Africa Matters

San Diego

Wed 24^th March 2010

I am here to attend and speak at the “Nurturing of the Prophetic Imagination” conference, hosted by Point Loma Nazarene University. This morning I spoke in their chapel service (to over 1000 students: yes, chapel is compulsory!), and have just returned from the studios of the local PBS (you can listen to the interview).

As I prepare for my opening remarks at the opening banquet of the conference this evening, I am again reminded of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed 30 years ago today (March 24, 1980). The story of Romero’s life, his ministry and advocacy on behalf of the poor and particularly his journey through the night to the little village parish of Aguilares, where he said mass for his friend Fr. Rutillio Grande (and the two others killed with him). It is this event more than any other that transformed the generally quiet and cautious cleric into the outspoken advocate of the poor and voiceless.  He became a tireless prophet for a new future, yet Romero clearly understood that this new future always lies beyond us. The prayer/poem attributed to him captures well what the prophetic imagination is all about:

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

More at http://www.larynandjanel.com/blog/prophets-of-a-future-not-our-own-oscar-romero

I want to share some recent, exciting news with friends and readers and guests alike: the Divinity School at Duke has recently granted me tenure as Associate Professor of Theology and World Christianity, effective in July! I am at once honored and humbled. Thank you to all who have supported me during my time here.

Emmanuel

Greetings!

The Center for Reconciliation site now features a photo journal and more extensive report on this year’s GLI gathering, “Politics, Leadership and the Christian Calling,” held in Burundi (discussed in posts below).

In addition, you may read a workbook I put together for the three-day event:”For Such a Time as This: Politics, Leadership and the Christian Calling.”  This resource focuses on the biblical story of Esther as a model for political engagement.

I hope in viewing these, you get a fuller sense of how truly exciting of a time the Gathering was for all involved!

-Emmanuel

Friends,

Podcasts are now available of the plenary talk I gave at last October’s Faith, Film & Justice Forum in Seattle, “Justice, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in the Wake of Genocide? The End of Words,” as well as an interview conducted with Tom Ryan of The Other Journal. They may be found here.  Thanks to our friends at The Other Journal for making these available.

Emmanuel

According to the Catholic liturgical calendar, the fourth Sunday in lent is known as laetare Sunday. Laetare is the singular imperative of the latin laetari, to rejoice. The invitation, nay command of the 4^th Sunday of lent is to be joyful (the entrance antiphon for mass is Isaiah 66:10-11, which begins “Laetare, Jerusalem” (“Rejoice, O Jerusalem”).

'Reconciliation,' Divinity School statue based on the parable of the prodigal son

I am reminded of the words of Father Alexander Schmemann Orthodox Christian priest, teacher, and writer, who in a journal entry (Dec 3, 1976) wrote:

“God will forgive everything except lack of joy; when we forget that God created the world and saved it; Joy is not one of the ‘components’ of Christianity; it is the tonality of Christianity that penetrates everything- faith and vision. Where there is no joy, Christianity becomes fear and therefore torture…

This world is having fun; nevertheless it is joyless because joy (different from what is called ‘fun’) can be only from God, only from on High – not only joy of salvation, but salvation as joy….”

(The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1973-1983)

The story of the father and his two sons (aka the prodigal son story), which was read at mass this past Sunday, confirms that this joy onto which we are commanded is not so much a pursuit (like ‘fun’), but a gift that we receive as we find our way into the warm, loving, and forgiving embrace of a God who tenderly welcomes us home! A very good reason indeed to ‘rejoice’!

The story of Moses before the burning bush (Exodus 3:1ff) was read in many churches this past Sunday. I have always wondered why in the story Moses is commanded to not go any nearer but to “take off your shoes for the place you are standing is holy ground” (Ex 3: 5). It struck me this past Sunday that the reason might as well be that Moses would feel the burning bush under his exposed feet. “Standing in the Fire” is the image that came to mind. In some African communities two estranged individuals (or elders representing two communities) step over warm ashes to shake hands as a gesture of reconciliation. The warm ashes represent the pain of their past estrangement, which they are meant to feel.

"Moses And The Burning Bush" (Byzantine Mosaic; St. Catherine's Monastery, South Sinai, Egypt)

As Moses stands (sandals removed) in the fire of the burning bush God tells him: “I have heard the cry of my people”. It is as if God is inviting Moses to feel the same pain, to hear the same cry that God has heard. The pain of God’s people now become Moses’ pain. But it is also then that God reveals herself more intimately to Moses – not simply as the God of ‘your forefathers’, but as the “I am”. And it is here again in the fire that Moses receives his call – which is to say God reveals God’s mission which involves Moses’ life (I mean to send you down to Egypt…). All these are gifts, so to say, that Moses receives as he stands in the fire, feeling the heat of the burning bush. This is what makes the burning bush ‘holy ground’.

I think about Lent as the time more than any other when I am invited – nay, commanded to ‘remove your sandals’ and learn to stand on the holy ground of pain so as to receive the strange gifts of compassion (feeling other people’s cries); of God’s intimacy (“I am”) and glimpse, even if in fragmented and piecemeal ways, the meaning and purpose of my life. Even then, the fact that pain and suffering can be such a holy ground remains a mystery, even though an integral part of God’s journey with us, which Angelina Atyam describes as  “painfully beautiful”.

The story of Abram, read on the second Sunday of lent, reminds us that God continues to dream in us even in our old age, even in what might appear to be barren, dry and unproductive seasons of our life.  What Abram’s story also confirms is that if God’s dream is both very personal and is about us: “Abram, leave your country … to a new land I will show [and give] to you; I shall make you a great nation…” (Gen 12: 12) the dream is never the less beyond us. Abram is promised:  “I will shall bless you and make your name famous, so that others may find a blessing in your name.” (Gen 12:3).

Lent is a time to think about the dreams that God may be dreaming in us; to reawaken them, and allow those dreams to lead us, as they did for Abram, into the wilderness of new journeys. What Sister Joyce Rupp says of midlife time is in many ways true of lent:

when midlife comes along
it is time to awaken
the dreams in us
that have nearly died

it is time
to call them forth
to remember
how it felt
to risk all
for the inner vision

and the vision
has wings of wisdom now,
no more excuses
for why dreams
can’t be tried

it is time
now or never

dreams
if not lived soon
will die.
dreams
if no
left too long
in a rotting attic.

blessed be the one
who keeps on believing
in us
and blessed be the One
who goes on dreaming
in us
even when we forget.

Joyce Rupp, Dear Heart Come Home. New York, 2006, pp. 139-140