John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

The Uprising Begins: God Becomes King

... It’s dark when we reach Jerusalem. Between this day’s sunrise and today’s sunset, our world has been changed forever. Everything is new. From now on, whenever we break the bread and drink the wine, we will know that we are not alone. The risen Christ is with us, among us, and within us—just as he was today, even though we didn’t recognize him. Resurrection has begun. We are part of something rare, something precious, something utterly revolutionary.

It feels like an uprising. An uprising of hope, not hate. An uprising armed with love, not weapons. An uprising that shouts a joyful promise of life and peace, not angry threats of hostility and death. It’s an uprising of outstretched hands, not clenched fists. It’s the “someday” we have always dreamed of, emerging in the present, rising up among us and within us. It’s so different from what we expected—so much better. This is what it means to be alive, truly alive. This is what it means to be en route, walking the road to a new and better day. Let’s tell the others: the Lord is risen! He is risen, indeed! [3]

- Brian D. McLaren quoted at length in today's talk, The Uprising Begins: God becomes King.

What kind of God?

... Nine-year-old Lucy has given us something to think about today. Is it really God who is angry and vengeful and bloodthirsty - or is it us? Are we happy following a fiery old God who demands human sacrifices to cool his anger and satisfy his vengeful spirit? Or are we prepared to look deeper, like Lucy did, for a merciful God whose deepest desire is for us to learn how to live in peace with each other? ...

- from my Remembrance all-age talk today, What kind of God?

If only we believed only in life! To God all are alive

... for us 'being alive' means 'not being dead'; We know we're alive because we're not dead. For God this is simply not the case. For God being alive has nothing to do with death, and can't even be contrasted with death. ... This is really important. Jesus saw God as being radically alive, not mortal, not immortal, but a-mortal, in no way shaded by death. Those who started the dispute with him just couldn’t see God in this way, their whole way of seeing is distorted because it is stuck in a vision which flows from death to death, blind to God - who is the entirely death-less One. 

Now, if we are honest we have to admit that what Jesus said to the Sadducees probably applies to us. It was not only the Sadducees who were mistaken about the resurrection - we also are trapped by our anxieties about death. If only we really believed only in life!We're all quite often mistaken in the way we see the world, and the things of God. It's part of the human condition. 

At this time of year, as we remember the conflicts of the last century where the slaughter of millions was sanctioned by each and every religion - is it possible for us to begin believing that God is not, after all, a vicious wrathful God obsessed with vengeance and human sacrifice, a God wrapped up in death; but rather is a God of love, a God of life?

Jesus came to tell us, and to make possible for us to believe, that God is entirely different from what the religions of warring nations imagine. His Good News is a story about a God entirely disconnected from death. The Good News is that death is for God, something that is not. 'To God, all are alive'. ...

I was tempted, obviously, to go down the Man of Lawlessness <> Donald Trump route with today's lectionary readings (see 2 Thessalonians 2.1-17) but kept it upbeat instead by revisiting an old favourite: If only we believed only in life! To God all are alive. Thanks James Alison.