Impossible hope

A sermon preached at today's dawn Easter service at Reservoir Park, Paddington.

But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

- Matthew 28.5-6a (NRSV)

Impossible. The execution was thorough. The tomb was sealed. The dead are dead. Cellular degeneration begins when the flow of oxygen ceases. The Galilean preacher was merely the latest victim of imperial oppression. His startling claims vanished as he gave up the ghost.

Cruelly for the disciples, the world did not end on Friday, but Saturday’s sun rose on a world unchanged, indifferent to the execution of another pitiful Jew. Abandoned to the catastrophe of a failed messianic promise, the disciples are scattered sheep. Self-preservation instincts kick in as they flee and hide, bitterly awakening from their three year dream. Pilate’s wife tries to banish her nightmares with a stuff drink. Pilate breathes a sigh of relief, feeling that he somehow dodged a javelin. Joseph of Arimathéa keeps his head down after his rash act of generosity to a condemned man. The centurion can’t shake a lingering unease. Simon of Cyrene digs a few splinters from his shoulder.

The sun shuffles its westerly way and another day departs. Sabbath rest. Sabbath grief. Sabbath shock and disillusionment. Sunday dawns and a new week begins, as it always has. The globe turns and life goes on.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The human frame returns to the humus from which it came. The worm turns. The circle of life. Our atoms are recycled. The extinction of the individual into the cosmic ocean of being. Entropy is all.

"He is not here." Impossible. The world will not stand for resurrection. The finality of death is the one certainty on which we may rely. The grave’s silence reassures us that our failures, faults and fumblings will be washed away by memory’s receding tide, that our self-destructive habits, our myopic obsessions, our petty bickering and fruitless labour are ultimately ephemeral, excusable, indeed already on their way into the oblivion of time.

"He has been raised." Impossible. The wounds humanity bears, the wounds humanity inflicts, can be staunched, but not ultimately healed. All the forests bulldozed, all the rivers poisoned, the wetlands drained, the coral reefs bleached, the oceans plundered, the glaciers melted, the climate heated, all the species lost, lost, lost. These wounds, these open wounds, may one day close – whether or not human hands remain to bind them. But the scars will persist.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible, surely.

But imagine: what if it were true? Yes, it would be an amazing biological miracle. Yes, it would mean that Pilate’s guilty verdict has been overturned by God. It would mean that the disciples who abandoned Jesus in his hour of need could have a second chance, a fresh start. It would mean that Jesus’ amazing claims to represent God in word and deed have been vindicated. It would mean that God has indeed publicly appointed Jesus as Messiah. It would mean that death’s ubiquitous triumph has been breached; its power to silence, to shorten, to sully has been compromised and the trumping threat of all tyrants has been weakened. Yes, it would mean that acts of love, of hope, of tenderness and compassion, are not merely heroic defiant gestures in the face of an uncaring universe, but instead are lisping attempts at speaking the native language of the cosmos.

"He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

Impossible. But if this were true, it would mean something even more exciting. If Jesus is indeed God’s Messiah, the representative not just of God to humanity, but the one in whom the future of all humanity and all of creation is revealed, and if God raised Jesus from the dead, then that is a picture, a promise, a precedent of what God intends to do with the entire creation (1 Corinthians 15.21ff). If Jesus has been raised, God promises to raise our bodies too. If Jesus has been raised, God promises to liberate the entire groaning creation from its bondage to decay, in the words of the apostle Paul (Romans 8.18ff).

But how? The details are not spelled out; the tomb is empty, the angelic message is brief, the recorded meetings with the risen Christ tantalisingly under-narrated. But the implication seems clear. If Jesus has been raised, then no longer is it possible to hope for redemption from the world, for escape, for flight from the impossible conditions of mortal life into an otherworldly bliss. If Jesus has been raised, Christian hope can no longer speak of redemption from the world, only the redemption of the world.

God did not give up on Jesus. He didn't throw his body in the rubbish and start again. And God hasn’t given up on us or on his world, despite all our problems. We don’t need to be afraid. He is not the kind of builder who walks into a house, notices the shaky foundations, the peeling paint, the broken windows, leaking pipes and says, “tear it down, start again!” God is not a demolishing developer. He is into transformative renovation, renovation of our bodies, renovation of his good, very good creation. To renovate something is to make it new. Amongst the last words spoken by God in the scriptures is the wonderful promise: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21.5). If God raised Jesus from the dead, then God has started to keep this promise.

If God raised Jesus bodily from the dead, leaving an empty tomb and a living man who could be touched and embraced, then matter matters to God. Our bodies matter; our ecosystems matter; our art, food, sex, music, laughter all matter. God has said ‘yes’ to our embodied existence, yes to our planetary home, yes to our humanity, yes to every act of love, hope, tenderness and compassion. Yes to forests, fields, frogs and fungi. Yes to our neighbour and yes to each of us.

If we accept the angel’s word, the resurrection of Jesus does not answer all our questions, it only generates more: what does it look like to embrace life in light of following one who has been through death? How can we face our own death when Jesus has walked out the other side – not just the resuscitation of a corpse but the transformation of a life into something genuinely new? How can this message touch a society bent on self-destruction and seemingly willing to take most of life on earth down with us? The resurrection does not answer all our questions, but it says, in the deepest way possible, that such questions are worth asking. It invites us onto a dangerous path, where we are invited to follow Jesus in taking up our cross, putting aside our hopes of riches, of security, of fame, of comfort – not because these desires are too big, but because they are too small. We are instead invited to hope for nothing less than the renewal of all things. To hope: and thus to find ourselves unable to put up with an as yet un-renewed world. This hope doesn’t pacify us, distracting our gaze to some otherworld and so rendering us passive. No, we hope for the resurrection of the dead and the renewal of all things, so how can we sit idly by while our neighbours suffer? We hope for all things to receive the fullness of life that we glimpse in the risen Jesus, so how can we treat non-human life as expendable resources, as raw materials for our short-term projects? How can we remain content with the status quo when the regularity of the one immutable law – the law of death – has been shattered? The resurrection invites us into a grand experiment in resistance: resistance against the tyrants who wield the fear of death; resistance against the logic that says the only things of value are things with a price tag; resistance against the advertising lie that happiness lies in our next purchase; resistance against the comforting apathy of seeing my neighbour’s plight as someone else’s problem. The resurrection of Jesus, if we begin to suspect it might be true, invites us into the humble service of a suffering God and a groaning world.

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said."

What if it were true? No, no: impossible. Surely an impossible dream. Better to roll over and go back to sleep. Better to ignore old wives tales. Better to enjoy some soothing religious rituals on a Sunday from a comfortable intellectual distance. It’s safer that way.

Amen.

Twenty-two reasons to love the earth

Why Christians take the extra-human creation seriously:

1. God declares all things good; he made them and blessed them. Even before the arrival of humanity, God declared his handiwork "good" and blessed it (Genesis 1).

2. God sustains and cares for all life, not just human life. Psalm 104 and Job 38-41 celebrate the created order in its bounty, complexity and divine providence outside of reference to human affairs. In Matthew 10.29 and Luke 12.6 Jesus teaches that not even a single sparrow escapes the caring notice of God. Why should we disparage or dismiss that which God cares for?

3. God's plan (intimated and initiated in the resurrection of Christ) is the renewal of all things through their liberation from bondage to decay. Why would redemption be of anything less than the scope of creation? We hope not for redemption from the world, but the redemption of the world.

4. "The earth is the LORD's and everything in it!" (Psalm 24.1). How we treat the creation is a reflection on what we think of the Creator. My parents built and own the house where I grew up; if I decided to ransack it to make a quick profit, that would reveal something deeply broken about my relationship with them.

5. Human economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. We depend on natural ecosystems for every breath we take, every mouthful of food, every sip of clean water. The "environment" is not simply the background to our everyday activities, the earth is our home. Even if we thought our obligations ended with humans, we would have pressing reasons to care for life beyond humanity. This is basic prudence. (Proverbs 8.12)

6. Our livelihoods are a fraction of our current lifestyle. That is, we can easily thrive on far less than we presently consume, indicating that our culture generally accepts idolatry in the form of consumerism, where our purchases define our identity. We can easily repent of our idolatrous over-consumption without any threat to our livelihoods (though there may be some industries that need to shrink significantly or die altogether). Natural ecosystems are not a necessary victim of our flourishing; there is no ultimate competition between our well-being and that of the rest of the planet's living systems.

7. Human beings are not souls trapped in bodies, but embodied lives. Our future is resurrection like Christ's and any spirituality that ends up hating the body (and the natural world upon which it relies) is an expression of what Nietzsche correctly diagnoses as ressentiment. True spirituality is earthy. (Matthew 6.10)

8. We are members of the community of creation, not demi-gods without obligations towards our fellow creatures. Anthropocentric domination is a misreading of godly human authority as caring service. (Genesis 1-2)

9. We need the extra-human creation in order to fulfil our role (and they need us) in joining together in praise of the Creator (e.g. Pss 96; 148).

10. God has filled the world with beauty and only the hardhearted and blind ignore it.

11. God's saving purposes are not limited to humans. If God has not limited his gospel to one particular race, age, gender, culture or class, why would he limit it to one species? Jesus' death was for all creation (Colossians 1.15-20). In the archetypal salvation narrative of Genesis 6-9, Noah and his family are saved along with representatives of the rest of the community of creation.

12. Wisdom requires paying attention to the world beyond the human. Jesus enjoins us to consider the sparrows and lilies (Matthew 6.26, 28). Wise king Solomon spoke of trees (1 Kings 4.29-34) and Proverbs 12.10 points out that "The godly care for their animals, but the wicked are always cruel". Remember that the world's first animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA, was founded by William Wilberforce, the same man who helped lead the campaign to abolish modern slavery.

13. The journey of becoming a neighbour involves the ongoing expansion of our horizon of love. When we are gripped by God's love, we are freed from the echo-chamber of our own concerns into caring for our neighbour. But just who is our neighbour? The answer to that question can never be delimited in advance but must be discovered as we come across those in need. Are other creatures also (in some sense) our neighbours? In the end, I believe so. For instance, Deuteronomy 24-25 places concern for the needs of oxen amongst concern for poor labourers, the widowed, orphans and aliens. Compassion is not circumscribed by the human.

14. Our neglect is having dire consequences, but the freedom to repent is the first and most foundational freedom.

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

15. The earth is our mother. Remember, anthropomorphism is distinct from deification and this particular one is ancient and scriptural (Genesis 1.24; Romans 8.22).

16. God has promised to "destroy the destroyers of the earth" (Revelation 11.18). Divine justice is not limited to our mistreatment of him and one another. God's transformative evaluation (otherwise known as his judgement) embraces all the deeds done in the body (2 Corinthians 5.10), not just those that directly relate to human interactions.

17. Failure to attend to the needs of the more than human creation causes real and serious harms to our human neighbours. Ecological injustice is a major cause of human suffering. (Romans 13.10)

18. Throughout the holy scriptures are examples of idolatry (the worship of creatures rather than the Creator) leading to negative ecological consequences. (e.g. Leviticus 18)

19. Mistreating other animals is a failure of compassion. Wisdom embraces more than human needs. (Proverbs 12.10)

20. Greed, hubris and fear are major motives behind the systems, cultures, actions and inactions that are degrading the Earth. (Luke 12.15)

21. There are demonic powers that destroy life, oppress people and seek to deceive us all that are operative in the desecration of God's good world. (Ephesians 6.12)

22. And finally, because God calls humanity into the care of this place. Stewardship is a much-abused concept, but within a broader theological vision of creation and humanity, it has its place. (Genesis 1-2; Ps 8)

Which of these do you find most compelling? Least plausible? What have I missed?

Surrendering to God?

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

- Galatians 5.1.

Over the last couple of years, I have increasingly been struck by the frequency with which certain kinds of Christian discourse (not least many contemporary worship songs) refer to the idea of our "surrendering" to God. The more I have noticed this, the more it has started to ring false in my ears.

To surrender is to cease resistance and to submit to a hostile power generally after losing all prospect of victory. It is done in order to survive, or to bring to an end a hopeless conflict and so to salvage what remains (especially one's life) from further destruction. But the victory of God is not over us, in order that we might become slaves, giving up our freedom in exchange for survival. If we are going to use metaphors of warfare, conflict and victory, then it is important to note that the New Testament speaks in this way of God's triumph over the powers of evil, sin and death in Christ. God does not beat us into submission, he defeats the powers that hold us captive, liberating us to experience an increase in our agency. We are set free to love. This what Paul means when he speaks of being set free from slavery to sin and becoming a "slave" to righteousness (Romans 6.18). "Slavery" to righteousness is not a straightforward parallel to slavery to sin (as Paul acknowledges in the very next verse: Romans 6.19). The switch of masters is from a dominating tyrant to a loving Father who wants us to grow up into maturity.

What is the problem with getting this metaphor confused? Why is it an issue to speak of our surrendering to God? First, because it implies that becoming a Christian is a process of moving from greater to lesser freedom. Prior to surrendering, I was free, but I gave that up in order to prevent a greater power from destroying me utterly. This is to get things upside down. Being rescued from the power of darkness and being brought into the kingdom of the Son is to be brought out into a wide space, not placed into a cell. It is to regain the power of action, that is, the possibility of acting in faith, hope and love as an expression of true humanity, to be freed from the constrictions of selfishness and fear, guilt and impotence. In other words, ethics is good news.

Second, to think of Christian discipleship as unthinking submission ("surrender") to an externally imposed (or even willingly received) divine will is to misconstrue the nature of Christian maturity. We are to be adults in our thinking. Following Christ doesn't mean losing the messy complexity of the world for black and white simplicity, it doesn't mean that every choice becomes obvious and straightforward, that every situation becomes morally perspicuous. This is one of the dangerous attractions in the language of "surrender": that all my quandaries will be resolved through someone telling me what to do again. I can once more be a child whose decisions are made for me. I can regress to irresponsibility.

Third, if our lives are surrendering to God, then what place is there for wisdom? God does not simply give us a list of do's and don't's that we either accept (surrender to) or reject. He guides us in a true and living way, a path of peace, in which we are to walk. This wisdom requires that we pay close attention to the world around us, to ourselves and to the opportunities available at this time.

Do not get me wrong. Following Christ requires the denial of self (Mark 8.34), indeed, dying to oneself, an end to the rebellious self that seeks to live without God. Perhaps in this sense we can speak of a surrender, an end to the impossible quest for self-sufficiency. But this "death" is the prelude, perhaps even the necessary condition, to a "resurrection" in which our whole being is renewed and transformed. This process includes our minds, which are not switched off or put onto autopilot.

Obedience to the will of God is not a matter of a struggle between a human and a divine will and the former being conquered by the latter through sheer force. Instead, obedience in the scriptures is sharing the same mind (Philippians 2.5), being wooed by love to seek a unity of purpose. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14.15). This isn't a threat or emotional manipulation. It is a description of the nature of love, particularly when one realises that in the context of the farewell discourse where Jesus makes this statement, his commandment is to love one another (John 13.34-35). Love obeys, that is, continues to participate in love, because that is the nature of true love.

In sum, Jesus isn't recruiting impressionable minds who simply swallow and regurgitate his teaching. He wants friends who understand him, who know what he was doing and seek to participate thoughtfully and creatively in that mission.

"I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

- John 15.15.

Why I am not a conservationist

The 'redemption' of people and material life in general is not a matter of resigning from the business of labour and of transformation – as if we could – but the search for a form of action that will preserve and nourish an interconnected development of humanity and its environment. In some contexts, this will be the deliberate protection of the environment from harm: in a world where exploitative and aggressive behaviour is commonplace, one of the 'providential' tasks of human beings must be to limit damage and to secure space for the natural order to exist unharmed. In others, the question is rather how to use the natural order for the sake of human nourishment and security without pillaging its resources and so damaging its inner mechanisms for self-healing or self-correction. In both, the fundamental requirement is to discern enough of what the processes of nature truly are to be able to engage intelligently with them.

- Rowan Williams, "Renewing the Face of the Earth:
Human Responsibility and the Environment"

This quote is an important corrective to romantic notions of conservationism that imply that humanity per se is the problem and that we ought to absent ourselves as much as possible from "the environment" because we only cause harm. Such an approach is disastrous for two reasons. First, it closes the possibility of positive action through which careful human attention and understanding enables us to participate in and focus the flourishing of the created order. Second, it ends up justifying the exploitation of the created order outside of certain "protected areas", or if not, then it implies that human self-destruction is necessary for the good of the planet.
Image by Brennan Jacoby.