Seeing Jesus More Clearly

The 'grace' that I am seeking in the second 'week' of the Exercises is the Ignatian prayer - that I might "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly". As usual Ignatius has real insight - to see Jesus more clearly is the thing that helps us to love him more, and as we love him more, then we seek to follow him more closely.

In practice this means that I have spent the past couple of months imaginatively contemplating passages from the gospels that show me Jesus. Last week I had a few passages that I was meditating on through the week, but one of them stayed with me and each time I came to pray, the images from this passage would come to me. They become like memories, powerful experiences of Jesus. The passage was Matthew 14.13-21 and I saw it in 3 parts.

Firstly - I was in a grove with Jesus and the disciples, we were eating and talking and laughing, it was hot but there was a breeze from the lake and the trees provided shade. We looked up and were being approached by some people, as they drew nearer we recognised them - they were friends, the disciples of John. Jesus and the others rose, greeting them with a kiss and inviting them to sit.

They told us that John was dead.

They began to tell us how it happened - Herod's boastful promise, that he never expected to have to keep, but his bluff was called and it was more important to him to save face than do the right thing. John's disciples had just come from burying John and had come straight away to find Jesus.

I watched Jesus face. What was he feeling?

Sorrow and grief - John and he were inextricable linked from before their births. Cousins, only 6 months apart; both with miraculous conceptions. John, who Jesus grew up with as a boy travelling together to Jerusalem for Passover; John who Jesus publicly aligned himself to in his baptism at the beginning of his ministry; John who he spoke warmly of and defended; weeping over Jerusalem because they killed the prophets; encouraging John in his imprisonment - the blind see and the lame walk. John the prophet to his Messiah.

Anger - that John should die in so pointless a way - for the vanity of a man who was corrupt and weak.

And something else - Jesus realising that this went further because it fore-shadowed something that he knew he would face one day soon.

"As soon as he heard, he left in a boat for a remote place, to be alone"

Jesus weighed down by sorrow, anger and a sense of his own life coming to an end - looks for a place to be alone, to pray.

Secondly - Yet when he gets there he is confronted by crowds of people. What is his reaction? He wants to be in a remote place because he needs time to grieve, to reflect and to come to terms with his cousin's death. What is his reaction?

He has compassion on them.

Not only does he feel compassion - he embodies compassion by healing their sick; by staying with them until evening; by feeding them rather than sending them away hungry. He demonstrates his care for his disciples - making sure they get into the boat to cross the lake; and then waiting himself to send the people home.

In his grief, in his anger, in his turmoil he puts the needs of others before his own. He doesn't count equality with God something to be grasped, he humbles himself. He is not among us as someone who is served but comes to serve. Jesus, the very image of God, embodies radical, costly love.

Thirdly - I stayed with him on the shore as the darkness gathered and the stars appeared and the last of the people made their way home. A breeze was beginning to spring up - quite softly. He stands alone, looks out over the lake and sees the boat with his disciples getting smaller as it moves away from him. Only then he turns and begins to climb. When he has climbed some way up the hill, he sits down. He is alone. He thinks about John, allows himself to dwell on his memories; he turns his face to the Father and the Holy Spirit and lays himself bare. He knows what he has to face and it comes to him - full force - he knows where this is leading. He stays with this and takes comfort from the Godhead - loses himself in that relationship; the love and community within God. And stays there until eventually the wind begins to whip at his clothing. Then he looks out and sees the boat being tossed on the rising waves.

Jesus rises and pulls his head covering around him and makes his way down the hillside towards the lake. A storm is rising; he sets his face and walks into it.

"Cogito, ergo sum"

I sometimes think that Descartes was responsible for a lot of the evil in the world - I don't believe he intentionally put us on this path, but I do believe that he set something in motion a few hundred years ago which has resulted in the all pervasive notion in the West that the individual is at the centre of everything. (actually I think that personal computers and mobile phones are a direct consequence of Descartes!); he was very much a man of faith, schooled by the Jesuits, (the order founded by St Ignatius) - but the statement "I think, therefore I am" has pervaded our western culture and sensibilities to such an extent that we have exalted the individual above all, to the detriment of seeing ourselves more widely connected and responsible as part of a larger "community".

Reading the gospels I'm ever more aware of the cultural differences between ourselves today in the west and the experience of Jesus in the middle east at the beginning of the 1st century. We've lost something of what it is like to live in community to be aware of "the other".

Reflecting more on my last post about what we can do to live in a way that is much more concerned for and orientated towards others, I came across a story related by Mother Teresa;

"I will never forget the night an old gentleman came to our house and said that there was a family with 8 children and they had not eaten, and could we do something for them? So I took some rice and went there. The mother took the rice from my hands and then divided it into 2 and went out. I could see the faces of the children shining with hunger.When she came back I asked her where she had gone. She gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also". And "they" were the family next door and she knew they were hungry. I was not surprised that she gave, but I was surprised that she knew...I had not the courage to ask her how long her family hadn't eaten, but I was sure it must have been a long time, and yet she knew - in her suffering...In her terrible bodily suffering, she knew that next door they were hungry also."

The African theologian replies to Descartes - "I am, because we are."

Jesus taught us to pray "Give us this day our daily bread" - the prayer is for our bread, it includes our neighbours.

Kenneth E Bailey writes;

"Bread is a gift. the one who prays this prayer affirms that all bread comes as a gift. It is not a right and we have not created it. Such gifts are in trust for the one who gives them. All material possessions are on loan from their owner; the God who created matter itself. This perspective on the material world is critical for the joyful life commended in the gospels."

Imaginative Contemplation

One of the features of Ignatian spirituality is imaginative contemplation. To use the imagination in contemplating scripture is to turn the stories of Jesus into an experience. It is about the "application of the senses" to a passage. By picturing our self in the scene and by listening and looking we find ourselves touched and changed from the encounter.

It's not that we let our imaginations run wild, but rather we enter into the passage with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and allow him to speak to us and show us something new or surprising; something which speaks to our heart or emotions. I find this a challenge as I'm very drawn to the cerebral - to thinking and using my mind, to applying my intellect. But Ignatius encourages us to allow God to speak to us in our inner most being. The journey is an interior one.

One of the passages I was meditating on a few weeks ago was the passage where Joseph is warned in the middle of the night to get up and take the child and his mother and flee. To feel the emotion of the situation, to enter into the fear, to the sense of having to leave everything in the dark of the night and flee for your life and the life of your child; to go to a strange land. And to then to enter into the passages about the children being slaughtered, the horror, the anguish, the grief, the disbelief; Joseph's fear on returning from Egypt, to learn that the land was now ruled by the son of the man who was seeking to murder your child.

The feelings have stayed with me for these past weeks - it's almost as if there is a residue.

I was thinking about the fact that in many, many places in the world people live like this all the time. They have no security, they are fearful for their children, they live in countries where the government is corrupt and their lives are insecure, not knowing what will happen next, displaced and hopeless.

And I was reading psalm 147 which says

He has made your city secure,

He blessed your children among you,

He keeps peace at your borders;

He puts the best bread on your tables.

And I am so conscious of how blessed we are in this country. We might moan about the weather, or the rubbish on telly, or the the traffic driving to work. But we really don't understand how blessed we are. We are secure, well fed, our children are educated and have so many opportunities; and most of the time we are not even conscious of it.

How do we Christians in the West live in a way that really makes a difference to the poor and displaced and fearful and that also fully comprehends how incredibly blessed we are?

The Reversal of God

First blog of the new year - so Happy New Year! Think this will be a year full of possibilities, promises fulfilled, deeper places in God and radical change in the church! - I'm hoping.

I know new year tends to thunk right in the middle of the Christmas season (maybe more so in Scotland), but my contemplation in the second 'week' of the exercises is around the Christmas narratives. This past week I have been looking particularly at the shepherds and the wise men.

The thing that really stood out for me in the shepherds' story is this vast array of heaven's army appearing in the sky to the poor (in every sense of the word) shepherds - the glory of the Lord surrounding them, the terrified reaction; the pronouncement of the angel that the Lord, the Saviour, the Messiah has tonight appeared and that this will bring great joy to all people. What is the sign? Is it that a vast army has been assembled to bring freedom from Roman oppression, crucifixion and the burden of taxation and set the Jewish people free at last? That some great spiritual teacher has appeared among the Pharisees? or a new radical High Priest has taken over at the temple? Perhaps the nationalistic God that is portrayed in some of the narratives in the Hebrew scriptures has appeared to smite Judea's enemies; or a mighty prophet has arisen bringing God's pronouncements? What is the sign...........?

................."You'll find him wrapped snugly"

Eh?

The Great Reversal.

The God who comes in weakness and powerlessness - the God who is wrapped snugly - who comes to the weak and outcast and humble and ordinary and powerless and seemingly inconsequential and is received with joy, wonder and rejoicing.

When the wise men appear in Jerusalem among the rich, the important and the powerful, the people of consequence and authority - the news "deeply disturbs" them.

And Jesus ministry as it progresses brings even more comfort to the poor and even less comfort to the powerful.

The reversal - the anarchic God; the God of the unexpected. Wrapped Snugly!

This years conundrum - How do I embody the reversal of God?

Mystery

Over the last week my spiritual exercises have focused on contemplation of the Trinity. Around this eternal community of 3 persons in one God who live in mutual praise and companionship and devotion to one another. And around Jesus as the second person, of his role in both creation and recreation. The embodied Word which spoke everything into being.

Ignatius asks us to contemplate the world, firstly to spend time with what we see, then what we hear and then what actions we see in the world. That in itself was very powerful. Then to contrast this mystery with the simple story of Mary. There were some verses to read from the Gospel of Luke.

And the words I can't get away from are - "God sent".

This loving God, who is relational to the core of his being, his response to the brokenness and to all that he sees, hears and to the actions of people is to act in time and space. To send to a young girl, a word, which became, literally, embodied through her "Yes" response; in order to draw his creation back into this loving companionship and mutual love which God experiences all the time.

He is, always was, and always will be, drawing us right into the centre of himself until we can hardly spot the join.

Living attentively in Advent

It is easy to rush around so much at this time of year, living distractedly, and that's a shame because we miss out on a season which is so rich in symbolism and where, if we can find time to slow down and live a bit counter-culturally, we become much more aware of the incredible power and mystery of Christmas.

"We need Advent because everything in our culture tells us that this season is about buying - and we need more than anything to be reminded of God's perfect gift to all of humankind.

We need Advent because everything in our culture tells us that Christmas begins sometime in October when the shops start to fill with Christmas merchandise - and we need to be reminded that we are waiting, that God's time is not our time, that the world waited a long time for a saviour.

We need Advent because everything in our culture tells us that our lives should be built around our jobs, our purchasing power, and our frantic schedules - and we need to remind ourselves that we belong to God. We need to tell and hear the story of a God who chose to become poor and vulnerable."

In Advent we think of the God who came, the God who comes to us now and the God who will come. Some of the very things we get caught up in can be the things, if we live attentively, that can help us to become more focused.

Here are some ideas;

Light - we celebrate the return of the light - that's why we light more candles on our Advent wreath as the weeks go on - anticipating the conquering of the light over darkness as we reach the shortest day and the days begin to get longer (not sure of the date this year but it's normally around the 22 or 23rd of December) - live aware of the light around us - the sky and how it looks as we travel into work or look out our windows or go about our last minute preparations, or light a candle at night.

Evergreen - we bring evergreen branches and trees into our house and decorate them with symbols of fruit - they're called Christmas trees. Instead of seeing this as a chore, we can do this attentively realising that this symbolises the fruitfulness of the previous year (sometimes we collect ornaments from our travels) and as we place them on our tree, we can reflect on the previous years fruitfulness and the promise of fruitfulness to come. God's mercies are not all behind us - they are new every morning.

Giving gifts - intentionally seeking to bless someone with something thoughtful and well chosen as a way of symbolising the importance of that person to us and saying something about our relationship - sending cards can be the same - seeking to bless someone, writing a small blessing on their card. These become sacraments - they are symbols of something much deeper - signs of grace.

Eating together - whether with family or friends or serving someone who is homeless or without friends and family, there is something that seems to be in the heart of God about sharing hospitality and love through sharing a meal.

Among the poor, among the proud, among the persecuted, among the privileged
Christ is coming

In the private house, in the market place, in the wedding feast, in the judgement hall
Christ is coming

With a gentle touch, with an angry word, with a clear conscience, with burning love,
Christ is coming

That the kingdom might come, that the world might believe, that the powerful might stumble, that the humble might be raised
Christ is coming

Within us, without us, among us, before us, in this place, in every place, for this time, for all time
Christ is coming

He is coming to make all things new

Advent

Waiting Prayer for Advent

God of the watching ones,

give us Your Benediction.

God of the waiting ones,

give us Your good word for our souls.

God of the watching ones,the waiting ones,the slow and suffering ones,

give us Your benediction,

Your good word for our souls,

that we might rest.

God of the watching ones,the waiting ones,the slow and suffering ones,

And of the angels in heaven,

And of the child in the womb,

give us Your benediction,

Your good word for our souls,

that we might rest and rise

in the kindness of Your company.

In the name of the Father,

And the Son,

And the Holy Spirit

Amen.

Advent is my favourite time of year – we focus a lot on the death of Christ on the cross but for me there is amazing power in grasping the full implications of the incarnation of God. God come in the flesh. God, putting himself in a position of complete vulnerability and dependency on his own creation. To grasp this is to begin to understand something of the absolute love of God for us.

Advent comes from the Latin word meaning ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’ – a time of preparation for the coming of Christ into the world – it looks back to the first coming of Christ and forward to the return of Christ. The spiritual disciplines are of repentance, fasting and waiting and Advent is characterised by attitudes of longing, anticipation and hope. A time to prepare for the re-birth of Christ in our lives. The word itself implies a drawing near or immanence as God sets in motion the process by which he draws near to all people in the person of Jesus.

“A time of waiting in contemplation for the presence of Christ within us, we are called to bear Christ, to live Christ for others.” Taize

There is something of mystery – waiting with Mary: just as Christ is forming in her body, so we reflect on Christ being formed in our lives.

Christmas is a season not a single day and so we can live over the next few weeks in anticipation of God breaking into our world. Becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

John 1
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (The Message says – But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.) They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.”

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

So, with eternity in mind I seek to be more intentional in my watching for the coming of God in and around me