Lessons from History

Parliamentary government was breaking down at a moment when the economic crisis made strong government imperative… Hitler realised that his own opportunity had come sooner than he expected. The hard-pressed people were demanding a way out of their sorry predicament… To all the millions of discontented, Hitler, in a whirlwind campaign, offered what seemed to them in their misery some measure of hope. He would make Germany strong again…

~ William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

There are many places around the world that seem to echo the Germany of the early 1930s. A perceived lack – be it of food, of uncorrupted leadership, of employment, of morals, of religious observance, of effective criminal law – creates a vacuum. A vacuum creates tension. Tension leads to conflict. I pray we can work together for good, in humility, for Christ’s sake.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another. “

John 13:35 (NRSVA)

The Most Sacred Place

A marble slab covering the rock-carved tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City has been lifted as part of a delicate $4m restoration of the most sacred monument in Christianity…

From Jesus’s Tomb in Jerusalem Exposed by Conservationists

Reading about this made me pause and reflect on the difference between the concept of ‘religion’, with its sacred places and concrete expressions of the inexpressible, the ‘religion’ in which God, or gods, are always at arm’s length, forever requiring my obeisance and devotion-at-a-distance. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to visit Jerusalem and the church where Jesus was said to be laid to rest (albeit briefly)!

Unlike the world’s idea of ‘religion’, however, it would not be because I believed something special could occur because I was there. There is no special place in the whole of creation where God is more accessible than anywhere else. The most sacred monument in Christianity is never going to be carved in stone. It’s just not possible.

All of us who are part of the Body of Christ are the most sacred monument to His presence. God’s presence, His favour, His nearness, are never found outside of ourselves. When we choose to follow Jesus, when we choose to give ourselves back to our Creator, we are His presence. If you want to be close to Him, if you want to find a place where He can reach you, or you can reach Him, you don’t have to go anywhere; you just have to love. You just have to be kind. You just have to be.

Immerse yourself deeply among people, by sharing their life, by friendship and by love. Give yourself to them completely, like Jesus, who came to serve and not to be served; you, too, become one with them. Then you will be like leaven, which must lose itself in the dough to make it rise.

~ Little Sister Magdalene (as quoted by Contemplative in the Mud)

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest… learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…”

~extract from Matthew 11:28,29 (NRSVA)

On Judging

If the mind that needs to make moral judgements about everything is the master instead of the servant, religion is almost always corrupted. Some would think that is the whole meaning of Christianity: to be able to decide who’s going to heaven and who isn’t. This is much more a search for control than it is a search for truth, love or God. It has to do with ego, which needs to pigeonhole everything to give itself that sense of ‘I know’ and ‘I am in control of the data’…  I guess God knew that such would be the direction that religion would take, so God said, “Don’t do it! Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” 

~ Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

 “Don’t judge other people and you will not be judged yourselves. Don’t condemn and you will not be condemned. Make allowances for others and people will make allowances for you. Give and men will give to you—yes, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will they pour into your lap. For whatever measure you use with other people, they will use in their dealings with you.”

~ Luke 6:37-38, JB Phillips

Have done, then, with impurity and every other evil which touches the lives of others, and humbly accept the message that God has sown in your hearts, and which can save your souls. Don’t I beg you, only hear the message, but put it into practice; otherwise you are merely deluding yourselves… Religion that is pure and genuine in the sight of God the Father will show itself by such things as visiting orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.

~ James 1:21,22,27

I wonder if ‘keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world’ means what we think it means?