Friday, May 29, 2009

Welcome Aboard

Easter 7 Year B 052409
John 17:6-19
Welcome Aboard
By Rich Gamble

John’s Jesus is a guy with a lot to say. Here he says it in an extended prayer. In the prayer you may have noted that the word “world” comes up many times, thirteen times in the section of the prayer we read today.

John uses the word, not as a synonym for planet, although sometimes people think in such terms. It is often interpreted to mean that we Christians are not really meant for this world we are meant for something else, something not of this world, which for most traditional Christians this means heaven. You can understand why some people in reading texts like this would see our corporeal existence on this planet as something to be endured until we can move up and out of this existence.

One loose interpretation of this passage takes the word world and translates to “godless world.” This way of thinking leads to the embrace of such notions as Armageddon, the notion that the godless world has to be destroyed so the god filled world can emerge; or the idea that life is a veil of tears which we must endure for the sake of the joyous life after death. Such thinking can easily lead folks to be apathetic to the destruction of the planet, since the planet is the site for opposition to God. Earth is godless and doomed, heaven is the destination.

Such interpretations of scriptures as this one from John have lead us to a bunch of bad behaviors and placed the planet in peril.
The word translated “world” here from John makes much more sense if we see it as John’s reference to what we here call the Domination System. If we used that phrase as the way to translate John’s Greek word cosmos it sounds like this:
17:14 I have given them your word, and the domination system has hated them because they do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:15 I am not asking you to take them out of the domination system, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.
17:16 They do not belong to the domination system, just as I do not belong to the domination system.
17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
17:18 As you have sent me into the domination system, so I have sent them into the domination system.
The gist of this passage is this. We are in the Domination System. It is the world view of human civilization. It cannot be helped. The Domination System is the default setting for human thinking and acting. No matter how noble the vision, eventually humans will click back to the default setting. We see that in the history of utopian communities. We see that in the history of Israel and in the history of the Christian church. We are in the Domination System and the System is in us.

This doesn’t mean that the system is inevitably going to win out over any alternative. It means that the struggle will be long and difficult and it will never be completely over. We should not be so naïve as to think that if we make some profession of faith in the God of the opposite of Domination (what the Bible calls Agape or self-giving love) and go to church that we are somehow immune to the System’s hold on our thoughts and actions. We are not immune, we are carriers of the power of Domination and the power of Agape. Even if we understand the nature of both we still face the constant effort of identifying the spirit of agape in us and acting out of that truth.

The Domination System’s use of violence and greed and fear is hard wired into us and if we are to be free of it we need to first admit it like people in AA admit continually admit that they are alcoholics. The AA model is a helpful one. That model calls on the alcoholic to admit that he is one but that he will not drink today. Tomorrow he will have to do the same.

We are called by God, not to be transported into some perfect society, but to be faithful in the midst of our fallen civilization. We are called to be in the world but not of the world.

To do this we need each other. We need to gather like this, with fellow believers and confess that the System is still in us. We are still motivated by fear or greed. With a carrot or stick, we still want to force others to accept our ideas. We need to take out our ideas hold them up to the light of our faith and examine them to see if they are formed out of the love of God or the fear and desires of the System. We need to come together to figure out how to help others see the System for what it is and see that there is a radical alternative. We need each other for support and for guidance.

We come together here on Sundays to proclaim our truth, celebrate our hope, confess our struggles and experience the support of each other and the God of agape. We are in Domination System and it is in us. Part of the work is to examine our beliefs and feelings to sort out whether it is the spirit of the System or the spirit of agape which stand behind any particular thought or feeling. But our real mission is not perfecting ourselves but transforming the world. Everyday the Domination System causes a world of suffering and the world needs an alternative. We are called to use the tools of agape, to bring about the healing the world needs.

This passage reminds us that when we strive to bring about a change, the System, will hate us, and those who embrace the system will strive to ignore, slander or destroy us depending on how much of threat we become.

We are in the System but not of the System. That is a difficult distinction. All around us, buried within us, the spirit of the System churns away. We are like people paddling against the current of a powerful stream. It takes effort just to stay where we are. John’s Jesus says that we were placed here, to gather up those drowning in the river of greed and violence. God’s love has called us to be different, to paddle against the current, to struggle against violence and injustice, so that the victims may be rescued and so that others may see that it is possible to oppose the current and so be inspired.

We in Keystone are called to challenge hate and fear, violence and greed. We are called to show the world that an alternative way of organizing the human community is necessary and possible. If we are to follow our calling we need to be honest about the presence of the System within us as well as the presence of the power of God’s self giving love. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that practicing justice and peace are skills to be acquired and practiced and not just thoughts to be thought. If we are to follow our calling we need to understand that we need each other for this work cannot be done alone.

We have the vision. We have presence of the God of agape and we have each other. We have all we need to change the world around us. And that is good news.

No comments: