Repairing The Breach

Geese - Carol Aust The symbolic act of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet becomes a call to true discipleship. In anointing Jesus’ body for death, Mary, is anointing the body of God. God is revealed in poor and the oppressed (Matthew 25. 31-46). How is it, then, that this God, the God who was exiled, arrested, and ultimately crucified in Jesus of Nazareth, has become a god in the 21st Century that can be used to justify personal prosperity, ‘freedom of speech’, classism, and a whole litany of breaches to the earth’s freedom? Fear is a huge driver in this chasm between the God we meet in Jesus Christ and the god we meet in some of the pop-Christian exploits we see on display in the political arena, and in the churches we belong to, and EVEN in ourselves at times. We are captive to fear, fear of losing our jobs, fear of being hurt, fear of losing love, fear of never being loved, fear of not having enough, fear of not being liked, fear of never feeling fulfilled, fear of death. These fears are major drivers in our society. We only need to spend a few minutes watching the television, or reading social media, to feel inadequate about our laugh lines, scars, and clothing size. We live in a world that calls us to be what we’re not, this is an exhausting (not to mention, impossible) goal. In the Covid-19 pandemic, fear has only grown, and we have become even more isolated. The risk of the privatisation of love is great. Yet, love is not private. The desert fathers have a bunch of short, pithy, sayings that need whole books to unpack them. One of these sayings is, “Our life and our death is with our neighbour”. Rowan Williams has written one book attempting to unpack this and other sayings. In Silence and Honey Cakes , he writes that our vision of reality, of our neighbour, of life, “is clouded by ‘self-obsession’ and ‘self-satisfaction’.” 1 Ultimately our life doesn’t exist without all other lives. Our neighbour’s freedom is our freedom. Freedom is not freedom if it doesn’t also set our neighbour free. Therefore, in obedience to the Jesus’ call to “let the oppressed go free” we find true freedom for ourselves. In this freedom we are intimately woven into the fabric of all that is, that we are made of the stuff of earth. 84