Lent discussion 4
The disciple
citizen and the family.
We are God’s family
We begin our
discussion of the family, citizenship and discipleship by reminding ourselves
that we are the beloved sons and daughters of God. “Graciously, we are your
children and you are the God to whom we belong” writes James Schaap, in God for
Us.
Because we
are God’s children:
We are seen
Psalm 17:8 - Keep me as
the apple of your eye; Hide me in the shadow of Your
wings. ...
We are held
Deuteronomy 32:11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers
over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them
aloft.
We are
known
Psalm 139
You
know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
What is family?
Today’s
discussion of the family in relation to citizenship and discipleship will not just focus on the
nuclear family or extended family. Any small community which is not temporary
or impersonal, may have characteristics of a family. The discussion will focus
on family as fertile ground, as a growing place – for wheat and for tares.
Families are
hard: the see-sawing balance of fear and delight, of space and holding, silence
and words; doing the wrong thing, doing the right thing – sometimes on purpose,
sometimes by accident. Read this article by Sue Klebold, the mother of the
Columbine shooter, to be reminded how difficult, and how seemingly accidental,
it all can be. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/14/mother-supposed-know-son-columbine-sue-klebold
Here is also a local article, on Winston Wicomb, the “coloured “
brother of the white SA singer, Randall Wicomb. If you read to the end you will
discover how, despite everything, Winston, a biochemist who lives in Seattle,
longs to return to SA, where people are so much kinder than in his adopted home
of the USA. http://www.netwerk24.com/Stemme/Hanlie-Retief/hanlie-retief-gesels-met-winston-wicomb-20160123
QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION:
- WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A FAMILY?
- WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT FAMILIES I BELONG TO?
- WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES IN THE FAMILIES I BELONG TO, IN THE WAY I THINK, FEEL, BEHAVE, WHEN I AM PART OF THAT FAMILY?
- WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS USED IN THE DIFFERENT FAMILIES I BELONG TO?
- WHAT BEHAVIOUR IS REWARDED?
- WHAT ATTITUDES PREVAIL?
There are many ways of answering
these questions. You may want to role-play yourself, and others, in each
family. You may want to write dialogue, or a list of words, characteristic of
each family. Draw or make the different hats you wear in different families.
Assign a colour to each family.
Disciple, citizen, and family
The Greek
word diakonia is translated in many
different ways. One translation describes it as “Spirit-empowered service
guided by faith”. This could serve quite well as a definition of
disciple-citizenship.
In this
discussion, we will look at how families feed, or starve, two important
disciple/citizen attributes : love for our neighbor, and joy in the world.
Trying to
provide a nourishing atmosphere for growing disciples is difficult. A lot of it
seems to go against the human grain. The same goes for growing citizens. In
South Africa particularly, but in fact in the whole world, accepting, relishing
diversity is both important and difficult. It seems that we are hard-wired to
turn towards the mirror-image of the self, and reject the other. Here is a
rather scary/startling link, describing how small babies prefer someone like
them to be rewarded, and someone not like them to be punished!
Reaching out
for the other, turning towards them in joy, is something that must be taught,
practiced, re-learned. We are all, for all of our lives, in rehabilitation from
opposing, fearing, condemning, people who are different.
Why does it matter? The disciple part of this
question we can answer with the injunction, in both the Hebrew Scriptures and
the New Testament, to love our neighbour.
Leviticus 19: 17-18 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall
reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of
him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against
the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself:
I am the Lord”.
The
New Testament, as well as telling us to love our neighbour, takes the
definition of neighbour much further : “There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus”. (Galatians 3:28)
Disciples
must reach out; disciple-citizens even more so.
The
citizen part of the question was eloquently answered by the delightfully named
Lovelyn Nwadeni when she addressed the Stellenbosch convocation on this topic.
She was the first woman, and the first black person, ever to address
Convocation. Here is her speech http://www.litnet.co.za/courage-compassion-and-complexity-reflections-on-the-new-matieland-and-south-africa/
Lovelyn
(who has a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict studies, which she obtained
cum laude from Stellenbosch in 2012) asks whether convocation members want to
be part of a new South Africa, and whether they even think that Stellenbosch is
part of South Africa. “We are a mess “ she says “and we must acknowledge that
mess” “We have a choice as South Africans to reclaim our humanity. Both
apartheid and colonisation dehumanised us all. We must reclaim our histories so
that our children grow up knowing the truth about ourselves”.
“I look forward to the day when I do not have to talk to
my children about racism or sexism. That is really my dream for South Africa
and Africa as a whole. But to get to this point we have to have some difficult
conversations. When these conversations happen, we must know the roles we are
to play. Those who must listen must listen; those who need the chance to cry
must cry. Those who need to be angry must be angry. Those who need to talk must
talk. But none of us gets to claim an easy victory. Because there is no victory
in our collective pain, there is only closure. And South Africa desperately
needs closure”.
The costs and rewards of reaching out in South Africa are
beautifully described by rebel pastor Christi van der Westhuizen, who is a
Verenigde Gereformeerde Kerk minister of a church in Sakhelwe near Dullstroom http://www.netwerk24.com/Stemme/Profiele/elma-smit-gesels-met-christina-landman-20160227
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION : '
- WHAT ARE SOME OF THE DIFFICULT THINGS ABOUT TURNING TOWARDS THE OTHER, ABOUT LOVING OUR NEIGHBOUR, IN JOHANNESBURG IN 2016?
- WHICH OF THE FAMILIES YOU ARE PART OF, ARE BEST AT REACHING OUT, NURTURING, TOLERANCE AND RELISHING DIVERSITY?
- HOW DO THEY ACHIEVE THIS?
- WHAT RESOURCES DO THEY USE?
The uses of Joy. the obligation to rejoice.
Psalm 63:7
I sing in the shadow of your wings
2 Chronicles
20 vs 20-22
20 Early in the morning
they left for the Desert of Tekoa. As they set out, Jehoshaphat stood and said,
“Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem! Have faith in the Lord your
God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be
successful.” 21 After consulting the
people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and
to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at
the head of the army, saying:
“Give thanks to
the Lord,
for his love endures forever.”
for his love endures forever.”
In a very
tight spot, Jehosaphat not only had faith in the Lord, but went out singing to
meet his fate. It all turned out well, but what a hard thing that must have
been. Going out to meet what may well be your doom, you not only march forward,
hard enough in itself, you sing songs of praise and thanksgiving.
This is a
steely, courageous, hard-won joyfulness. Something quite different to
happiness. It finds a New Testament echo in Tod Lindberg’s book ‘The Political Teachings of Jesus”
(thanks, Michelle, for lending us this fascinating book). Lindberg, in a discussion
of the beatitudes, interprets “rejoice and be glad” as an instruction as strong
as any of the other commands embedded in the beatitudes. “As for “rejoice and
be glad” he writes (p26) “we must ask what the alternative is? To be ground
down by the persecution one must suffer; to give up; to let go of the message
of Jesus and wallow, paralyzed, in one’s despair; to become poor in spirit?”
What does
this joy that is the product of courage and faith, have to do with citizens,
disciples, or families? The government cannot sow the seeds of rejoicing,
joyfulness, or gladness. Can the church do this? Sometimes, at parish level.
Sometimes, with an extraordinary leader like Pope Francis ( this link
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/05/22/pope_at_santa_marta_mass_urges_christians_to_be_joyful/1100791 takes you to a homily given by Pope
Francis “ a healthy Christian is a joyful Christian, even in times of sorrow
and tribulation”)
“Rejoice and
be glad” is surely the responsibility of the citizen-disciple, individually or
in community.
What
resources do we have to support this difficult joy? Kyriacos Markides, in his
book The Mountain of Silence : A search
for Orthodox spirituality, suggests that we should always pay attention to “the power of
art and music in the human adventure to find god” (p7)
QUESTION FOR DISCUSSION :
- WHAT MAKES IT HARD TO BE JOYFUL, IN JOHANNESBURG IN 2016?
- WHICH OF THE FAMILIES YOU ARE PART OF, ARE BEST AT HELPING YOU TO REJOICE AND BE GLAD?
- HOW DO THEY ACHIEVE THIS?
- WHAT RESOURCES DO THEY USE?
Closing thoughts
The battle is never won. Even in the triumphant moments of
what we sincerely believed to be the crucial struggle, the next phase is
looming. Winston Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine as the Second World War
was ending: “Beneath these triumphs lie poisonous
politics & deadly international rivalries” He was not wrong!
When the
Israelites entered the Holy Land, that was the beginning, not the end, of a
long and complicated story, with setbacks as well as triumphs. Why should we be
any different in South Africa?
Here are
some thoughts as to what the next phase might look like, globally.
A
newspaper called Beirut Syndrome suggests that, in Lebanon, false optimism can
be downright dangerous. They call, not for pessimism, which has its own
dangers, but for a sober assessment of problems, and innovative solutions to
address these problems.
Philosopher
Roman Krznaric talks about the need for empathy and what he calls
“outrospection” “For me, empathy is about
collective values – trying to shift us from that 20th century individualism.
But we are now in a more urgent need of empathy than ever before because of the
toxic social debates we are having, debates around asylum seekers and wealth
inequalities, for example”. Here’s the link
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