Go with the flow

a reflection on Matthew 25. This image of the separation of the sheep and the goats is familiar (though I have never understood why it is the goats that get picked on; or, for that matter, why the left hand). This is a favourite passage of many preachers, especially for those who use it for encouraging generous giving to charities, or for justifying a crudely literal understanding of eternal punishment. So it needs a close look. First, let us be clear what it is NOT telling us. It is not telling us that God is operating some sort of "merit system" for getting to heaven. We do not earn our way into the reign of God by a visit to a prison, or by a Christmas hamper for the poor. Good things to do, yes; but God is not checking them off on a "naughty or nice" list. The reign of Christ is not DOing things. It is an attitude, a flow. The flow of God's love, of God's compassion, which is already in process - with or without us. We can join that flow, or we can ignore it; some even choose to work against it. Feeding the hungry, giving refreshment to the thirsty, protecting the stranger, are ways in which we participate in the flow of Christ's reign, God's Dominion, which is in the process of going on. "The Kingdom of God is within you" "Glory to God, whose power working in us..." That is our ministry, to join in the on-going flow of Christ's ministry. If we chose to not "go with the flow", it will judge us; we will be separated from it. But to join it, we need only turn to those who are beside us. Who is beside us? As we know from Jesus' answer to that question, he means the one with whom we are not comfortable. So we need to have a close look at who these people are. Who are these people with whom Christ so utterly identifies himself? Who are these people, in whom we meet Jesus by serving, or fail to meet, by not serving? On the one level, they are those who are literally sick, hungry, in prison, etc. But we can see them on another level, when we remeber the context in which Jesus taught. Sickness then carried a cultural moral baggage, with overtones of "impurity", of separation from God and society. Nakedness implies not just poverty, but shame. Convicts and strangers have always made us uncomfortable. Hungry and thirsty do imply poverty, but with poverty, then as now, there is an underlying stigma. In other words, these are the people on the fringes of our society, not at the power centres. They are the outsiders, unwanted, and undesirable as friends. These are the exiled ones, they and the ones who befiend them. The ones who know where the reign of Christ truly flows, and what truly reigns. No, it is not what we own, or what power we wield, or who admires us. What reigns in Christ's domain is shepherds, servants, and compassion. -Bryson

Sometimes!

(Reflection on Exodus 33.12-23)

-- The Rev. Bryson Randall

Despite his success as a mediator between God and the people, Moses is running out of patience. Not just with the people, but with God. In fact, Moses even sounds a bit resentful here, resentful about how God is treating him. In the tradition which is long-standing in the Scriptures, Moses does NOT just keep silent and compliant. He complains, vigorously, to God:

Look here God! You said to me, "Bring up this people out of their oppression in Egypt", but now you are threatening not to go with us, and you have not let me know whom you will send with me.

The response which God makes to Moses, to us, is quite marvelous:

"You cannot see my face. ... But: go stand on that rock; and when my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice, and cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

What happened here to Moses cannot be logically explained, or precisely analyzed. It is story; it is poetry.

But it does tell us that we cannot expect to "see" God, in the sense of having a direct, un-ambiguous certainty, about anything. In the time of crisis, the best Moses was given was to see the "back of God". As T.S. Eliot said, we can only take so much reality. We cannot see God's "face", the full reality of God. That is, we cannot see what is coming, what God has in store for us, what life is going to be bringing us. We cannot know or understand it ahead of time. We can, and must, deal only with what is before us at THIS moment.

But, we can, sometimes, see God's "back". That is, we can sometimes see a small part of what WAS going on. We can, sometimes, after the dust has settled, understand some of what was happening; and, maybe even some of WHY it was happening; why this particular (apparent) blessing, or this particular (apparent) curse, was given to me, or us.

Sometimes!