Care

Sunday 19^th Feb 2023

Hello and welcome to our very first podcast: I’m Reg Bartlett and I’ll be the main voice of the podcast, I’m in the chair if you like, but you will hear other voices, other opinions as we go. 

This is important because this podcast is for those who care; it’s for those for whom things matter and that some things really matter.  The voices of people who care really matter and need to be heard; so, as we go, people from all sorts of backgrounds and traditions will be here and given a chance to be heard and that’s important. 

 

Care is big on the agenda within our culture right now! The Health Service, Schools, Government, Nursing Homes, Housing, Wars in Europe and around the world and most recently the Earthquake in Turkey all centre around the question ‘how should we show we care?’ The recent resignation speech by the First Minister of Scotland centred on ‘Care’ and how best to show it, implement it, make it a reality.  Books on care and their related podcasts, are often written by professional carers, for the ‘trained professional’, or those in training. The aim here is a bit different.  We want a podcast and the book that will follow it that will support professional carers in their vital task but we want it to be in partnership with those receiving their care.  It will mean re-thinking just how relationships work and getting a better understanding of some roles and relationships.  I am going to suggest that care is an interdependent human need not just a ‘one direction’ caring practice. I want to explore the needs of carers as well as those cared for.  That’s important because I am going to claim that unless we care for carers and acknowledge that ‘carers need to care’ then the resulting imbalance will become evident in poor quality of caring relationships, the absence of care and ultimately abuse of those we claim to be caring for; each other. Therefore, this podcast and blog are about developing communities of interdependent care. 

 

The community to which I belong is rooted in the Christian way of life. I’m a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth and I’m going to be thinking a lot about how that affects my caring practice and way of life. Our way as disciples of being in the world if you like.  I must consider it because my values and attitudes and beliefs are so influenced by my relationship with Jesus the Nazarene. So, the podcast is going to ask us to reflect on what we value, how does this guide how we act and what do we end up believing about what it means to be healthy person and living in community. 

 

The podcast requires to be practical; it must answer the questions around what matters to us but not just through theoretical stories, it has to be a guide that leads to living life more fully. Being at ease with ourselves and our world. The practice of care is going to be suggested to be the basis of human culture and civilisation and the lack of it, its demise. The neglect of care will eventually destroy the possibility of a culture of hope, belonging, human presence and a culture of development.  I am going to suggest repeatedly that this is the central message of the teachings of Jesus and indeed the collections of writings that reveal him. 

 

The current care socio-political situation within the society of West Central Scotland where I live, results in a poverty of care where people too often experience loss upon loss. There is a lived experience of  neglect and risk, where there is an unmet hunger for solidarity and mutuality, where lack of reason and moral substance results in conflict and strife, even persecution. People report a care experience where there is no experience of care, peace-making or peace - giving, no resolution and completeness, no mutual health. People and their children struggle to heat their homes and feed their kids.  

 

Therefore this podcast is not just for ‘believers’, it’s for people who feel the need to belong to the human family and who want to be part of caring for that family, your neighbour, your child, your environment, yourself….  So welcome to the Open Space podcast and blog…  

 

We can think of each podcast as having a question or a dilemma of concern to us, a narrative or story that suggests ways to reflect on solutions to the dilemma or question and practical ways to live, personal practices to cultivate that lead to a healthy self, community and society.   

We have been working our way through the gospel of John and seeking to see the link between this piece of literature and the Hebrew Scriptures the TaNaK… 

There will be a series of short background podcasts and blogs posts that looks at the bible as a whole and how the so-called New Testament can be seen as a continuation of the writing and reflecting traditions of the so-called Old Testament and the Hebrew people. 

It will be suggested again and again that the scriptures and sacred writings of the Messianic / Cosmic Christ contained in the bible are all pointing to how ‘Creative Caring Acts’ for our physical, social, psychological and environmental worlds is revealed in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. 

Today’s question is the dilemma faced by all of us. In John 3 the following story unfolds…

 

John Chapter 3

²² After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. ²³ Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. ²⁴ (This was before John was put in prison.) ²⁵ An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. ²⁶ They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

²⁷ To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven.²⁸ You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ ²⁹ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. ³⁰ He must become greater; I must become less.”^[h]

³¹ The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.³³ Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. ³⁴ For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God^[i] gives the Spirit without limit. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

John in his gospel has a central purpose in mind in attempting to answer the basic questions concerning our lives. How did we get here? Why do things go wrong? What can be done to put things right? How can we set up a better future for a healthier more fulfilling life for ourselves and our community?  He sums it up in chapter 20: 30 and 31 …. 

 

³⁰ Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. ³¹ But these are written that you may believe^[a] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

According to John, the signs and symbols of Jesus life and teachings present Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God the source of Life. We have already seen this in Chapter 1 as Jesus being the Logos, the Creator of Genesis 1-2 the prime mover in the ‘Heaven and Earth’ story of light out of darkness, of earth order out of chaos waters, of life out of desolation, of image bearing origins, companionship, provision and care. 

 

John’s purpose is to point us to this loving, creative source of life that he claims is Jesus of Nazareth. 

 

It all goes wrong in Genesis. People meet their own needs their own way and chaos seen in de-creation becomes a possibility again and indeed a reality in all our lives since.  Conflict, war, hunger, murder, slavery, persecution the de-creation forces that rage against the good creation of life and family all unfold in Genesis and are present in occupied Israel of the 1^st century.  

 

In the passage we have read together John is again emphasising these very points, but he is going farther. He is asserting that it is the teachings and practices of Jesus of Nazareth that offer us a solution to the assaults of the de-creation forces on our lives. 

 

After meeting with the Pharisee Nicodemus where Jesus claims that God is the prime mover, the beautiful mind at the centre of the cosmos who through Grace meets our needs. Jesus teaches that we need only be in ‘Human Need’ to be a participator in the ‘Reign of God’; that is, that ‘Heaven and Earth’ meet in the ‘lifting up of the Son Of Man’; that life meets us here on Earth as a gracious gift in Jesus of Nazareth the Cosmic source of Life. 

 

We then find Jesus in the countryside baptising and teaching. Then an odd question unfolds. 

 

John the Baptist, who is also teaching, and baptising folks is asked a question about purity laws. We know teaching is going on because baptism is going on. Why get baptised if you have not been taught that it is a practice that says something about your life that needs to be declared? The people listening obviously think baptism is something to do with purity, and not only that, but they are also stating something through baptism, namely that the way things are, are a result, of something to do with values, attitudes and behaviours that need to change. They have a name for values, attitudes and behaviours… They call it ‘Purity’.

 

Then the question arises; Jesus’ teaching versus John’s teaching, Jesus’ definition of ‘purity’ versus John’s definition of ‘Purity’ and the answer could not be clearer.  John the Baptist is in no doubt; If you want to know what must change ask Jesus, if you want to know why no matter how holy our intentions are it still goes wrong then ask Jesus. If you’ve tried the old religious rituals and sectarianisms of one denomination versing another, seek the teachings and practices of Jesus. It is important to realise that both John and Jesus are putting into practice the teachings of the scrolls of the Hebrew people, but they are doing it in a radically different way to the religious establishment. They are not in the temple, the monastery or the religious school. They are with the ordinary people, where they live offering an alternative to ritual washing, holy people and holy places. John maintains that if we know we need change physically, socially, mentally or environmentally then we are seeking the ‘Heaven and Earth’ story that is taught in the Hebrew scriptures. ‘God is True’, the ‘God who Speaks’, the ‘God who Gives’, ‘The God who Loves’ and the ‘God who Invites’ is according to John revealed in Jesus. 

 

The good news is that all of humanity are offered life, land and a safe place of nurturance, but there is an alternative. In this passage it’s called ‘God’s wrath’. We can choose God’s Wrath?  Now here is the controversy. How can a loving God be wrathful, violent and vengeful? Great question!  Of course, He cannot! Both Johns, the Baptist and the Apostle are answering the question about purity! Here is the point, we can have the purity of religion and ‘insiders and outsiders’ and its ‘Heavens and Hells’, the repeated ‘Ritual Washings’ or you can have the purity of God revealed in Jesus, the ‘Heaven and Earth’ story of Grace, love, inclusion and diversity. You can have the Garden Story, the Temple Story of ‘Heaven meeting Earth’ or we can have the ‘City Religion’ story, meeting needs at the expense of love, grace and inclusion. Our is the choice; How will we meet our needs individually and as a community? We can choose the Heaven and Earth story meeting in Jesus’ love and values… This is the healing and purification of love.  Alternatively, we can choose Heaven for some and Hell for most, meeting in the religion of the survival of the fittest, exploitation of the poor, racism, the deserving and undeserving the chosen and the rejected. God’s Wrath is part of the ‘Heaven and Hell’ reading of scripture. Hell does not form part of the ultimate ‘Heaven and Earth’ story. Some ways of being in the world need hell to manage people and make them docile and grateful for what they don’t have, freedom! 

 

The care practice of Jesus is a radical inclusive care that people, all people matter and that acting in solidarity with the excluded is the path to ‘The Heaven and Earth’ reality… Our next session emphasises these points when we will see this story of radical inclusion and care extended to a woman from Samaria. Until then… 

 

May the Lord Bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace… Amen