Why Christian churches shouldn't celebrate christianised "seders" during Holy Week

For a moment or two, imagine that you’ve just learned that a group within another faith (let’s say, for the moment, Scientologists)  have an annual gathering in which they take the Christian service of Holy Communion, and give each part of the service a strongly Scientologist meaning.  In the process of doing this, they ignore, and at times contradict, the understanding(s) of the Eucharist held by most Christians.

How would this make you feel?  Would you feel annoyed?  Angry?  Hurt?  Would this make you more likely – or less likely – to trust Scientologists when they speak of their good will toward Christians and toward other faiths?

As they say in the old jokes, I have some good news and I have some bad news.

·        First, here’s the good news.  This doesn’t happen.  I am not aware of any group of Scientologists anywhere who celebrate mock Eucharists of the sort I described.
·        Now, for the bad news:  something very similar to this happens every year and, sadly, some Christians are the culprits.

Every year, during Holy Week, many Christian congregations, of a variety of denominations, hold services modelled on the Jewish Passover Seder.  These services impose a Christian meaning on a Jewish observance, frequently ignoring (and even denying) the meaning that Jews themselves give to the Seder.

Most congregations who celebrate christianised “Seders” do so with good will, and with the honest belief that they are making a connection between their worshipping life and the meal which Jesus shared with his disciples during the Last Supper. 

In fact, the present Passover Seder celebrated by Jews today is from a much more recent time than the time of Jesus.  Its current form is from the Middle Ages.  We know very little about the actual shape of the Passover meal used at the time of Jesus, other than that it involved lamb, wine, and unleavened bread.

As well, most congregations who celebrate christianised “Seders” honestly believe that they are promoting good will between Christians and Jews by doing so.  In fact, many Jews believe that the Christians who participate in these services do so in mockery of the Jewish faith.  If anything, these services may be much more of a barrier than an aid to good will between Christians and Jews.

For a church that wants to develop its understanding of Jewish faith and practice, there are many other things you can do.  One of the best things to do is to invite a rabbi or another knowledgeable Jewish individual to speak about Judaism to a study group or a fellowship group in your congregation.

For a church that simply wants to make a connection between their worshipping life and the meal which Jesus shared with his disciples before his crucifixion, the answer is even easier.  You’re already doing it, whenever you celebrate the sacrament which Christians have called the Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Mass, or the Lord’s Supper.  When we share in this sacrament, we recall Jesus together with his disciples, and we hear the words:  “Do this in remembrance of me”. 

Is "Fundamentalist" the best word to use?

The philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”. If Mr. Emerson was right, I’m about to demonstrate the size of my mind because I’m also going to demonstrate a lot of inconsistency.

It began a few years ago at a Rotary meeting. One of my fellow-Rotarians asked me what I thought of a TV documentary in which Professor Richard Dawkins made an aggressive attack on religion in all forms. My response was that the documentary only proved “you don’t have to be religious to be a fundamentalist”.

My little one-liner later found its way into the “letters” page of the Melbourne Age’s “Green Guide” and launched a debate in the "letters" page that lasted a few weeks.

But, in a real sense, I think that “fundamentalist” is the wrong word to use to describe the sort of narrow-minded religious ultra-conservative that most of us have encountered at least once in our lives.

The word “fundamentalist” has been around since 1910, when a series of books called “The Fundamentals” was published in the United States.  As a result of these books, the word “fundamentalist” was used to describe a religious ultra-conservative in the specific context of the "Protestant" stream of Christianity.  From 1910 until the late 1970s, the word “fundamentalist” was only used to describe a ultra-conservative religious person in a "Protestant" context.

In the late 1970s, at the time of the Iranian revolution, the media started to use the word “fundamentalist” to refer to religious ultra-conservatives in an Islamic context. This was the first time the term “fundamentalist” was consistently used to describe people outside the context of the "Protestant" stream of Christianity.

By the late 1980s, “fundamentalist” was used to describe any person in any religious context who combined an ultra-conservative approach to their faith, a puritanical approach to personal conduct, a sympathy for authoritarian political movements, and a contempt for people of other faiths, non-religious viewpoints, and less “intense” versions of their own faith.

By the beginning of the 2000s, “fundamentalist” was used to describe anyone who had a particularly one-eyed approach to reality. People were speaking of “secular fundamentalists”, “scientific fundamentalists”, “economic fundamentalists” (a far better term than “economic rationalists”), and even “Carlton fundamentalists” and “Collingwood fundamentalists”.     (Note, for readers outside Australia, Carlton and Collingwood are two Australian football clubs whose fans are regarded as particularly aggressive in their support for their teams.  Think of the fans of the New York Yankees or Manchester United, and you have the idea.)

However, I believe “fundamentalist” is really the wrong word to describe a narrow-minded religious ultra-conservative in any faith tradition. “Fundamental” comes from the Latin word for a building’s foundation. “Fundamental” means “basic”. The “fundamentals” of mathematics, for example, are basic addition and subtraction. When we use the term “fundamentalist”, we imply that the people we so describe are concerned with the bedrock “basics” of their faith. 

But if you look at the “basics” of any faith tradition, we come to values such as forgiveness, compassion, mercy, generosity, and hospitality. These values are not exclusive to those whom we call “fundamentalists”, are often found in abundance among people whom we would never call “fundamentalists”, and are frequently in short supply among those whom we call "fundamentalists".

So, in a real sense, I believe “fundamentalist” is the wrong word. But still, please excuse me if I occasionally refer to fundamentalists of the secular, scientific, economic, Carlton, or Collingwood varieties.

Double standards

Yes, there are many ethical double standards that operate in our world today.

Most of us expect higher ethical standards from people in professions with a tradition of community service than we do from people in occupations governed mainly by the profit motive.

Most of us expect higher standards of human rights from democracies than we do from nations that make no pretence at democracy.

Most of us judge ethical lapses by politicians and media figures to the left of centre with far greater severity than we do those by politicians and media figures to the right of centre.

Most of us expect a higher commitment to accurate and fair news reporting from "newspapers-of-record" than we do from the tabloids; and a higher commitment to accuracy and fairness from the news services of public broadcasters than we do from those of commercial broadcasters.  We're generally far more disappointed by errors in the "quality" end of the media than we are by errors in the "popular" end of the media. 

Most of us expect that all religious organisations – and the individuals, lay and ordained, within them – will at least try to live by the ethical standards of their faith.  Most of us will judge the ethical failings of the particularly pious with particular harshness. 

Among "religious" people, we have higher ethical expectations of members of the religious mainstream than we have of those on the fundamentalist fringe of any faith. 

As a community we have higher expectations from:

• some professions,
• some nations,
• some politicians,
• some news outlets,
• some philosophies of life

than we do from others.   

Yes, these are double standards, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. 

Without such double standards, we may find ourselves becoming a community with no ethical standards at all. 

An assortment of opinionated one-liners

No unifying theme this time ... just a collection of a few unrelated, miscellaneous, opinionated, and (I hope) provocative one-liners.

...

Looking at Australia's political parties, there's a right-wing party called Liberal, a regional party called National, a middle-class party called Labor, and an occasionally "Orange" party called Green. Could the misleading names of the parties be one of the reasons why many Australians are cynical about politics?

...

Yes, it takes a village to raise a child; but why do so many villages seem to leave the job to their village idiots?

...

The cost of a wedding varies in inverse proportion to the combined intelligence of the couple.

...

When a couple refers to each other as their "partners", I feel sorry for them.  They're not married yet, and the relationship has already stopped being sexy.

...

Richard Wagner is the "gangsta rap" of the classical music repertoire.

...

There's really very little "fun" in "fundamentalism".

“What are the old people coming to these days?”: a sermon by Bob Faser (Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18)

These days, it’s not all that spectacular for people in their seventies to embark on great adventures.  Many older people from the temperate zones, from Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT, or southern NSW … many people in their seventies – or older - people frequently spend much of the winter driving around the warmer regions of Australia, or touring around various historic or scenic regions of the Northern Hemisphere.  It’s not all that spectacular these days for people in their seventies to embark on great adventures.  It’s even expected.

People in their seventies – and older – still have their health and vitality, for the most part.  (Those of you in this age range can make approving noises if you want.)  You’ve got more time to travel than you did when you were employed.  Most of you have more financial resources to travel than you did when you had children at home.  And for some, it may even be a deliberate decision to do some skiing.  (Skiing as in the acronym S-K-I, which stands for “Spending the Kids’ Inheritance”.)

And, to tell the truth, you’re probably a lot more mentally adventurous, much more culturally tolerant, and generally far less conservative now than you were in your thirties and forties.  You probably even find yourself much more mentally adventurous, more culturally tolerant, and generally less conservative than many of the younger people you know.

And this is the case with older people around the world.  If the 1960s were a great time to be young, the twenty-teens are a great time to be old.  For a person in their seventies or older to embark on a great adventure is not all that spectacular these days. It’s become the done thing. 

This was not the case in Abram’s day.  In those days, old was old.  Abram was seventy-five and his wife Sarai was close to it.  They weren’t expected to go chasing off into the desert at the command of some new-fangled Big-G God.  They were expected to ease into their dotage in the safe, old-fashioned way, worshipping their full quota of petty little small-g gods, just as their parents did ... and their parents before them ... and their parents before them ... and so on.

The neighbours probably shook their heads in a combination of amusement and annoyance.  “He’s doing what?  ... Travelling across the desert?  ... At his age?  ... Surely Sarai will talk some sense into him.  ... What?  She’s going too?  ... Both of them should act their age! ... I told you no good would ever come out of this one-God business.  ... What are the old people coming to these days? ...” ... and so on.

And so, as Abraham and Sarai, the world’s first monotheists, left their hometown of Haran ... with their nephew ... and their servants ... and their animals ... and their household goods ..., they must have heard the sarcastic comments of their neighbours.

But somehow, it was in this event, when Abram and Sarai left the comforts of home in service to finding God’s future for them and for the world, that we see a key moment in the religious and ethical development of humanity. For three great faiths:  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – each traces its heritage back to Abram’s desert journey into the unknown.

This is appropriate.  A few chapters before today’s lesson from Genesis, God told Abram, just before he and his family set off:  “... in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”  And, in a real sense, this has been the case.  In the three Abrahamic faith traditions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, whatever their differences, there are some profound common themes:

·           One God who is love at the very heart of God’s being;
·           One God, whose love is extended to all humanity;
·           One God, who calls all people to practice justice, peace, and mercy;
·           One God, whom we worship through our ethical deeds as much as in our religious activities.

For his role in introducing humanity to this One God, “...all the families of the earth ... [were surely] ... blessed” by Abram’s journey into the unknown. 

And so, in the simple reality of an old couple who challenged the expectations of their culture, we see a source of profound hope for all people, for “all the families of the earth”.

 

A hymn about Pontius Pilate (for Holy Week)

Pilate (man of force and power)
Caesar’s man in Palestine,
sent his troops to kill the people
while they worshipped at their shrine.
God of justice, grant our leaders
mercy and humanity.
Guide the people of all nations
into true community.

Pilate (man of pedant’s question),

bully in philosopher’s mask,
toyed and bantered with his captive,
“What is truth?” he’d glibly ask.
God of justice, grant our leaders
mercy and humanity.
Guide the people of all nations
into true community.

Pilate (man of cynic’s symbol),

washed his hands in public place,
shifting blame for Jesus’ murder
to the elders of Christ’s race.
God of justice, grant our leaders
mercy and humanity.
Guide the people of all nations
into true community.

Pilate (man of law and order),

no “bleeding-heart”, a tough judge he,
coolly gave the cruel sentence:
“Send this Jew to Calvary!”
God of justice, grant our leaders
mercy and humanity.
Guide the people of all nations
into true community.

Pilate (man of fearful nightmares,

guilty spirit, troubled brain)
plunged into the Alpine waters,
seeking silence thus to gain.
God of justice, grant our leaders
mercy and humanity.
Guide the people of all nations
into true community.

Copyright, Robert J. Faser, 2002

Tune:  “Ebenezer”

Notes:

This hymn reflects on a number of references to Pontius Pilate in the Gospels, as well as an ancient Christian legend about Pilate’s suicide.  There is a refrain at the end of each verse in which we pray for those who govern us and for the nations of the world.

Vs. 1:  Luke 13:1.  I base much of my assessment of Pilate’s character on this single, rather unguarded, comment in Luke’s Gospel, as opposed to the (in my opinion) more deliberately nuanced accounts in the passion narratives.  

Vs. 2    John 18:33-38.  My assessment of Pilate’s character makes his question “What is truth?” not a comment of an honest searcher, but one of an intellectual thug. 

Vs. 3:  Matthew 27:24.  It would not take a very radical interpretation of the New Testament to realise that, by the time the Gospels were written, the Gospel writers were under strong pressure both to minimise the Roman involvement and to maximise the Jewish involvement in Jesus’ death.

Vs. 4:  Matthew 27:37; Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38; John 19:19.  The inscription on Jesus’ cross about him being “the King of the Jews” gives support to the idea that Jesus was condemned by a Gentile governor as “a dangerous Jew”.      

Vs. 5:  There was an early Christian legend that Pontius Pilate committed suicide by drowning himself in Lake Lucerne in what is now Switzerland.

Preferred tune:                       This hymn is written in the metre of 8.7.8.7.D.  Looking at some of the available tunes, many are inappropriate for the subject matter: 

• “Abbots Leigh” and “Hyfrydol” are both far too “pretty” for Pilate.
• “Austria” and “Ode to Joy” are too celebrative.  (As well, the historical link of “Austria” with “Deutschland Über Alles” makes the use of this tune rather forced, given the subject matter.)
• “Converse” and “Blaenwern” are too sentimental.  
• “Ebenezer” seems to be an appropriately solemn (and “hairy-chested”) tune for a hymn about Pilate.

 

 

"Lincoln", a film review.

I just saw Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln", and it was a great flick.

Now, let me say, I'm into history and I'm into historical movies.  The period of the US Civil War is an era in which I'm particularly interested.  Nevertheless, even given all this, in my opinion, "Lincoln" was particularly good.

It's a verbose movie.  Most of the "action" of the film consists of people sitting around talking; talking in offices, sitting rooms, bedrooms, hospital wards, and the US House of Representatives.  The talk, however, isn't idle chatter.  The talk is the crisp interplay of serious ideas, ideas about peace, justice, government, and life.  (And the scenes in the House of Representatives are well-and-truly in the same league as the parliamentary scenes in "Amazing Grace".)

The film is set in 1865, in the last few months both of the US Civil War and of the life of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States.  Lincoln (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) was engaged in negotiations both over ending the long war, and over an consitutional amendment giving final abolition to slavery.  Lincoln was also coping with the frail emotional state (the result of the death of their middle son William) of his wife Mary Todd Lincoln (played by Sally Field).

In balancing the three needs to end the war quickly, to abolish slavery permanently, and to pay attention to the needs of his wife and his two surviving sons, Spielberg's/Day-Lewis's Lincoln is a study of a good individual torn between three conflicting (but all good) goals.

Lincoln's tension is illustrated by the conflicting influences brought to bear on him by two of his colleagues.  On the one hand is his suave and somewhat cynical Secretary of State William Seward (played by David Strathairn), Lincoln's eminence grise and an expert practitioner of realpolitik, for whom a speedy end to the war was a higher priority than a permanent end to slavery.  On the other hand is the idealistic Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones), who was seeking a permanent end to slavery.  Lincoln, Seward, and Stevens forged a coalition that led to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, abolishing slavery.

In the process, political wheeling and dealing needed to take place, and the misadventures of the trio of political operatives engaged by Seward to wheel the deals provide a few moments of comic relief  in this serious film.  In many ways, they function as a cross between the Drunken Porter in Macbeth and Moe, Larry, and Curly.

For those unfamiliar with American history, there is a need to know that the two major parties shifted their ideological position in the century-and-a-half between Lincoln's day and ours.  In Lincoln's day, in contrast to ours, the Republicans were the progressives while the Democrats were the reactionaries.

The character of Lincoln remained the moral centre of the film.  Juggling the demands of making peace, freeing the slaves, and caring for his family, the strong sense of Lincoln's own humanity shines through (even in his lengthy and folksy stories - which always had a relevant point - and which always raised the ethical stakes in the conversation).  This humanity was seen in his determination to pardon a teenage soldier sentenced to death, even when his staffers were advising him against it.

This film is worth seeing about two or three times at least to get a good idea of the ethical struggle that was going on both among Lincoln's colleagues and within Lincoln's mind.