Church and Theology

If my memory serves me correctly, I have now given eight Ascension Day meditations here at Volmoed. So let me confess that the thought of having to give another, and find something fresh to say, bothered me all week. What more is there to be said, I asked myself?

As you know, I have just come home from a conference at Assisi in Italy. The opening lecture was given by a distinguished professor from Northern Ireland whose specialty is conflict resolution. He was one of those instrumental in bringing about the end of the conflict in his own country, has visited South Africa several times, and has also been involved in the Palestine-Israel situation. The person who introduced him at the conference said that there was one embarrassing story he could tell about him, but would leave that to the speaker to tell if he felt so inclined. He did not!

In giving a word of encouragement before handing over to me to preach last Sunday, the pastor made a correlation between four women in the congregation and two other sets of people in the Bible. The day before, I had preached on Mark 15, so that chapter was on the pastor’s mind. In particular, his attention was fixed on verse 40 which tells of three women “looking on” at the death of Jesus. These were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.

I am reading Michael Moore’s autobiography aptly titled Here Comes Trouble. Moore, as you may know, is an Oscar-winning film maker and bestselling author, he is also a rather zany, off-the-wall kind of bloke. Moore was brought up a devout Catholic, thought of becoming a priest, but dropped out early along the way.

During the weeks of Lent we have been meditating on Jesus’ seven last words from the cross. We have heard him forgive those who put him to death, how he committed his mother Mary into the care of his beloved disciple John, assured the penitent brigand that he would be with him in paradise, heard his cry of thirst and of desolation. Next week we will think about his final words, but the words before the last are our focus today: “It is finished” (John 19:28-30).

It all started when we were sitting with a couple of friends, enjoying a balmy evening and appreciating the incredible scenery of South Africa’s “Wild Coast”. One of our friends had an accordion with her, and began to play that old chorus, “turn your eyes upon Jesus”. I have sung that song probably hundreds of time over the years. So it may be a comment on my age that I have appreciated it a lot more than many of the more recent numbers that come under that strange musical genre that has become known as “praise and worship”.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of ours wrote an email asking for some help in understanding the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25: 14-30. He noted how this parable seems to describe a God, or a Master, that seems to be foreign from other portrayals of God: a Master whose primary interest seems to be in profit and reaping goods where he has not sown. Indeed, we often read this parable and don’t question this motive, and this leads to images of God that are hard to accept.

The lead story on SAFM news I heard as I travelled into Stellenbosch this week was that South Africa faced a water crisis! This is not news, I said to myself! George Ellis the UCT scientist told me that twenty years ago when we were discussing the problems facing a rapidly growing Western Cape. And now, as we sadly know, the Bos Dam above Volmoed is less that 30 percent full and the ruins of an old house that was there before the dam was constructed and the land flooded in the 1970’s is eerily visible. It is a sad sight, as is the Onrus River that flows from the dam through Volmoed.

On the morning of 28 February, his second day visiting the offices of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva, Archbishop Rowan Williams of the Church of England addressed a round table discussion on the unity of the Christian church.

“Unity is neither a means nor an end,” he told assembled staff, visitors and governing body members of the WCC and other organizations in the Ecumenical Centre. “Unity is what God has given us in the church.”

Jesus’ relationship to his mother was complex. On several occasions he treated her with an abruptness that seems completely out of character. Troubling as these might be to some, they resonate with our own experience of parenting if we have been blessed with children. There comes that moment when little Johnny is little no more, but has imperceptibly or more abruptly grown up and moved beyond our sphere of control. In doing so our children may develop in ways that we find puzzling or unacceptable.