Phronema

Thinking again about Christ in the context of Easter – which, I suppose, is the only context in which he makes sense – we need to keep the three parts of this event together: the Last Super Eucharist, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Only then will we begin to understand. This is what the texts indicate. The disciples on the way to Emmaus only come to understand the meaning of the Resurrection in the act of breaking bread. Thomas can only begin to believe the reality of the Resurrection in the context of the experience of the Crucifixion. The Easter triple event is a chiasma, a cross over point, where Jesus of Nazareth becomes the Christ. Jesus’ life, his teaching, the training of disciples, his interactions with others, healings, his arguments and controversies with opponents, all lead up to this point – his death, or his glorification, as St. John insisted on calling it. He intimated that he was the Christ, the Messiah, and while for some Jews this would signal the beginning of the end of time, for Jesus this was never so. He pointed to a beyond, a time when he would not be present with his followers in the flesh, a new time when they would be guided by his Spirit.

We inhabit our bodies. Through them we express ourselves and communicate with others. No body, no communication. This is vividly brought home to us when we come across those who suffer from the locked-in syndrome, those whose body, either through accident or disease, is completely paralysed. No body, no habitation, no communication. At the cena on the evening before his death Jesus made a little ceremony, offering bread and wine as his body and blood. Perhaps it seemed a bit strange to his disciples, their reaction is not recorded, and I don’t suppose they understood what he was on about then. As a human being Jesus would have died one day anyway. As it was the forces he had provoked by his teaching, and simply by being the sort of person he was, could not tolerate his continued presence among them. He was going to be executed, and Jesus knew this. Hence the little ceremony at the cena. Understanding would come later. He was preparing them for the Resurrection.

The crucifixion on Calvary was a devastating event. The sudden and violent death of one so loved, in whom so much hope was invested, was so traumatic that his disciples retreated into themselves, withdrew and hid. Perhaps they would be next. They were not prepared for that. Then came Easter morning and everything changed.

Whether Jesus’ human body disappeared from the tomb and appeared to the disciples over the next few weeks is not the main point. The texts describing these experiences are obviously catechetical documents designed to elicit faith in new disciples. The important point is that now the disciples became aware of the bodily presence of Christ in the broken bread of the Eucharist – a presence so powerful that it did what the human presence of Jesus prior to his death never did – it transformed them.

The thought that bothers me is that while I believe that Christ is the key, both to the mystery of what it means to be a person and to the question of the meaning and purpose of existence, to the majority in this country he is at best an irrelevance. I would like to be able to explain clearly and simply why I believe Christ is the key. The annoying thing is that I cannot, for all sorts of reasons. For starters there are at least five ‘aspects’ to Christ – the Jesus of history; the Christ of faith, crucified and risen; the Eucharistic Christ; the Christ whose body is the Church; and the Son, second person of the Blessed Trinity. There is also the Jesus in whom we live and move and have our being. How they relate to each other, how they relate to the other persons of the Trinity and how they relate to me is, to say the least, not clear. 

It is tempting to simplify things by saying that there are really only two aspects – the historical Jesus, God made man, and the Son, second person of the Trinity, but relating to these is not at all straightforward. The historical Jesus is not only 2000 years in the past but he is irrevocably obscured by the spin put on him by the Gospels. They are not, were never meant to be, neutral and objective accounts of his life. In spite of this much of the real man comes through and there is no doubt that he was quite an extraordinary person and, if you believe that he was who it is claimed he was, tells us much about God. What the Gospels and the letters of Paul do is shine a light on the impact Jesus made on those who, either directly or indirectly, came in contact with him, or with his early followers. From these documents emerges a mysterious and enigmatic figure who evoked total dedication and commitment from some, lethal hostility from others and indifference from the majority. Looking back at this historical person today one has to ask – OK, what does he mean for me now? An exemplar, an admirable person, a misguided though well-meaning prophet, the Son of God? If you see him merely as a historical person – of limited relevance to today, on a par with the Buddha, and people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King – coming to ‘believe he was who it is claimed he was’ is going to be difficult, not only because of the historical perspective, but also because it requires getting past the contemporary prejudice against religion in general, and Christianity in particular; it requires a sympathetic, or at least a curious, attitude towards the Christian story and the acquiring of some hermeneutic and exegetical skills. Above all, I would suggest, it requires exposure to those who reflect Christ in their lives. What does ‘reflecting Christ’ mean? Here we are not only back to the problem of ‘which Christ?’, we also have to take account of the particular worldview of the individual, of his/her relevant knowledge and experience. To say, for example, that Gandhi was a Christ-like person will be received very differently by Hindus, fundamentalist Christians and open-minded agnostics. While Gandhi was manifestly not a Christian, he shared many qualities with the historical Christ both in his attitude to others, especially the poor and marginalised, and in his attitude to God. Each had a profound awareness of a transcendent dimension to existence which was reflected in their utter selflessness and in their concern for others. It is precisely here, at this intersection of awareness of the Transcendent and loving concern for others, that we touch on the mystery of Christ.

The ‘Son of God’ bit is even more difficult. There is an enormous hiatus between all that is implied by God, divinity, and the ordinary liturgical life of the Church. I cannot help feeling that in this respect it is easier for the Orthodox, for whom the doctrine of theosis (God became man so that man might become God – Athanasius) is at the centre and with their view of the Liturgy as a reflection here of the heavenly liturgy, than for us Catholics. Which underlines, once again, the importance of an individual’s worldview. But more on this another time.

There is one great big question which has been nagging at me for weeks now, months – what is the point of our existence? That there is a point (in principle) I have no doubt. Speaking generally, I have no doubt as to the existence of God, that he is the author of existence, that I connect to him in some way and that my ultimate destiny lies with Him. That is about as far as my certainty goes.  But it is when I consider humanity in general, all of us, social beings acting and interacting, that my problems arise. Looking at my own life, the lives of others I know and considering the lives of all the billions striving in their various ways, I cannot imagine how we fit into the scheme of things, what grand plan is being worked out through the process of our living, interrelating and dying. I can see struggles at every level, from the individual to the global, between selfishness and greed with compassion and love. The passage of time does not seem to show any change, or even sign of a gradual change, in the relation between the rich and powerful, on the one hand, and the poor and suffering on the other. I got up just now to open the window to let out a fly that was buzzing in vain against the glass.  It will be cold tonight and the fly will probably die. Freeing or killing a fly – what difference does it make in the scheme of things? There are many influential people whose lives have a powerful impact on the lives of others, some for good, others for worse. There are countless more people, unknown to any but a few, just their immediate neighbours and family – how do they fit into the scheme of things? Is their living and dying of as little import as that of a fly? Surely more than that of a fly (our common humanity would have to agree on that) but, to the rich and powerful, the multi-national corporations, the powerful nation states perhaps not much more. But what about at the level of what John Hick calls the Fifth Dimension, at the intersection of each human life with God?  

That is one picture, the big picture. The little picture is of the individual person, created in the image and likeness of God. It does not matter whether this person is rich or poor, male or female, young, middle-aged, or old, sane, or mad, because in their depths, deep down below any sort of conscious awareness, the being of each person rests in the being of God. This is a great mystery. It is bound up with the mystery of God Himself. Even though this might not be generally acknowledged we all agree that when it comes to dealing with the individual each person is unique and beyond price. Collectively it can often happen that the individuals become merged with the general mass and are thus dehumanised. This happened in Europe with the Jews under Germany, in the States with the blacks and in Vietnam during the war, just to give three examples. As less than human, as other than us, unter menschen, they cease to have human rights, or so it was thought by Nazis, racists and many GI’s. The poor, the dispossessed, street children, refugees and asylum seekers are in that situation today and we, comfortable westerners, because we never relate to them individually, or see their faces, remain indifferent to their fate. The individual gets lost in the collective, becomes invisible and therefore, as far as most of us are concerned, ceases to matter. Like the fly, his, or her predicament, their suffering, their death causes no ripples in the placid stream of our daily lives.

If you focus on the little picture none of this, the big picture perspective, need cause you a problem. Why? Because God is closer to each of us than we are to ourselves and sooner or later, perhaps not until the moment of death, perhaps, for some of us, earlier, we will encounter Him. It could even be argued that in this encounter the poor and suffering will be at an advantage and the rich and powerful at a disadvantage. It is tempting to focus on the life of someone like Etty Hillesum and imagine that what was explicit for her is implicit in the life of each anonymous victim. Her life, a Jewish woman in Nazi occupied Holland, illuminates a terrifying scene of the most appalling brutality and inhumanity. It shows that beneath the dark surface shone bright love and hope, that God was there in the mud and the blood. She touched the lives of many but they were very few compared to the vast majority who experienced black despair and death. One story I remember about an old rabbi who stepped out of the line leading to the gas chamber and, looking upwards, shouted out, ‘God, how can you let them do this to your people?’ For a moment everything stopped, all looking at him. After a few moments, he bowed his head. His shoulders fell. All the life seemed to go out of him and he said, ‘There is no God.’ and shuffled back into the line. The horrifying thing about this story is that not only did the Nazis destroy his body but, before doing so they destroyed his faith as well, his values, everything he had lived his life by. OK, you can say that his theology was deficient. He did not understand how God worked, that evil, suffering and death are built into the nature of things. But, not to worry, because in his dying he would encounter God, his tears would be wiped away and he would enter into eternal bliss. To think thus is to fail to understand the big picture.

Like the story of Job the little picture focuses on the individual. We don’t know why there needs to be evil and suffering, why the wicked prosper while the virtuous are hard done by, why tragedy should strike the best and kindest people, but that’s the way it is so try to be brave and, above all, patient and God will put everything right in the end. The temptation is to concentrate on this and try to forget the big picture. I cannot help thinking, however, that in doing this we are missing something of supreme importance. It ignores that we are above all social beings. In fact our individuality depends on our sociality. It ignores the imperative to love. How can we not love, not be moved by the suffering of others, not want to intervene? It ignores the fact that no man is an island, as Donne put it, that we are all part of the main. Job may have had his wealth restored to him but that restoration does not make good the suffering and death his family endured.

Focusing on the little picture is to focus on a self-constructed God of wishful thinking, a personal God, my God. It fails to recognise God as he is. It ignores the fact the God is love. It is not the case that God is love as far as I am concerned, or that God loves me and that that is all that matters, or that my relationship with God is the most important thing. John, in his first letter, said God is love and ‘because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.’ He didn’t say that everyone who loves God is begotten by God and knows God. He said, ‘everyone who loves’. So in loving others we come to know God. God is in our love for them and in their love for us. Loving is a divine activity. This imperative to love others runs throughout the New Testament and is given much gr
eater emphasis than the imperative to live a moral life,* though today you could be forgiven for thinking that morality is more important than love, or compassion, such is the emphasis of the Church on ethical correctness as defined by itself. It is easier to be ethically correct than to love. Taking a moral stance bolsters the ego. It confers a sense of pride and superiority in achieving a status which weaker, vulnerable and less moral people fail to achieve. Loving exhausts the ego, emptying it of pride and selfishness in the donation of the self to others. Loving is kenotic, self-emptying as Paul explained in Philippians, which is why it is so difficult. The Church knows all this, at least theoretically. The latest exemplar of this, Mother Teresa has been beatified. But because of its institutional and hierarchical set-up, because of the mill-stone of infallibility hanging around its neck which condemns it to live with ancient attitudes and states of mind, because of its refusal to be accountable to its people, it is now in a mess, doing damage to itself and millions of others. God as God is not there in the big picture. He is poured out in countless acts of love.

Most of those of us who can construct the window through which we look out on the world. We do not want to look out onto ugliness, poverty, suffering, or death, onto anything that might remind us of the precarious and temporary nature of our window. Because these things cannot be avoided we arrange the curtains on our window to veil as much as possible. The old and senile are kept out of sight in ‘nursing homes’, the poor out of our middle class suburbs, refugees and asylum seekers out of our country. We cannot escape wars and violence but we insist on television sanitising them so that we see only the dramatic explosions but never the severed limbs, spilled entrails and spurting blood. We enjoy the frisson of fear generated by Hollywood horror but do not want to imagine the numbing dread of life in a police state, or the heart stopping terror of a rampaging mob out to destroy you and your family. There is much in the big picture that is beautiful and there is much that is ugly. The tendency is to focus on the beauty and look there for traces of God reflected in it, while shutting out what we do not want to see, the ugly and revolting. The Psalmist waxed lyrical over the beauty of nature seeing there the handiwork of God. God was very much his god there to shield him from his enemies and to keep ugliness and suffering at bay. This was the god the old rabbi had served all his life. Such a god was powerless against the Nazi machine which exterminated him along with his people. You can say that God is reflected in what is beautiful but not in what is dark and ugly, or that God is there in both the beauty and the ugliness, or that God is not there, neither in the beauty, nor in the ugliness. It depends on your idea of God. None of these options apply to God as He is, though the second two are perhaps nearer to the truth than the first. God is both there and not there and here we begin to approach the Mystery. The trouble is we want God to be great, almighty, all-powerful, awe-inspiring, but none of these adjectives apply. We have an idea of God and it would be nice if He fitted into that idea, but He doesn’t. To say that God is love is not really helpful because we all know what love is, or do we?

* Probably a reaction to the legalism of the Pharisees. Consider Jesus’ attitude to Mary Magdalenethe prostitute, “So I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; because she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” (Lk 7:47) Paul likewise placed the stress on love as opposed to the law. Cf. Corinthians 13 etc.