These are different levels where a person could experience chaos. I am guessing that most of us this morning have been talking about the personal.
But when Margaret first raised this (topic), it was a time when there were Tsunamis and Christ Church. Then up in Queensland and then down in Victoria and the year before bushfires. One of the things that does happen for caring people is that they can feel over burdened or over whelmed by what is going on in the world around them. That is part of the difficulty of chaos.
One of the important things to realise here. Mary has nothing to tell us about how to deal with a Tsunami. She never experienced one. I don’t think. Highly unlikely. She probably never experienced a bush fire. She has no way, in a personal way, to deal with many of the realities we live with. It does nothing to honour her to try and paint up these stories to pretend that this is how she would of…That is not what meant to happen.
We have done great damage to Jesus and Mary by imaging that some how this is what they would have done.
I am guessing who Mary was given her history and time the concept of a tsunami would absolutely blow her mind. She would have no scientific understanding or appreciation of the globe. To do it.
It is important to release that both Jesus and Mary were human beings in a moment in history and time. Theologically, if we want to talk about Jesus across time, we have to talk about Christ. Which is a different claim about Jesus born in this moment.
This gets really muddy, because somebody will ask you, “how do you relate to Jesus?” But, in that moment they are actually talking about Christ. But then they say “Christ” here and then they mean “Jesus”. This can be tricky.
Theologically, Jesus was a person who existed in a capsule of time and space. Here. He had a certain embodiment. He had a certain experience of life. The claim of Christ is the resurrected Jesus who is across all of time and is not caught in any moment or history or time. I can’t explain this to you. But the claim of Christianity is that you can experience this.
In actual fact we cannot experience that Jesus trapped in that particular part of history. We can only talk about him and know it. The same for Mary in that history.
We have not been clear when we have taught a lot of stuff as church. We use words all over the place and people have been quite confused when they should have been. We have been terribly messy with what we have done.
Why does this sort of chaos here, grab us more than these ones?
Why does global chaos get a people even more so, than personal?
Andrew - we can’t control.
Yes. It brings home that we are not in charge even more than this one.
This one (personal chaos) I can make it look like I am in charge. Such as something is happening in my family, the children are really upset, I can feel out of control. But, I can tell myself “if I only bake 3 cakes then it will all settle down. It will be right. And if I do this with this one, it will be okay”.
With this one (global chaos), it does not matter how many cakes you bake, the Tsunami is not going to stop and there is still going to be millions of people disturbed.
The human beings of our time, the clearest experience that this is beyond us, and things are happening which we can’t change or manage. Are when these global events occur.
If you consider for example, the death of princess Diana, is a really interesting one in this area (personal). Most people will put in an argument that she was attractive as a human being. People were upset by that and that there were elements of that which were true. But I would argue with you that she was a version of global tsunami. Here is a woman who is beautiful, powerful and well off, and can do almost anything in the globe and people are open to that. And, death still got her. That was a resounding shock for many people who wanted to believe that if your beautiful, or rich, or powerful, that you can work death a bit. You can hold it at bay. You can manage to get to 90 before it comes. That is what a lot of people would like to believe.
Events like, Diana’s death and some other events that occur, they get through under our guard. Because they break across all the beliefs we have built up. About our vulnerability.
One of the hardest things for a human being to really live with is our vulnerability. That in actual fact, I don’t have any power to influence the next minute. Anything could happen in the next minute which is totally unexpected for me.
This afternoon when I leave here, I can anticipate driving home safely, I cannot tell you I will do. Anything could happen.
Now, I don’t want to get up every morning thinking like that. It would be a very difficult way to live.
But what happens over a life time, is that we move further and further away from recognising that vulnerability each day. We try and build a thing of certainty. I am certain I will get home. I am certain that if I do these 6 things my next job will go perfectly. I am certain that if I do these 6 things with my children they will grow up perfect, marry and love. None of which I have any control over.
The real vulnerability is that I can do all the right things and things still don’t go the way I thought they might. That is not a wrongness. That is a truth of human living. That it is a vulnerable pattern of life.
This is not okay. It is difficult.
In all classrooms for example there will be a cross on the wall and in religious houses. Then a young person will say “why have you go that cross on the wall? Its ugly. It’s got someone being killed as a criminal. It’s got skulls and cross bones at the bottle. And, here you are talking about love. Why haven’t you got up there a picture that is beautiful? Or, that something says, God is lovely and that everything will be bright and well? ”
The answer is in this core thing. It is not what past theology would have said to you, “remember this moment because in this moment you were saved!” This is not the real reason the cross was chosen.
The reason the cross was chosen was indictive of what it means to be a human being, and a believer in Jesus, was that it was a key image of the truth of our vulnerability. Yet, in the face of that, the choice of love. Those two things fit together. At the moment that human beings are confronted with the most vulnerability, the most chance that we cannot be in charge. To continue to choose to live for love is what God was all about and what God invites us to.
That is why it on our wall and why we wear it around our throats. It is not making you holy. It is reminding you of the core holiness of living. That it is about truly knowing your vulnerability and yet choosing to be love.
This is a story about us and an invitation to truly be like Jesus. To make that choice.
(Audio Available)
