Sex and singing: creation and creating co-worshippers

Praise YHWH!

Praise YHWH from the heavens;
   praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
   praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon;
   praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
   and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of YHWH,
   for he commanded and they were created.
He established them for ever and ever;
   he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

Praise YHWH from the earth,
   you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
   stormy wind fulfilling his command!

Mountains and all hills,
   fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,
   creeping things and flying birds!

Kings of the earth and all peoples,
   princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
   old and young together!

Let them praise the name of YHWH,
   for his name alone is exalted;
   his glory is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people,
   praise for all his faithful,
   for the people of Israel who are close to him.

Praise YHWH!

- Psalm 148 (NRSV).

We are not alone in the universe. We humans are but one member of the choir that the psalmist exhorts into praise of the Creator. And this isn't just animals; even inanimate creatures are included: astronomical bodies, topographical features and meteorological events.

The theme of creation praising God is part of the theological basis for an ecological ethics. The fact that trees and hills and sun and moon all praise God places us in a relationship to them mediated by our common worship. They are our co-worshippers and so how can we see ourselves in competition or see them as objects to be exploited? We are dependent upon them for our task of praise and so we join with them as one, rather than just standing over against them in privilege and distinction. Of course a parallel socio-economic point can be made from the fact that both kings and babies, princes and paupers are to join together in praise. No one can consider another worshipper irrelevant or expendable.

God's faithfulness will not abandon his worshipping creatures, though it is important to remember that his faithfulness to his Son didn't stop him dying, but took the shape of cross and resurrection. Creation's own liberation from bondage to decay (and the redemption of our bodies) doesn't necessarily mean that we (or the world) are safe from death, only that even destruction and decay cannot thwart God's purposes.

This goodness of creation as the sphere of God's worship is indeed part of the reason why childbearing is good. We rejoice in the abundance and diversity of life and the goodness of being and are free to share that delight with others, including little strangers whom we welcome into the world as our co-worshippers. However, this is also the basis for considering moderation in our procreation (as well as our consumption, discussed elsewhere), since God is not dependent upon us to make more worshippers. If God's original blessing on us to be fruitful and multiply undermines his blessing on other living beings to also be fruitful and multiply, then we have to wonder whether our delight in divine blessing has become too narrow in vision and focus. These complementary perspectives don't determine an obligation one way or the other (we are neither obliged to have children nor to refrain), but are free to act in wisdom and joy under the blessing of God.

Jeremy Kidwell on the purpose of fear

[W]e may also grant [our fears] overriding control over our moral lives. Thus, if I fear the financial crisis, i.e. my own financial ruin, at the root of this fear is my own love of money and the economy which secures my wealth. Similarly, fears of environmental destruction may reflect an underlying worship of the patterns I am familiar with, such as a ready supply of tropical fruits or an abundance of consumer products without any indication of their source or true cost. In short, my fear may reflect an underlying reluctance to see change, whatever the source.

A Christian response to such fear, I think, is the act of repentance. In this, we identify the underlying idolatries (or distorted loves) that generate our fears and express regret for the destructiveness these misguided attachments have caused. Next, we detach our loyalties from them, and place our trust instead in the only thing which can correspond to our highest aspirations: the personal God who created us. This redirection offers an entirely new orientation by which we can respond to bad news and conceive of our life within changed circumstances.

- Jeremy Kidwell, "The purpose of fear".

This post by my friend and New College colleague Jeremy makes some very good points about the ways that our fears can reveal our distorted loves. By reflecting on what it is that we fear losing, what we love comes into focus.

Yet not all the loves that are thereby revealed are necessarily distorted. Sometimes, we may discover a new love through becoming aware of a threat. For instance, it is only fairly recently that I have learned how much I love phytoplankton. While some of our fears may uncover the shallowness of our loves, some of the things under threat are not so obviously trivial: the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, the existence of myriad species and scores of ecosystems, the social fabric of trust and co-operation, a functioning healthcare system (and more importantly a functioning sewerage and garbage system), the rule of law, and so on. Of course these too can be loved inordinately, but simply to ignore the fact that these more significant goods are also threatened is (or may be) to once again allow fear to set the parameters of my moral vision, since I may be refusing to see the full extent of the threat lest it disrupt not just my convenient idolatries, but things of real (though still secondary) worth.

Scarcity is not the problem

"The conflict between the narratives of abundance and of scarcity is the defining problem confronting us at the turn of the millennium. The gospel story of abundance asserts that we originated in the magnificent, inexplicable love of a God who loved the world into generous being. The baptismal service declares that each of us has been miraculously loved into existence by God. And the story of abundance says that our lives will end in God, and that this well-being cannot be taken from us. In the words of St. Paul, neither life nor death nor angels nor principalities nor things -- nothing can separate us from God.

"What we know about our beginnings and our endings, then, creates a different kind of present tense for us. We can live according to an ethic whereby we are not driven, controlled, anxious, frantic or greedy, precisely because we are sufficiently at home and at peace to care about others as we have been cared for."

- Walter Brueggemann, "The Liturgy of Abundance and the Myth of Scarcity"

My ethics lecturer at Moore College, Andrew Cameron, would often say "scarcity is not the problem". At first, I thought he was crazy. Of course scarcity is a problem. There are people starving for lack of food or ill from lack of clean water, others who sell themselves into slavery for lack of money, or who go without medical care and suffer apparently unnecessary pain, farmers whose crops fail due to drought and changing weather patterns. All these people cry "we do not have enough!"

But that is not what he was saying. He was saying (I think) that scarcity is not the problem. Scarcity only becomes a problem due to other, deeper problems: our unwillingness to share, our ignorance (willful or otherwise) of the needs of our neighbours, our confusion of wants and needs, our fear that unless we hoard all we can then we might miss out, our delusion that endless economic growth is necessary for a healthy society or that boundless consumption will make us happy. These are the real problems. Scarcity is the symptom of a world out of joint. And lives based on the assumption of scarcity compound other problems. If I fear that there will not be enough to go around, I will be more reluctant to share.

The quote with which I began is from this article by well known Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. It is worth reading in full (it is not too long) as a great articulation of the fundamental Christian belief in God's generosity. God is not stingy. He has not shortchanged us. He provides abundantly (though not infinitely as our childish dreams desires). There is enough. There will be enough. Be not afraid.

Give us this day our daily bread. Amen.

What is "normal" life?

"To us things are normal when they are going well. Health, affluence, peace - these are normal, so convinced are we of our own righteousness, of what is our due. But Scripture teaches the very opposite. Unfortunately what is normal now that man is separated from God is war and murder, famine and pollution, accident and disruption. When there is a momentary break in the course of these disasters, when abundance is known, when peace timidly establishes itself, when justice reigns for a span, then it is fitting, unless we are men of too little faith, that we should marvel and give thanks for so great a miracle, realizing that no less than the love and faithfulness of the Lord has been needed in order that there might be this privileged instant. We should tremble for joy as before the new and fragile life of a little child."

- Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man
(trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1972 [1966]), 178-79.

What is more normal: health or sickness; peace or violence; prosperity or adversity? Ellul is right to highlight the way we can complacently assume the world owes us a living. Every moment of sunshine is a gift to be thankfully received, not a birthright to be demanded. We are not the makers of our own reality; our survival and flourishing are contingent upon so many factors beyond our control, often even beyond our influence. And where we do exert our influence, it is so often ambivalent. Even our best intentioned acts often cause unforeseen harm. Seeking to tread lightly on our path, we trail destruction and confusion behind us. Any good we manage to briefly enjoy is always threatened by dissolution or contamination. It is normal to experience frustration and guilt, disappointment and pain. We live broken lives in a world out of joint.

But there is a deeper reality than even sin and human brokenness. God is not a god of chaos, but of peace. In Christ a new world has dawned. The Spirit therefore teaches us to be discontent with our discontented lives, to treat as normal not the passing age of pain, but the coming kingdom of healing. In light of this future, the ubiquity of evil has been unmasked as a grotesque aberration. To be normal now is to live amidst the dying as those who live again. To be normal is to reject the presumption of my own innocence and yet to be freed from guilt by the vindicated one. To be normal is to love the loveless and accept grace with thanksgiving. To be normal in these days is to be extraordinary.

Running from the past: Breakfast with Jesus V

An Easter sermon from John 21: part V
2. A stranger on the shore
Except this morning, in our passage, Simon can’t even catch any fish. So it’s no surprise that when a stranger on the shore gives them such astoundingly good advice, Simon is once more the first to respond. Leaving the others to do the hard work of bringing in the bumper catch, he leaps into the water and races to the shore. Just like he had been first to race to the tomb when he heard it was empty. He is a man with unfinished business. This figure has shown them where to find abundance and sustenance, and so Simon knows it must be Jesus - the very one he had failed. He is not running from this chance to address the past, though he doesn’t know what to say. Having rushed to be first with Jesus, Simon then hangs back to help out when the rest of them arrive in the boat with nets bulging with fish.

But notice that Jesus doesn’t need their fish. He is already cooking fish and bread when they bring in their catch, “yet he invites them to bring what they have to share with him, as he gives what he has to share with them.” (Rowan Williams, Resurrection, 28). A beautiful and rich image of Jesus’ generosity and humility; he doesn’t need our gifts, but he invites and accepts and uses them nonetheless. And there are many other fascinating details in this story, like how Jesus is both known and yet a stranger, both the same one they have known and loved and followed, and yet somehow more than that too.
Series: I; II: III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX.

The future is expensive

Following the success of their Climate Clever-er campaign last year, GetUp are hoping to soon run this ad on prime time TV (to make it happen, donate here).*

Both ads use humour to make their point; in both cases the government's proposed solutions are ludicrously inadequate when compared with the magnitude of the issue. High petrol prices are here to stay. There's no point cutting excise, whether by 5c or 10c, nor will knowing tomorrow's high price make it more affordable. We need to change our assumptions and behaviour, to discover that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.
*Notice that GetUp are criticising Kevin and the ALP (not for the first time!). This is no Labor front.

Loving meat: why I am a vegetarian (almost)

"Better a meal of vegetables where there is love
    than a fattened calf with hatred."         - Proverbs 15.17

A vegetarian friend used to quote this proverb in support of her practice. I would then gleefully point out that the proverb assumes the superiority of meat to vegetables in order to make its point, namely, that the superiority of love over hatred is even greater. Nonetheless, over the last year or so, and particularly in the last few months, this proverb lies at the heart of why I have become an (almost) vegetarian (technically, a semi-vegetarian or flexitarian).

Our planet produces an abundance of food, enough to feed over ten billion people, according to some estimates. Yet we are in the middle of a food crisis, with wheat prices more than doubling in the last twelve months and other grain prices not far behind, leading to riots and political unrest amongst many poorer nations. If we are growing so much (and last year broke all records for maximum production), where does the food go? Increasingly, much of it is turned into biofuels so that first-world drivers (and governments) can feel less guilty about our energy-intense lifestyles. The corn used to generate one large petrol tank of ethanol-based fuel would feed a person for a year. Nonetheless, biofuels, although growing rapidly, still take only about 5% of the world's grain production.

So why are we short of food? One major reason is because we eat so much meat. To produce one kilogram of beef, it takes around eight kilograms of grain.* Chickens have a better ratio, but whatever your fancy, it still takes more energy to produce meat than other kinds of food. This article summarises a number of the key statistics and links them to current food prices (H/T Nicole), as does this one and this one and this one. The bottom line is that the western meat-based diet (and its increasing emulation by China and India) is helping push those on the edge of poverty into malnutrition. There is indeed plenty to go around, but our opulent lifestyle consumes so much that others cannot afford even the basics.
*This is also an issue of water management. To produce a kilo of wheat takes between 1-2,000 litres of water; a kilo of beef takes between 10,000-13,000 litres.

So can we, out of love for our neighbour, reduce our consumption of meat? I think it both possible and desirable, and now try to avoid buying or consuming it wherever possible. This is not to say that eating meat per se is wrong (though certainly there is much mistreatment of animals in our current system - another genuine moral issue, though a discussion for another time). On the contrary, I give thanks for meat as a good gift of God, but I am trying to regard it as an occasional luxury rather than a staple. There used to be a slogan "Live simply so that others can simply live"; I think we can also say "Eat simply so that others can simply eat". Better a meal of vegetables for everyone than a fattened calf for some while others go hungry.

PS This article puts some of the concerns well.

PPS I note there is also a Wikipedia article summarising some of the concerns.

Jesus and climate change VIII

But what’s the problem?
Now, I’ve been speaking of how good God’s world is, but that’s only part of the picture. Things have also gone dreadfully, tragically wrong, as we can see with climate change, if we hadn’t already noticed it elsewhere. Instead of humanity caring for God’s world, receiving his gifts with thanks and sharing them with others, all too often our experience is of a me-first world, both in our attitudes and in how we have set up our societies. Many of us presume that we deserve our standard of living, or vote for politicians who will maintain and increase our affluence before all other considerations. We are often greedy and envious, wanting to hoard and consume more things than our neighbour. Or we might be apathetic about the suffering of others. Or just unthinkingly wasteful. And so often we are simply thankless.

Jesus said that our life is more than the abundance of possessions (Luke 12.15), that loving God and our neighbour are more important than financial security or chasing our dreams or the perfect romance or the pursuit of happiness (Mark 12.28-33). Yet our society often assumes that bigger is better, that everything must be sacrificed to economic growth, that the creation is merely a pile of ‘natural resources’ to be exploited for increasing our material comfort and affluence.

In fact the climate crisis that we face today is a classic symptom of what the Bible calls ‘sin’. Sin is a bigger problem than simply the actions of any one individual. It is an addiction, a deadly habit, found in each of us and woven into our social fabric. Climate change is a classic symptom because like many of the world’s problems, it is not simple. There is no single cause and no magic bullet solution. Instead, we’re faced with a complex series of related problems arising out of many causes, such as the small actions and inaction of millions, habits based on ignorance, pig-headed short-sightedness, greed or fear that refuses to see size of the problem, the desire to maximise our short-term gain without regard for the future. Or simply false beliefs: that the planet’s resources and ability to adapt is effectively infinite, that human actions don’t add to much, that the problem and its solution lie elsewhere. All these contribute to a mega-problem.

Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, has said ‘Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.’ Abuse of the natural environment is a consequence and symptom of human sinfulness. It is a symptom of disobedience to God’s command to care for his world. This is both a personal and a collective failure. It is something to which we all contribute and yet something from which we all suffer, into which we were born and raised without being consulted. We are all both perpetrators and victims. And we are not the only victims. Creation itself is groaning in intense pain like a woman giving birth because of its bondage to decay (Romans 8.19-22).
Photo by ALS.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.

Jesus and climate change V

Seeing "creation"
To speak of "creation" rather than "nature" or "the environment" is an exercise in creative fidelity of vision. It is a way of seeing that is similtaneously creatively different to the deadly vision of how we 'normally' look at things (a pile of resources to be exploited, an economic unit of production and consumption) and yet is also faithful to those things as they are, involving painstaking attention with self-critical awareness that results in admiration.

The opening page of the Bible says not only that ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, but also that what he made was ‘good, very good.’

Here’s a little exercise. Think of things you love: a close friend, your favourite family member, your loyal pet fish, your home and comfortable bed. And think of activities you enjoy: eating a fabulous pasta, reading an humorous poem, hitting that perfect six playing cricket, growing basil on your balcony, learning how to speak Swahili - whatever it is that floats your boat. Everyone and everything you love, everything in which you find joy, is a gift from God. Every breath, every mouthful, every morning you wake up, is God’s gift to you. To think like this doesn’t come automatically. To receive each day as a gift of God’s love takes a certain kind of creative vision. The great diversity and abundance of good gifts, or the problems we face as we try to balance them, can distract us from noticing and remembering the giver. God invites us to live lives filled with thankfulness and dependence, to stop pretending that we are self-made, self-reliant. He invites us to stop being self-obsessed.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; IX(b); X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV.

Williams on Teresa on the perfect lover

Perfect love is simply the imitation of the love of Christ; but, although Teresa can say this, and suggest that perfect love is concerned about giving, not receiving, it would be wrong to read her as claiming that the perfect lover is a self-sufficient, quasi-divine subject, loving out of the abundance of an inner fullness. Teresa's perfect lover is someone aware, first and foremost, of being causelessly loved by God: like it or not, the lover is primarily and inescapably a receiver of love. [...] We are free to give love, not because we need no love, but because (as in Christ's relation to God the Father) we are already recipients of an eternal love, and any need we have is met in advance. [...] It is pious nonsense to say that, if we know the love of God for us, we no longer need human relations of the creative kind Teresa is trying to describe; on the contrary, to pass beyond the hungry and selfish needs of 'normal' love we need to be in love with God's friends, who will give us not what we think we want, a greedy love that mirrors our own, but what we most deeply need in order to be human as God would have us be.

- Rowan Williams, Teresa of Avila (Continuum: 1991), 108.

To give is indeed more blessed than to receive (Acts 20.35), but it is still blessed to receive. And Teresa points out that as creatures reception is the more fundamental reality for us. We need to receive God's gift before we can give. In fact, we need to receive love from one another too. It is not possible to imitate Christ alone.

Housing affordability: Gittins, good government and greed

Sydney Morning Herald economics editor Ross Gittins has yet another stimulating article in today's SMH on the hot topic of housing affordability. He argues that none of the 'solutions' currently being kicked around by the MPs will improve the situation. Increasing the first-home owners' grant, cutting stamp duty, a subsidised saving scheme or anything else that gives buyers more power will only make things worse, pushing prices up:

That is because genuine solutions to affordability are counter-intuitive - contrary to common sense - and pollies often settle for "solutions" that don't work but sound like they should. Because the fundamental cause of hard-to-afford prices is demand exceeding supply, the only genuine solutions involve either increasing supply or reducing demand.

Instead of giving more buying power to all buyers (thus raising prices), Gittins argues, we can cut demand by removing the tax-breaks associated with property ownership. I'll let you read the details of his proposed alternative (and why he says it will never be implemented), but I found the article interesting for three reasons.

First, this piece once again highlights the way that the media often shortcircuits effective government. The very media scrutiny required to keep governments honest also encourages short term, populist solutions, those that are easily packaged and 'sold' to the electorate. Partially this is due to our own lack of patience. We want to see results now, and we threaten political failure to those who don't deliver on time. But I think it is also due to a common misconception of the nature of representative democracy. It is a widespread assumption that MPs are there to reflect our preferences and opinions, that they ought to be swayed by public opinion. But do we want those who govern us to be held ransom to our collective prejudices? No, they ought to lead, to be swayed only by persuasive arguments, not a daily media-driven popularity contest. We elect representatives to make decisions for us, on our behalf. We give them the time, resources and authority to make and implement judgements on our behalf and for the common good. They are not simply agents to enforce the will of the majority.*

Second, I really hope that this issue (housing affordability) doesn't come to dominate the upcoming election campaign. Not only are there more pressing and more important issues that may get marginalised by it, but collectively focusing on this issue encourages us in our self-obsession. I don't need more help in thinking about myself.

And third, there is a better solution, both simpler and far more difficult than the one Gittins suggests: "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." (Luke 12.15)
*Of course, there is more to be said on this topic. Andrew Errington has started a series on Jesus and government, in which he will (of course) be drawing heavily on the work of O'Donovan.
Fifteen points for guessing the English town in the picture.