I can remember attending a bible study group, where individuals were asked what they were looking forward to when they reached “Heaven” (the Christian destination in the afterlife). One response remains in my memory. It is one word “Answers”. I suspect that many (including myself) have hopeful expectations of what “Heaven” will provide. Everlasting joy and peace perhaps; possibly a place of tranquillity where there is no pain or suffering. Yet these are hopeful expectations, we cannot be totally sure what awaits us. Answers are the only sure thing we can expect. And some answers may be surprising.
It is interesting to note that a friend of mine (who vehemently would deny any idea of God’s or Heaven’s existence) does not expect to receive answers as for him beyond this life there is only oblivion. However this position prompts me to ask questions such as the one I have placed in my blog profile “What’s the point of relationships if they end when we die?” Another would be to ask if we fulfil our human potential during our earthly life. (I expect to get the answers one day).
For myself I look forward to a great reunion in the afterlife, that one day I will be surrounded by those I love and care for past and present and what a joyful time that will be!!
I invite you to share yur thoughts
Shalom friends!!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Monday, June 27, 2011
Roses bloom amongst the ashes
In these days of reality TV, cameras capture the events and happenings of individuals and families as they go about their day to day lives. I wonder how many of us would be riveted by the goings on in the Isaac and Rebekah household that is found in the Old Testament. Isaac and Rebekah have two boys and name them Esau and Jacob. Unusually there does not seem to be much of a bond between the twins. Esau became a skilled hunter, a man who loved the outdoor life, but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home Genesis 25:27 Good News Bible.)
Perhaps the brothers were not helped by their parents who preferred one twin over the other. Isaac favoured Esau and Rebekah Jacob.
One incident illuminates the different agendas Isaac and Rebekah have for their “favourite”. Isaac summons Esau and tells his son “You see that I am old and may die soon. Take your bow and arrows, go out into the country, and kill an animal for me. Cook me some of that tasty food that I like, and bring it to me. After I have eaten it I will give you my final blessing before I die.” (Genesis 27: 2-4 Good News Bible) Rebekah overhears and forms a plan. She persuades Jacob to trick his father into believing that he (Jacob) is Esau. Rebekah puts onto Jacob Esau’s best clothes and covers his arms and neck with the skin of goats. Isaac whose sight was failing is taken in by the deception and blesses Jacob. When Esau returns and asks his father to bless him, Isaac (mortified that he has been deceived) informs Esau “I have already made him (Jacob) master over you, and I have made all his relatives his slaves. I have given him corn and wine. Now there is nothing that I can do for you, my son!” (Genesis 27:37 Good News Bible)
Betrayal, the most destructive of actions, rips apart the family once and for all. Esau is set on spilling the blood of his twin. Rebekah protects her boy by sending Jacob away to stay with her brother. At the same time she puts herself in a vulnerable position at home. It will now be two against one. Rebekah will cease to exist in the eyes of Isaac and Esau.
What is the saying, “You can choose your friends but you cannot choose your relatives.” Lord God, forgive me for my actions and attitudes to my family that have been less than loving!
One opinion about Rebekah’s actions is to say that she is cynical, selfish and manipulative. However there is another viewpoint that I would like to put forward.
If we go back to the time where Isaac and Rebekah enjoyed the happiness and excitement that new love creates, Isaac prays for Rebekah because she had no children. The Lord hears Isaac’s prayer and Rebekah falls pregnant with twins. However Rebekah senses that within her womb there is hostility between the two boys. Unable to comprehend why this should be she asks the Lord for an answer. “The Lord says to her, two nations are within you; you will give birth to two rival peoples. One will be stronger than the other; the older will serve the younger.” (Genesis 25: 23 GNB)
Later when Rebekah overhears her husband declaring he will bless Esau, I wonder if she fears God’s prophecy will not come true and so she decides to give a helping hand.
For myself I wouldn’t dare say that I have the only hotline to God, but I wonder how often I believe (and have believed) God desires the church should move in a certain direction, or consider (and have considered) a course of action should be taken because I think I have God on my side believing I am helping the Eternal’s cause.
Let’s refocus on Esau and Jacob. There seems to be a viewpoint in the world of association football that you should “never say never”. In other words there is a possibility that what would seem to be the unlikeliest of scenarios could happen. It would seem would it not that Esau and Jacob given their personality and history could never enter in a reconciliation; how wrong we would be. Here is how it happened.
Jacob experience of family (this time with his uncle Laban) is once again one of deceit and lies. (You can read his experiences in chapters 29, 30 and 31 of Genesis) Jacob leaves his uncles like a thief in the night. The Lord instructs him to return to his land and his relatives. However Jacob is fearful when he hears that Esau is riding to meet him with four hundred men. He seeks to deflect his brother’s anger by sending a substantial amount of livestock as a gift. When the brothers finally meet Jacob bows to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. Esau runs to Jacob embraces him and kisses him (Is there not an echo here of the father welcoming the prodigal son?)
I wonder if Esau’s action is the first recorded act of grace between one human and another in the bible? Esau has offered undeserved forgiveness and welcomed Jacob as an equal. Both brothers have come a long way since living with their parents; their relationship can move forward positively in the days to come.
The meeting between Esau and Jacob reminds me of an episode between God and Israel in Hosea chapter 11. I’ll let Hosea speak for the Lord.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realise that it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness. With ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.” (Hosea 11:1-9 New International Version)
I want to trust in the fact that love is the most powerful force in the Universe. I want to believe that the reconciliation between Esau and Jacob is a beacon of hope for humanity!!!!
SHALOM
Perhaps the brothers were not helped by their parents who preferred one twin over the other. Isaac favoured Esau and Rebekah Jacob.
One incident illuminates the different agendas Isaac and Rebekah have for their “favourite”. Isaac summons Esau and tells his son “You see that I am old and may die soon. Take your bow and arrows, go out into the country, and kill an animal for me. Cook me some of that tasty food that I like, and bring it to me. After I have eaten it I will give you my final blessing before I die.” (Genesis 27: 2-4 Good News Bible) Rebekah overhears and forms a plan. She persuades Jacob to trick his father into believing that he (Jacob) is Esau. Rebekah puts onto Jacob Esau’s best clothes and covers his arms and neck with the skin of goats. Isaac whose sight was failing is taken in by the deception and blesses Jacob. When Esau returns and asks his father to bless him, Isaac (mortified that he has been deceived) informs Esau “I have already made him (Jacob) master over you, and I have made all his relatives his slaves. I have given him corn and wine. Now there is nothing that I can do for you, my son!” (Genesis 27:37 Good News Bible)
Betrayal, the most destructive of actions, rips apart the family once and for all. Esau is set on spilling the blood of his twin. Rebekah protects her boy by sending Jacob away to stay with her brother. At the same time she puts herself in a vulnerable position at home. It will now be two against one. Rebekah will cease to exist in the eyes of Isaac and Esau.
What is the saying, “You can choose your friends but you cannot choose your relatives.” Lord God, forgive me for my actions and attitudes to my family that have been less than loving!
One opinion about Rebekah’s actions is to say that she is cynical, selfish and manipulative. However there is another viewpoint that I would like to put forward.
If we go back to the time where Isaac and Rebekah enjoyed the happiness and excitement that new love creates, Isaac prays for Rebekah because she had no children. The Lord hears Isaac’s prayer and Rebekah falls pregnant with twins. However Rebekah senses that within her womb there is hostility between the two boys. Unable to comprehend why this should be she asks the Lord for an answer. “The Lord says to her, two nations are within you; you will give birth to two rival peoples. One will be stronger than the other; the older will serve the younger.” (Genesis 25: 23 GNB)
Later when Rebekah overhears her husband declaring he will bless Esau, I wonder if she fears God’s prophecy will not come true and so she decides to give a helping hand.
For myself I wouldn’t dare say that I have the only hotline to God, but I wonder how often I believe (and have believed) God desires the church should move in a certain direction, or consider (and have considered) a course of action should be taken because I think I have God on my side believing I am helping the Eternal’s cause.
Let’s refocus on Esau and Jacob. There seems to be a viewpoint in the world of association football that you should “never say never”. In other words there is a possibility that what would seem to be the unlikeliest of scenarios could happen. It would seem would it not that Esau and Jacob given their personality and history could never enter in a reconciliation; how wrong we would be. Here is how it happened.
Jacob experience of family (this time with his uncle Laban) is once again one of deceit and lies. (You can read his experiences in chapters 29, 30 and 31 of Genesis) Jacob leaves his uncles like a thief in the night. The Lord instructs him to return to his land and his relatives. However Jacob is fearful when he hears that Esau is riding to meet him with four hundred men. He seeks to deflect his brother’s anger by sending a substantial amount of livestock as a gift. When the brothers finally meet Jacob bows to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. Esau runs to Jacob embraces him and kisses him (Is there not an echo here of the father welcoming the prodigal son?)
I wonder if Esau’s action is the first recorded act of grace between one human and another in the bible? Esau has offered undeserved forgiveness and welcomed Jacob as an equal. Both brothers have come a long way since living with their parents; their relationship can move forward positively in the days to come.
The meeting between Esau and Jacob reminds me of an episode between God and Israel in Hosea chapter 11. I’ll let Hosea speak for the Lord.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realise that it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness. With ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.” (Hosea 11:1-9 New International Version)
I want to trust in the fact that love is the most powerful force in the Universe. I want to believe that the reconciliation between Esau and Jacob is a beacon of hope for humanity!!!!
SHALOM
Monday, April 18, 2011
Jesus the king by Anselm Gruen (with kind permission of Continuum publishing)
In politics Kings have had their day. When we say that someone is a king, we mean he radiates dignity. Yet if someone always wants to be king we develop an antipathy to him. He always wants to have a central position and to dominate everything. In fairy tales and myths the king is always an archetypal image, an image of a whole person, the person who rules himself instead of being ruled by other powers.
In fairy tales there are king’s sons who go out to seek the water of life. There are three spheres in human beings which have to be transformed if they are to find their true selves. Greek philosophy – like that of Plato – sees the king as the true wise man who knows about ideas. He knows about the heights and depths of life, the mysteries of light and darkness.
The Bible calls Jesus a king only in parables and in the passion story. In the discourse about the judgement of the world Jesus compares himself with the king who says to the sheep “come you blessed of my Father, take as your heritage the kingdom which has been destined for you since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25.34). On the cross above Jesus’ head “an inscription was attached indicating the charge against him.” “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews” (Matt 27.37). The people mocked him as king. “If you are the king of the Jews, then help yourself” (Luke 23.37). For the Romans the title “king” is the reason for executing Jesus; for the Jews it’s the occasion for mocking him. Jesus does not correspond to their image of a king. The Cross puts in question their understanding of what a king is. Jesus isn’t the king the Jews expected.
John shows us in his Gospel how Jesus understands himself as a king. When interrogating Jesus, Pilate puts to him the clear question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18.33). Jesus answered “My kingdom is not of this world. If it was of this world, my people would fight so that I was not handed over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18.36).
With these words Jesus interprets his kingship in a completely new way. Jesus is a royal personage, yet his kingdom is not of this world. Jesus has this kingly dignity from God. So no one can dispute his kingship. What Jesus says of himself here is a promise for every Christian. I too can say of myself “My kingdom is not of this world.” There is a sphere in me over which the world has no power. There is a kingly dignity in me which no one can take from me. My “inner kingdom”. Where I am completely myself, I am invulnerable. For there, Christ is in me with his royal power.
The paradox is that it is in his suffering that Jesus speaks of his kingdom. At the very point where Jesus has been condemned, scourged and nailed to the Cross, he is king. So despite all the outward humiliation and hurt Jesus strides through his passion in a sovereign way.
That means that the reality of my own inner kingdom also continues on my way of the Cross. At the very point I am judged and condemned by others, where I am misunderstood, where I am scourged, where I am insulted, made to look ridiculous, there is something in me that no one can hurt. Where I fail, there is something in me that cannot be broken. Even in my dying the divine dignity cannot be taken from me. The knowledge of my kingdom, which is not of this world, continues to work in this world’s freedom, as confidence, as calmness and inner strength which no one can break.
When Pilate asks, “Are you a king then?”, Jesus replies, “it is you who say I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of the truth listen to my voice.” (John 18.37). Jesus understood his kingship as a testimony to the truth. The Greek image of the king shines out in this saying. Jesus is the king who lifts the veil that lies over reality. He is the wise man who leads us into the truth and who makes us share in his knowledge.
Knowledge comes from seeing. Jesus sees to the heart of things. He looks at human beings from God’s perspective. He knows “what is in man” (John 2.25). His knowledge of the mystery of human beings comes to a climax on the Cross. The Cross is an image for the unity of all opposites. On the Cross Jesus comes into contact with heaven and earth, with light and darkness, with good and evil, with the conscious and unconscious, with woman and man. On the Cross Jesus is initiated into the mystery of God and humankind. On the Cross he is the king who leads us into the truth, who opens our eyes so that we know the ground of all being: God who is love.
For me, (Anselm) Jesus the king is an invitation to discover my own royal dignity and to recognise it particularly in my own suffering, in my weakness and helplessness, in my being nailed to the Cross. Just imagine that in your sickness, in the conflicts of your everyday life, in situations where you feel weak, sensitive, uncertain, there is something you can lay your hands on because it is divine. If that is the case, how would you go through your everyday life, what would you feel about yourself if your boss criticised you, if something in your life went wrong, if you felt hurt in your partnership or friendship?
In fairy tales there are king’s sons who go out to seek the water of life. There are three spheres in human beings which have to be transformed if they are to find their true selves. Greek philosophy – like that of Plato – sees the king as the true wise man who knows about ideas. He knows about the heights and depths of life, the mysteries of light and darkness.
The Bible calls Jesus a king only in parables and in the passion story. In the discourse about the judgement of the world Jesus compares himself with the king who says to the sheep “come you blessed of my Father, take as your heritage the kingdom which has been destined for you since the creation of the world” (Matt. 25.34). On the cross above Jesus’ head “an inscription was attached indicating the charge against him.” “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews” (Matt 27.37). The people mocked him as king. “If you are the king of the Jews, then help yourself” (Luke 23.37). For the Romans the title “king” is the reason for executing Jesus; for the Jews it’s the occasion for mocking him. Jesus does not correspond to their image of a king. The Cross puts in question their understanding of what a king is. Jesus isn’t the king the Jews expected.
John shows us in his Gospel how Jesus understands himself as a king. When interrogating Jesus, Pilate puts to him the clear question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” (John 18.33). Jesus answered “My kingdom is not of this world. If it was of this world, my people would fight so that I was not handed over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18.36).
With these words Jesus interprets his kingship in a completely new way. Jesus is a royal personage, yet his kingdom is not of this world. Jesus has this kingly dignity from God. So no one can dispute his kingship. What Jesus says of himself here is a promise for every Christian. I too can say of myself “My kingdom is not of this world.” There is a sphere in me over which the world has no power. There is a kingly dignity in me which no one can take from me. My “inner kingdom”. Where I am completely myself, I am invulnerable. For there, Christ is in me with his royal power.
The paradox is that it is in his suffering that Jesus speaks of his kingdom. At the very point where Jesus has been condemned, scourged and nailed to the Cross, he is king. So despite all the outward humiliation and hurt Jesus strides through his passion in a sovereign way.
That means that the reality of my own inner kingdom also continues on my way of the Cross. At the very point I am judged and condemned by others, where I am misunderstood, where I am scourged, where I am insulted, made to look ridiculous, there is something in me that no one can hurt. Where I fail, there is something in me that cannot be broken. Even in my dying the divine dignity cannot be taken from me. The knowledge of my kingdom, which is not of this world, continues to work in this world’s freedom, as confidence, as calmness and inner strength which no one can break.
When Pilate asks, “Are you a king then?”, Jesus replies, “it is you who say I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of the truth listen to my voice.” (John 18.37). Jesus understood his kingship as a testimony to the truth. The Greek image of the king shines out in this saying. Jesus is the king who lifts the veil that lies over reality. He is the wise man who leads us into the truth and who makes us share in his knowledge.
Knowledge comes from seeing. Jesus sees to the heart of things. He looks at human beings from God’s perspective. He knows “what is in man” (John 2.25). His knowledge of the mystery of human beings comes to a climax on the Cross. The Cross is an image for the unity of all opposites. On the Cross Jesus comes into contact with heaven and earth, with light and darkness, with good and evil, with the conscious and unconscious, with woman and man. On the Cross Jesus is initiated into the mystery of God and humankind. On the Cross he is the king who leads us into the truth, who opens our eyes so that we know the ground of all being: God who is love.
For me, (Anselm) Jesus the king is an invitation to discover my own royal dignity and to recognise it particularly in my own suffering, in my weakness and helplessness, in my being nailed to the Cross. Just imagine that in your sickness, in the conflicts of your everyday life, in situations where you feel weak, sensitive, uncertain, there is something you can lay your hands on because it is divine. If that is the case, how would you go through your everyday life, what would you feel about yourself if your boss criticised you, if something in your life went wrong, if you felt hurt in your partnership or friendship?
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Jesus who weeps. (Anselm Gruen)
In Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of The Rose, there is a bitter dispute over the question whether Jesus laughed. In our society, so focused on entertainment, that’s no longer an issue. We find it more difficult to accept that Jesus wept. We like to imagine a Jesus who was so much himself, was so filled with God, that nothing shook him or upset his equilibrium. But the Gospels tell us of a Jesus who wept: “As he drew near and came in sight of the city, he wept over it and said, “if you had only recognised on this day what brings you peace. But now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19: 41f.).
Jesus weeps over the fate of Jerusalem. He forsees that this holy city will be destroyed by the Romans. He has taken great trouble to proclaim the kingdom of God to the people of Jerusalem and to summon them to repentance. Yet it has been to no avail. His efforts have been in vain. Jerusalem is the fulfilment of a Jew’s dream. When as a Jew Jesus entered the holy city, his spirit rose. So he is all the more deeply affected when he reflects on the fate of this city. Pagans will destroy the city “and leave no stone standing on another” (Luke 19:44). Jerusalem was blind and didn’t recognise that God himself had visited the city in Jesus. That makes Jesus sad and he weeps over this city. These are tears of sorrow but also tears of helplessness. He senses that his efforts to convert the city were in vain. He can’t get to it, whether through miracles, through words or through his love.
Another time Jesus weeps over Lazarus. Jesus sees how Mary is weeping for her dead brother and how her friends are also weeping. Then “he was greatly disturbed and with a profound sigh he said “where have you put him?” They said “Lord come and see.” Jesus wept. The Jews said “See how he loved him.” (John 11:33-6)
Here we have tears for his friend and tears of compassion for the sisters of his dead friend. And the tears are an expression of his love for Lazarus. Jesus shows his feelings. He is utterly human. He undergoes the pain and grief and doesn’t get over it through hope for the resurrection of Lazarus. And he feels with the sisters of the dead man. Their sorrow sets off his own. Twice it is said in this scene that Jesus was greatly disturbed and sighed profoundly (verses 33 and 38).
The Greek word for indignation used here means that sorrow is mixed with anger. Despite his close relationship with the Father, Jesus feels pain at the loss of a friend. Mourning always means pain and anger at the same time. Here Jesus feels both. The tears are not just tears of compassion but tears of helplessness and anger. Jesus doesn’t close himself to the situation. He is wholly involved in it. He’s affected by the situation of people and reacts with strong feelings that express his humanity.
For Buddha, contact with the world is the ground of all suffering. So he breaks off contact with the world in order to experience inner freedom in laughter. Jesus allows himself to be touched. He endures the suffering. He feels compassion. He weeps because he is affected in his innermost being. The Jesus who weeps is closer to me than Buddha, who cannot be moved and cannot be touched. Jesus also feels with me. And he encourages me to allow the tears which aren’t wept, so that through these tears I come into contact with my heart, in which are love and pain, sorrow and joy. “If you have a heart you can be saved” says Abba Pambo. Jesus had a heart; he invites me to trust my heart and to accept the feelings that are in it.
Questions:
When was the last time that you wept? What happens when you weep? What do you feel when you weep? Are you afraid that if you allow tears to flow they will never stop?
Do you let yourself be touched by the suffering of others? Or do you hide your feelings, so that you seem cool to everyone? The Jesus who weeps invites you to let your tears flow and to trust them. They will lead you through the sorrow to new life.
(Thanks to Continuum for allowing Anselm's material to be posted on this blog.)
Jesus weeps over the fate of Jerusalem. He forsees that this holy city will be destroyed by the Romans. He has taken great trouble to proclaim the kingdom of God to the people of Jerusalem and to summon them to repentance. Yet it has been to no avail. His efforts have been in vain. Jerusalem is the fulfilment of a Jew’s dream. When as a Jew Jesus entered the holy city, his spirit rose. So he is all the more deeply affected when he reflects on the fate of this city. Pagans will destroy the city “and leave no stone standing on another” (Luke 19:44). Jerusalem was blind and didn’t recognise that God himself had visited the city in Jesus. That makes Jesus sad and he weeps over this city. These are tears of sorrow but also tears of helplessness. He senses that his efforts to convert the city were in vain. He can’t get to it, whether through miracles, through words or through his love.
Another time Jesus weeps over Lazarus. Jesus sees how Mary is weeping for her dead brother and how her friends are also weeping. Then “he was greatly disturbed and with a profound sigh he said “where have you put him?” They said “Lord come and see.” Jesus wept. The Jews said “See how he loved him.” (John 11:33-6)
Here we have tears for his friend and tears of compassion for the sisters of his dead friend. And the tears are an expression of his love for Lazarus. Jesus shows his feelings. He is utterly human. He undergoes the pain and grief and doesn’t get over it through hope for the resurrection of Lazarus. And he feels with the sisters of the dead man. Their sorrow sets off his own. Twice it is said in this scene that Jesus was greatly disturbed and sighed profoundly (verses 33 and 38).
The Greek word for indignation used here means that sorrow is mixed with anger. Despite his close relationship with the Father, Jesus feels pain at the loss of a friend. Mourning always means pain and anger at the same time. Here Jesus feels both. The tears are not just tears of compassion but tears of helplessness and anger. Jesus doesn’t close himself to the situation. He is wholly involved in it. He’s affected by the situation of people and reacts with strong feelings that express his humanity.
For Buddha, contact with the world is the ground of all suffering. So he breaks off contact with the world in order to experience inner freedom in laughter. Jesus allows himself to be touched. He endures the suffering. He feels compassion. He weeps because he is affected in his innermost being. The Jesus who weeps is closer to me than Buddha, who cannot be moved and cannot be touched. Jesus also feels with me. And he encourages me to allow the tears which aren’t wept, so that through these tears I come into contact with my heart, in which are love and pain, sorrow and joy. “If you have a heart you can be saved” says Abba Pambo. Jesus had a heart; he invites me to trust my heart and to accept the feelings that are in it.
Questions:
When was the last time that you wept? What happens when you weep? What do you feel when you weep? Are you afraid that if you allow tears to flow they will never stop?
Do you let yourself be touched by the suffering of others? Or do you hide your feelings, so that you seem cool to everyone? The Jesus who weeps invites you to let your tears flow and to trust them. They will lead you through the sorrow to new life.
(Thanks to Continuum for allowing Anselm's material to be posted on this blog.)
Friday, October 1, 2010
Jesus the Foreigner (by Anselm Gruen) published with the kind permission of Continuum.
In some parables Jesus has painted a self portrait. The self-portrait that which fascinates me (Anselm) most is the story of the Good Samaritan. A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he is attacked by robbers. They steal his clothes, his money and possessions. They half kill him. Doubled up in pain, the man is injured in the dust. A priest is going along the road. “He saw him and passed him by” (Luke 10:32). A Levite does the same thing. A Samaritan, a foreigner, someone who was suspect to the Jews, an “outcast”, sees the man and has compassion on him. He pours oil and wine on his wounds, binds them up and puts him on his donkey, to take him to an inn. In this Samaritan Jesus paints an image of himself.
Jesus is a foreigner. He isn’t the typical pious Jew. He comes from Galilee, which seemed suspect to the Jews. Pagan tribes had also settled in Galilee. They had mixed with the Israelite population and were no longer pure Jews. The Samaritans were despised even more by the Jews than the Galileans were. The Samaritans were the descendants of the Asiatic tribes which had been settled in Samaria after the Israelites had been carried off to exile in Assyria. They had accepted Yahweh religion; however, they didn’t worship Yahweh in the temple in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim. Jesus identified with this Samaritan. He comes from another world, not the familiar world of pure Judaism.
In the person – man or woman – who has fallen victim to the robbers and is lying plundered and half dead by the wayside, Jesus paints an image of us. We have been hurt by our life history. We’re full of wounds inflicted by others (even those closest to us). People have robbed us, they have sapped our energy. We have given them everything. Now we’ve nothing but ourselves. We are lying in the dust and cannot get up again.
The Greek word for human being, anthropos, comes from the verb anatre-pein, which means “hold up something, raise something.” Our life has prevented us from walking upright. Now we’re dependent on the compassion of others if we’re to have ground under our feet again. The representative of religion and its cult pass us by. Jesus is the Samaritan, the foreigner, who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, from the holy city to one of the oldest cities in human history. Luke portrays Jesus for us as the divine wanderer who comes down from heaven to visit us human beings where we live. The Greek word for visit is episkeptein. It means cast an eye on something, look something over, inspect it.
Jesus comes down from heaven to see how things are going with us. He looks at us and views us lying robbed and injured by the wayside. He doesn’t pass me by when I’m wounded, as the priest and Levite did. Full of compassion, he bends over me and pours oil and wine on my wounds.
Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one, anoints our wounds with oil. Oil is the symbol of the healing power of Jesus. The wine is an image of his love. Jesus binds up our wounds, raises us up and puts is on his donkey.
Van Gogh painted a marvellous image of the Good Samaritan. The image quivers with effort. The Samaritan is making a supreme effort to get the wounded man on his donkey. The church fathers interpreted this scene to mean that Jesus lays us and our suffering on his shoulders to raise us to the cross and set us upright. On the cross Jesus dies upright, outstretched. Van Gogh, who himself greatly suffered from his inner divisions, probably understood more than anyone else what it meant for Jesus to raise up the man lying in the dust, to raise him from the dust as it were like Adam, and to create him anew.
Jesus paints a fine self-portrait here. In this portrait Jesus approaches us in his undistorted sensitivity. In the two thousand years since then, countless men and women have made efforts to accept those who have been robbed and injured, those who have been overlooked and are lying on the roadside, to go to them and raise them up. From this image Mother Teresa drew the strength to turn to men and woman lying in the streets of Calcutta, uncared for by the representatives of either state or religion. Within her something of the image of Jesus has shone out in our time.
The image of the Good Samaritan has also asked too much of many people who believed they had to drag the wounded around with them all their lives. But Jesus paints a more humane image. It’s enough to bring the wounded person to the next inn and leave then there. The innkeeper, probably God, will then care for him. Jesus has picked us up and carried to the cross, so raised up there we can go our own way once more. We need bear one another to the next inn. We are not therapists who can heal all wounds. We go part of the way with the wounded and bring them into the saving sphere of God, so that they are healed.
Questions;
Who has wounded you and plundered you? Where are you lying half dead by the wayside? Imagine Jesus coming to you and pouring oil and wine into your wounds. Allow Jesus to raise you up.
Jesus painted the portrait of the Samaritan to invite us to act as he does. Where are the wounded and plundered people lying on the wayside of your life? To whom should you go today?
Jesus is a foreigner. He isn’t the typical pious Jew. He comes from Galilee, which seemed suspect to the Jews. Pagan tribes had also settled in Galilee. They had mixed with the Israelite population and were no longer pure Jews. The Samaritans were despised even more by the Jews than the Galileans were. The Samaritans were the descendants of the Asiatic tribes which had been settled in Samaria after the Israelites had been carried off to exile in Assyria. They had accepted Yahweh religion; however, they didn’t worship Yahweh in the temple in Jerusalem but on Mount Gerizim. Jesus identified with this Samaritan. He comes from another world, not the familiar world of pure Judaism.
In the person – man or woman – who has fallen victim to the robbers and is lying plundered and half dead by the wayside, Jesus paints an image of us. We have been hurt by our life history. We’re full of wounds inflicted by others (even those closest to us). People have robbed us, they have sapped our energy. We have given them everything. Now we’ve nothing but ourselves. We are lying in the dust and cannot get up again.
The Greek word for human being, anthropos, comes from the verb anatre-pein, which means “hold up something, raise something.” Our life has prevented us from walking upright. Now we’re dependent on the compassion of others if we’re to have ground under our feet again. The representative of religion and its cult pass us by. Jesus is the Samaritan, the foreigner, who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, from the holy city to one of the oldest cities in human history. Luke portrays Jesus for us as the divine wanderer who comes down from heaven to visit us human beings where we live. The Greek word for visit is episkeptein. It means cast an eye on something, look something over, inspect it.
Jesus comes down from heaven to see how things are going with us. He looks at us and views us lying robbed and injured by the wayside. He doesn’t pass me by when I’m wounded, as the priest and Levite did. Full of compassion, he bends over me and pours oil and wine on my wounds.
Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one, anoints our wounds with oil. Oil is the symbol of the healing power of Jesus. The wine is an image of his love. Jesus binds up our wounds, raises us up and puts is on his donkey.
Van Gogh painted a marvellous image of the Good Samaritan. The image quivers with effort. The Samaritan is making a supreme effort to get the wounded man on his donkey. The church fathers interpreted this scene to mean that Jesus lays us and our suffering on his shoulders to raise us to the cross and set us upright. On the cross Jesus dies upright, outstretched. Van Gogh, who himself greatly suffered from his inner divisions, probably understood more than anyone else what it meant for Jesus to raise up the man lying in the dust, to raise him from the dust as it were like Adam, and to create him anew.
Jesus paints a fine self-portrait here. In this portrait Jesus approaches us in his undistorted sensitivity. In the two thousand years since then, countless men and women have made efforts to accept those who have been robbed and injured, those who have been overlooked and are lying on the roadside, to go to them and raise them up. From this image Mother Teresa drew the strength to turn to men and woman lying in the streets of Calcutta, uncared for by the representatives of either state or religion. Within her something of the image of Jesus has shone out in our time.
The image of the Good Samaritan has also asked too much of many people who believed they had to drag the wounded around with them all their lives. But Jesus paints a more humane image. It’s enough to bring the wounded person to the next inn and leave then there. The innkeeper, probably God, will then care for him. Jesus has picked us up and carried to the cross, so raised up there we can go our own way once more. We need bear one another to the next inn. We are not therapists who can heal all wounds. We go part of the way with the wounded and bring them into the saving sphere of God, so that they are healed.
Questions;
Who has wounded you and plundered you? Where are you lying half dead by the wayside? Imagine Jesus coming to you and pouring oil and wine into your wounds. Allow Jesus to raise you up.
Jesus painted the portrait of the Samaritan to invite us to act as he does. Where are the wounded and plundered people lying on the wayside of your life? To whom should you go today?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
THE JESUS WHO REFUSES TO COMPETE (ANSELM GRUEN)
Many rabbis at the time of Jesus laid down rules about how their disciples should live. And often they vied with one another in making commandments of God stricter and challenged one another by ever greater achievements in fulfilling the law. They weren’t interested in social achievements, in work and in political organisations, but in achievements before God. The pious were those who achieved something before God, who fasted regularly, said their prayers every day gave alms and had something to show before God.
Today many people define themselves in their work and in their family life in terms of what they’ve achieved. They want to prove their worth by achievement. Jesus gets off this carousel of “achievers”. He invites people to live. He allows them to be themselves. He tells them there loved unconditionally, even if they have nothing to show in return. He turns in particular to those who have no achievements to show; the sinners and the poor, the despised and those without rights. That infuriates the Pharisees, who are proud of the works that they’ve performed.
Two parables show how Jesus breaks through the spiral of achievement. One the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-6) infuriates many employers. “You can’t deal with workers and their sense of achievement like this, they say. Jesus tells of the owner of the vineyard who hires labourers for his vineyard very early in the morning (6am) and sends them to work immediately. He does the same thing at the third, sixth and ninth hours (9am 12noon and 3pm). Indeed he hires labourers once more at the eleventh hour (5pm), just an hour before the end of work and sends them into his vineyard. When at the twelfth hour he pays the agreed wage, one denarius each, to the labourers he hired last, those labourers who had toiled the whole day expected more. But they too get only the one denarius they had agreed on as wages.
Here the principle of achievement is turned on its head; “So the last shall be first and the first last” (Matt. 10:16). What matters isn’t achievement and recompense, but faithfulness and reliability in what we do. Jesus doesn’t approve of doing nothing. For him work is a sign of a healthy life. But how others assess it isn’t important to him. It isn’t important to prove oneself through work, to accomplish something that one can be proud of; pride in life is a matter of accepting the work that id offered to us and required of us.
In the famous parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the younger brother wants to enjoy life straight away. He takes his share of the inheritance and travels to a distant land – in those days presumably Greece or Italy. There he wants to enjoy life to the full. But in a very short time he’s already squandered all his resources. To survive he has to impose himself on a citizen of the land who sends him to look after the pigs. For Jews, pigs are unclean animals, so this is humiliation for him. Things get worse and worse, so he resolves to return home to his father. (He also believes that the day labourers at home are better off than he is feeding pigs). His father receives him joyfully and gives a party for him, because the son who was dead has come to life, and the one who has lost himself has found himself.
However the older brother who has been going about his duties each day is annoyed about the feast. His anger shows that he hasn’t done his work because he enjoyed it, because he got involved in it, but because he expected reward and recognition from it. He reproaches his father; “I have been working for you these years and I never did anything against your will, yet you never even gave me a kid so that I could feast with my friends!” The older son had motives for working; he wanted to buy his fathers love, his fathers care.
With this parable, Jesus is telling us that we don’t need to buy God’s love with our achievements. That love is already there. God accepts us time and again, no matter what happens. He doesn’t attach any condition to his love, either achievement or conformity. Those who know they are accepted unconditionally can achieve something in freedom. They work because they enjoy it, because the work flows out of them.
Jesus shows this inner freedom towards any achievement. But improbably he achieved a great deal in this freedom. In only three years of his public activity, he addressed countless people, healed many who were sick and above all set in motion a movement which continues even now and spurs on many people to work for a more humane world. Because Jesus didn’t have to prove himself by achieving things, he was free to bring forth fruit a hundredfold, as he himself promises his disciples in a parable. The reason for the hundredfold yield is not achievement but faith. Faith frees us from the pressure which is a burden on us. So an inner spring can well up in us, and from this spring a great deal of energy flows into the world without being exhausted by it. For if we don’t have to achieve, life can flow, creativity and imagination can blossom in us and we can accomplish great things.
Questions:
What do you live by? Do you define your achievements? Does your life consist of proving yourself to others, and even to God, by your achievements? What’s the real motive behind your work, your dedication to others, in your job, in sport, in school, in your community, in your “religious activities”? Does the work flow from the innermost spring in you? Do you enjoy work? Or do you take refuge in work to escape your inner truth, as the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.
Thanks to Continuum publishing for their permission to use Anselm's material!
Today many people define themselves in their work and in their family life in terms of what they’ve achieved. They want to prove their worth by achievement. Jesus gets off this carousel of “achievers”. He invites people to live. He allows them to be themselves. He tells them there loved unconditionally, even if they have nothing to show in return. He turns in particular to those who have no achievements to show; the sinners and the poor, the despised and those without rights. That infuriates the Pharisees, who are proud of the works that they’ve performed.
Two parables show how Jesus breaks through the spiral of achievement. One the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-6) infuriates many employers. “You can’t deal with workers and their sense of achievement like this, they say. Jesus tells of the owner of the vineyard who hires labourers for his vineyard very early in the morning (6am) and sends them to work immediately. He does the same thing at the third, sixth and ninth hours (9am 12noon and 3pm). Indeed he hires labourers once more at the eleventh hour (5pm), just an hour before the end of work and sends them into his vineyard. When at the twelfth hour he pays the agreed wage, one denarius each, to the labourers he hired last, those labourers who had toiled the whole day expected more. But they too get only the one denarius they had agreed on as wages.
Here the principle of achievement is turned on its head; “So the last shall be first and the first last” (Matt. 10:16). What matters isn’t achievement and recompense, but faithfulness and reliability in what we do. Jesus doesn’t approve of doing nothing. For him work is a sign of a healthy life. But how others assess it isn’t important to him. It isn’t important to prove oneself through work, to accomplish something that one can be proud of; pride in life is a matter of accepting the work that id offered to us and required of us.
In the famous parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the younger brother wants to enjoy life straight away. He takes his share of the inheritance and travels to a distant land – in those days presumably Greece or Italy. There he wants to enjoy life to the full. But in a very short time he’s already squandered all his resources. To survive he has to impose himself on a citizen of the land who sends him to look after the pigs. For Jews, pigs are unclean animals, so this is humiliation for him. Things get worse and worse, so he resolves to return home to his father. (He also believes that the day labourers at home are better off than he is feeding pigs). His father receives him joyfully and gives a party for him, because the son who was dead has come to life, and the one who has lost himself has found himself.
However the older brother who has been going about his duties each day is annoyed about the feast. His anger shows that he hasn’t done his work because he enjoyed it, because he got involved in it, but because he expected reward and recognition from it. He reproaches his father; “I have been working for you these years and I never did anything against your will, yet you never even gave me a kid so that I could feast with my friends!” The older son had motives for working; he wanted to buy his fathers love, his fathers care.
With this parable, Jesus is telling us that we don’t need to buy God’s love with our achievements. That love is already there. God accepts us time and again, no matter what happens. He doesn’t attach any condition to his love, either achievement or conformity. Those who know they are accepted unconditionally can achieve something in freedom. They work because they enjoy it, because the work flows out of them.
Jesus shows this inner freedom towards any achievement. But improbably he achieved a great deal in this freedom. In only three years of his public activity, he addressed countless people, healed many who were sick and above all set in motion a movement which continues even now and spurs on many people to work for a more humane world. Because Jesus didn’t have to prove himself by achieving things, he was free to bring forth fruit a hundredfold, as he himself promises his disciples in a parable. The reason for the hundredfold yield is not achievement but faith. Faith frees us from the pressure which is a burden on us. So an inner spring can well up in us, and from this spring a great deal of energy flows into the world without being exhausted by it. For if we don’t have to achieve, life can flow, creativity and imagination can blossom in us and we can accomplish great things.
Questions:
What do you live by? Do you define your achievements? Does your life consist of proving yourself to others, and even to God, by your achievements? What’s the real motive behind your work, your dedication to others, in your job, in sport, in school, in your community, in your “religious activities”? Does the work flow from the innermost spring in you? Do you enjoy work? Or do you take refuge in work to escape your inner truth, as the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son.
Thanks to Continuum publishing for their permission to use Anselm's material!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Hello fellow bloggers!! The Continuum International Publishing Group has kindly given permission to use material from the book “Images of Jesus” written by Anselm Gruen.
Anselm is a Benedictine Monk in Germany and is also the Cellarer of his community.
It is my intention to offer to you different images of Jesus based on Anselm’s thinking and observations. I hope you get something positive from considering Anselm’s words and the questions he poses.
Shalom friends
Stephen
THE JESUS WHO RECONCILES (by ANSLEM GRUEN)
Jesus’ sayings about reconciliation have provoked resistance above all among politicians. The (former) German federal chancellor Helmet Schmidt once famously remarked that the Sermon on the Mount is useless in politics.
I want to look at three provocative sayings from the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus calls for reconciliation.
“So then if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering” (Matthew 5:23).
When I celebrate the liturgy I first have to be clear about my relations with my fellow men and women. If someone has something against me, I must first be prepared for reconciliation. Perhaps I’ve unconsciously hurt the other person. Perhaps that person’s annoyance is based simply on misunderstanding. I must clarify my relations with my fellow human beings before I can come before God. But what am I to do if the other person doesn’t want reconciliation, and is projecting personal problems onto me? I can only do what I can. If others don’t want to be reconciled, that’s their business.
“Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court with him, or he may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison” (Matthew 5:25).
The original Greek text simply reads “as long as you are still on the way”.
As long as I live and move I must be reconciled with my opponent. This means above all my inner opponent, everything that I fight against in myself, everything I cannot accept. As long as I am in the way, I am to be reconciled with my inner opponent. I must attempt to accept my shadow sides, which I would much prefer to detach. If I am not reconciled with my shadow sides, they will bring me before the inner judge, the authority of my own superego. My inner judge will hand me over to the officer, who will torture me with self-accusation and imprison me in my habits. He will throw me into prison, and I will be so shut up in myself that one day it will be too late to break out of this inner prison. As long as I am on the way it’s my task to be reconciled with myself.
“You have heard it said, you will love your neighbour but hate your enemy. But I say this too you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to shine on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike” (Matthew 5:43-5).
In loving their enemies, the disciples are to imitate God, who makes his sun to rise on the good and the bad. Jesus didn’t divide people into the good and the bad. He saw the danger that the good could go bad and he saw the longing for good in the bad. He accepted both kinds of people and showed both of them a way to life. We are capable of loving our enemies only if we first love the enemy in ourselves; if we let the sun of our benevolence shine on the good and bad in us; if we also look gently at those characteristics in us which conflict with our ideal image of ourselves.
Loving our enemies doesn’t mean ignoring everything that others do to us. It primarily means not allowing ourselves to be drawn into enmity. If someone fights against me as an enemy, I mustn’t react in an equally hostile way. Otherwise the enmity of the other person will become my prison.
My first task is to recognise why the other person regards me as an enemy. Perhaps that person is projecting personal problems onto me. Because others can’t accept themselves, they fight against the aspects of my personality they repudiate in themselves. If I can see that, the other person doesn’t become my enemy. I see people longing to be healed and accepted. So I can encounter them in peace. Some people think that loving one’s enemies is a great effort. But for me it is far more of an effort to hate one’s enemy. For then the enemy determines my mood and my attitude. For me, loving my enemy means freedom. I don’t regard the other person as an enemy but as a human being longing for friendship.
Jesus’ saying also has a political dimension. With the command to love one’s enemy he sets out to heal the rift that runs throughout our society and through the nations. Jesus doesn’t leave us in peace with hostile stereotypes. He challenges us to use our imagination and creativity seeking how the different groups in society and peoples at enmity with one another can find a way to get on together. If peoples on both sides keep on adding up the hurts done to them, the result will be a pernicious and endless conflict, as the situation in the Balkans showed. All the accumulated hatred is handed on from generation to generation. No military means can guarantee peace unless the potential of hatred is worked through and replaced by reconciliation. Jesus’ challenge to love one’s enemy seeks to replace the old black- and- white with a summons to new ways of peace and reconciliation.
QUESTIONS
Are you reconciled with yourself? With what inner enemies must you reconcile yourself? What can’t you accept in yourself? Where do you rage against yourself?
Try to see everything that bubbles up inside you and tell yourself, that’s what I am; that’s part of me; things can be as they are; I say yes to them.
What would you like to do in your particular environment to create an atmosphere of reconciliation? Note how you talk, does this divide or reconcile?
Note your thoughts. Are they stamped with reconciliation?
Anselm is a Benedictine Monk in Germany and is also the Cellarer of his community.
It is my intention to offer to you different images of Jesus based on Anselm’s thinking and observations. I hope you get something positive from considering Anselm’s words and the questions he poses.
Shalom friends
Stephen
THE JESUS WHO RECONCILES (by ANSLEM GRUEN)
Jesus’ sayings about reconciliation have provoked resistance above all among politicians. The (former) German federal chancellor Helmet Schmidt once famously remarked that the Sermon on the Mount is useless in politics.
I want to look at three provocative sayings from the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus calls for reconciliation.
“So then if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering” (Matthew 5:23).
When I celebrate the liturgy I first have to be clear about my relations with my fellow men and women. If someone has something against me, I must first be prepared for reconciliation. Perhaps I’ve unconsciously hurt the other person. Perhaps that person’s annoyance is based simply on misunderstanding. I must clarify my relations with my fellow human beings before I can come before God. But what am I to do if the other person doesn’t want reconciliation, and is projecting personal problems onto me? I can only do what I can. If others don’t want to be reconciled, that’s their business.
“Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court with him, or he may hand you over to the judge and the judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison” (Matthew 5:25).
The original Greek text simply reads “as long as you are still on the way”.
As long as I live and move I must be reconciled with my opponent. This means above all my inner opponent, everything that I fight against in myself, everything I cannot accept. As long as I am in the way, I am to be reconciled with my inner opponent. I must attempt to accept my shadow sides, which I would much prefer to detach. If I am not reconciled with my shadow sides, they will bring me before the inner judge, the authority of my own superego. My inner judge will hand me over to the officer, who will torture me with self-accusation and imprison me in my habits. He will throw me into prison, and I will be so shut up in myself that one day it will be too late to break out of this inner prison. As long as I am on the way it’s my task to be reconciled with myself.
“You have heard it said, you will love your neighbour but hate your enemy. But I say this too you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to shine on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike” (Matthew 5:43-5).
In loving their enemies, the disciples are to imitate God, who makes his sun to rise on the good and the bad. Jesus didn’t divide people into the good and the bad. He saw the danger that the good could go bad and he saw the longing for good in the bad. He accepted both kinds of people and showed both of them a way to life. We are capable of loving our enemies only if we first love the enemy in ourselves; if we let the sun of our benevolence shine on the good and bad in us; if we also look gently at those characteristics in us which conflict with our ideal image of ourselves.
Loving our enemies doesn’t mean ignoring everything that others do to us. It primarily means not allowing ourselves to be drawn into enmity. If someone fights against me as an enemy, I mustn’t react in an equally hostile way. Otherwise the enmity of the other person will become my prison.
My first task is to recognise why the other person regards me as an enemy. Perhaps that person is projecting personal problems onto me. Because others can’t accept themselves, they fight against the aspects of my personality they repudiate in themselves. If I can see that, the other person doesn’t become my enemy. I see people longing to be healed and accepted. So I can encounter them in peace. Some people think that loving one’s enemies is a great effort. But for me it is far more of an effort to hate one’s enemy. For then the enemy determines my mood and my attitude. For me, loving my enemy means freedom. I don’t regard the other person as an enemy but as a human being longing for friendship.
Jesus’ saying also has a political dimension. With the command to love one’s enemy he sets out to heal the rift that runs throughout our society and through the nations. Jesus doesn’t leave us in peace with hostile stereotypes. He challenges us to use our imagination and creativity seeking how the different groups in society and peoples at enmity with one another can find a way to get on together. If peoples on both sides keep on adding up the hurts done to them, the result will be a pernicious and endless conflict, as the situation in the Balkans showed. All the accumulated hatred is handed on from generation to generation. No military means can guarantee peace unless the potential of hatred is worked through and replaced by reconciliation. Jesus’ challenge to love one’s enemy seeks to replace the old black- and- white with a summons to new ways of peace and reconciliation.
QUESTIONS
Are you reconciled with yourself? With what inner enemies must you reconcile yourself? What can’t you accept in yourself? Where do you rage against yourself?
Try to see everything that bubbles up inside you and tell yourself, that’s what I am; that’s part of me; things can be as they are; I say yes to them.
What would you like to do in your particular environment to create an atmosphere of reconciliation? Note how you talk, does this divide or reconcile?
Note your thoughts. Are they stamped with reconciliation?
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