can manage
our way through life’s difficulties – climate change; international financial crisis;
international politics; antibiotic resistance – and so on – our belief that every
problem has a solution is – is part of the problem. Some problems have no
solution. They are impossible. We have entered what seems to be an impossible era
in modern history .
We hate it the impossible – but humankind had to live with the impossible through
most of human history. Its only 40 years since polio and smallpox were conquered,
only 70 years since penicillin came into use. Before that most serious infections
were impossible to treat.The day may come again. We must learn humility again.
We must learn to say, many things are impossible; but God is to be trusted.
WE are not alone. God always has a purpose for us in impossible situations; Jesus
has a call on our lives; he wants to drive us inwards, and to drive us outwards, to
righteousness in our hearts, and to righteousness filling our actions,
good hearts, good works good words, good news of the kingdom of God in Jesus
Christ.
i
Guardian 17 May 2013 “Hans Rosling” and Guardian 8 Feb 2017 ditto.