Proof

 5^th March 2023

 

Introduction

 

Hello and welcome to the Open Space podcast: I’m Reg Bartlett and in the chair today. You can contact Open Space at openspacescotland@gmail.com. 

 

Proof, we feel the benefit of proof, we all need to know what we think we know is valid, trustworthy, reliable and works in diverse circumstances.

 

I need to know that the brakes in my car will work. I know that brakes have failed in certain circumstances but that doesn’t affect my trust in my brakes. Mostly brakes work, they don’t fail and if they do, accident investigators will search for why they have failed so it doesn’t happen again or at least the likelihood and consequence is so affected that the risk is reduced to acceptable levels. Ahh the dreaded risk assessment!  

 

There are a range of ‘ways of knowing’. We know things because we think things through.  We try and take bits of data and turn it into information, meaningful data if you like. We try and deduce; we create a working hypothesis and see if our information supports it. Sounds good but there is a problem. Does it work in the real world? Do ideas and combination of ideas that seem sound or at least ‘sound enough’ work when we try and put them to work in the real world of life. If not, why not? Could I be biased in my thinking. Have you ever thought something was a good idea simply to find out it was the worst decision you have ever made when you put it into practice? Unintended outcomes, the situation was more complex than I first thought.   Ok, let’s think about it in another way. How about trying to understand an issue the other way round. What do I observe in the real world? Can I accept what I see? If I can’t see, hear, touch, taste or smell can I create a tool that does it for me, a tool that will demonstrate what’s happening beyond my direct senses? Can I rely on knowledge by Induction? How does the real world give up its hidden complexity? Can something be truly known, can we prove anything and if a theory is disproven once is that it, all over, back to the beginning and start again? Can I really know anything with any sense of certainty? Well, we know we can. Paracetamol helps reduce the pain of a headache or an inflamed joint, but it doesn’t work all the time in all circumstances. It works within parameters, doses, frequency and individual characteristics of the person. We even influence the effect of a medicine by what we believe about it, who prescribes it and what we are told to expect.  Amazing! 

 

In what do I put my faith and trust as ways of knowing? It’s important; can I rely simply on the world of ideas or do I need to experience these ideas in the material world as valid. Data is not information, which is not a hypothesis, which is not a theory which is not a fact, which is not a trial or double-blind trial. But they are all needed, all part of process of what makes knowing and life possible. We are not even consciously aware of all these complex processes at work all at the same time to make life in our world possible. We turn up at the G.P. tell them a story about ourselves and we expect, even demand they have a solution to the questions of our health. We are totally unaware of the complexity of the process we are involved in. 

 

It's much the same in matters of ‘Faith”. For example, am I basing my faith on simply data, information, a working hypothesis, a theory or piece of research using double blind trials and experiments. Am I basing my trust simply on ideas or practice or some kind of mixture of both. 

 

What we value, how we tend to act, what we believe, how we change how we live and behave over time is complex. Simply reducing it to one element of the knowledge process will affect the outcome of living our lives. Singular bits of data are less reliable and generalisable than a field trial. 

 

In John 4

 

Jesus Returns to Galilee

⁴³ When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee ⁴⁴ (for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in the prophet’s own country). ⁴⁵ When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son

⁴⁶ Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you^[g] see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ ⁴⁹ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ ⁵⁰ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. ⁵¹ As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. ⁵² So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ ⁵³ The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. ⁵⁴ Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

 

Jesus makes his way back to Galilee to Cana; in fact to where some claimed Jesus turned water into wine. He was also now known through what happened in Jerusalem at the ‘Festival’.  The clearing of the Temple got Jesus a reputation.  But for what? ‘A wine making social and religious radicle?’. The people seem to know what they have seen and they welcomed Jesus. They seem to have eyes to see but what exactly are they seeing? Who are they welcoming? 

 

I have met many people who identify as Christian. It never ceases to amaze me why they call themselves Christian. They seem to welcome Jesus but what they see in him is very varied.  What data, information, hypothesis, theory is circulating about Jesus? How can we know? There appears to be two strands of evidence circulating now: wine making and Temple clearing. And then something strange happens at lease strange for us in the 21^st century. 

 

A Royal Official, a Senior Civil Servant if you like comes to Jesus and asks him to come and heal his sick son. Jesus mind seems to on other things he says to the man, ‘Unless you^[g] see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ Mnnn, is that what the man was asking for a ‘sign and wonder’. Is this man simply seeking some evidence of Jesus true identity, is he not truly having a last-ditch attempt to save his son, is Jesus perhaps looking and talking at the man but actually speaking to a wider audience? The man believes Jesus when he says his son will live. A word only statement, but the man believes and goes on his way; he meets up with his staff the next day and they tell him, all is well, and that his son got better at the time Jesus said he would the previous day. The outcome was that whole household is told the story and they believe; but believe what? What have they got evidence for? What is their lived experience confirming for them? 

 

Now we have three incidents and two signs. Wine making from water, clearing a temple and healing a very sick child. The is some narrative between these stories about purity laws, ethnic identity and gender identity and now a healing. What is John the author telling us. Are we expected to know something? 

 

The answer is yes. To even remotely see what’s going on here John is making a big assumption and its this. He assumes we know at least the outline of the story of the Hebrew scriptures. The gospel of John is continuation of the meditative literature tradition of the Hebrew people known as the TaNak or as Christendom renamed this literature the Old Testament. 

 

John is continuing a way of formulating knowledge. It’s quite different from how we do it today. As we have considered a bit earlier modern western natural science and social science are the main player in our culture for at least official knowledge. There are many other ways to know things and explore truth statements: poetry, art, music, literature, philosophy, history, archaeology family stories, gossip, superstition, tradition, institutions, religion, conspiracy theory and direct experience. The list goes on! These are all used in our culture. The next time you are being told something by someone ask yourself how they know what they telling you is true. How do you know you can trust what I’m telling you? What are my sources?  You may surprise yourself and end up more than a little cautious about what you believe as ‘True’. 

 

John in the First Century Middle East is part of a Hebrew literary meditative tradition that is culturally situated in Roman occupied Israel and has added the lived experience of a Rabbi called Jesus of Nazareth as a lens through which to understand history, the present and what the future could hold. 

 

To understand what John is writing we need some of his information to make sense of the story. Usually, in my experience people are not taught this or  the information made available to them for them to consider, to meditate upon, to reflect on and come to a knowledge of the truth about the way things are. We have been taught to rely too much on tradition and institutions. ‘The story of Rabbi Jesus means what the Church says it means?’ Really? What church, from what part of history and what will you own and disown? 

 

The cultural background, the language and our own forms of knowledge will shape what we conclude, or perhaps meditate on, hold lightly, gently, respectfully valuing others opinion, respecting diversity and holding disagreement peaceably. 

 

The alternative way to consider Jesus is to be always looking for ‘Signs and Wonders’. The Heaven and Earth story of Jesus and the Hebrew people  gets replaced by a Heaven and Hell story of the Romans and Greeks. Knowledge by deduction over knowledge by induction, the lived experience. The bible records the lived experience of the Hebrew people by a large number of interpreters and writers, rewriters and redactors producing a literature full of meditation potential as a vehicle for us to be part of the making of a world fit for all  of us to live in free from poverty and want. Tim Mackie (there is a source) calls it a ‘minority report’. He is suggesting that the bible is attempting to speak ‘truth to power’.  But is that our experience of it? The bible has often been an abused document by the powerful to kill the truth. The story of Rabbi Jesus meets us in the here and now. It does not tell us what to think but gives material to begin thinking, reflecting and meditating on what makes a good world. Surely that’s worth more than as Jesus put it; signs and wonders.   

 

 

So what do you make of the story of a people who welcome a winemaker, a temple clearer, a challenger of the religious establishment and its ownership of the sacred writings, a baptiser and healer. Are any of these themes linked to anybody in the TaNaK? If so what is there identity and what are the references. Who is it that the scriptures speak of? What is John trying so say to me 2000 years down the line? Why should it be important to me? 

 

The questions just keep on coming….. Here is some reading for you. You can use and online bible like Bible Gateway to look readings up its easy…. Go on have a go and see some of John’s sources of knowledge and what he thinks about them…. 

 

Isaiah 25: 6-10

Psalm 69

Isaiah 53

Isaiah 40

 

And may your mediation bring you peace as you pray…

 

"Blessed are you O' Lord King of the Universe Who has fulfilled all of the law through Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah and have covered us with His Righteousness.’

 

Amen…. 

Identity

 

Sunday 26^th February 2023

 

Introduction

 

Hello and welcome to the Open Space podcast: I’m Reg Bartlett and in the chair today. You can contact Open Space Scotland

 

It’s all around us, ‘The Identity Question’ Who do we say we really are. Scots or British perhaps Trans British, Male or Trans Male or Female or Trans Female, Non-Binary, the possibilities seem never ending. To miss a defining characteristic out runs the danger of being labelled oppressive, discriminatory and as silencing that identity.

 

Lots of research work has and is being done on this subject; we can see this in the online document from the Scottish Government regarding question creation for the Scottish Census Survey. There are some fascinating discussions at the moment on the questions surrounding identity. These are not simple or straightforward. 

 

I have to say right at the outset of this podcast that as far as I can see the teaching and practice of Jesus of Nazareth, situated in the 1^st century is clear to me. Jesus was and is inclusive. I mean radically inclusive. He broke lots of identity taboos of His time to reach out to people. People were ‘People First’ fully human and deserving of the same respect no matter how they personally identified. According to Jesus people had a need and a right to live like and with other folks who may proclaim different personal identities as citizens. Jesus taught and practiced that human need was both personal and social. One area of life did not ‘trump’ the other; acceptance of difference, choice and ‘peaceable disagreement’ were practiced as a way of living together in a valued, developmental and progressive way.

 

Now there are different interpretations to this inclusive and diversity valuing interpretation of Jesus life. The life, words and practices of Jesus have been used as a reason to create discrimination; some argue that Jesus teaches and practices that there are a ‘chosen saved elite’ and a rejected ‘created damned’; They have a Heaven and Hell view of the gospel. But I don’t get that at all from the Jesus of the Nazareth found in the New Testament.  Jesus seems to teach a Heaven and Earth story.  You see, words are slippery, elusive, ambiguous stuff. In the end they mean nothing. That’s right, words mean nothing! It is people, writers and readers who mean something. People bring meaning to words. Our physical, social, psychological and environmental worlds interacting with that of others. We create new experiences and interpretations in this never ending (that’s how it feels) dynamic of life. Language, writing, ideas are communicated through symbols; we them call words. Agreement between us is possible, peace and understanding is possible, growth and development is possible but it takes the recognition, acceptance and valuing that diversity and complexity is needed and is a valuable and good thing.  As Paul, the often maligned writer regarding  identity wrote in   2 Corinthians 3: 8 … ⁸ And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 

 

The ‘Trans(ition) State’ seems to be a process we are all in? At least according to Paul.

So the question for us is; ‘Are those of us who are in a state of transition from identity to another given a voice by Jesus?’ 

 

John 4

Now when Jesus^[a] learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John’— ² although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized— ³ he left Judea and started back to Galilee. ⁴ But he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)^[b] 10 Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ ¹¹ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ ¹³ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ ¹⁵ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ ¹⁷ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ ¹⁹ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you^[c] say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ ²¹ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ ²⁵ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ ²⁶ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,^[d] the one who is speaking to you.’

²⁷ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ ²⁸ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah,^[e] can he?’ ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to him.

³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ ³² But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ ³³ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ ³⁴ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving^[f] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

 

The controversy around Jesus continues. People being baptised, coming out if you like. I like that, Baptism is a coming out statement. It causes some folks a great deal of anxiety. In publicly stating that our world is challenged and changing, other people will get anxious regarding the implication for their worlds. Sometimes we must move on to take the threat out of a crisis moment for some. Jesus moves on in the story but he does not move back. He is not on the run. He simply moves to a place that is equally controversial and finds himself through a basic human need in another ‘Transition Moment’.  Jesus is thirsty, he asks for a drink from a women at a well in an avoided neighbourhood, at least avoided by some;  but not Jesus. 

 

Wells, water, thirst, have a ‘well-established’ imagery in the scriptures…. Look some up. You know how to do it? If not email for a copy of some online recourses to help.  John the writer here gives us a starter for 10. We are at Jackob’s well, on a piece of land given by Jackob to Joseph. These are big characters in the Hebrew scriptures. John is asking us to get familiar with them and use them as starting point to understand what’s going on. John sets the scene for a reason but so we do not get confused he also explains. Some believe that being thirsty is not a good enough reason to ask someone from a different gender, social status and cultural background for a drink. They are who they are, and we are who we are. No crossing boundaries, no transitioning into who we know we really are. That’s not a possibility. Unless your Jesus. 

 

Here goes the taboos again! Jesus and the woman are both human beings, one in a state of need and one in a state of plenty.  Or so it seems, one thirsty, one has got a well and a water bucket. But as the story unfolds we discover that both are thirsty in one way or another and both have a plenteous supply of what the other really needs. 

 

The implications of the story are huge then and now. We don’t need to be in a state of poverty amid plenty. We can give what we can and receive what we need. This is the ‘Spirt and Truth’ of it. Identity is not fixed but in state of flux. We are in a state of becoming and it starts by just being. Just being who we really are; just come as you are. The effect of transitioning affects the whole community when we come as we are. When we come as we are we all change to who we are meant to be. 

 

We can be like some of the disciples and get very anxious about challenging taboo subjects and coming out as a people for whom there are no untouchables. There are no fixed identities but rather, in the flux of life, we are constantly being challenged to care and to share the wealth of good world. We are challenged to receive gifts of community and love from the hands of those we once were taught were untouchable. 

 

Jesus has crossed the social and psychological divide. This is the radical care of meeting people where they are, listening to them and empowering them to be who they really are, fully human, valued and loved by us by supporting them to become the people they have been created to be. Jesus gives the silenced a voice.  Being and becoming may not be binary opposites after all. They, in fact, are non-binary. They are one and more than one thing, both at the same time. A bit like Jesus, human and yet something more. Jesus is becoming, transitioning to something more. At least he was for the women at the well and some of her community and he is for me; anybody know where I can get a drink, I’m thirsty? 

 

Until next time, may Jesus words become for you living water; Jesus spoke these words regarding identity formation…

 

So…. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; ³⁰ you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” ³¹ The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ 

 

 

May these two commandments made up of our shared humanity; our physical, social and psychological values become one in our community…. Amen

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

 

Just Breathe

Genesis 2:7 NRVSA

7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Psalm 107:43 NRVSA

4 Let those who are wise give heed to these things,
    and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.

Has you ever felt short of breath? It's a natural experience when walking upstairs or out for a run / jog or at the gym? Funny that, how it's good for us to exercise to the point where we need more air, more respiration, more heart beats, it's how we get fit.  

Lots of us have felt short of breath in not so healthy ways. Remember that time during our experience of covid 19? Not good! Frightening to see those of our loved ones needing specialist help and even machines to preserve breathing to save life itself. Remember the gratitude we felt deep down for the carers, the technology, the application of medicine, the existence of an NHS and the gratitude we felt for the scientists in the Universities and research labs that developed a vaccine. 

All that care and effort so we could breathe again and continue life with our loved ones. Remember the grief at the loss and separation for those who did not make it through? Breath, breathing, just breathe. It's where it all begins for each one of us, that first breath when we enter this world. The cessation of breath is the sign that we have left this life and we have returned to the origin of all life. Mostly we are unaware of our breathing it just happens for us. It's taken care of by our physiology and our environment. However, there's more to breathing. Breathing is affected by our relationships. You know what I mean, the way our breathing changes in a challenging situation when we meet someone we are fearful of perhaps someone we are angry with, or how about meeting someone we love and loves us. Our breathing changes when our thoughts, feelings reflections change. This is one reason why we begin learning to live as a reflective disciple with learning to be aware of our breathing. Learning to just breathe. If there is a problem with just breathing then we need to seek help. Difficulty in just breathing needs medical attention so, presuming we have a healthy physiology and there is no illness preventing us just breathing we can use some simple techniques to get control of those resistance experiences to just breathing.  If we can just breathe we will be able to access the energy for change.   

Some of us experience shortness of breath when we are in a heightened state of anxiety or fear. You know the feeling, the gasp for air, the thumping heart, the cold sweat and the aches and pains.  In this situation our energy is drained and we begin to feel exhausted.  The first step then is to learn to breathe; we are created to breathe.....

This leads us to a second question. What experience will we cultivate to replace the experience of 'Breathlessness'? The answer is love. The word is so overused in English. I love my children but I also love cake; hardly the same thing. The cultivation of love, lovingkindness, a steadfast love is what Jesus is talking about when He tells us to love God and love our neighbour. This kind of love has to be reflected upon, understood and acted upon. So the second reflective skill is that of cultivating lovingkindness, that is a love that cares enough to act in the best interest of others. 

Reflective Lifestyle

2 Timothy 3 NRSV

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

Beginning a 'reflective lifestyle' can be daunting. Let's face it, 'reflective lifestyle' is not exactly the language that we use in everyday life, at least not in Lanarkshire where I live. In fact, it can sound a bit 'New Age', a bit odd, something someone with fewer concerns than an ordinary person trying to cope with the cost of living crisis would spend time doing.  However,  if we simply examine how we successfully deal with questions / issues in our lives in our contemporary period it will follow, that taking some sort of assessment of the situation we are in and how we got here, identifying the root issues, making some sort of plan to deal with the issues, identifying things that help and hinder, getting down to making some change, reviewing what works and then move on to the next part of our lifeplan is going on. We use guides and templates, internal and external sources of help to assist us in making the change in our life we desire or simply need. We draw on our cultural resources to make sense of what needs to be done. In the culture in which I live this is made up of both 'scientific' assistance (E.g. consult a G.P. over a medical issue and thereby access their very specialist scientific knowledge and advice). We will also use our traditional cultural forms of knowledge (E.g. faith perspectives, humanistic perspectives, rituals, politics, economics, sources of identity, lived experience and so on; 'Embodied Intelligence'). These two forms of knowledge are both cultural and interdependent on one another. For example, our values, attitudes and beliefs including the historical experience of accumulating them will modify what we prioritise and do, even if there is a good scientific basis or not for doing so.  How we act is governed by complex interrelationships of the physical, social, psychological, environmental and developmental space that we occupy. All of this stuff is going on all the time and we are hardly aware of it. That's why, for the writer of Psalm 1, the overt identification of reflection as a conscious process is so important. It provides us a way of increasing our awareness and control over our lives. 

For the disciple of Jesus of Nazareth reflection is rooted in the sacred writings that Jesus knew and that He used to guide Him and that He used to teach. We also have the writings that have become scripture for us. These are the writings of the first disciples who knew Jesus directly or knew those who knew Him directly. The scriptures are, what the writer to Timothy states as 'useful for teaching'. Here, the word teaching comes from the word used as 'wisdom'; the scriptures are 'wisdom literature'. For the disciple, a healthy life, community and family summarised for us as the  'Love of God and Neighbour' are rooted in  the reflection on this wisdom literature and on the One of whom they speak; Jesus of Nazareth. In summary then, Reflection will have two sources: the scientific / social scientific sources of knowledge and the sacred writings of our faith. They interact through reflection producing meaning, understanding and action leading to what Jesus called in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Wisdom', 'Wise Action', 'Hearing and Doing'.