Random comments on Easter

Good Friday service - the Gospel readings are powerful and drive forward with political intrigue and manipulation and the flawed responses and lack of courage of some key characters. Others with walk on parts deliver the surprise or are surprised, Marks young man who runs away naked, Pilate's wife with her cryptic reference to suffering in a dream on behalf of this Jewish activist who is calling the empire into question and Simeon of Cyrene who must have been relieved to get away with nothing worse than an interrupted day.

The meditations around it however leave me increasingly puzzled and concerned. So much of it in the end comes to a focus on "me" and "my sins" rather than on Jesus and his confrontation with the powers and his call to follow him. Surely we should be more concerned about what it is to follow Jesus than excavating into our psyches and exploring our weakness and our failings. It is here that I begin to understand Bonhoeffer's critique of a "methodism" of in-wardness rather than responding to the call to follow Jesus, who as Mark reminds us calls us to meet him back in Galilee on the margins of religious orthodoxy.

Commentary by church leaders on atheism show mostly a defensive grouchiness, focused on taking care of institutional interest, or at least coming across that way, rather than a call to join an exciting adventure, powered by the hope and generosity of the resurrection.


Something is lost and missing in the public utterances of the leadership that is still shaped by the mentality of Christendom and a resentment that that era has gone.

The questions raised by atheists, since I for one do not really recognise in their critique the God I meet in Jesus, offer us the gift, the opportunity to go back and say what in their statement points to our failure to point clearly to Jesus?

Where in our witness and response do we display the openhandedness of God's grace, the joy the wonder that we are not imprisoned in the world of empire where there is no choice but to strike back against violence with violence, that we can approach our enemies with open hands and forgiveness and like Paul can live with the freedom available through the spirit of Jesus?

Thank goodness the Spirit moves where it wills and is not confined to the institutions to whom the media go for quotes but lives on at the grass roots where hospitality is shown and a voice is spoken against those forces that would undercut the goodness of creation and the flourishing of human life.

Blogging towards Easter 4 - dreams and suffering

Samuel Wells gives a chapter to a fourth character who has only a minor supporting role in the Gospels, Mrs Pilate. She is only mentioned in one verse but Wells nevertheless draws out some reflective speculation that throws light on issue of the extent to which our perceptions of power and powerlessness  are less straight forward than they seem to those of us, say public servants who compare our power with those who are above us up the ladder, the Secretary of the Department, not those who have to comply with the rules and regulations that we create and enforce in order to access the services in our community.

Wells imaginatively explores the extent and the character of the power that Pilate's wife would have had and tries to unpack what might lie behind this extraordinary intervention into the public life of her husband. Wells focuses his reflections on the issues of dreams and suffering.

Dreams in the Bible are an inbreaking of God's future into the circumstances of the present. They unsettle the proud ... They vindicate God's chosen ... They involve even Gentiles in the discovery of God's strange, relentless providence ... And yet they do not coerce, destroy or manipulate. they simply draw back the veil between heaven and earth disclosing the purposes of God and the mysterious ways God's purpose takes shape in the lives of his people. For the powerful they are something to fear but for the powerless dreams are a point of contact with the place where true power lies. (p.116)

On the question of suffering her statement that "I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him" suggests that she has shared in Jesus's passion. Had she caught a vision of Jesus and the conflict between him and the driving powers and values of the Roman Empire that leaves her caught between who she is and the claims of an inbreaking kingdom whose justice calls th empire into question?

Seven Years of War in Iraq

Peggy Gish from the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq has summarised the situation after seven years of war.

After seven years of war, Iraqis live with:

- A society (other than the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region) broken from the invasion and occupation, with the loss of  civil society, and the deterioration of trust and cohesion necessary for a peaceful society. There has been some reconstruction, but most infrastructure remains un-repaired. There is still contaminated water, an average of four to six  hours a day of electricity, and inadequate medical care.

- Violence, killing and torture still the norm in the northern Iraqi Kurdish region because  the US, supplied and supported Saddam during the Anfal campaign (genocide against the Kurds).

- Deaths of an estimated million Iraqi civilians since 2003. (Sept. 2007 poll by  British polling agency, ORB)

- Continued economic crisis. Sixty-percent of the families rely on the food rations, which have been reduced. Unemployment is over 50%. Prices of food and fuel have increased, but not wages.

- Iraqis in control of prisons and "security" but with many innocent detainees forced,  through torture, to confess to acts of terror they did not commit. Iraqis often feel terrorized by Special Forces. Many Iraqis say that the ways of Saddam continue.

- Continued widespread anger and despair about the conditions of their lives.

- Decreased violence on the streets in central and southern Iraq, but without the deeper problems being resolved. Iraqis still live in daily fear of kidnapping or other violence. Many say the groups doing greater acts of terror have moved to areas such as  Mosul and Baqubah where higher rates of violence continue.

- Women subjected to increased violence and loss of personal rights and freedoms.

- Children growing up seeing violence and killing as the norm.

- A country polluted with radioactive depleted uranium from U.S. weaponry used in the 1991 and 2003 wars with Iraq, resulting in increased cancers and birth defects.

- A ratified constitution and current elections, but a government plagued with power struggles. Kurds in Kirkuk and other northern disputed areas are afraid of civil war between Arabs and Kurds.

- U.S. government still giving military intelligence to Turkish military planes to fly over Iraqi airspace and bomb civilians in villages along Iraq's northern borders, turning a blind eye to Turkish attempts to destabilize the Kurdish region, while using the actions of the armed resistance group, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) as their excuse. Turkish bombing and Iranian shelling across the borders cause destruction of hundreds of villages and displacement and disruption of thousands of residents' lives.

- An estimated 4.5 million Iraqis having fled their homes to other countries or as displaced persons in their own country, because of the hardship and dangers.

Though Iraqis suffered from brutal policies of Saddam's regime and US and UK interventionist policies before 2003, words cannot express the anguish that the Iraqi people have experienced in these last seven years of the continued war. Occupying forces have exacerbated ethnic conflicts and oppressive political forces in their country that will continue to cause suffering and hardship for generations.

http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2010/03/31/iraq-reflection-iraq-after-seven-years-war

Blogging towards Easter 3 - being a Christian in private?

In Chapter 3  Wells hits home with a challenge to people who are comfortably well off and are at ease in the middle of empire - like me.

Is it possible to be a Christian privately, a rule by day and a worshipper by night?

This chapter explores the motives and behaviour of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as set out in the gospels, charactesr of whom the writers have varying estimates. Both of these characters fall between the power of Pilate and the passion of Barabbas. They are drawn by the figure of this Galilean rabbi and live in his shadow but are afraid to throw in their lot in publicly with him in the political contest of the time. They are paralyzed, complicit in the judicial process that Pilate manipulates to implicate the Jewish establishment in his execution as a troublemaker,

Only after his death do they appear again by night and perform a service of burial at a point where his other public disciples have disappeared.  What kind of discipleship is this?

For them faith in Christ is not a matter of transformed identity - baptism - but is an attribute they can pick up or put down as they choose. As political figures they are largely invisible, since when the key debates take place they are present but - at best - silent. As religious figures they are visible at the very moment the disciples have disappeared - the moment of Jesus' burial. They are celebrated religious figures but they expose the politics of those who could have been political but chose to be narrowly religious. It is a politics that shows reverence to Jesus' body. But on closer inspection it is a politics that puts Jesus to death.  (p.106)

Indeed - this is a reading of scripture that goes close to home.

Today people I know have entered a top secret military base as a protest against the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bonhoeffer 4

At 6am this morning, four Christian peace activists entered Swan Island, one of Australia’s most secret military installations near Queenscliff, Victoria, seeking to disrupt the war in Afghanistan.  

“Both Swan Island and the war on Afghanistan are out of sight, out of mind. It’s time to end further suffering of the Afghan people and our soldiers by bringing our troops home,” the group said.

Swan Island is a highly secretive military installation used by the Army’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). Swan Island is said to be more secretive than Pine Gap in central Australia.

“In the week before the first Easter, Jesus blockaded the temple and turned the tables inside.   Today we are imitating Jesus’ disruption”,  the group said. “Sometimes you have to get in the way of injustice”. 

“War can’t bring peace, it can only bring further terror, death and poverty,” the group said.

Rev. Simon Moyle (Baptist Minister), Jacob Bolton (Community Worker), Jessica Morrison (University Lecturer) and Simon Reeves (Social Worker) have called themselves the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective after Kevin Rudd’s favourite theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was also an antiwar activist.

“The followers of Christ have been called to peace. And they must not only have peace but also make it. His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.”— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

follow updates from the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective as it happens here: http://twitter.com/jarrodmckenna

Blogging towards Easter 2 - the attraction of violence

The character of Barabbas in the Easter narrative brings us into contact with the question of why not use violence when injustice is rampant and the poor and marginalised have little by way of options to challenge the forces of empire.

The gospels present us with the range of political options that Jesus encountered in his life and ministry.

Collaboration was the only option for those who wished to achieve wealth and a degree of power in the world of the Roman empire. Rome mastered the art of engaging collaborators through the cooperation of local elites. Herod and the Saducees made this their political choice. surrendering effective control to Rome while maintaining a semblance of formal religio-political independence - a semblance that the gospel writers deconstruct.


The strategy of Reform relied on a theological reading of the history of Israel that called for a return to holiness and the call of the covenant. The call to purity was not an option for those who were poor. The Pharisees sought to interpret the call to purity for the masses in a way that built popular support from the masses without handing over religious and political power to them or politically confronting the powers of empire.

Withdrawal was the option of the Essenes that focused on withdrawing from confronting the reality of Roman occupation while practising some of the virtues, care for the sick and hospitality to strangers but no real vision for demonstrating the public character of God's kingdom.

Restorationism, the Zealot option, was the attempt to return to the golden age of Israel's empire and kingdom. They were about a change of government not the inauguration of a radically different social and political order.

The comparison between Jesus and the Zealots establishes two things. One is that Jesus had established a new for of life that others saw as a political threat. the other is that Jesus had no intention of translating that social program into a violent revolution. (p. 66)

While Barabbas is not formally identified as a Zealot, his identification with the option of violence places him in direct contrast with Jesus. the Gospel writers are all clear that the crowds all clearly choose his option rather than that of Jesus and the powers that be are happy for this choice to be made. Jesus represents a more fundamental challenge to their rule than does Barabbas.

 Barabbas represents a challenge that changes too little. Jesus comes to bring radical change rather than continue business as usual. Jesus challenges the endless cycle of violence. Barabbas simply wants to change the identity of who is in control of the political/social/religious power structure.

Blogging toward Easter: Passion and power

In approaching Easter this year I have decided to try blogging some thoughts on Samuel Wells' Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection (Zondervan, 2005)

The promised commentary on Will Campbell and his free-wheeling approach to ecclesiology will have to wait for a while.

Samuel Wells introduces his approach to Easter with a hat tip to John Howard Yoder.

What if we are called to follow Jesus in one specific respect above all others: his willingness to walk the way of the cross in contrast to a host of political and social alternatives available to him? This book seeks to take up Yoder's mantle and begin with the same assumption. It seeks to describe six political alternatives available to Jesus - and broadly to us - and to portray the power and the passion of Jesus in the light of them, in such a way that the nature of the power and the direction of the passion available to us become transparent. (p.17)

His assumptions for reading the Gospels:

• there is no such thing as a plain reading that is not already an interpretation and thee is no single correct reading.  (p.18)
• Some parts of the Gospels have a special significance - the accounts of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus (p.19)
• Christians always are and have been in the business of politics. Politics is the careful negotiation of passion and interest that pays respect to the different degrees and kinds of power and that the gospel of Jesus is about how individuals and groups use their power. (pp.19-20)
• Power is not necessarily a bad thing. There are varieties of power, property. prestige and military power, sexual power and friendship and the power of God in creation and resurrection which assumes the abundance found in the gifts of time, companionship and forgiveness. the transformation of politics is about the transformation of the reality and perception of power. Jesus resurrection is about the politics of abundance transforming the reality of power.(pp.20-21)
•  Passion is at the heart of the Gospel. passion is at the heart of politics and the heart of faith. (p.21)

Wells first character is Pontius Pilate whose character and engagement with power he reflects on through a reading of each of the Gospels, a reading which brings out the dynamics of power exercised by Pilate in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

People, Wells observes with executive power like to see themselves as honest brokers and are much more aware of the limits of their power than those outside are inclined to give them credit for.

Wells will not let those of us who are in positions of relative power get away with this rhetorical move to hide behind the ambiguities of public responsibilities or the assertion that "we", as opposed to "they" have no vested interests. the detailed reading that Wells offers us of Pilate and the dynamics of power demystifies the common reading of Pilate as an honest broker. Wells unpacks the gospel accounts to reveal the moves and counter moves of the power elites, for whom Jesus was a threat, stirring up the people as the gospels remind us. Here we have an account of the exercise of imperial power as the inescapable background to that week in Jerusalem.

Two critical threads emerge in the study of the first imperial character - the need to be sceptical of anyone who says "really there is nothing I can do - it's out of my hands - the cry of the realist politician and church leader. Pilate does have alternatives it is just that having established that Jesus is a threat to imperial rule his task is simple to deal with events so as to ensure Jesus is destroyed. The handwashing is pure 'spin' and very successful it has been too.

Politics begins when we realise that there are alternatives, there are things we can do rather than simply go along with a cynical realism and act to embody the truth that Jesus proclaims and lived out. In the run up to Easter it is useful to be reminded of those who imagined an alternative politics rather than conformity to the violence of empire. To remember Bishop Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, the Mothers of the disappeared in Argentina, Pilgram Marpeck and Michael Sattler who sought to enact a different politics. To Jean Vanier, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer who all embodied a passion for justice and the beloved community.

John Howard Yoder on Nonviolence

John Howard Yoder  Nonviolence: A Brief History - The Warsaw Lectures edited by Paul Martens, Matthew Porter and Myles Werntz (Baylor University Press, 2010)

John Howard Yoder’s Nonviolence: A Brief History, is yet another in what is proving to be an extended series of posthumously published books. The text is comprised of lectures that he gave in Warsaw Poland in 1983. To remind you of the historical context, at that time the Solidarity Movement had became a powerful nonviolent force trying to affect change in Communist Poland and Pope John Paul II was to visit Poland just a month later.

While the material contains little that is original it is good to have the lectures as they pull together in a simple accessible way a coherent overview of Yoder's account of the history and practice of nonviolence and its theological underpinnings. Hopefully the lectures might eventually be published in paperback as the hardback version is highly expensive for a book of 150 pages.

There is a good review by Andy Alexis-Baker at Jesus Radicals.