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This page was last  updated December 2006. 

This month we have the following articles, click to go to each one

Personal Development 

FOOD FOR THE SOUL

Personal Development

ONE sees the divine as a many facetted diamond. Rather than progressing in a straight line, humankind  orbits the diamond and different facets are to be seen at different times. ONE shares with many other groups the desire for reinterpretation but explores to find this as much in the past as in the future. The facets visible today may not have been seen before but they may have been visible in the past. The kingdom of God for ONE is already with us. The kingdom is present in each generation.

ONE encourages all to feel safe and securely grounded in the religious tradition of their upbringing - but to be open to find God speaking to them with new insights for the present day  in every individual or group they meet in their everyday lives.

"BIBLE WORKSHOP" APPROACH - Explained and Described

We are in the age of the second Christians.

The first Christians were the people immediately affected by Jesus and his friends. A mixed group they were. These people remembered the activities of Jesus and kept on with his commitment to the Kingdom of God. On their evidence, and on the evidence of a collection of other unimportant and improbable people, millions of us have accepted Christian faith.

But soon another generation of Christians emerged. They also had to work out their commitment to the programme of the Kingdom which Jesus announced. But their situation was different. They were not living in Jerusalem or Galilee: they problems did not centre round the arguments of temple officials. They were living in Gentile areas, Antioch, Ephesus, Rome and Corinth: their problems centred round the relationship between Jew and Gentile, where Gentiles were the majority. New questions faced them, questions to which the stories of Jesus could give no direct answer because Jesus had not faced them. So these "Second Christians" could not ask, "what did Jesus say?" But they could ask, "Is there anything in our memory of Jesus which can help us to find our own answer?" And this was much more helpful. They could reflect on their own experience and link it with the experience of Jesus. They found in their memories of Jesus an immense store of resources with which to face their unprecedented questions. And this was why the stories of Jesus were treasured and recorded: they had proved useful for enabling a disciple-community to do its work.

Now we are also "second Christians". We also face new questions — questions which cannot be answered simply by turning up the appropriate page in a book of instructions. We are the early church for today. No-one has ever been here before us. No-one has ever been us before. But we can learn from the example of these comrades in Christian discipleship of 1900 years ago. We can reflect on our experience, link it with the stories of Jesus, and derive mandates for new action in our contemporary world.

We read the New Testament for this purpose, and for this purpose only. The New Testament is not aimed at giving us more information. It does not aim to give us facts about days gone by, or to give us an uplifting spiritual experience, or to supply texts for propagandists of social improvement.The New Testament is a resource for a community committed to the programme of Christ's kingdom, which faces problems and gets into trouble precisely because it is thus committed. The New Testament is all about transformation, the transformation of individual persons and of the universe. It is about Christ's programme of remaking creation so that it becomes true to the mind and purpose of the Creator. To treat it as merely an object of historical or literary study, or as a source of individual solace, is to misuse it, to bend it from its purpose: it is like using a chisel as a screwdriver — it is bound to make a mess.

When we look at a page of the Gospels, we do not see only an event in the life of Jesus: we see an event in the experience of the "second Christians" too. We see something happening in the churches of Mark and Luke. We see the effect of Jesus on the life of a later community; we see what appealed and made sense to the Christians of the second generation. And the original activity of Jesus is, as it were, an event within an event.

In applying the method, perhaps two emphases need to be identified:-

1 At an early point in the engaging with the passage of scripture, people are encouraged to get into it themselves by relating to some element within it in terms of their own experience or attitudes or feelings. This is to enable them to feel and know that the Bible is their book, and that in the Bible they are in contact with the Lord who is their Lord and not just somebody else's a long way away.

2 Early in the study, it is necessary to make the clarification of purpose, namely that we are going to the Gospel material to gain resources so as to enable us to be more effective as agents of the Kingdom of Christ to which the Gospel material testifies. We are not interested in this material simply as "students"; we are "trainees' or perhaps "artisans", seeking resources for a job which is laid upon us. This is not merely a matter of getting our own intentions
correct; it is also a matter of getting into focus with the original author. In this pattern, we are doing exactly the same thing as the Christians in about AD70 were doing, who were seeking to answer contemporary questions for which there were no precedents in the Gospels, but who believed that by searching their corporate memory concerning Jesus, they could gain resources for facing these contemporary problems.

A full scale Bible study of this kind can be worked out illustratively in a conference so that people see the point and grasp the method; but its true place of belonging is quite specifically in the context of a group of people who have got a commitment to continue working together. In the conventional church, this would be a synod, or a congregational consultation, or something like that. Equally, it could be a group whose commitment is in the work place or some other place of engagement in the world. The Bible-study programme ought to yield mandates which can be applied specifically within a local programme.

John Davies
 

FOOD FOR THE SOUL

The content  of this webpage is aimed to provide nourishment for the spiritual life of the individual or the group.

A EUCHARIST OF LIBERATION

1. Tears and fears
Prejudice and anxiety

Despair and rejection

Oppression and repression
God seems impossible in a system dominated by greed

God seems unattainable where power is corrupt.

2. I search after you my God

but I see only prison bars.

I struggle for your salvation

but I see only guns.

I ask you to save me

but see only people in chains.

I seek a godly poverty

but you only show me the poor.

I seek a saintly life

but you only show the laughter of a sinner.

3. And there is the Struggle

In the fight for freedom

In the hope of liberation

In the certainty of victory,

There, where suffering is most acute

where alienation is strongest

where torture, where death, where callous cruelty triumph,

There where the workers organise
where women claim their birthright
where the people reclaim the land and the fruit of their labour

where the distinction of race become the richness of humanity

and the humblest claim the earth for their inheritance.

God is the struggle, the continuation of our hopes and dreams.

The extension of our aspirations and the expectations ofthe People's history.

God is the struggle.

4. Find us now our God

renew our commitment

and listen to our hopes, our anxieties, our concerns.

there follows a period of open prayer

5. In the middle of struggle Jesus took bread and wine

In a secret room with a frightened band,

activists who had lost their way

who were no longer sure of the truth

and fearing for their lives.

Then the Way the Truth and the Life,

a simple man, prepared to die

took bread and gave thanks to God,

he broke it and gave it to those disciples saying:

Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you;

do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way after supper
he took the cup and gave thanks
he gave it to them saying:
Drink this, all of you
this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins
Do this as often as you drink it,

In remembrance of me.

6 This is the Upper Room
We are the disciples
as they meet in Chile, and South Africa
In the Philippines and in Nicaragua
So we meet
following the same impossible God, who makes all things possible,
through the vulnerability of love the demand of justice and the struggle for freedom.

In this there is real peace

and we share it now.

the peace is shared

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil,

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours

now and for ever. Amen.

bread and wine are shared

This is our hope.

This is freedom, discovered secretly here. One day it will be known by all.
We will work and struggle for that day — God's day.
Amen
Freedom!

This eucharist was created by Vaughan Jones, COSPEC convenor, and was used in July, at the regular Eucharist of  Liberation, held every third Wednesday evening of the month at 72 Goodge Place, London W1 (01-636 3061).