Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
In many ways, this is the experience of mainstream churches in twenty-thirteen.
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right,
Here we are, stuck in the middle ...
On one side, we find religious communities – Christian or otherwise - that are sure that their particular spin on religious faith is right, and that every one else’s particular spin on religious faith is wrong.
On another side, we find some very influential voices in our society who rubbish religion of all sorts, who lampoon religion of all sorts. They are those who tell us that religion (and Christianity, in particular) is the source of all humanity’s woes; as if Hitler was all that religious; or as if Stalin was all that religious; or Pol Pot.
If the one lot we call religious fundamentalists, the other lot we can call secular fundamentalists.
If the one lot says “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid, except mine”; the other lot says “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid ... full stop.”
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right,
Here we are, stuck in the middle ...
It is our spiritual vocation to inhabit “the messy middle” (1), without the cock-sure certainties of those who proclaim “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid, except mine”, and without the cock-sure certainties of those who proclaim “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid ... full stop.”
It is our task to be passionately affirmative about our way of being people of faith, without being negative about other people’s ways of being people of faith (and without being negative about those who live their lives well without being people of any sort of religious faith).
It’s not an easy task. Those of us whom God calls to inhabit the “messy middle” need to cope with the grey areas of less theological, ethical, or moral certainty.
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right,
Here we are, stuck in the middle ...
Our lessons for this Second Sunday of Advent give us some clues for the task ahead of us.
In our gospel lesson, we see the figure of John the Baptist. John was a person with a highly austere lifestyle. (Today, we could say that John has scored the austerity trifecta: vegetarian, teetotal, and celibate.) He also had an uncompromising message of God’s requirements for those who would enter his Kingdom.
Jesus never embraced the austerity of John’s lifestyle. Jesus proclaimed a much more inclusive vision of God’s kingdom than did John. But Jesus still spoke of John the Baptist with great respect.
The average member of the people of God is not called by God to embrace all the austerities of John the Baptist. But, in every generation, including our own, the people of God need a few of the direct “in-your-face” prophetic types such as John. This is so, whether they exist on the “left” or the “right” of the theological spectrum. They help keep the rest of us on our theological toes; whether they call us to a greater boldness in sharing our faith or to a greater boldness in working for social justice.
However irritating they may be at times, we need our John-the-Baptist-types.
But the people of God also need those who challenge the “in-your-face” John-the-Baptist types to ease up, to lighten up, to seek a more humane balance in their faith.
In our lesson from Romans, we see something very different from John the Baptist. On one hand, Paul wrote as someone who loved his own tradition deeply: “For whatever was written in former days was written for our encouragement, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”
On the other hand, though, Paul approached his tradition with the hand of one who knows that the tradition needs to be broadened. He knew that the Gentiles have been included within the people of God in the whole Christ event. He celebrated this inclusion, and he highlighted those parts of his tradition that supported this inclusion. (And he laid aside those parts of his tradition that did not.)
Paul was being a very contemporary person of faith here. Theologically, Paul showed himself as an inhabitant of the “messy middle”, as one who loved his tradition passionately but who saw the task of inclusion as an urgent priority.
And people of faith today need to be about this same task:
· emphasising those aspects of our faith traditions that are life-giving;
· laying aside those aspects of our faith traditions that are not life-giving;
· being willing to argue the point robustly as to which aspects of our traditions are life-giving or not;
· being willing to stand corrected, at times.
It’s not an easy task inhabiting the “messy middle”
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right,
Here we are, stuck in the middle ...
Isaiah’s vision in our first lesson proclaims to us that all these difficulties are well worth it. Last week’s lesson had one of Isaiah’s great visual images of swords being hammered into ploughshares; spears being bent into pruning-hooks; weapons of death becoming tools for life.
Today we have another of Isaiah’s great word pictures. The profound peace of God extends into the animal kingdom, so that all the creatures of the earth shall lie down together in peace and harmony.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
In the early 19th century, an American Quaker artist named Edward Hicks painted a series of many paintings on this passage. He gave the series the name “The Peaceable Kingdom”. The paintings were in a naive, almost primitive style, with the animals having a human quality to their faces, looking rather philosophical – as if they were pondering the mysteries of life at a Quaker meeting.
The paintings capture the radical nature of Isaiah’s vision.
And it is this vision of wholeness that enables us to keep on struggling here in the “messy middle”:
· Despite those who say “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid ... full stop”; and who call us to abandon all faith; we know there’s something much, much more to life.
· Despite those who say “All religious faiths are wrong and stupid, except mine”, and who call us to abandon our style of faith for a more exclusive approach to the life of faith; we know there’s something much, much more to God.
We still hear this vision of God’s peace breaking out in God’s world. With the vision, we also have God’s call to keep struggling as God’s people in the “messy middle”.
It’s not an easy task. Those of us whom God calls to inhabit the “messy middle” need to cope with the grey areas of less theological, ethical, or moral certainty. In the midst of these grey areas, we can discover the good news of God’s inclusive love for the whole creation.
Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right,
Here we are, stuck in the middle ... with God.
***
(1) The notion of the "Messy Middle" to describe those of us committed to a mainstream, ecumenical faith is not original to me. In particular, Avril Hannah-Jones is one person who has worked with this idea recently.
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