“Women and men of Christchurch, I see that in every way you are rising up to meet the enormous mind-numbing challenges of this time when you have been shaken to the core of your beings. Everything you considered normal has been shaken, and you have lost much that was precious and good and comforting and important. But in the midst of this grief and trauma many of you are saying you have also awakened from the slumber of our consumerist, materialist age (probably not the words you would use!) - you would say you have suddenly realised that those broken possessions count for so little compared to what is truly important – your family and friends, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. You have pulled together as families, as neighbourhoods, as a city and even as a nation. Jesus would say, “Well done, for have I not said, your real treasure is not in your possessions but in your love for one another.”
But I Paul would say that there is an even deeper level of shaking that you have experienced and that stirs you, and indeed calls you forth, from an even deeper slumber. You see you have stood on the edge of the abyss, and you have felt small, helpless and afraid – you have felt terror - before forces and powers far bigger than your mere mortal strength. Part of that is awful trauma to your soul and you will recover from that with time and support and love. But part of that is actually awkward, uncomfortable, humbling, even humiliating truth and there is an invitation to also reflect on how you will live your lives differently in light of that. Our culture blinds us to that reality but I want to tell you today that every spiritual tradition acknowledges it as the prime reality. And every spiritual tradition says it is foundational to life to search for peace and security in our smallness before this reality - locating our lives in some bigger reality.
Jesus would say as you have suddenly realised your homes and possessions were so much less important than family and friends, you have truly discovered the second most important truth in life. But he would also speak of this other thing and it is he who would say that you have felt something else that is even more true, more foundational – he would speak of this experience when you felt your smallness and vulnerability before forces and realities beyond your control and understanding - and he would say in his usual puzzling, disturbing, shocking, paradoxical way: in a strange way ultimately blessed are you who have felt that (how rude does that sound!) - that emptiness of power, that bankruptcy of resources and coping, that poverty of spirit - not because it is good in itself but because that is the beginning of the road to true knowledge and understanding. Jesus would say you have an opportunity now not just to reassess the importance of family and friends but also to acknowledge this dimension – that life is so brief, so fragile and frail, so fleeting and that your life needs to find its true place within a story of larger powers, and forces and persons. The Jewish writings would call that the “fear of the Lord” and name that as the beginning of wisdom – not fear as in terror but fear as in awesome wondrous trembling – like standing before a huge waterfall, watching a glorious sunset, standing on the top of a mountain range, observing the birth of a star or of your own child. Beyond even the mountains and the seas and the skies and the heavens, you stand before your Creator.
Jesus and Jewish tradition would say that we were made to acknowledge our Creator, to give thanks for the goodness and kindness that come across our path, to call upon our Creator for help, to entrust our lives into his hands as we live our days and ultimately as we face death, and to live in conscious trusting dependence upon him every day of our lives. Spiritual wisdom would smile - sadly - at our usual sense of self-importance, strength, independence, autonomy, immortality, invincibility and power.
Jesus came to demonstrate the heart of this Creator, to issue His heartfelt call to acknowledge our relation to Him and to effect His powerful initiative in intervening in our hurting broken world for good and to put it to right – in Jesus’ language, to see the reign of God breaking into our world – by which he meant the ways and the presence and the power of God breaking into our world. Jesus invites us to relate to the Creator as Father – an image of strength and care, power and provision and protection. He invites us to live in the reality of this kingdom presence and power and to entrust our lives to him, Jesus, as the face and centre of this reality. Many of us felt what it was like to get caught up in the power of loving and serving one another. Jesus would say marvellous! – and now go one step further and get caught up in acknowledging the force of love behind this, your Creator and the kingdom of his son, Jesus. He invites us to surrender this false sense of autonomy and live our lives in relation to the Creator as Father and Jesus as Lord - the face of the divine love and authority.
And the Creator showed this, confirmed this, actually effected this by raising Jesus from the dead – the message of Easter. And so now we have a decision: to acknowledge and enter into the flow of God’s life giving restorative presence in this broken world, finding my place as one small mortal presence before the His loving, joyful, peaceful presence and being part of the flow of his restoring love - or to continue in my slumbering complicity in a world that rejects the first great truth: you were created to be in loving dependent connection with the divine.
Women and men of Christchurch as you seek to rebuild and restore your city, the second most important thing you could do is realise it is all about people. The most foundational thing you could awaken to is to acknowledge that we are created to build this community under the watchful loving eye of a heavenly Father and in the presence and power of the kingdom of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
With much love, and earnest prayer for you all
Paul (sort of, maybe?)
