Posts Tagged ‘social action’

In the world but not of the world

May 11, 2024

Easter 7 – 2024

John 17:6-9

Marian Free

In the name of God, who in Jesus fully immersed godself in the messiness of human existence. Amen.

Thomas Merton was a monk, a contemplative, a poet, a writer and an activist. He was the most prolific spiritual writer of the twentieth century and had a profound influence on inter-faith dialogue.  

Merton had an unsettled childhood and young adulthood. His mother had died when he was six, shortly after the family had moved from France to the United States. His widowed father sent the young Merton to boarding school in France. Two years later he took Merton out of that school and moved the family to England. After finishing school Merton began studying at Cambridge but was very unhappy there.  At 20 he enrolled att Columbia University where he completed his studies. Merton considered himself to be an atheist but a meeting with Mahanambrata Brahmachari, a Hindu monk convinced him to explore his own spiritual roots.  Merton took this advice and was later baptised into the Catholic church.  At the age of 27 he joined a community of Trappist monks at Gethsemani in Louisville, Kentucky. Over the course of his short life (he died aged 53), he was a monk, a priest, a writer and a social activist. 

Merton sought the quiet of a contemplative life – indeed, his ideal was to spend time in complete isolation – however an experience in March, 1958 led him to understand that engagement with the world was as essential as withdrawal from the world. He records the experience in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

This experience convinced Merton that following Jesus meant not only contemplation but also action and it taught him that his existence was integrally connected to the existence of the whole world and that he had to take a stand on the issues of the day – civil rights, the Vietnam war, nuclear proliferation – it was the sixties after all. Merton saw race and peace as the critical issues and he spoke and wrote about both. He was considered to be a radical and his unusual and untimely death was the cause of much speculation.[1]

Merton’s insight that he had to be both in the world and not of the world is central to Jesus’ prayer in today’s gospel. He saw, as Jesus saw, that it is impossible to remain aloof and disinterested, that it is impossible to see the suffering of the world and to be indifferent, and that prayer and action are not separate, but are two sides of the same coin.

Being in the world and not of the world is costly. Seeing and calling out injustice does not make for an easy existence amongst those who are content with the status quo. Jesus was crucified, and his prayer suggests that those who follow him will be hated, but this does not prevent him from asking God to send them into the world just as he was sent into the world.

The gospels are clear that Jesus’ life was not one of pious withdrawal, but of active involvement in the world. He immersed himself in human existence. Jesus was not afraid of being polluted by the unclean, the unworthy, the poor and the marginalised. He was not interested in respectability nor was he afraid of offending the establishment. Jesus refused to conform to the norms of his society. He confronted injustice and challenged religious structures that made impossible demands and that made decisions about whom God did and didn’t love.

We are called to follow Jesus’ example, but making sense of how we are called to engage with the issues of our day is not always straightforward.  It is not always easy to know when to speak out and when to keep silent, when to jump in and when to stand apart. Jesus had a sense of clarity about right and wrong that came from his relationship with God and his life of prayer. Our task is to learn what it means to be in the world but not of the world, to find the right balance for us, to resist being pulled too far in one direction or another, to allow a life of prayer to inform a life of action, to assure us that resisting conformity is the way of Christ.

It is not easy to distinguish when we are being led by good intentions or being led by the Spirit, to know when we are chasing our own ideals or being informed by the gospel, to understand when we are seeking our own glory and not the glory of God. 

Merton recognised these difficulties in a letter he wrote to a young activist who sought his advice. He wrote: “The great thing after all is to live, not to pour out your life in the service of a myth: and we turn the best things into myths. If you can get free from the domination of causes and just serve the truth, you will be able to do more and will be less crushed by the inevitable disappointments. Because I see nothing whatever in sight but much disappointment, frustration, and confusion. 

The real hope, then, is not something we think we can do, but in God who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see. If we can do (what’s right), we will be helping in this process. But we will not necessarily know all about it beforehand….”[2]

Jesus prays that God will send us into the world as he, Jesus, was sent into the world. May we be the answer to that prayer, willing to take the risk of being God’s agents, being change-makers in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, driven by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

[1] Some believed that he was assassinated because of his opposition to the Vietnam War.

[2] https://thewire.in/society/thomas-mertons-letter-to-a-young-activist-speaks-to-our-times-as-well

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Fire-breathing Jesus

August 13, 2016

Pentecost 13 – 2016

Luke 12:49-59

Marian Free

 

 

In the name of God who demands that we hold fast to the truth whatever the cost. Amen.

In Monday’s Sydney Morning Herald, two articles caught my attention. The first reported on the visit of Susan Sarandon to Melbourne. It may come as no surprise to you that Sarandon is one of the actors I most admire – along with other strong women (Kate Hepburn, Glenda Jackson, Meryl Streep) who refused to buy into the Hollywood hype and who maintain their commitment to their craft. Sarandon was in Melbourne at the invitation of the La Dolce Italia festival. Of course, the report only captured the material that would sell newspapers. What struck me in the short piece was Sarandon’s determination to say what she believes to be right and not to compromise.

“The thing that really gets me is when I haven’t said something honestly. When there is something that people who don’t have a voice … and someone tells me about it, and I have the opportunity to shine a light on it, when I don’t, I feel that I have betrayed my authenticity,” she told the compere, Crown’s Ann Peacock.

A second article contrasted strongly with the brief report on Sarandon. Headlined “Refugee singer’s uneasy air” it concerned a young refugee from Syria whom you might have seen in the news earlier in the year. As a means of dealing with the trauma and the hardship of his ‘pulverised, starving neighbourhood in war-torn Syria, Ayham al-Ahmad embarked on a career of playing concerts in the rubble’ to provide a sense of normality. Videos of his performances spread online, drew attention to him and finally enabled him to escape the siege of his hometown Yarmulke.. Ahmad has now been accepted as a refugee by Germany where he has “set himself the task of putting a human face on his fellow refugees”. In Syria Ahmad was a piano teacher and music salesperson. Here in Germany he has become a star. He is booked nearly every night, has appeared in numerous German news accounts and received a prestigious music prize.

Despite all this he is filled with a sense of unease. He wonders if he really makes a difference, if his audiences see him and his relative success and forget where he is from and do not see in him the thousands who are still in Syria – in prison, under siege or subject to constant bombing. Ahmad’s escape also gives him a sense of survivor’s guilt – why is he the lucky one? Did he make more of a difference when he was playing for and with those whom he has left behind?

On the one hand, Sarandon refuses to compromise, and on the other Ahmad is anxious that he perhaps he has been compromised. Of course, the two come from vastly different positions – Sarandon has, privilege, position and wealth where’s Ahmad has only talent, vulnerability and dependence. All the same, Sarandon’s outspokenness could potentially cost her roles and if Ahmad maintains his integrity he could win even more respect and notoriety – but these are issues on which we can only speculate.

Jesus has some challenging words in today’s gospel: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Major social change rarely comes without a cost. Some things that we now take for granted were hard won and along the way created fury and split the community into those who were for and those who were against the issue. For example, the abolition of the slave trade – while ending centuries of inhumanity and liberating people from indenture – caused economic hardship, if not ruin for those who had built their wealth on free labour. No wonder abolition was so vehemently opposed and it’s supporters vilified.

Giving women the vote was equally contentious. It meant a complete overhaul of accepted social norms especially around the place of women and the capability of women. For some it was seen as a threat to family life and an overturning of the entire social fabric. No wonder the issue was so divisive and its proponents seen as disruptive and anti-social. Social change, even that pursued by followers of Jesus, can and does lead to harmony and division.

Many of us feel that being a Christian entails conforming to the world around us, keeping the law, not causing trouble and certainly not taking a radical stand. But Jesus gave us no such idea. Jesus utterly refused to fit in to the society around him. He refused to compromise his values, and he stood by his convictions even in the face of opposition and derision. Jesus was confident that he understood God’s purpose for him and he would not be dissuaded from this path no matter how many people he offended or put off side and no matter that the consequence would be his crucifixion for insurrection.

This is fire-breathing Jesus not the gentle Jesus meek and mild of the 19th century poem. This is a Jesus who knows what he believes and what he stands for and who will stick to his principles no matter what the cost. This is the “sign that would be opposed” that Simeon predicted when the infant Jesus was presented at the Temple. This is the division that Jesus predicts will result from his presence here on earth. When Jesus and his followers stand up for what is right, when they challenge governments and institutions, when they name injustices and shine a light on oppression they will cause disquiet, disharmony and even division, but that is not a reason to stay silent and it is a poor excuse for not becoming involved.

Listen again to what Jesus says in today’s gospel: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Let us pray that the fire of Christ’s passion may fill our lives and inform our actions and that should it come to it, we would have the courage to take a stand no matter what the cost to ourselves.

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