Tonnau Duw ('God's waves') Fr Tim Ardouin

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God?

Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?”

(Job 11.17)

When William Young’s book The Shack was published a few years ago, there was some fuss among certain conservative Christian communities, about the depiction of God as a holy trinity made of African American, cake loving woman (Papa), ragged mid-Eastern carpenter (Jesus) and mysterious, dancing Asian wind Spirit (Sarayu). “Non-biblical”, said some; “undiluted heresy”, imputed others. “Stay out of the Shack”, warned one agitated commentator.

What I think these reactions pertain to really are not so much to do with wayward authorship but with the shaking up of dormant prejudices and prejudgements in the offended readers themselves. Religious doctrine builds belief structures and patterns of thinking which are accepted or rejected, often, below the level of consciousness. The author was simply exploring creatively how God works in our lives and I think we can benefit from such shaking of faith language, which, if taken for granted, necessarily falls short of its intended usefulness. Young expresses all this when voice- of-the-text character, Mack, meets the triune God for the first time:-

“Thoughts tumbled over each other as Mack struggled to figure out what to do. Was one of these people God? … Since there were three of them, maybe this was a Trinity sort of thing. But two women and a man and none of them white? Then again, why had he naturally assumed that God would be white? He knew his mind was rambling, so he focused on the one question he most wanted answered.

“Then,” Mack struggled to ask, “which one of you is God?”

“I am,” said all three in unison. Mack looked from one to the next, and even though he couldn’t begin to grasp what he was seeing and hearing, he somehow believed them” (The Shack, p. 87).

Does it really matter which name we ascribe to God, or whether we depict God as male or female, black or white, even visible or invisible? Surely, if one thing is clearly biblical and not non-biblical, it is that God is beyond and before all labelling, all doctrine, all religion, philosophy or language. What William Young, just like everybody else who has ever tried to speak or write about God, did in his book was try to describe the Indescribable! The same goes for the biblical authors and all the subsequent doctors of orthodoxy. That does not make such endeavour pointless.

On the contrary. Seen as art rather than crystalized and delineated truth, such work is spiritually valuable. It can help us understand that God is God. Our response to the Mystery that Is God is spent better not on cheap doctrinal crutches but in heart open prayer and with minds gracious to wonder and awe at the universe, in the knowledge that we are always in the eternal presence of the Uncreated One.

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If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” Then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20.9)

Our readings today concern the pain inherent in answering God’s call to die to self, live to truth and tell that truth back into the world. Jeremiah, Paul and Jesus, like so many of the heroes and heroines of our faith, are subject to that pain. They speak of death but that death through which true life is found. “Dead to sin” and “alive to God”, we come to know, says St Paul in Romans 6, that “death no longer has dominion”.

If you want to see a prophet who had a rough time, you need look no further than Jeremiah. He was ridiculed and mocked, was never listened to, was thrown into jail and even dragged into exile when he was shown to be right. Jeremiah was recognized long after his death but never during his life. He was the epitome of the outcast, outlaw prophet.
Yet Jeremiah continued always to speak truth into the world.
Why?

Why would anyone do that, when all they get in return is kicked and punched and abused by those who refuse to listen?

Jeremiah, throughout the book about his life work, is a man of intense vision. It is neither a vision of destruction and judgement nor one of a man of God’s own triumph and vindication. It’s not even Jeremiah’s own vision. The entire book, up to the prophet’s expulsion to Egypt, is filled with tension with a stubborn group of people who want to do things their way and therefore against the Way of God. Even when he’s in Egypt, the scene keeps playing out. Confrontation runs through this man’s life simply because God has placed God’s vision in him.

From Chapter 20, Jeremiah starts to describe the God-vision inside him as “a burning fire shut up in my bones”. He wants to stop it but he just can’t. The fire points to something deeper, more profound, more urgent than his own identity and even any concern for his so-called rights as a human being. God keeps sending. Jeremiah keeps going!

The Gospel in us is just such a fire, just such God-given vision. Can you feel it?

Well you know then, don’t you? When you speak with grace and truth with people, many just won’t take it. They will argue with you, if they have courage. They will stab you in the back if not. Some will simply ignore you altogether.
But some people will receive the word of God in you. That’s why the fire burns. God bless you. God bless you.

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Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

(John 20.21-23)

It’s not about God just lifting us up and forcing his Spirit into us or onto us. We have to receive the gift, inhale the breath of the Maker. Whether Pentecost is about the wind and fire Spirit of Acts, the pneumatic breathing of the risen Christ in John,or both, the prelude to divine outpouring is prayer. The disciples are in their secret room. The doors are locked.

Some of you have asked questions about the centering prayer I showed you last week so I am going to write the main principles here. I hope it will help you practice.

It is suggested we practice for two periods of twenty to thirty minutes a day.  The primary benefit of centering prayer is not realized in the practice itself, though amazing peace and sense of divine indwelling may well be felt, strongly, blissfully. For some, there may be no such sensual experience but it doesn’t matter. It is in our daily lives that the effects of the practice really work on us and transform us. What is important is not our skill in prayerfulness but our intention to give our hearts and minds totally to God during the practice.

When Jesus was asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, he told them, “…when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you”

(Matthew 6.6). Centering prayer is rooted in this instruction.

1. “go to your inner room”

Literally, take yourself    away from the noise of the world. Find physical space where you are not going to be disturbed. Sit comfortably, back straight, feet firmly on the ground. 

2. “Close the door”

Still the noise of the mind. Pray for a sacred word which expresses your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within you – eg God, Jesus, Father, Abba, Mother, Mary, Amen or perhaps Love, Peace, Listen, Mercy, Let go, Silence, Stillness, Faith, Trust…

After some moments focusing on the breath, introduce the sacred word gently, like placing a feather on the soft grass. Keep returning gently as thoughts arise – don’t struggle, your inner dialogue is not your enemy; you simply want it to quieten and be still.

Thoughts, itches etc are natural as emotional knots unravel – just gently return to the centre of being by using your sacred word.

3. “your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you”

Simply trust that God, who sees your secret true self, loves you completely and will speak within you. Give in to God. Centering prayer is not about technique; it’s all about intention. If your intention is to center your being in the Spirit of God, then initial difficulties will fade away, leaving you free to stand in the holy wind, the breath of God.

“Centering Prayer … is free and has nothing to attain, to get, or desire …
no thinking, no reflection, no desire, no words, no thing … just receptivity and consent…” (Thomas Keating)

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“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” …While he was going, they were gazing up toward heaven…then… all of them were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women…” (Acts 1.9-11)

I love these lines from Steve Garnaas’ poem, Absence, http://unfoldinglight.net/,

Making spaces.

The Absent One goes unseen

 through your wastelands toward something else.

Grasses at your feet stir, silent in the spring wind.

Our readings today put us in that space with the Apostles and the women, with Mary and others of Jesus’ earthly family, staring up at the sky, praying, waiting. What happens next? Where are we going to go? What are we going to do now then? What will become of us? What exactly are we waiting for? Is he really coming back? When? How? …What…?

So begins the church. Three groups together, in the space of uncertainty and expectation, praying constantly. The Apostles, the ones who have walked with the Lord, watched him heal and teach, eaten with him, prayed with him, slept rough with him, been tried and tested by him, challenged and trained by him, together with the women who have witnessed and given witness to the resurrection, together with his mother and his brothers, who had shared his growing and his learning, even gone looking for him when they were afraid he’d gone mad.

The earliest church has no plans drawn up. There is no credo nor articles of faith, no structure, no network. Just a few Galileans, gawping up at the sky after the Absent One, and now huddled in their upper-room hideout, somewhere in the still for them lethally dangerous Holy City. It is obvious from their questions just before the Ascension that, even after having minds opened to and by the Resurrected One, these people still do not understand what on earth or in heaven is going on. But they have been told to wait for some kind of power to come. And they trust in the One who has told them to do it. This is sufficient. This, after all they have been through, is all that is necessary.So they wait. And they pray.

There are times in our lives when the action is intense. We seem to know what needs to be done and we just do it. Events pile on top of each other and we respond and drive on to the next. Other times, we are caught in space, uncertain, vulnerable, perhaps confused or daunted about what may lie ahead. What are we to do? The answer is clear, whatever the current state we find ourselves in. Come to the Lord in prayer. Be constantly devoted to prayer and God will pour out his Spirit on us and through us. It is not in the scheming of our minds that the church moves, but in the free flow of the Spirit wind.  The open door to Action is simply prayer.

Grasses at your feet stir…

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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.               (Psalm 23. 1-3)

Psalm 23 is best read with Psalm 22 in mind. Its beautiful imagery and positive energy speak directly into the despondency of its predecessor. Psalm 22 layers lament on top of petition on top of escalating lament, with a faint flickering of trust in God’s deliverance offering its small light in the darkest night. It is the voice of desperation, the cry of a community encircled by enemies, whose life is all but strangled from it.

The exuberant impetus of the 23^rd Psalm compels trust in the Lord, no matter what happens. But it doesn’t ignore or seek to wipe out the pain of 22! The deep sense of abandonment, poignantly expressed in those haunting words “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22.1),is healed in 23.1-3: “The Lord is my shepherd … he leads me … he restores my soul.” Even in the darkest valley, there is nothing to fear, “for you are with me.” The God who seemed to have forsaken the people is really the God who is absolutely and palpably with them even in their deepest despair.

The heart-wrenching suffering of Psalm 22 is met with pain-quenching refreshment for body and soul in 23. The relentless humiliation of the fugitive has left the psalmist “poured out like water,” with a heart “melted like wax” and a tongue stuck to a parched mouth, lying in “the dust of death.” With shrivelled hands and feet and protruding bones, the sufferer is as good as dead in the eyes of the pursuers, as they cast lots for the sufferer’s clothing. The very body and spirit of the sufferer are wasting away. But God, the Shepherd, brings the sufferer to fresh pastures and to still waters. With a rod to protect and a staff to guide, God restores the soul.

God is the host at a feast of thanksgiving, and the sufferer is the honoured guest, whose head is to be anointed with oil (remember Jesus’ teaching on the road last week about the suffering Messiah). But God’s presence and care do not erase evil and suffering. Nowhere in the Psalms do we find such naive faith, but always one that is fully mindful of what has been lost. Divine deliverance does not wipe out evil. It is still in the presence of enemies that the psalmist sits down at God’s table and they have not suddenly become friends. There is pain and suffering in and around all our lives. But our trust, our hope, our belief, as children of God is that there is always deliverance in the midst of it. Whatever preys on us, individually or as community, will not defeat us, because God is with us.

What if we live our lives in the light of this truth? What if we really believe God is with us in every breath? What if we live not in fear but in the indefatigable light of being simply what we are, God’s children, the Shepherd’s flock? What might we do then in God’s holy name for the coming of his kingdom?

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“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”(Luke 24.32)

THERE IS hope dashed in the voice that says, on the road that night long ago, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Had hoped or had been hoping. It matters little which interpretation you choose. The past perfect tense makes it clear. The we who together walk toward Emmaus that first Easter, weren’t hoping anymore. However hard they examined the happenings of the recent weeks, the fact was plain. The man Jesus who had inspired the people so, was not the long awaited Messiah. He had been crucified to death. Everyone knows crucifixion is the final proof that the Romans are in charge. The Messiah could never be controlled by them or any other earthly authority. So many ‘messiahs’ had risen up. All of them shown up for the mere rebels they were, by the sword or the cross. This Jesus had seemed different. He seemed so wise. So knowing of God. Even called God, “Daddy”. This time, the people really “had been hoping…” But no. The wait must go on…

And yet, there, walking the road with them, opening Truth to them, inviting them to walk in its Light, is the very Hope of all hopes. Jesus Christ. Risen. Alive. Here. Now. On the road. At supper. In the heart that burns as it receives God’s word, as the Holy Spirit awakens the soul.

Do you know Jesus as he walks with you? Or are you too busy “examining the evidence”, arguing your theological corner, expressing your take on “life, the universe and all that,” thinking in the ways you’ve been taught to think?

Religion can do that to people. Instead of shedding the light of truth, illumining the path we walk with God, helping us to harmonise with the unexplainable beauty of what Is, religion can build defences for our insecurities. Webs of doctrine too often cocoon the initiated in an impenetrable cloak of smug, false ‘knowing’. Have you ever tried to speak about faith to someone who has stopped you on the street or called at your home to tell you about the ‘true’ religion you’re missing out on because you go or don’t go to church? If you have, you know well this impenetrable cloak, oblivious to and completely uninterested in any kind of reason.

But, as Frederick Buechner wrote, even though “you and I see so little because of our unrecognizing eyes,” God meets us where we are, seeing “each one of us as the child in red.”

So when you are reading, or walking, gazing at the sea or receiving God’s body in church, and you feel your heart burning within you, then be still and know, God is here.

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“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20.25)

WITHOUT there being room in our minds for honest questions and even for doubt, there cannot really be room for faith. Blind acceptance of an idea, be it philosophical, political, scientific or religious, is merely brainwashing or a foolish, in denial response to fear. St Thomas, rather unfairly nicknamed forever, Doubting Thomas (the other disciples didn’t believe until they saw either) symbolizes a necessary moment in all our faith journeys. It is a moment we may revisit many times in our lives. It is not the enemy of faith, rather it is perhaps her closest friend.

This reflection plays off some lyrics by songwriter Paul Simon.

Through the corridors of sleep

I’ve been lying here for a week or more. Can’t sleep. Can’t wake. Just lying here. I must have eaten something I suppose. I seem to be still here anyway. Someone came and said they’d seen him. Can’t remember if it was Magdelene or Peter or one of the others. But they must have been delirious. We all know they got him. And I saw him in the dust on the street. He was half dead then. Could hardly even carry his cross. He wouldn’t have lasted long even if they didn’t nail him up. But John saw that they did anyway. I believe that much…

Past shadows, dark and deep

I just want to die. A year ago, we had so much hope, all of us. Life was hard on the road. We didn’t always go to sleep without that empty, hungry feeling. Didn’t always know we’d get breakfast in the morning either. And the cold, hard ground under the stars was hard to take sometimes, once the night fire was out. But he was radiant. We just fed off his energy, no matter how hard it got, the incessant crowds, the so too many sick and lost ones, the chasers and the harriers from the authorities, the constant questions and accusations. He just seemed to know what to do, always. So much hope in our hearts! We were building a better world. His way was God’s way. He was the way, the truth and the life. But now he’s gone. And they’ll get the rest of us too. One by one, if we keep away from each other. Quickly if we stay together. Maybe that’s what they were doing up in that room. Waiting to die together. I want to die. I don’t want to die…

My mind dances and leaps in confusion

I was the one who got the others to follow him up to Lazarus’ place that time, even though I knew it was dangerous. Even thought we might get killed if we went. But I still believed in him then. Maybe if the soldiers came for him, he’d finally do his messiah thing and the better world would just explode into being. But when they came for him in the garden after the feast, I just knew it wasn’t going to end well. The air was so still. The night so black. There was blood just waiting to get spilled. His blood. Our blood. But there was something in his eyes. Sad. Afraid. But something more too. He seemed to know something. There was still that light in him. That radiance. And he was concerned about us, still. Even though we were already running in our hearts. We couldn’t fight that lot anyway. Every man for himself now. But what was that I saw in his eyes? What do they mean they saw him? How can they see a dead man? But…what? My mind’s going now…

I don’t know what is real

He was always saying stuff about that. What’s real and not real. He used to say only God is real. Time and space, they’re not real. Just illusions. Life and death. Illusions. Believe in him and we had life. Eat his body, he said that night. Drink his blood? I never could follow him far down that road. Only John could sit up with him when he got into the… philos-O-phy… Oh so clever John, who thinks he’s the special one, the ‘one… Jesus… loved’… the ‘Be-Loved dis-Ciple’…eww…

I can’t touch what I feel

But something’s different in me. I can feel this stirring in my heart and in my stomach. I don’t know what it is but I used to feel it when he was around. That hope thing. I don’t know. It’s weird. He always used to say we should trust that feeling in our hearts, in our guts. He said that’s how the Holy Spirit starts to feel when we wake up to it. The Holy Spirit that we get through his ‘living water’ or was it his blood or his body, or the bread that lasts forever or? I don’t know what. It’s that philosophy stuff again. I’m going mad here…

And I hide behind the shield of my illusion

Well I don’t know. I think they’ve gone crazy. Seen him. Ha! Mary Magdalene said that. We didn’t believe her. She’s a dreamer… And now they’ve ‘seen’ him, have they? I reckon they’re delirious or something. All making each other not right in the head. Well, I’m not mad. I don’t believe them. I won’t believe them unless I see him for myself. Yes. That’s right. See him and touch him. Stick my finger in his side. Feel the wounds on his hands and feet. Yeah right. Like that’s going to happen…

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