Hard to follow, harder to refuse

The TV phenomenon called X factor relies on recycling.

200,000 hopefuls recycle songs, get whittled down to two finalists, re-cycle some fading pop-stars by singing with them, and a winner emerges from and disappears into obscurity while another series is planned.

Re-cycling clearly works.

In our very home the bins have become so diverse I barely understand how to throw anything away.

Mary also has a recycled song: “My soul glorifies the Lord … for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things.”

I say Mary’s song is recycled because it is similar to Zechariah’s song, and to Simeon’s song, both also in Luke’s gospel, and because the song of Mary, mother of Jesus, is based on the song of Hannah, mother of Samuel: “My heart exults in the Lord … talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth. The bows of the mighty are broken, the feeble gird on strength ... Those who were hungry are fat with spoil. Not by might does one prevail.”

Re-cycling isn’t confined to TV or scripture.

In the Christian tradition, Mary is now immortalised by this: “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

Beautiful, but which is the un-recycled truth? The X factor?

Mary sings that only those open to receive can receive. People who exploit self-sufficiency, however it is done, by pride, power, riches or by a legion of subtle psychological ways, close themselves to God’s future as it unfolds, here in the present. Mary is singing that the open can receive, and only the open. The Lord’s Loving presence does not force itself into self-sufficiency.

And the Bible is full of this truth re-cycled relentlessly, as the song of Hannah, of Zechariah, of Simeon, of Mary, and the lyrics of Jesus. All about the dead end of human self-sufficiency.

Proverbs 16: “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord.” Hannah’s song: “Not by might does one prevail.” Mary’s song: “He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. Luke’s gospel: “Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself, exalted.”

There’s a joke about a safe Preacher and an unsafe taxi driver. Both men arrive at St Peter’s pearly gates, but only the driver is richly rewarded. So the Preacher asks what in heaven is going on? "Simple really, answers St Peter. God’s aim is relationship, and as you preached, people slept. But when the driver drove, people really prayed."

Whatever else we think prayer is, it is not self-sufficiency, and nothing convinces us of this better than death, if we face it. But the lesson is for life. God can only relate in relationship. Only the open receive.

Bestselling paperback "the Shack" asserts that independence is the source of evil. Sin, whatever else we think it is or is not, is a separation from God, and Hell, whatever else we think it is or is not, is an everlasting separation from God.

The implication is that independence separates us from Love in the present, and whatever else we may think of God, God is a presence.

If life and eternal life is merely an independent struggle for survival, we are all diminished.

Even in the name of God, people diminish themselves by clinging and locking God out, but the Trinity itself is a relationship - one God as three interrelating presences. A parental presence beyond us, a Christ presence within us, a Spiritual presence between us, and each relates to the other in one Being, so none is in control.

For a human being, self-respect is vital, but self-sufficiency is not, and Eternal Love is only received by relinquishing.

As poet John Donne once said: “There are no human islands, and humankind is of one author. Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Mother Mary would agree.

Hers is not an X-factor Christmas pop song.
But she eternally sings: “The Lord is mindful of the humble state of his servant.”

LETTERS TO THE COSMOS

“There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear.” Luke 21:25

For human beings there have always been signs in the sun and stars, distress and perplexity on earth, and waves roaring. We are the cosmos knowing itself – we study heavenly bodies which share the same elements as our own bodies, and our war and perplexity all stems from fear that this is not enough.

I spent a morning with amputees last week and I came away exhausted, so I walked on the beach. Waves smashed in as the wind shook the sky and a sandstorm reflected the chaos in our bodies and emotions. In the turmoil a personalising ordering presence was seeking me as itself.

Nature’s imagination is reflected in us, and this personalising presence is sometimes called the Mind of God, what the Greeks called Logos, the divine reason filling the universe, which will not pass away.

Humans are connected to one another biologically, and to the earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically. As cosmologist Carl Sagan put it: “We live in an in-between universe where things change according to patterns which we call laws of nature … [and] the beauty of a living thing is not in the atoms that go into it, but in the way those atoms are put together.”

The molecules in our bodies are traceable phenomenon in the cosmos, and although chaos and death is ready to re-exert itself, we need not fear chaos or death at all. There is a personalising presence at work revealing itself, as it revealed itself in the cosmic Christ Jesus of the New Testament.

Luke’s gospel goes on: “When these things begin to come to pass, look up, lift up your heads, for your redemption draws nigh … this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled: heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not.”

Sin is acting on the the belief that we are separate from all this, that we are better, that we should be protected. Love is knowing that this is false, but that the presence is always coming again in us, as it was in Christ.