Reflection on a kingdom of heaven trip
Was the course just 5 days? And yet, it felt like travelling right around the world and past a few moons, for a much longer and refreshing time or retreat-in-action.
One sense, two senses + mystery = 3D + x
It is important for the guide to be equipped helping others to connect with multi-platform media to optimise the encounter of meeting with God, self and community. Inductively, deductively and within the dialogue of one voice or many.
The image of John, Rev 10, being asked to eat the scroll (taste the Word), applies as the sweetness of honey and bitterness in the stomach may symbolise the hard work needed of assimilating the text, before presenting it so that all may have joy.
And what of fear that our ‘power’ may go, as people may want to choose their own experience.
Job-security versus mission? Which is it?
And the missional answer is yea!!!! Whatever it takes, fusion-food is good. Talking more languages, using pause, contrast, juxtaposing tensions, inviting the tactile to speak into the text; or the image to be carried by sound. Or one may incorporate the DJ as choreographer or cook to create spontaneous random actions such as pushing the individuals’ private experience to connect with social justice
Style? Authoritative or invitation to discovery? Permission-giving or prescribed - either side of the pulpit? Receptive audience versus a resigned one?
An artist may display an artwork and tell the audience that they will only get it if attending at prescribed time with same attitude. Another choice would be an invitation to come and see and hear and experience, on a flexible platform. And this is where the web may invite or intimidate:
Smell - what is the space between the sweetpea and the drain? The smell of my first classroom, your first toy, my place in the Bible – or yours? And who can count smells like goats and sheep?
It is interesting to consider that one’s neuro-physiology may enhance one’s neuro-theology Is the smell of comfort as good as the taste of same?
Can spices be infused in little bags and put in the Bible so that Mark’s smell of cloves can be differentiated from the nutmeg of John’s gospel?
Is God entering the world, incarnating the smell of the world, washing it away or staying in it?
Will the web sanitise the world? Does the web offer real interaction or does it offer the no-smells version. And is this a good space, or a new box?
Play "imagine-if" to create a set of chairs, one for each audient, to explore questions never considered or posed before.
Play "imagine-if" to create a set of chairs, one for each audient, to explore questions never considered or posed before.
Subvert: play ‘warm-cold’ with teenagers – have them turn their back on you when they do not agree with a statement, and turn to you or hop closer when they agree (needs to be playful and sound like a spur of moment thing)
And then the art of bunching and scrunching: DJ. And the DJ can grab aims and purpose and content and context and add cultural memories to the mix, and then reapply that another place to grab a new audience or to connect one audience to another – even if the message or the cause is different……every time…..!....?
Exciting, powerful, difficult to interpret in complex settings, or when not enough socio-cultural context homework done. DJ could be difficult to follow – special note: do homework!
A quick chat about silence
with ST helped me clarify why I sometimes feel so at odds with silence as I articulated
discomfort and suspicion about ‘code’ of other cultures which may not be as transparent as ‘I’ or ‘they’ may interpret it to be
Reflection John 8
Today Jesus was still. He did not say. He was still. What is it with stillness? Is it a space around people that pulls together or pushes away?
Why was he still? Was he too busy writing curley- whurlies in the sand – printing images of knuckles HARD, then brushing it away to push the palm of his hand gently on the earth, like sculpting around a wet cheek, his hand stays.
Jesus was busy because it was Tuesday, no time for miracles or pulling children on his lap, or blessing cheese-makers or healing old widows and hobblers, and the sea was calm and no extra bread to be had today – it is Tuesday and the wine seems enough, and the pigs are happy, or so they thought and Legion ran up many hills at once
And the temple is business as usual with tables upright, and hands are wiped in glee and Judas counted the money, and it was all. But there are no extra blessings or stories or roofs being lifted off today – because it is still early, and Jesus is still.
Or did he not have space for words or was he too far away – from noise. Is stillness holy or hostile, is it fragile or comfortable or threatening or aloof or face saving or gracious or peace or indifference or what is it for you?
Jesus spoke in small letters, and looked away – so that you could walk or stay – and not blame the mirror but find your own direction, so that you could walk or stay – and he was in the shadow with you – giving you a peace that you could not put down. Jesus is still. Here.
Did the tool of stillness, and simple body movement, act as juxtapose, a deliberate shift of attention away from the woman, a tool to create drama, suspense, let the tension diffuse?
Reflection on my learning: We as ministers may see ourselves as one of many guides on the experiential path of seeking God. I ‘d like to see my task shaped more to be the sharing the experience of many different levels of Kingdom values, and affirming people this way. This course helped me to consider working on sermons while on bushwalks or when making jam – to lean into the connectedness of what I am busy with, or the opposite.. and to use colour, shape, hear or taste to create the spiral of movement, from Word to community, via image, open dialogue and contrasting environments, and see the Spirit weaving to and fro. This discovery can happen within and without the walls of the church, via the web, via the take-away, in smell, craft or memory. to share the discovery, as a life-long journey in the stillness, or the momentum of spirituality-on-the-go.
Thank you all, for sharing this rich experience, and for the many lessons shared!
PS: I challenged myself to deliver my reflection in shapes, voice balloons, images and COLOUR on powerpoints, but the blog says no: it is black and white........and never the twain shall meet?
Hi Liellie,
ReplyDeleteYou made a very interesting comment in your reflection on Brian McLaren's sermon on John 8(Lecture Block 4). I was intrigued by this sermon & took over 2 pages of notes which I'm adapting into a sermon for our own people (without spontaneous input; they aren't ready for that yet).
You wrote 'Did the tool of stillness, and simple body movement, act as juxtapose, a deliberate shift of attention away from the woman, a tool to create drama, suspension, let the tension diffuse?'. Your comment has prompted me to rethink my view that Jesus' actions were strange or even unusual. I was also reminded here of the class discussion about 'emotional exegesis' - Lecture Block 2 about 'flesh & blood stories'; Lecture Block 10,2 a about 'engaging the text'; & Lecture Block 7&8 on storytelling. Johnston (pp.155-162) is helpful here too with his focus on
storytelling, imagery, suspense & using the emotiona.
This event was certainly charged with emotion, which we shouldn't ignore, and the fact that Jesus chose not to affirm the Old Testament Law & get to the stoning quickly, makes the story all the more dramatic. This incident is about real people in a life and death situation. It surely needs no instant decision & action; it needs a real personal touch & some real justice (what happened to the woman's partner in adultery who should also have been subject to the Law?). The John 8 text is full of drama & ceertainly gives us food for thought when we think about the dynamics of what was happening and a real opportunity to keep the text alive in new ways (e.g. involving the congregation as McLaren did).
Blessings,
Ken
Dear Leillie,
ReplyDeleteI too was captivated by Brian McLaren’s approach to preaching John 8. In particular the way he used dialogue in storytelling preaching. While Rob Bell managed to very effectively create dialogue in what appears on first listening and viewing to be a monologue, McLaren draws the congregation into the story allowing full verbal participation. I was particularly struck by the last few moments of his message, when he asked the congregation to imagine for a moment that they were Jesus looking out at the crowd. “What would you (Jesus) want the crowd to have learned today?” McLaren asks. Immediately I type, “Love is greater than the law” and realise that what McLaren has done is to allow the congregation to discover for themselves what Haddon Robinson calls the ‘Big Idea’ (Biblical Preaching pp33-50). It had never occurred to me that anyone other than the preacher would come up with the Big Idea! And then his very simple question as the congregation becomes the crowd, ’What do you want to say to Jesus’? Prayerful response immediately bubbled up in me. That was such an ‘aha’ moment as I realised that in allowing me to uncover this biblical truth, there was a longing to respond that I’m certain was far greater than if McLaren had shared that same insight explicitly.
Jenny
Liellie
ReplyDeleteThank you Liellie for your reflections on Brian McLaren. The recording of his message on the Kingdom of God, born out of John 8, was amazing.
So much of what we shared through our week in July came out in that presentation.
Even though this was directed at childrens ministry, Jerome Berryman says in the ‘Godly Play’(Berryman 1991), p62, the key to the spoken lesson is the teacher as the story teller. The goal of the story telling is to engage wonder, the creative process, and the awareness of our existential limits as human beings in both the speaker and the listener.
Brian McLaren achieved all of that in the presentation to that congregation.
Douglas Adams in his book, ‘The Prostitute in the Family Tree’ (Adams 1997), talks about looking at the Scripture as a whole not just selected lines and that enables the Biblical story to reveal its rough edges, the unethical, ambiguous characters, the unsolved problems and the surprising endings.
The woman caught in adultery passage came alive for me with all the senses, and without a doubt provided the participants in the church that day to experience all that Adams describes.
God bless you Liellie, in all that you do. Ron Roberts.
Thank you so much for your reflection. As I read through I found myself asking many of the same questions that you did during the intensive, but then, you started to reflect on John 8. You started with the simple statement: “Today Jesus was still”. I stopped, paused and looked up, read another statement: “He did not say”. Again, I stopped, paused and looked up, read the next statement: “He was still”. Stillness. What a beautiful concept that is often missed in our busy Western world. Stillness - the idea of pausing productivity and taking time for be-ing in a world of do-ing. Your reflection was profound and deeply ministered to me. Now – down to business – were you DJ’ing…? I think you might have been? Was that deliberate or not? You used word painting and sampling all throughout that section of your reflection. It was reminiscent of Steve’s Easter Sunday piece. Although I’m pretty sure Jesus blessed peace-makers, not cheese-makers. ;-) Thank you again.
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