inspiral blog

The following is an attempt to set out in written form the gist of last Friday’s conversation. The biblical witness to the Christmas stories pose some serious challenges for our way of thinking, but they are challenges that need to be addressed and met with intellect and with faith. I think Frank Rees put it well in his blog recently, “To introduce into all this [Christmas celebrations] the critical awareness that perhaps these stories are not historically grounded, at least not quite in the literal way that the carols, the plays, and all the other performances require—well, to do that would be just to be a ‘kill-joy’. There seems to be no room here for theology, for critical reflection about what all this stuff really implies about God.”

To me, there are few accounts as challenging to a so-called literal interpretation of Scripture as the Christmas accounts. I say a so-called literal interpretation, because despite what many people think, nothing is translated literally. We all place our own interpretations and biases on text. It’s inevitable, and right, for text only has meaning in the context of our culture and worldview. As a visiting lecturer to Whitley once said (he was probably quoting someone else, but I can’t remember who), “A text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean.” Even the average newspaper article, for example, would be read very differently by an Arab or a Nigerian to an American. There are certain cultural understandings that one takes for granted. So when we remove the text not only culturally (from the Middle East) but also chronologically (almost two thousand years), the worldview in white anglo-saxon middle class Australia 2005 could barely look more different. This means we need to be careful in how we claim to understand what we read, and this is never more true than in the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke. Of the four gospels, Mark does not include these stories, and John rewinds the film even further than the birth to the “beginning” itself. Even Matthew and Luke’s accounts, however, differ enormously.

Both have Jesus born in Bethlehem, but Matthew has Jesus born at home, not in a stable, and not having travelled for a census as in Luke. The Nazareth connection for Matthew then, comes via a flight to Egypt (Jesus as asylum seeker!), whereas Luke has Nazareth as Mary and Joseph’s home. Matthew tells the story from Joseph’s perspective, Luke from Mary’s. Matthew has wise men (who knows how many? the text doesn’t say) visiting some time after the birth, while Luke has shepherds; neither mentions the other.

One person on Friday night asked “so where in the bible is the part about Mary and Joseph knocking on the doors of the inns and being refused and stuff?” – a perfectly reasonable question given that this is the most common depiction we have of the story in nativity plays. The answer, of course, is nowhere – this is an embellishment of the throwaway line in Luke “for there was no room in the inn”. Of course, it’s a perfectly reasonable embellishment, but her surprise at this not being recorded is significant. It is fascinating that nativity plays featuring such embellishment, as well as a crude mashing together of the two very different stories has become our orthodoxy, rather than the text itself.

This mashing together together of Matthew and Luke’s accounts is just one common reaction to the differences in the stories. It assumes that they actually refer to the same events, but emphasize different (some entirely new) aspects while completely ignoring others. This is probably the most common reaction (at least in the church and popular imagination) to the differences; thus we have nativity plays with Magi standing beside shepherds. But it is also the most clumsy, and usually difficult to make work convincingly. It also ignores the very intentional significance of the differences, costing us not only in integrity, but in depth of meaning.

Of course, this attempt at ‘harmonising’ assumes the modernist/post-Enlightenment view that historical fact is the only truth, and that there is only one state of affairs that can obtain at any one point in time. “Truth” can be basically equated with “historical fact”. What most people do not realise is that this literal modernist view of truth is actually reasonably recent, and is restricted largely to European-influenced culture. It is therefore historically in the minority (which doesn’t make it wrong as such, but certainly makes it worth questioning), and is in the process of being phased out in postmodernity (which in my opinion, makes it one of the redeeming features of postmodernity).

Another reaction to the differences that also relies on this assumption is to look at the stories, realise that they are logically incompatible, and throw them out as insignificant lies. This, I would venture to suggest is why most pastors are not prepared to admit from the pulpit that these stories may not be historically grounded. To do so, they fear, would undermine the authority of the biblical text. This is a very reasonable fear, but in doing so they have impoverished the biblical witness for countless thousands of people.

Because these differences, despite their awkwardness for us, are significant. Instead of undermining the authority of the biblical witness, we should see them as giving deep nuances of meaning to it, revealing truth that goes beyond mere historicity.

I mean, what do we do with a literalist Western scientific reading of the virgin birth, for example? In a culture that recognises that the woman’s egg is absolutely necessary to the conception of a child (which the culture of the biblical writers did not, and could not, know, assuming that the woman was merely an incubator), what is the point of it? Does it prove that God’s a bloke because he contributed the sperm, albeit “holy” sperm? Surely the idea of Jesus having half-God, half-human (as if those two are polar opposites) DNA is not what the authors intended. In saying that God conceived this child, they are not taking the human aspect out of it, but are saying that this child was fully human in a way only God could enable. But that requires that we stop bickering about the historicity of this event and instead look for its significance.

So if historical or factual truth is merely an impoverished view of truth, with what do we replace it?

I believe that truth is a higher concept than mere historical fact. Truth conceived this way makes historical fact look extremely impoverished as a view of truth.

What gives parables, allegories and fables their power? It’s not their historicity. We don’t consider the story of the prodigal son to not be true simply because it didn’t happen concretely in one time and one place. Of course, we neatly compartmentalize this off as fiction that carries truth, but we have to recognise this as our preoccupation (and a pretty trivial one at that); the ancients didn’t see it that way. Stories, and the truth that lies within them are what shaped them, not verifiability.

The point is that there is an important sense in which these are not just stories about what happened, but stories about what has happened, is happening, and will happen. The truth is not dead truth, over and done with. If these are stories about God, about the way God acts in the world, they are stories that are as true of now as they are true of those who wrote them and experienced them. The word remember means literally to bring an event, and all that goes with it, into the present. This is the kind of truth that the Christmas stories bring. The reality of God being incarnated to human flesh, not as something foreign but “he came to that which was his own”. (Jn 1:11)

I titled this post “The challenge of the Christmas story”, even though little of it has even touched on the content of the Christmas story, and the real challenge therein. But I did so because to me, unless we grapple with this stuff first, we will never be freed to be challenged by the Christmas story in any real way. It will remain a quaint, but awkward story about stuff that happened two thousand years ago. The challenge of the Christmas story is firstly this – “what does it mean to affirm that these stories are true?” Then we can get on with living them.

Peekay’s comes to his granpa with a question about the Bible. This is his granpa’s response:

“All I know about the Bible is that wherever it goes there’s trouble. The only time I ever heard of it being useful was when a stretcher bearer I was with at the battle of Dundee told me that he’d once gotten hit by a Mauser bullet in the heart, only he was carrying a Bible in his tunic pocket and the Bible saved his life. He told me that ever since he’d always carried a Bible into battle with him and he felt perfectly safe because God was in his breast pocket. We were out looking for a sergeant of the Worcesters and three troopers were wounded while out on a reconaissance and were said to be holed up in a dry donga. In truth I think my partner felt perfectly safe because the Boer Mausers were estimated by the British artillery to be accurate to 800 yards and we were at least 1,200 yards from enemy lines. Alas, nobody bothered to tell the Boers about the shortcomings of their brand new German rifle and a Mauser bullet hit him straight between the eyes.” He puffed at his pipe. “Which goes to prove, you can always depend on British army information not to be accurate, the Boers to be deadly accurate, the Bible to be good for matters of the heart but hopeless for those of the head and finally, that God is in nobody’s pocket.”

We started tonight with Advent candles, and the themes of hope, love, joy and peace. After a huge meal prepared by Julie, we gathered around and heard the Christmas story according to Luke, complete with discussion (the content of which can be read in the next post) throughout. Then we spent some time giving gifts to each other – the kind of gifts that prove “it’s the thought that counts” since they were virtual gifts. The task was to tell each person there what you would want them to have if you had unlimited resources. It’s a great way of caring personally for each person without having to spend a lot of money or brave the shopping centres.

We finished with prayer using the Advent themes again – hope, love, joy and peace. More thoughts to come.

So lately (the last week or two) I’ve been taking an hour or so out of my day to spend praying and I’ve found this spot at Merri Creek, just near CERES Environmental Park, that gives me a good walk and a great spot to sit while I pray. So here’s a couple of pictures of what is fast becoming my sacred space, in the absence of a church building.

I’m reading Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One at the moment, and when I came across this quote I thought it was worth recording. It’s part of a conversation between Professor Von Vollensteen, a music teacher and plant enthusiast, and the young (6 year old) Peekay, who is the narrator.

He would often use an analogy from nature. ‘Ja, Peekay, always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty metres up through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky.’ He looked at me and continued, ‘The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking; most people you encounter will be vines, when you are a young plant they are very dangerous.’ His piercing blue eyes looked into mine. ‘Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step towards a fulfilling life.’

The trick, though, is to recognise and admit when you are wrong.

You can always count on Danny Katz to bring some clarity to an issue.

Eliminating the SCUM suddenly a chore thing

By Danny Katz
December 8, 2005 – 12:43AM

My kids wanted to do some chores around the house for pocket money, so we all sat down together and negotiated a pocket money chores agreement. I said, “How about I pay you each $3 a week, and you do a bit of laundry folding, a bit of lawn mowing, and wash the car on weekends?”, and they went away and consulted their union, the Schoolfriends Combined Union Movement (SCUM), then came back and told me my offer was unacceptable. They said their friends only did two chores a week, didn’t have to work weekends and got a much higher minimum wage, according to the Chores Allowance Commission for Kids (CACK).

My kids started bullying me with their collective bargaining, railroading me with demands for award conditions, and finally wound up getting $10 a week to make their beds and watch TV in the morning.

Now, I’ve never been terribly interested in the whole area of industrial relations. You put those two words together and I instantly start feeling bored and yawny – the same way I feel if you put together the words “superannuation” and “entity”, or the words “Andrew” and “O’Keefe”. So I hadn’t really been paying much attention to all this workplace reform discussion in Parliament, or in the newspapers, or even those ads on TV about WorkChoices – every time they’d come on, I’d just try and spot the giant stuffed moose in the background, because someone told me they saw a giant stuffed moose.

But suddenly workplace reform became very interesting to me, because I was a poor, defenceless employer, and I WAS GETTING SCREWED OVER BY MY WORKERS. So with the help of John Howard’s new legislation, I decided to make a few teenytiny changes to my workplace.

The girl was lying around in her bedroom doing nothing, so I marched in and said, “I want you to wash and fold the laundry now”, and she said, “But Dad … it’s 6.30 in the morning … and it’s a Sunday”. I said, “Not my problem! Employers can now order employees to work on weekends without compensation or loading times, and penalty rates can be refused as well.”

She sat up in bed looking defensive and huffy, and started threatening me with an inflatable Chupa Chup mallet. She said, “You can’t make me work today! I need a balance between my working life and my personal life!” I said, “Not any more, not in a labour market shaped exclusively by the forces of supply and demand! Now get going – and don’t forget to use the new, improved Drive concentrate with stain-busting enzymes!”

The boy was sitting in the backyard eating a sandwich, so I grabbed him by the collar and said, “Time to mow the nature strip”, and he said, “But Dad, I’m eating my lunch, and I don’t even know what a nature strip is”, and I said, “Oh, wanna play hardball with the boss, eh? Well, I’ll just put you on an individual contract, so no more meal breaks – and a 10 per cent reduction in pay!” He said, “You can’t do that! I have a safety net on wages and conditions!”

Then he rushed off to phone his union delegate, Jack M from grade 3, who told him that unfortunately the union was powerless to protect him under the new workplace legislation, and did he want to come over Tuesday and play Simpsons Hit & Run on PlayStation? The boy returned, looking shattered and sad-eyed. I said, “Get to work, sluggard!” and made him mow the nature strip using a rusty old Flymo push-mower with only one blade.

Both kids came up to me, trembling with defiance. They said, “These new workplace changes are unreasonable and unconstitutional, and we’re not going to take it any more! We’re on strike!” I said, “Fine, I don’t care, because you’re both sacked”. They said, “You can’t sack us under the unfair dismissal provisions”, and I said, “I can now, because I’m an employer with fewer than 100 staff members, and I only see two of you!”.

They started howling at me, going, “But this is un-Australian! What happened to a fair go for everyone?” I rose before them, pumped up with arrogance and power, and said, “There’s no such thing as a fair go any more! Australian workers have had it too good for too long, but now, thanks to John Howard, we’re in a downward spiral on wages and conditions. And because Australia’s continued prosperity hinges squarely on a flexible and dynamic workforce, I must now head off to exploit some other low-paid and low-skilled worker!”

And I got the five-year-old kid from next door to wash the car for 20 cents and a raspberry jellysnake without a head.

so I haven’t blogged anything about the Tuesday night dinners I’ve been to at the Asylum Seeker Welcome Centre, I guess partially because the first time I went I felt really uncomfortable. Suddenly I was the odd one out (I’m not an asylum seeker, I only speak English, I didn’t know anyone, I’m really introverted around people I don’t know). It was a really peculiar feeling because I don’t think I’ve ever really been in that situation before. I know that at this point I’m supposed to say “it was great to have an appreciation for how they must feel”, etc. but come on, it was one night, not months or years in a row. And to top it all off, I got a parking ticket. That sure didn’t help. Anyway, I didn’t blog about it then because although I started to a couple of times, I wasn’t sure how to put it in a way that wouldn’t sound whiny or pathetic. Not that I don’t do whiny and pathetic well – it’s a particular skill of mine – I just didn’t feel it made for worthwhile blog material.

That was a couple of months ago though, so I did go back (several times, some of them with others). The reason I’m recording tonight is that it was a bit of a breakthrough experience for me. Until tonight I had kind of felt alienated from the people there; like I was an outsider looking in, and what I saw was just the tip of the iceberg (excuse the mixed metaphors). What it took to make the connection was a song, or rather, a ritual: the very simplest of songs, Happy Birthday.

It’s Margaret’s birthday this week, and one of the guys (a trained chef, one of at least three in the group that I know of) made a cake. And we all sang happy birthday to her. It wasn’t just the singing of the song that made it, or the fact that almost everyone from all these different cultures knew it, it was the sitting around talking and then being interrupted to sing happy birthday, and then cheering and then going back to sitting around talking. It was one fluid motion, like any other birthday party you’ve been to.

Of course, it helped that I have actually been there often enough to have had conversations with most of them (although I’m still terrible at remembering names), and therefore be familiar. But all of a sudden I knew that these people were like a family, and that, insofar as I threw my lot in with them and genuinely cared about them, I was part of that family too. And for these people, family is big, not just culturally, but because they find themselves in a new country (or relatively so) mostly without anyone they know. Of course, nothing will replace their real families, but this is like an adoptive family; a little boat of unconditional love and acceptance on a sea of uncertainty, fear and sometimes hatred.

I sat tonight and listened to one guy, who knows people from where he was from who ended up in Canada, Italy and New Zealand; all of whom now have permanent residency in those places, yet he still has no idea how long he will have to wait for it here. All he wants is to put his qualification, which he has earned in the two years he has been here, to use.

And another guy who spent five years of his young life in a detention centre, for no other crime than seeking refuge here. Some of the best years of his young life spent in conditions worse than any prison, with no idea how long his incarceration would be.

Anyway, I came away tonight not wanting to miss next week, lest I miss a joke, or just some little thing happening that everyone will recount in the weeks to come – the same sorts of reasons you don’t want to miss hanging out with your friends or family. And that made it a significant night for me.

The basic gist of what he’s getting at here is that the difference between the non-violence of the Christian and that of other social activists is that we do not, and cannot, know the goal, but only the means. Thus our first action is only obedience to the call of God to love everyone and everything completely selflessly; suffering is the common result of that.

This Gospel concept of the cross of the Christian does not mean that suffering is thought of as in itself redemptive or that martyrdom is a value to be sought after. Nor does it refer uniquely to being persecuted for “religious” reasons by an outspokenly pagan government. What Jesus refers to in his call to cross-bearing is rather the seeming defeat of the strategy of obedience which is no strategy, the inevitable suffering of those whose only goal is to be faithful to that love which puts one at the mercy of one’s neighbour, which abandons claims to justice for oneself and for one’s own in an overriding concern for the reconciling of the adversary and the estranged…

This is significantly different from that kind of “pacifism” which would say that it is wrong to kill but that with proper nonviolent techniques you can obtain without killing everything you really want or have a right to ask for. In this context it seems that sometimes the rejection of violence is offered only because it is a cheaper or less dangerous or more shrewd way to impose one’s will upon someone else, a kind of coercion which is harder to resist. Certainly any renunciation of violence is preferable to its acceptance; but what Jesus renounced is not first of all violence, but rather the compulsiveness of purpose that leads men [and women] to violate the dignity of others. The point is not that one can attain all of one’s legitimate ends without using violent means. It is rather that our readiness to renounce our legitimate ends whenever they cannot be attained by legitimate means itself constitutes our participation in the triumphant suffering of the Lamb.

He then goes on to say:

We thus do not adequately understand what the church was praising in the work of Christ, and what Paul was asking his readers to be guided by, if we think of the cross as a particularly efficacious technique (probably effective only in certain circumstances) for getting one’s way. The key to the ultimate relevance and to the triumph of the good is not any calculation at all, paradoxical or otherwise, of efficacy, but rather simple obedience. Obedience means not keeping verbally enshrined rules but reflecting the character of the love of God. The cross is not a recipe for resurrection. Suffering is not a tool to make people come around, nor a good in itself. But the kind of faithfulness that is willing to accept evident defeat rather than complicity with evil is, by virtue of its conformity with what happens to God when he works among men [and women], aligned with the ultimate triumph of the Lamb.

This has particular relevance for me in terms of looking towards nonviolent direct action techniques, which I take Yoder to be eschewing here (at least in terms of their strategic nature). The Christian life, he is saying, (that of loving selflessly) is just such a technique, though without the necessity for strategy, which God has under control. Not that we don’t participate in God’s strategy for bringing about the Kingdom of God; but rather our obedience leads directly and effectively to God’s plan for the Kingdom.

This seems to me to strike the right balance of immanence and transcendence, of mystery and knowability.

Music trivia. Two of my favourite things, brought together in one neat bundle. Add Playstation 2, and what do you get? A recipe for a great time, called Buzz.

We started off tonight reflecting on the year using the idea of a soundtrack – so choosing songs that had been meaningful to us because of words they contained or moments they accompanied. It turned out to be a great way to access some of the stuff that is too deep to be spoken – sometimes music can say it better than words can. There was a moment between Tara and Felicity where they both talked excitedly about a piece of music from the Lion King, where it was just clear the connection went beyond just shared knowledge. I love that about music.

I loved the songs people picked too – from Radiohead’s The Bends, to a particular version of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.

I’ve already posted my picks but here are some of the songs others picked:

The Whitlams – Buy Now Pay Later and Love This City
Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye
Xavier Rudd – Little Life
Missy Higgins – Special Two
Cold Chisel – Flame Trees
Ella Fitzgerald – Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Dandy Warhols – If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth
Massive Attack – Teardrop
The Darkness – I Believe in a Thing Called Love
Frank Sinatra – Come Fly With Me
Ben Lee – We’re All In This Together and Catch My Disease

And tons more of course. Seriously, though, I would buy this group’s soundtrack.

Then as our party or celebration time, I hired a new PS2 game called Buzz. It’s music trivia basically, like a game show, and it’s an enormous amount of fun. I was genuinely surprised by how much I knew, but I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed with myself or disturbed at how much brain space is being taken up with obscure album titles. Anyway, everyone was included which made it a really fun way to spend a night together; as demonstrated by the 1:30am finish time.

This is well worth reading…from Sojourners website and newsletter:

Wal-Mart and frugality’s folly
by C. Melissa Snarr
SojoMail 11-09-2005

Frugality is not a spiritual discipline. Yet, Americans regularly follow weekend trips to places of worship with drives to giant discount stores. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions unite in challenging those of us who would save a buck at the cost of another’s well-being. Unfortunately, in our current culture, getting a “deal” has largely displaced righteous dealings as our first consideration in the marketplace.

Within the Christian tradition, the term frugal is wholly absent from the biblical text and is not among the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. Generosity is instead the prized theme in stories of faith. God enables human generosity by promising a care for believers and creation that allows us to put our store in heaven not in barns or walk-in closets here on earth. The images are numerous: banquet tables set for the homeless, fishes and loaves multiplied, water turned into wine, and manna falling from heaven. Throughout scripture, generosity is structured by obligations to the most vulnerable. Rulers, merchants, and nations are judged by how they treat the poor, widowed, and orphaned. Faithful generosity follows God’s preference for those normally forgotten by society.

Admittedly, we saw a glimmer of generosity in Wal-Mart’s speedy delivery of desperately needed supplies to hurricane victims last month. They were first on the scene to the poor, widowed, and orphaned among us. But to focus only on Wal-Mart’s short-term charity misses major dimensions of the biblical concept of generosity. Modeled on the nature of God, the creating, sustaining, and redeeming character of biblical generosity is not about short-term charity but long-term justice for all God’s children. The sustaining life of God is about creating structures and cultures of care, wholeness, and fairness that are enduring. Wal-Mart’s charity should not divert public – particularly religious, attention – from the largest retailer’s long-term discrimination, import exploitation, and overtime and union-busting scandals. In contrast, faithful generosity is not primarily about short-term gifts to the needy, but the long-term task of building right relationships, weaving righteousness into the fabric of our lives.

The biblical exhortation, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48), is about an understanding of stewardship that is always bound to fair use. Stewardship underscores our humble understanding of our temporary ownership of common goods and the obligations for equity and sustainability tied to that privilege. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart’s current dominance of the market is draining rather than sustaining local communities. Every Wal-Mart store employing 200 or more people costs taxpayers more than $420,000 in government social services used by employees whose low wages and unaffordable health insurance mean they largely subsist among the ranks of the working poor, according to “Everday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,” a February 2004 report by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Wal-Mart’s anti-union policies also prevent workers from organizing for wages and benefits to support their families.

In contrast, unionized workers in the retail food industry earn 30% more than their nonunion counterparts. Every time Wal-Mart increases its market share by 1% in the grocery business, cashier’s wages in the local market drop an average of 5.5 cents per hour. And Wal-Mart’s market share has grown by 20% in the last five years, according to United Food and Commercial Workers. Yet if Wal-Mart paid each employee $1 more an hour, it could maintain its current profitability level by increasing prices a mere half-penny a dollar. See also, “The Impact of Big Box Grocers on Southern California,” a September 1999 report prepared by the Orange County Business Council of California.

Corporate giants regularly justify these practices by appealing to the needs of their hourly employees. They see themselves as serving those who live paycheck to paycheck and must be frugal. This is perhaps the most appealing and invidious part of Wal-Mart morality. In the process of “serving” its employees and consumers, Wal-Mart actually lowers the workplace quality of the retail sector and entraps communities in practices of inequity. When the standard bearer and largest retailer in the world refuses to pay wages that support families, undermines organizing for greater benefits, and imports well over half of its merchandise from countries with little or no labor regulation, they effectively place a lock on the door to class mobility for the entire discount retail sector.

Cheap products are not valued in and of themselves by religious traditions. As the Wal-Mart public relations machine continues to gain momentum, people of faith need to think more about our economic witness and demand that our discount giants do not discount human dignity in our name.

C. Melissa Snarr is an associate professor of ethics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she teaches courses ranging from Early Christian Political Thought to Religion and War in an Age of Terror.