20220327 Dualism¶
Welcome¶
Good morning, my name is Clifton Bartholomew, and I am a local preacher here at UMC.
It is always so good to share with you all. Welcome again to any visitors and to all our online guests as well.
I always like to say before I preach that I am a teacher by training and so I am very used to being interrupted. If anyone is brave enough to raise their hand and ask a question or give an input, it is warmly welcomed.
Introduction¶
Jab 1 - right and wrong in marriage¶
Show video: Marriage Logic Map
This is often a joke about marriage, because all of those that are married know that the struggle is real.
This sucks. It sucks because it hurts when we know we are right but proving so is actually wrong. It sucks because it feels like we are giving up something. It sucks because a small part of us dies. How many “deaths” do we have to face in marriage? Where we die to an old way of doing things only to give birth to a new/better way of doing things.
Seeing things as either right or wrong does not have a place in marriage. Especially when it comes to the difficult topics in marriage, like sex, money and household chores, right and wrong actually means very little.
Jab 2 - right and wrong in school¶
I see this either or thinking in our kids at school. To be honest it is mostly their parents thinking about them. I see it a lot when talking about things like why the poor are poor, about affirmative action or why our country has “nothing to offer them when they leave school”.
I find myself saying in a lot of conversations with the kids that it is not that simple. The lines are not so clear. It's a bit more complicated than that.
Jab 3 - dualism blocks us from the promised life¶
The truth is that life isn't as black and white as we think it is. Though the way of the world often dissects things into one box or the other. Things are either black or white, right or wrong. People are categorized into winners or losers, successful or unsuccessful, Jew or gentile, slave or free, black or white, people who can or people who can't, rich or poor, right or wrong, in or out. But life doesn’t work that way. It is way too nuanced for us to think we know all the boxes.
In philosophy and theology, this kind of thinking is called dualism. It is an either/or kind of thinking. Dualism (the categorisation of things into either one box or another) creates in us a rigidity/holding tight/fixed mindset/trying to be right. We struggle with paradoxes and need certainty. We are brought up in this kind of thinking. And it takes a lot of work to step out of it.
I have found that the dualistic approach to life closes us off to the life that Jesus promises us. Jesus’ first words in his ministry in Matthew after the trials in the desert are “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is here”. As Mark said last week, repentance is the changing of one's mind, the transformation of oneself, a turning towards God and God's way. To repent is to reinvent.
And I have found that there is much more life in the grey. I see in today’s reading a clear call to the middle path. To step past the dualistic approach of either/or and step into a third way of both/and.
Right Hook¶
This week we are stepping into the profound story of the prodigal son. This is a story which grows and changes and teaches me something new every time that I read it. We are in the fourth week of lent and I hope that we can find what this story tells us of seeing, of relationships with others, ourselves and with God and the process of repentance. (I did not know that prodigal meant wasteful, I always thought it meant something closer to prodigy).
Explanation¶
Teaching Point 1 - judgement keeps us away from the table¶
So what do we learn from this scripture? Firstly, we learn that judgement keeps us away from the table. In verses 1-2, the Pharisees are grumbling about who Jesus is eating with, that he is eating with sinners and tax collectors. I like to believe Jesus didn't specifically choose to eat with sinners. I like to think that Jesus just wanted to eat with people and that the Pharisees chose not to come because the sinners were there. Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son to remind them that they are indeed invited!
The story of the prodigal son speaks of a reckless son who breaks all the rules and yet is still welcomed openly by a loving father with a feast party and a family ring. The older brother rightfully exclaims that all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
Jesus is warning us that our dualistic vision of the world, who is in or out, right or wrong can prevent us from eating at the table. In Jesus’ eyes, judgement is actually pointless. He says this in the story of taking the plank out of your own eye, or when they come to stone the girl and he challenges whoever has not sinned to pick up the first stone. Whatever you make a judgement for, you have done the same. We are all in the same boat.
We shouldn't be scared of this fact. I guarantee that our church has in it someone who has lost money gambling, been addicted to pornography or someone who has committed adultery. Yet it is also filled with people who help the blind, teach the poor to read and give of money they don’t have. And sometimes these are the same people. These things are not the point. The point is that we are all invited to the table with Jesus. Judgement keeps us away from the table.
To repent is to reinvent. When we experience the grace of God calling us in, or God welcoming us home, we reinvent our minds to choose relationship over judgements.
Life exists beyond judgement, beyond correctness.
Teaching Point 2 - repentance as a vehicle for change¶
Secondly we learn that Jesus regards repentance as incredibly important (it is the whole of Luke 15). There are three stories that he shares with the Pharisees, the story of the lost coin, the story of the lost sheep and the story of the lost son. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Angels sing when people repent. Why so?
Repentance is the acknowledgement that there is the world's way of doing things and then there is God’s way and that more often than not, I am doing things in the way of the world. Repentance is a choice to return. Repentance is a willingness to change. To repent is to reinvent. It is the allowing of God to change us from within. It is a hugely significant moment in a person's life. Or if you're like me, significant moments.
Jesus says in a parable: The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. When we taste this life of the kingdom, we will not want to live any other way.
Teaching Point - continual repentance leads to both/and¶
Lastly, this passage teaches us that living in “The Way” is more grey than black and white.
This is a passage about two kinds of people: those who spend their gifts in the wrong way and bring shame and suffering and those who do it right their whole lives yet feel they still have not received their fair share. Often when preachers preach about this story they ask which of the brothers you are. I think this is a great question to ask. But as I say to my kids, It is not that simple. The lines are not so clear. It's a bit more complicated than that.
This parable is beautifully crafted. We do not know of either son's response to the fathers gestures of grace. Does the younger son have a change of heart and end up helping in his fathers estate? Does the older brother enter the party? Do the brothers ever see eye to eye? I think these are intentionally left out to highlight the third person in the story. The acts of grace of the father.
According to the father, right and wrong are not the point. The father cares more about the relationship rather than what is right and wrong. The father has every right to ostracise his youngest who essentially wished his father dead to get his inheritance, yet he is able to accept his son with open arms. The father also knows the hurt of the elder son and invites him to celebrate anyway. All you had to do was ask, all that I have is yours.
To repent is to reinvent. When we experience the grace of God calling us in, or God welcoming us home, we reinvent our minds to choose relationship over judgements. We become like the father who is able to hold both within himself. The father is able to live with both/and rather than choosing either/or.
Application¶
I know that I have been both sons. And very rarely have I lived like the Father. But the more that I have come back humbly to God like the youngest and the more I have felt God inviting me into the party that I have kept myself out of like the eldest, the more I am able to hold the same space for others. The more God does it for me, the more I am able to be like God in this way. This is a beautiful thing. Once you have experienced grace, you know there are not rules for grace.
Once we learn that relationship is way more important than being right, being in, being Christian, being rich, being qualified, we are free to see the people in front of us as just that, people. I can still love you deeply if I disagree with you even if it is in the most fundamental way.
To repent is to reinvent. But reinvention is REALLY hard. It involved a lot of dying to self. That is why it is the central theme of lent. That is why the cross is so beautiful.
So we have heard of some of the outcomes of repentance, but what are the major steps of repentance? These are not things we ever get right and can then say “Whoop! Now I have repented!”. Repentance is a lifelong practice. To repent is continually reinvent.
Action 1 - Acknowledge¶
This is the hardest step of all three. How hard is it to acknowledge that my judgments are keeping me from the table? How hard is it to know that I have spent my inheritance poorly and now I need to come back to the father? We do not acknowledge because humility is difficult. How have you missed the mark? How have you not taken the log out of you own eye? How are you racist, classist, religionist, sexist? It is naïve to think that you are none of these things. It is wiser to search for how you are like all of these things.
This takes time and work. It involves writing, praying, talking, thinking, time alone, therapy time, time with the minister, time with a friend.
Action 2 - Accept¶
Once we have acknowledged, another difficult step (but not as difficult as the first) is to accept the other or ourselves for who/what they/we are. Acceptance does not necessarily mean that we agree. Accept means that the Christ in me sees the Christ in you. I think the father disagreed deeply with both of his sons. But his opinion wasn’t the point. This is such a nuanced and difficult concept for us to understand.
But the single best way to learn acceptance is to acknowledge the grace that God has given us. Undeservedly, without condition.
Action 3 - Absorb¶
The last step of repentance is to absorb. This step is a step that we cannot really actively do. It is the internalisation of the fathers grace. There is no formula for this. By grace we receive the fathers loving embrace and by grace we learn the ways of grace. By doing the first two, we naturally include the third.
One Liner¶
To repent is to reinvent