August 9, 2009

Mary Caygill

Pentecost 10     Micah 6:6-8     Ephesians 4:25-5:2     John 6:35, 41-51

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Over the last 10 days or so along with the thinking, reading and preparation for theology courses I am teaching in this 2nd Semester through the School of Theology at Auckland University I have been reading, thinking and beginning to write portions of an application to begin the first part of a Diploma in Spiritual Direction at San Francisco Theological Seminary in January 2010 whilst on a period of study leave.

The application has required me to somewhat introspectively consider what is important in my inner world, the systems and structures which hold meaning for me and in particular reflect on pivotal faith understandings that have been part and parcel of my spiritual formation.

So it is along with these dual layers of thinking, reading, contemplating that I have come also to the Lectionary Readings for today, which drawn from the lectionary used in Methodist churches may well be slightly different from that used regularly in worship here.

In a somewhat serendipitous manner the now three layers of thought have managed to coalesce drawing me to think and speak today of the centrality of grace – the pull as a person growing in grace, as a member of the body of Christ seeking to dwell communally in grace, and give flesh as a citizen of the world – of the world growing in its capacity to dwell in grace. It is this theme of dwelling in grace and so becoming imitators of God that I want to particularly reflect on today.

The writings of CS Lewis – in particular his Narnia Chronicles have made another comeback into public consciousness through the filming of the first two portions of the grand Narnia narrative. The very conversion of CS Lewis to Christianity is a most superb example of an encounter with grace at the deepest level. Lewis, a deeply complex man had succeeded over many years in resisting the invitation to embrace the God who had already embraced him. It was only to be in his later years that Lewis allowed himself reluctantly to embrace this knowable yet unknowable God.

Hear him speak in his own words as he writes of this moment in his book Surprised by Joy.

The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears to be a wholly free choice. In a sense. I was going up Headington Hill on the top of a bus. Without words and (I think) without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like a corset, or even a suit of armour, as if I were a lobster. I felt myself being, there and then; given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat, no promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or take off the corset meant the incalculable. The choice appeared to be momentous, but it was also strangely unemotional. I was moved by no desire or fears. In a sense, I was not moved by anything. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the reign.

Such was the moment of Lewis’s conversion.

A turning towards a fuller sense and source of life.

A turning to embrace grace – as gift of God.

With Christ at the centre the compelling ethical power becomes that of grace and grace alone.

Grace is more than a word, more than an idea. Grace is a way of life.

Grace is about God and God’s movement towards us and our movement toward our neighbour. About who we are and who we can become.

My firm conviction is that we can only speak meaningfully of God if God emerges from within the experiences of humans and their way of life with others and the world.

Grace can be grace for us today only if it emerges from within the world in which we ourselves are immersed. Grace appears within our concrete world, liberating us from a decadent human situation – where so easily we can become self absorbed – and for a world more reflective of the divine possibilities.

We must never separate reflection on grace from reflection on the world. Grace is always given in mediations, negotiations, relations and social structures.

To speak of grace in this way is to acknowledge that grace has a sacramental structure, i.e. referring to all the mediations through which we arrive at God.

Leonardo Boff, Brazilian Franciscan Brother – silenced for a time by the Vatican – speaks of grace as a; mode of being that things take on when they come into contact with the love of God and are suffused with God’s mystery. In that sense the whole world is related to grace.

If grace be the gift of God, then we are surrounded by signs of what can only be called signs of dis-grace.

Dis-grace is present in all the mechanisms of social oppression that humans have devised – this week – further taking by force by Jewish settlers more Palestinian settlements on the West Bank, further loss of civilian life in Afghanistan, the silencing of dissident voices in Iran…and many such other signs of dis-grace in God’s world.

Dis-grace is present in social systems that perpetuate social inequality – how gracious will be the pulling of special funds for children with special needs whose bodies and equally bear the gracious incarnational presence of the divine, for young people uncertain of what future awaits them, how gracious are budget cuts for those already severely disadvantaged socioeconomically.

Dis-grace is present in human egotism and competitive grasping individualism gone wild.

Grace is revealed in its power to criticise and unmask these sign of human sin – these signs of dis-grace-ful ways.

The power is grace is revealed when and where ever we refuse to believe in our enacted living that dis-grace is not the last word. When as a counteraction we passionately embody the imaginative reaching towards the possibility of God’s realm becoming embodied, present in God’s human world.

These embodied yearnings are yearnings prompted by the grace of God, motivating us, drawing us towards the tasks of becoming change-agents deeply reflective of our growing capacity to be imitators of God.

Grace is not only the action of God in our personal lives. It is also the action of God within our world drawing us towards a grace-filled society as incarnational imitators of God.

How well we know that life so often presents itself as a conflict between the possibilities of grace and the lived realities of dis-grace. The hope we must draw upon in the most despondent and despairing moments that can so easily distract and paralyse us must be that founded upon the belief – that despite the power of all that would mar this world – this world God pronounced good – there is always a surplus of grace.

We are the carriers of that surplus - called to be imitators of God. Gordon Rupp, Wesleyan theologian speaks of this surplus in terms of an optimism of grace. An optimism of grace is not the shallow belief that we will make things better because we are heroic or clever. Rather an optimism of grace is that of a deep seated confidence that God’s grace is at work in life and there is always a surplus of grace.

Always a surplus of grace. We search for more just structures in society. We must. Such is our calling. It is the way of the realm of God – the fulfilling of God’s dream for God’s world.

But we must remember and take to heart that the justice we seek is always to be a graced justice. Graced justice as I understand it is a justice which is alive with forgiveness and mercy, generosity and hospitality. It is a justice always open to new possibilities. Graced possibilities which witness to life and life in all its fullness.

Gustavo Gutierrez, Roman Catholic Priest and theologian from Peru – writing in one of his many books, We Drink from our own wells. The Spiritual Journey of a people (one of the texts I am using this semester) says quite bluntly; we are to situate justice always within the framework of God’s gratuitous love. In his writings Gutierrez expresses his fear of the development of a new Christian legalism which though impeccable in its desire easily can become graceless.

In all that I am saying and offering as my reflections there are implications for the manner in which we contribute graced justice to the ongoing work of transforming New Zealand society where the fullness and flourishing of life is available to all. There are implications for the way in which we seek to relate across the diversity of cultures that make up Auckland, New Zealand. There are implications for the way in which we pursue the partnership and communion of men and women in the church, beyond gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation – in our journey of becoming imitators of God, gathering together in gracious communion around a common table.

I draw to a close with the words of Roman Catholic theologian Dennis Edwards:

We live in a world of grace, a world in which God is present; in self offering to human beings at every point….grace is the heart beat of the universe. It is God bent over us in love…

On the way then towards the actual creation of a more just world, let us then as those growing in the capacity to be imitators of God graciously bend over God’s world in love.

For we do so in the manner of imitating the God of Covenant who speaks with us of what is required… And what does the Lord require of me… To do justice, love mercy, and walk graciously with one’s God. (Micah 6:6-8)