Here are two audio files I recorded as part of ikon’s online advent reflection.The first is a political reading of the Virgin Birth while the second is a recording of ‘The Rapture’ parable I shared in a previous post (while this is concerned with a second coming I think it helps us to understand what the first coming was about)
There is an intriguing verse in which Jesus is recorded as having said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7). Upon first looking at this one could ask, “is Jesus being portrayed here as complacent and pessimistic, as saying that no matter what we do we can never abolish poverty”? The verse would initially seem to play into the hands of those who would claim that the world is in terminal decline and can only be redeemed at the end of history. At the very least it would seem to hold a negative view concerning the possibility of ever distributing the wealth of the few among the many.
However there is another way of approaching this verse, one which interprets it as an insightful comment upon the nature of human interaction. Within its context the verse is referring primarily to those without money. However it is important to bare in mind that these individuals will be financially poor, not because they don’t want to work, but because they are excluded from the economic life of the Roman Empire (I would doubt that there was some kind of welfare state). These people would be made up of the elderly, the widowed, the sick, the outcasts, and the political dissidents. So we can think of the people that Jesus is referring to as those who are poor because they are excluded, weak and marginalised. Indeed we can take this a step further and say that, for Jesus, “the poor” directly refers to those who are excluded, weak and marginalised (hence Jesus saying elsewhere about the poor in spirit – a phrase that takes the word poor out of a purely economic realm).
With this in mind we could interpret this saying of Jesus as one that infers, “we will always have the excluded among us”. And indeed this idea makes sense when one acknowledges that every time human beings (as social animals) band together in groups some people will be excluded from those groups. And when one or more of these groups become powerful they will exclude in a more powerful way. Sometimes this exclusion will be explicit and consciously violent (e.g. the Jewish persecution by the Nazis) while at other times it will be implicit and the violence will be hidden (like the implicit violence involved in simply being a Western Consumer). When there are insiders there are always outsiders. Every time an ideological system is formed – a political structure set in place, an economic strategy enacted or a religious group put in power – there will be those who do not fit.
The Christian is the one who always seeks those outside these dominant systems of power (even, or especially, if these systems call themselves Christian). The Christian is the one who privileges those who are marginalised, identifying with the poor in all their manifestations, and seeking to provide them with a voice. The Christian is one who acknowledges that there will be excluded, voiceless people as long as the world is the world. And while they may have a vision beyond vision (no eye having seen) of a realm in which there are no poor, in this world within which we currently have our being what we are called to do is continually prejudice the excluded over the included. The believer is called to always look after the poor and, baring in mind the words of Christ, to never sit back saying, “my job is done, there are no more poor to look after” – if we think that we just aren’t looking hard enough.
In light of the reading of forgiveness outlined below I recently returned to the story of the prodigal son, for it has often been used as a way of claiming that forgiveness is wrapped up in an economy where repentance from the son was required for the forgiveness of the father to take place. However, in re-reading the story I noticed how such a reading misses the radical nature of the forgiveness nestled there.
Firstly, the story itself is framed in such a way that the son’s repentance seems to be little more than a strategy that would enable him to return home where he could be looked after, for we read,
‘When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.”’
However true repentance is not bound up with coming to ones senses, to come to ones senses is to become rational, to think of an action which will lead to desired reaction. The son is in a dire situation and so devises a plan to escape it. This is exposed as we note the reflexive nature of the sons “repentance”. Instead of the text saying something like, “in repentance he returned to his father”, it presents the repentance as something that was thought through; i.e. as a strategy.
Secondly, we can see how the fathers response to the son is enacted without any consideration of the sons reason for returning. In the parable we read, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him”. In other words, the father had already forgiven the son before the son could say or do anything.
In order to draw out the radical message embedded in the parable of the prodigal son I have been playing with a parable that largely mimics the original. This is a currently a draft of something that may appear in the book I am working on (a book of parables with the working title of Dis-courses),
There was once a rich man who had two sons. Now the younger of the two was impetuous by nature and said to his father, “I do not want to wait for my inheritance, please give me my share now”.
His father complied and split the inheritance between his two sons. A few days later the younger son packed his bags and departed from the home. For the next few years he squandered the money that he had been given on a life of hedonism. However the money eventually ran out and soon a famine devastated the land. He found a job feeding pigs and was so poor that he had to supplement his diet with the scrapes that he feed to the animals.
This was no life for the young man and so he thought to himself, “I have had a good time in the last few years, but perhaps I should now return to my father’s home. For there it is warm and I may be able to get some more money”. And so he began the return journey.
While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. The Father then said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
Later that night, after the party, and while he was alone the younger son wept with sorrow and repented.
How can we even begin to approach the subject of forgiveness? It is a word that seems to have a lot of currency in personal relationships, religious movements, political discourse and even business. Yet is the forgiveness we encounter really forgiveness at all?
In politics when the word is used we can be pretty sure something is afoot, that there is a reason for the forgiveness being offered. One can assume that the word is uttered only after a variety of in depth citizen surveys have been taken and the solicitors have worked out the consequences. In short the “forgiveness” has conditions.
So to in the world of business. Here “forgiveness” is a great companion, helping to ensure return business and a good reputation. Again the word comes with implicit conditions, it is, as Derrida would say, inscribed in economics (I give you one thing in return for another).
When it comes to religion the same economic approach can also be seen at play. As John Caputo notes, “forgiveness” all too often comes after a set of criteria has been met, namely (1) an expression sorrow (2) a turning away from the act (3) a promise not to return to the act (4) a willingness to do penance. “Forgiveness” thus follows repentance.
Nothing radical there… this is the way the world does “forgiveness” and, as some theologians would point out, such a message would have been welcomed by the religious authorities of Jesus’ day. The religious system loved repentant sinners, they positively celebrated them (there is nothing quite like parading a repentant sinner in church for inspiring the faithful).
But what if Jesus had an infinitely more radical message than this? What if Jesus taught an impossible forgiveness, a forgiveness without conditions a forgiveness that would give before (some condition was met)? Now that kind of craziness would have annoyed a lot of people. “No, you don’t need to change at all, I accept you and welcome you just the way you are”. This would be the heretical image of a Jesus who hung out with drunkards and prositutues (not ex-drunkards and ex-prostitutes and not as a strategy to make them ex-drunkards and ex-prostitutes).
Yet is it not the case that it is precisely this unconditional gift of forgiveness without need of repentance/change that has the power to evoke repentance/change. As most of us know it is often impossible to change until we meet someone who says to us, “you don’t have to change, I love you just the way you are”. It is only then that the change can even begin to take place.
What if “forgiveness” that has conditions, that is wrapped up in economy, is not really forgiveness at all but rather nothing more than a prudent bet. What if such forgiveness was like a love that only loved those who loved in return i.e. a forgiveness without blood and sweat and tears? What if repentance was not the necessary condition for forgiveness but rather the freely given response to it?
I will post more on this in the next couple of days (working on a parable that will describe it in more detail)
