A councillor in Bideford Devon is so incensed that council meetings began with prayers that he claims that it is an infringement of his human rights. The National Secular Society is now helping him with legal action. I struggle to get my head around how a person standing in a room with others praying can, even as an unbeliever, see that as such a violation. Maybe, and this is speculation on my part, is this because faith in God, and prayer in particular, is perceived as belittling.
Are we merely pawns in some divine chessboard? Is faith in God really about a kind of submission which reduces us to the position of slaves under a tyrant monster of a God (or if we don’t believe in God – a system of religion) ? Further more, is religion the one thing that divides us rather than unites us? Is it the case that without churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, human beings would have less conflicts and be more united?
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The Roman-Greek mythologies did seem to stress the lowliness of men and women in the grand scheme of things. There was an underlying despair in their narratives which did see us as pawns. This made it very easy for citizens to fall into line with the view that the emperor was a living god. Just like the desolate souls of the Soviet empires who worshipped the Party leaders who told them that they were nothing but cogs in the machine that was the State.
In today’s first reading (Acts 16. 16-34) we pick up on Paul and Silas being taunted by a slave girl. “These men are slaves of the Most High God,” she says. In other words she is accusing them of being pawns, worthless minions to Jehovah.
But, who is really free in this story? The slave girl has a power of divination through some dark inner spirit or force. Her owners make a good buck from her predictions and of course are riled when she is power is broken. Paul and Silas are then imprisoned and after the miraculous earthquake - liberated. The guard is terrified of the punishment that will be met out on him so he quickly tries to commit suicide. He is dissuaded but asks, “Sirs what must I do to be saved?” The instruction is without hesitation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” In this ancient culture the word for salvation comes not only close to liberation but also healing. So in New Testament mindset salvation is not just the next life, but also our experience freedom and wholeness, here and now. And the story, leads us to this conclusion, the guard is not just baptised, but seeks to wash (heal) the wounds of these apostles, and to offer them food and hospitality. We can imagine that a great burden had been lifted from this family and their joy was intense and complete.
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Have you ever watched that TV quiz show, Come Dine With Me, where participants (sometimes celebrities) make a meal and act as host. They then give each other marks out of ten and the winner gets a thousand pounds. The fly on wall documentary is popular but turgid and often there is a lot of predictable bitchiness.
Well it would make television history if a host, told his guests he was about to get wrongly arrested and killed. Imagine the cameras rolling as during the meal he breaks bread and tells them that this is his body and afterwards that a chalice is filled with his blood, even though it looks like wine. Then further more after the meal, imagine the host getting up and washing the guests feet, and imploring them to love one another. Top this with a prediction that some invisible spirit called the Advocate was going to come along later and empower them beyond their dreams. At the end this host prays that the kind of unity he has with God was the ultimate prize.
Of course we know this as the Last Supper. In the version by St John, the fourth evangelist, Jesus gives a long powerful speech. At the end of the testimony there is this prayer (John 17.20-end), which is often called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. It is recorded not for the disciples but for us the reader.
The heart of this prayer is that we may be one, united, just as Jesus himself is united to the Father. But what kind of unity is it? Is it the uniform drab eternal existence of a slave bowing in front of a giant throne? Am I somehow being absorbed into some magical spiritual force so that my identity evaporates? On earth does this ones mean doing as I am told in case that divine Big Brother or his clerics catch me out?
The key word is love. We called to be ‘one’ by our common experience of being liberated by the carpenter of Nazareth who says ‘I call you not servants any more but friends.’ This is the friendship of him whose love and passion for us is so intense, if not eternal, that he offers himself for us on the Cross at Calvary. He wants that love to sink deeply between the roots and marrow that we may be transformed by love, and know that we are truly loved, totally healed, and therefore free.
Are we merely pawns in some divine chessboard? Is faith in God really about a kind of submission which reduces us to the position of slaves under a tyrant monster of a God (or if we don’t believe in God – a system of religion) ? Further more, is religion the one thing that divides us rather than unites us? Is it the case that without churches, mosques, temples and synagogues, human beings would have less conflicts and be more united?
**
The Roman-Greek mythologies did seem to stress the lowliness of men and women in the grand scheme of things. There was an underlying despair in their narratives which did see us as pawns. This made it very easy for citizens to fall into line with the view that the emperor was a living god. Just like the desolate souls of the Soviet empires who worshipped the Party leaders who told them that they were nothing but cogs in the machine that was the State.
In today’s first reading (Acts 16. 16-34) we pick up on Paul and Silas being taunted by a slave girl. “These men are slaves of the Most High God,” she says. In other words she is accusing them of being pawns, worthless minions to Jehovah.
But, who is really free in this story? The slave girl has a power of divination through some dark inner spirit or force. Her owners make a good buck from her predictions and of course are riled when she is power is broken. Paul and Silas are then imprisoned and after the miraculous earthquake - liberated. The guard is terrified of the punishment that will be met out on him so he quickly tries to commit suicide. He is dissuaded but asks, “Sirs what must I do to be saved?” The instruction is without hesitation, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” In this ancient culture the word for salvation comes not only close to liberation but also healing. So in New Testament mindset salvation is not just the next life, but also our experience freedom and wholeness, here and now. And the story, leads us to this conclusion, the guard is not just baptised, but seeks to wash (heal) the wounds of these apostles, and to offer them food and hospitality. We can imagine that a great burden had been lifted from this family and their joy was intense and complete.
**
Have you ever watched that TV quiz show, Come Dine With Me, where participants (sometimes celebrities) make a meal and act as host. They then give each other marks out of ten and the winner gets a thousand pounds. The fly on wall documentary is popular but turgid and often there is a lot of predictable bitchiness.Well it would make television history if a host, told his guests he was about to get wrongly arrested and killed. Imagine the cameras rolling as during the meal he breaks bread and tells them that this is his body and afterwards that a chalice is filled with his blood, even though it looks like wine. Then further more after the meal, imagine the host getting up and washing the guests feet, and imploring them to love one another. Top this with a prediction that some invisible spirit called the Advocate was going to come along later and empower them beyond their dreams. At the end this host prays that the kind of unity he has with God was the ultimate prize.
Of course we know this as the Last Supper. In the version by St John, the fourth evangelist, Jesus gives a long powerful speech. At the end of the testimony there is this prayer (John 17.20-end), which is often called the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. It is recorded not for the disciples but for us the reader.
The heart of this prayer is that we may be one, united, just as Jesus himself is united to the Father. But what kind of unity is it? Is it the uniform drab eternal existence of a slave bowing in front of a giant throne? Am I somehow being absorbed into some magical spiritual force so that my identity evaporates? On earth does this ones mean doing as I am told in case that divine Big Brother or his clerics catch me out?
The key word is love. We called to be ‘one’ by our common experience of being liberated by the carpenter of Nazareth who says ‘I call you not servants any more but friends.’ This is the friendship of him whose love and passion for us is so intense, if not eternal, that he offers himself for us on the Cross at Calvary. He wants that love to sink deeply between the roots and marrow that we may be transformed by love, and know that we are truly loved, totally healed, and therefore free.
