Old Prescriptions and New Initiatives

By George Davis in Articles

Dr George Davis explores the Isaiah and Luke lectionary readings in the light of difficult issues such as loving former enemies and discussing whether if as fallible humans we do need some prescriptive procedures to guide us after all. The example of Elizabeth Clayton's humane treatment of Sujit

I would like to call this talk of mine an address and response, because I am seeking a response from you when I finish. Please regard this as less of a sermon and more like a lesson which places me back in the frame I was comfortable with some years ago, that of a teacher. Also, I think there was an expectation that I would talk about conflict and peace as an extension of my Anzac Day commemorative work. Instead I have decided to follow another way, less travelled by me, highlighting some perscriptive ideas vesus more intuitive responses with derive from the lectionary readings.

Texts:

Isaiah 52, 7-12 the messenger of the covenant or promise of peace. This is a song of joy, proclaiming the day of God, and issuing instructions to the faithful to go out from Babylon and distribute the good news of peace, good tidings and salvation, singing, and the redemption of Jerusalem. He commands the people to be clean, behave appropriately and leave being publicly assured of their safety through the protection of God. The context to this is found in the previous 12 chapters of exhortation by Isaiah to the people of Israel who were captives. They were to be God's chosen, to behave in their captivity and wait for the word of the Lord for the deliverance of Jerusalem, ie the return to the Promised Land. The next few chapters continue the theme that salvation is theirs if only they follow the way of the Lord.

Luke 6, 27-36 is based on the powerful idea of love for enemies and doing good to them that hate you. This is genuine stuff according to the yard-stick of the Jesus seminar. The listener is also recommended to bless those who curse you, offer the other cheek to those who hit you, give clothes to those who rob you of clothing, do to another what you would have done to you, to be charitable to those from whom you expect no return, to be merciful to all not just to those who have been kind to you. This seems like a collation of significant, short and memorable statements by Christ, perpetuated in one story under the name of Luke. It is placed chronologically in Jesus' life just after he had chosen his disciples and preached the Beatitudes to a large crowd in an open space. Indeed it follows the pattern set in the Beatitudes and appears to act as a more practical extension of their poetic meaning. It contrasts markedly with the Isaiah passage because the prophet's language is full of deliverance from hated neighbour states - the Assyrians, the Babylonians (come down O daughter of Babylon), and being persuaded to be an exclusively clean people in a world of sin. Jesus's world was also full of foreign neighbours - people of other regions and cities - Tyre, Sidon, Judea, Capernaum, Romans ie non-Jews, the Gentiles. If there are enemies to be aware of they seem to enemies within, the Pharisees. To these two readings I wish to make a contemporary and closer to home offering.

Mary Ann Ochota, anthropologist, in Raised Wild: Feral Children: a recent BBC TV documentary ends featuring the words "after all, love overcomes all things." The background to this was a documentary about Sujit Kumar, a Fijian child who had been imprisoned as an infant into a chicken pen under a house probably as a response to his fits of epilepsy and left there until he was eight. He spent the next 22 years in an old people's home just out of Suva until 2002 from where he was rescued by a widowed Australian sociologist, Elizabeth Clayton, who took him to her home - a refuge for disabled children. It has taken 11 years of hard unremitting work by her and those children in her home to raise Sujit to be recognisably human - to walk, eat, play, socialise. Her words about the conquering power of love were recorded by Ochota. Today, there is a Boys' Home built by Australians and New Zealanders with aid from the Rotary Club of Suva.

I would like to read to you part of a 2011 BBC interview with Elizabeth Clayton:

ELIZABETH CLAYTON: I can remember the exact day that I met Sujit, it was the 28th of November 2002, and I went to an old people's home with my Rotary colleagues and one of my colleagues said to me, have you seen the boy that eats like a chicken? Sujit's got a unique background. He was tied up all the time, for 22 years he was tied, he peed and pooed in the same place, they hosed him down to bath him and he was in a terrible state. I thought, there's someone in that person there, there's someone inside there, and I knew that he had more to him than met the eye then. When I started with him I thought he was crippled. He used to have his hands right up like this, you know. I thought that within that institution maybe I could make life better for him and that was my only aim at that stage. The superintendent told me things like, well he was more like a chicken than a child, and she told me a lot about how he used to roost, peck, scratch around, hop around and so on. And she said that he was put in the chicken pen by his family. Then after that, he was put into an old people's home and there he was left in isolation and confinement for the next 22 years.

TIFFANY WILLS, DAUGHTER: He's still got the scar marks on the side of his tummy from being tied up and he was, he was very wild.

ELIZABETH CLAYTON: He's kind of like a little toddler that has never been socialised. He's never been touched, he's never been cuddled or spoken to. Sujit's missed out on all of that so his behaviour is going to look bizarre because I'm almost taking a toddler-man through the socialisation process. Because he was too aggressive he'd bite, and even when I started with him he would bite me and scratch me and pull me. My big dream is for him to be independent in his personal habits, that he'll be able to clean his teeth, take himself to the toilet, even shave himself, that he... I mean of course, my big dream is for him to speak.

As you can see the story is different but contains elements which might be drawn from both the old and new testament readings: the notion of exclusion and uncleanness (psychological and physical), the notion of being racially different from the dominant local people, the idea that an outsider might come in and offer hope with no boundaries. The granting of love and mercy without counting the cost.

Indeed, all three readings point to public criticism, punishment, embarrassment, being seen as a soft touch, being expected to treat all absolutely equally not just your friends, and the requirement of enormous patience and endurance, often extending over years. Indeed, for those willing to sacrifice themselves for this life and the betterment of society any rewards might only be assured in the life hereafter. Perhaps that is why there is little appeal for this apparently restricted life today, because modernism and hedonism are driving forces in our present society. Mind you, how much has changed for the charitably-minded in most human societies?

Under Wesley's direction, Methodists became leaders in many social issues of the day, including the prison reform and abolitionism movements. Wesley's contribution as a theologian was to propose a system of opposing theological stances. His greatest theological achievement was his promotion of what he termed "Christian Perfection", or holiness of heart and life. Wesley held that, in this life, Christians could come to a state in which the love of God, or perfect love, reigned supreme in their hearts. His evangelical theology, especially his understanding of Christian perfection, was firmly grounded in his sacramental theology. He continually insisted on the general use of the means of grace ie (prayer, scripture, meditation, Eucharist, hymn singing etc.) as the means by which God sanctifies and transforms the believer.

A major problem for us here in this early C21st century Methodist connection is that we perhaps feel that the deeply emotional attachment to transformation from a state of sin to that of salvation is not needed, it is passé, and can be downright embarrassing when witnessed. But that transformation is exactly what all need to experience. Even if we find hand raising or Lord forbid shaking and quaking as too much, then we have at least to find for ourselves that position which enables "the strange warming of the heart" that comes as part of the experience of the believer in God and Christ.

The bible readings prescribe a good or Godly life:
1. distribute the good news of peace, good tidings and salvation, singing, and the redemption of Jerusalem.
2. He commands the people to be clean, behave appropriately and be publicly assured with the protection of God.
3. Love for enemies and doing good to them that hate you. This is genuine stuff according to the yard-stick of the Jesus seminar.
4. The listener is also recommended to bless those who curse you, offer the other cheek to those who hit you, give clothes to those who rob you of clothing, do to another what you would have done to you, lend to those from whom you expect no return, to be merciful to all not just to those who have been kind to you

I would first like to suggest that this prescriptive material was written to tell relatively unsophisticated listeners what to do. And little doubt many of you talk about the good news, sing in Church, are clean, behave well, may have difficulty loving your enemies because by definition they are those you don't love, offer the other cheek (or at least hold your tongue when you are die-ing to say something), lend money, and are merciful. But in this time of universal education do you need to be told?

Maybe the true path in a Christian life is about knowing automatically how to be; how to behave in all situations without prescription. The Christian life and its morality are underpinned by the umbrella statement "Love your neighbour" and as long as you realise that all God's creatures are your neighbour then the path you will take in life will be a true one. The great difficulty is found when things become tense: friends and relatives do things which you cannot understand and feel betray your friendship; in moments of human weakness we lapse into error in money matters, gambling, "borrowing", over spending; we let fly, cursing, abusing, using language that we are immediately ashamed of but cannot stop; when we say something given to us in confidence secretly knowing our betrayal will hurt; upstaging someone by making a humorous remark which will hurt, or by dressing them down in public - all of these as humans we have been and are guilty of. Suddenly the need for a prescriptive list is evident as the general base of loving ones neighbour has taken a hit.

Perhaps the emotional distance between us and the people who heard the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount is not as great as time separation would seem to suggest. People all over the world have the same needs, show the same responses to hurt, all need love. But since concern over "guilt and sin" no longer occupy the prime place they once did what have we got to replace them, because the space they occupied when I was young, at least, was vast.

I would suggest that good works obviously occupies part of the frame. The story by Mary-Ann Ochota about the pitiful state and consequent salvation of Sujit the Fijian "Chicken boy" shows a guide. Elizabeth Clayton who took the boy into her house and heart was enacting the basic creed of loving her neighbour. Indeed, until she heard about the boy, aged about 22 at the time of her discovery she might not have considered him a neighbour. Another part of the Bible entreats us to see the poor, the prisoner, the distressed, the hurt - all as our neighbours. What the Christian life points to is the removal of barriers, the removal of the liturgical, prescriptive and legalistic framework we were raised in. When we were children we were positioned among barriers and fences for our own protection. As adults most of those barriers have been removed or at least modified. I am not suggesting that today we all go into the streets to find those in need and rush to help them. Yet isn't that what Elizabeth Clayton did. My grand-daughter Savannah calls it "paying it forward" after the film title of that name.

Embedded within Wesley's exercises were the fundamental materials of the Christian life. Is it possible that because we have let these methodical and daily practices lapse that Methodism has become a smaller vessel of the world-wide Church? As New Zealanders of the C21st, despite our advances do we need some prescriptive motivation still?

However, the Christian life is not to hide behind or one with which to erect endless barriers. It is not morose, it is joyful and full of song - at least in the Methodist tradition. Isaiah like Wesley calls for the people to go out and distribute the good news of peace and good tidings and salvation. The message in Luke is to shed the boundaries, see all as worthy of redemption, not just our friends, to see good in all, to see God in all. Much the same as Elizabeth Clayton does today in Fiji, actually.