inspiral blog

My name is Anthony Nicholas. I am speaking on behalf of Inspiral, a faith community in the inner north of Melbourne, Australia, who are exploring together the radical way of life demonstrated by Jesus Christ. We have been asked to address three questions:

1) What role should our armed forces play?
2) What kind of armed forces should we develop?
3) Can we afford such forces?

I would like to answer these questions by way of a short concrete example.

On October 26, 2003, police raided the Sydney home of a Pakistani-Australian man called Faheem Khalid Lodhi. They found terrorist manuals showing how to make detonators, explosive devices and poisons. They also found maps of the Sydney electricity supply system and 38 aerial photos of Australian military installations. Justice Anthony Whealy determined that Lodhi’s intent was to pursue “violent jihad” to “instil terror into members of the public so that they could never again feel free from the threat of bombing in Australia.” Lodhi is now serving 20 years in prison classified as a high security ‘AA’ prisoner.

Lodhi was sent by a Pakistani Muslim Group called Lashkar-e-Taiba historically based in Pakistani Punjab. Lashkar-e-Taiba has always wanted India out of Kashmir. After September 11, they starting fighting in Afghanistan. Lodhi was sent here with orders to bomb because Lashkar did not like Australian troops fighting in Afghanistan. This example shows the kind of threats Australia is facing – they are real and have the potential to do great harm.

Our tanks, missiles and planes are not going to stop Lashkar-e-Taiba’s next bomber. To rely on the police is a bad idea – they will not stop these bombers every time, in every place. No – the soldier Australia needs to win this war is not Australian – he or she is a Pakistani Muslim. They are going to stop that bomber because they are going to say “Hey everybody, I don’t agree with this suicide bombing against Australia. Australians aren’t anti-muslim. Maybe we disagree on some things, but this is too much.” That is the soldier we need. They question is, how do we recruit them?

That is a hard question. But, you know what – we’ve done it before. Over 35 years, 40,000 people from Asia came to study in Australian institutions under the Colombo Plan. That’s a 40,000 strong army of people through Asia willing to give us a chance and a fair go to speak up on our behalf. What about now in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Have we got people on the ground? We need an army there, local people, muslims, who understand us, who will speak up on our behalf. We will have those people on the ground speaking up for us only if we act with love towards them. We must ensure that we do not act in a way that threatens their security, and instead chose a path that positively promotes their well-being. The Colombo plan is just one example showing our ability to do that when we set our minds to it.

Can we afford to reach out with love to our neighbours? Can we afford to bring them here on scholarships, to spend money learning their languages and reconciling our views of what is just? Yes we can. We far prefer our money spent on building happiness, justice (both here and overseas) and security rather than in buying more bullets, guns and insecurity.

As part of the lectionary reading for this week was, “At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” So we handed today over to Chelsea and Ella to decide how we’d explore God.

Chelsea decided on four questions:

1. What has Jesus said to you this week?
2. Who do you love?
3. How do you feel?
4. Draw prayers.

All of these were answered or explored using either coloured pencils and paper, or playdough, or both.

I think we did pretty well for a bunch of old people.

Started with the context of the passage – that of child sacrifice and the history of sacrifice in Jewish culture (this is the first sacrifice on Mt Moriah, which becomes the site of the temple). Discussion ranged over a whole lot of territory, from Girard’s mimetic violence theory to this speculative version of the story by William Loader where Abraham goes through with the sacrifice.

We finished by asking ourselves what sacrifices we make (both to false gods and the true God) and whether God actually requires them of us.

Discussion centred around the call to “not be ashamed”, with many of us expressing the misunderstandings inherent in terms such as “Christian” or “church” for the average punter, especially those of us whose circles are not friendly to such ideas. Finished with an acknowledgment of the potential relational costs of fidelity to Christ.

Thus Jesus sends his disciples out to go, not to “all the world” but only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. So we could get a sense of what this must have been like I sent everyone out (including myself) with the same instructions…what would we come up with?

Well, firstly it was like being thrown in the deep end when you can’t swim – I imagine not unlike how the disciples (or apostles actually) might have felt. Then it was just plain difficult to figure out what it meant for us, now, in suburban Brunswick.

So we wrestled for a while with the implications – is raising the dead really that simple? – but then came back to the context of the passage. Jesus sends them out to “proclaim the good news – the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!” and then asks them to be signs of that new Kingdom – a Kingdom where there is new life in that which seems dead, where the sick are healed, the outcasts restored, and demons flee. That may look a little different where we are, but they’re all things we can do right here and now.

Focussed on the lectionary readings this week, including the stories of Abram’s call and obedience, further expounded in the Romans passage, and then onto the call of Levi followed by the sandwiched stories of the synagogue leader’s daughter and the woman with the bleeding. Fantastic post on that stuff here. Mainly focussed on the fact that Abram, Levi, etc had lots of potential excuses for not obeying, but managed (by faith) to push past them…so what are our excuses for not being obedient to the call of God on our lives? We brainstormed a bunch of them and determined to find ways to push past them by starting small.

Since the lectionary reading this week was the famous “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink…” from the Sermon on the Mount, I decided it was time to introduce dumpster diving as a practical way we can enter the abundant economy of God (while helping reduce some of the waste of the world’s economy). More on dumpster diving can be found here, if you’re not familiar with it, and we used the article here to provoke discussion. Megan led most of it, which was great as dd isn’t something I’ve done a lot of (a bit, but not a lot), and her friend Karen chipped in too. But it looks like something we’ll be able to do a lot more often.

That was followed by some useful discussion about the economy of God – what is it like? How deep do we go into poverty before it’s “enough”? How much is too much to own? Is superannuation anathematic to the Kingdom? All these questions and more were batted around. Finally we were left with the fact that living into the Kingdom, particularly for we wealthy, privileged westerners, is a process that takes time. So we’d best be patient and gracious with ourselves, lest it become yet another form of legalism.

This week we explored the idea of the Trinity. It’s a tricky day, Trinity Sunday, the only feast day that celebrates a doctrine (and a fairly complex and mysterious one at that). So we decided we’d re-run the Arian controversy to explore some of the ideas that surround it.

Team Arius argued that Jesus could not have been divine, and that the Trinity was therefore made up of a hierarchy of subordinates (Father, then Son, then Holy Spirit). Team Athanasius tried to argue for an equal, communal trinity.

Having thus butchered history and theology in one fell swoop, what we discovered is how difficult the Trinity is to argue for in any objective sense. It’s clearly about an experience of God, or a description of an experience, and thankfully one into which we’re all invited.

We spent some time looking at two readings, and what stood out for us was the practice of unity in diversity – that Pentecost was essentially the undoing of Babel, where everyone was separated and scattered, and the 1 Corinthians passage is about a bunch of different people all being part of the one body…so, the Spirit inspires unity not in a monoculture, but in diversity. And so as a small way of beginning a Pentecost here in our own community (which is remarkably ethnically diverse), we spent some time chalking our streets with the phrase “one in spirit” in the different languages of those who live around here. We had the phrase in English, Italian, Greek, Farsi, Arabic and Hebrew. So here are some of the results:

Involve

a. Who is my neighbour? (Luke 10:29)
i. Who are our neighbours? How can we ensure we are being good neighbours? What local relationships do you invest yourself in?
ii. Where do we spend our time?
iii. “Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak.” (Quaker Queries and Advices 6.27))
iv. Are we hospitable, providing welcome and nourishment for the stranger and the outcast? Do we visit and care for the sick and imprisoned? (Matthew 25:35)

b. “…for laborers deserves their food.” (Matthew 10:10)
i. “The brothers should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading…When they live by the labor of their hands, as our fathers and the apostles did, then they are really monks. Yet, all things are to be done with moderation on account of the fainthearted.” (RSB Chapter 48) The Rule of St Benedict is structured around the rhythms of work and prayer. What manual labor do you undertake as a spiritual discipline?
ii. “Good human work honors God’s work…To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. And such blasphemy is not possible so long as the entire Creation is understood as holy, and so long as the works of God are understood as embodying and so revealing God’s spirit.” Is your love for God and the world revealed in the work you do?
iii. “Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of labor saving if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.” (WB 5) How do we honour ourselves, others and the earth through good work?
Do we keep each other accountable for the organisations we work for and the implications of the work we do?

c. “Act justly…”
i. Letting go, or doing and having “one less thing” is a central part of many spiritual traditions. How can we further simplify our lives?
ii. What practical steps are we taking to deepen our journey into a nonviolent life? Remember, nonviolence is not merely passivity but the active pursuit of a just world. Are we moving from passive opinions to action?
iii. “Do you faithfully maintain our witness against all war, and all preparation for it, as inconsistent with the teaching and spirit of Christ? Do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars? Stand firm in our testimony, even when others commit or prepare to commit acts of violence, yet always remember that they too are children of God.” (Quaker Query 21 and 6.31) Do you love your enemies and do good to those who make life hard for you? (Matthew 5:44)
iv. “Respect the laws of the state but let your first loyalty be to God’s purposes. If you feel impelled by strong conviction to break the law, search your conscience deeply. Ask your meeting for the prayerful support which will give you strength as a right way becomes clear.” (Quaker Queries and Advices 6.35) Civil disobedience has a long and distinguished history in social change. What laws are worth breaking? How can we ensure that those who choose this path are supported, from the point of discernment through to the bearing of costs?
v. How will we name, engage, and transform the reality of evil in our world and ourselves? (Seeds QA: Go Engage) Do we bring good news for the poor, liberation for the captive, healing and restoration for the blind and freedom for the oppressed both locally and further afield?
vi. Are the poor “always with us”? (Matthew 26:11)
vii. What steps are we taking towards reconciliation with indigenous Australians?
viii. Are we generous with our time, money and other resources?