Random Internet WAB

Go meet Oliver.


Practicing for his part in 'The Last Days of Pompeii'

"Welcome. Enter. Here are my testicles. You may praise me now."

And if dogs aren't your scene, how about some bunnies...

Sermon Easter2 2006

Read John 20:19-23

I remember as a child reading “Charlotte’s Webb” by E.B. White: a beautiful story. I was surprised this week to learn – thanks to Jim Harnish – more about Mr. E.B. White whose wife died of cancer. He wrote this about her:

“Katherine was a member of the resurrection conspiracy, the company of those who plant seeds of hope under dark skies of grief or oppression, going about their living and dying until, no one knows how, when or where, the tender Easter shoots appear, and a piece of creation is healed.” (The Expository Times, March, 1989)

I like very much the idea of a “conspiracy of the resurrection”. Jim reminds us of the origins of the word “conspiracy”:

"The word 'conspiracy' comes from the Latin roots 'com,' meaning 'together' and 'spirare,' meaning 'breathe.' Although it has taken on negative connotations, to 'conspire' is literally to be so closely bound in a common purpose that we 'breathe together.'"

This takes on new meaning given our reading for today. The disciples huddle in fear behind locked doors: a Conspiracy of Silence. Then Jesus enters and their world is forever changed. Indeed the whole world was changed. History was changed.

Jesus’ breath has infiltrated everywhere. Legal and judicial systems in modern democracies owe a great deal to Jesus’ ethics. Indeed, our whole understanding of morality has been deeply influenced by Jesus. In the arts: Dante, Shakespeare, Bach and Mozart, to name a few, were inspired by Jesus. The modern university system, the healing professions, social services, the idea of a United Nations and world service organizations owe their existence to Jesus inspired individuals and organisations. In the Wesleyan tradition we can count the birth of trade unions, people’s dispensaries and affordable medicine, as well as the abolition of slavery as ideas that were birthed or nurtured by Jesus ideas.

You may have heard of the idea of “Caesar's breath.” For a lifetime Julius Caesar’s lungs puffed about a litre of air every breath and so great seas of air passed through this long dead conqueror’s body. The molecules of that air have dispersed around the globe and are with us still. You can work out that for every 1kg of air around you there are about 3920 molecules of the air Caesar exhaled. Assuming you inhale 1 litre of air, then you have 5 molecules of Caesar’s air in you!

Now Caesar lived approximately the same time as Jesus and chances are good I am breathing about as much Jesus’ air as Caesar’s air. I have no choice about these circumstances. I have no control over the air molecules I breath. But I can choose my allegiance. I cannot change circumstance, but I can still choose.

The Conspiracy of the Resurrection calls us to at least two reflections:
That we constantly meditate on our common humanity
That we constantly meditate on our connection with divinity

Common humanity
I am breathing 5 molecules of Caesars breath every lungful. I am part of this man of history. I also breath the air you have just exhaled – far more than immediate that that of Caesar’s. We belong to the same earth - all of us. We breathe the same breath.

Caesar used power and military might to create one of the largest and most organised empires ever seen. He did it with a mix of bureaucratical indifference and ruthless brutality. Would I do differently were I breathing his circumstance?

We like to invent differences between ourselves but we are more closely linked than any would care to acknowledge. Am I so different from the boy who gets involved in gangs because it’s the only place he belongs? Am I so different from the parent who in desperation lashes out at his infant child? Am I so different from the soldier who in fear shoots and kills a protestor holding nothing more than a rock? Am I not all of these and Caesar too?

Connection to Divinity
And yet… I breathe the air of Jesus too. More than that, I breathe the idea of the Conspiracy of the Resurrection. The hero of our faith is not unattainable. Jesus’ example is extraordinary not because he is divine but because he is human. Jesus breathes. Despite his circumstances Jesus actively chose the difficult path of sacrificial service. And look at all the other human heroes throughout history who have made choices of exemplary courage and conviction despite their circumstance. They had no more ability that any of us when all is averaged out. Jesus too: he was a man, just a man. Am I so different from this man? Could I, like him, make choices that raise me above my circumstances? Could I become, like him, a transformer of circumstance?

In the end it involves my deliberate choice. Choose to live for Hope. It is a choice I can make more practiced by consistent, regular meditation upon that which connects me with all humanity and that which connects me to the divine: my breath. As I breathe in, let me breath in the Hope of the Conspiracy of Resurrection. As I breathe out, let me breath out my fear, self-interest, guilt and hate of the Conspiracy of Silence.

Points Political to Ponder from Pres. Katie III

Sheesh! He’s at it again. We’re sitting at the top of Lion’s Head. Why? I dunno… Because it is here says Mallory - or whoever it was ended up dead on Everest.

I’m thinking of firing the Minister of Sport and Entertainment.

Sermon Easter 2006

Read Mark 16:1-8

June 18, 1815 and the English Channel is burning. Ships from both sides of the straight are blowing each other to bits. The battle is watched anxiously but it is impossible to tell who is winning amidst the smoke and flame. The Emperor, Napoleon, has sent his best into the fray, hoping to defeat the great British General, Wellington. The British await the news that will tell them whether they will remain an independent nation or capitulate to the control of the French megalomaniac. Using primitive semaphore news is transmitted using light across to the waiting British. A message: “Wellington defeated…” is smothered in noisome fog. The news spreads quickly and despair takes a hold. People wonder when the invaders will land. But the fog lifts and a frantic repetition comes to confirm the message: “Wellington defeated Napoleon.”

Our passage today ends with the same abrupt abbreviation, as if a fog has descended on the story and we are left wondering what happens next, questioning what the message is supposed to be. Is that it? Fear? Nothing else?

Mark’s version of Jesus’ story is the earliest of the four we have in the Canon. Mark’s style is that of a breathless, fast-paced thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Details are sacrificed for pace and every section is prefaced with “immediately”. The original version of Mark ended at 16:8 with the women keeping quiet in fear. Later readers tried to remedy this anticlimax by adding the resurrection appearances in the rest of the chapter. But Mark would have us left hanging, the story cauterised… Why?

To answer that, we must remember that Mark is writing a story well after the events in history have taken place. Mark is writing to an audience that already know that this cannot be the ending for otherwise, how would they have come to know about Jesus? Mark is using a literary device that propels the story into an immediate present reality, drawing the reader (or in ancient times: the hearer) into the story.

Sarah Breuer compares this to the way most movie genres will draw their audience into the story using well-worn, stereotyped devices. Think about your favourite kind of movie:

If you’re a fan of whodunits then you quickly stack up a range of possible outcomes and as the characters play out the unfolding drama, your endings are whittled away by process of elimination, until - if it’s a real good twister - you have none left and you’re guessing all the way to the end. Or maybe you’re a horror addict. You know the plot so well – it’s the same stuff every time - but you find yourself coaching the characters the whole way through the action, especially when they insanely walk alone through the one door they should know spells certain-squishy-death! And then there is the romcom, which is the most predictable genre of all but you’ll bite your nails while the protagonist anxiously tries to cover up some dreadful faux pas, which could cost him the relationship. And you shed a tear when all is finally resolved in a smorgasbord of fluff and sentiment at the end.

So we get sucked in, even when we know the ending. The story is compelling and we are part of it.

Mark has made us part of his story. We know the women must have told someone, the disciples must have gone to Galilee and discovered Jesus’ message alive and well in the hearts of a growing multitude. We know the message must have spread, because we have heard it.

Mark wants us in the story and that is what the resurrection is most fundamentally about. We are the ones who write out the next chapter as we live the life of Christ on earth. We are the resurrection ending that never quite gets finished. In you this story finds another twist in the tale and evil is left guessing. Chalk up one more victory for Jesus, just when a fog of death was about to eclipse the message…

Friday we meditated on all that is not well in this world: taken up into the Cross of Christ. On Saturday we received news that Cecil Fester had died. Cecil has lived a full and vibrant life. No one will soon forget his voice and love of music – especially opera. Just this year he was singing on our radios. If Sunday is to mean anything for us, it must mean that Cecil’s life has now come full circle and he joins the unbroken message of Mark written in the lives of millennia of faithful people who have lived for Jesus. The hope Jesus gave and Cecil sang, continues with us, and will continue long after we are gone. No fog of death can stop it.

So, go good friends and LIVE as surely as Jesus is alive!

Sermon Holy Week 2006

Read: John 18:1-6

(Adapted from Hyde Park newsletter editorial by Jim Harnish)

Many of you will have guessed by now that I am a great fan of Judas and Thomas. These two, of all the disciples, I understand. I understand Judas because I often long to be him: the rebel, the revolutionary, the one to precipitate the beginning of the end of all that is wrong. I want to be on the inside track of change; first among those who bravely enter a new world order. Tragically, like Judas, I often find the very reverse is true as the cause blinds me to the end that comes for me.

So I was glad to hear about a documentary being made about the Gospel of Judas. I was looking forward to hearing more about this interesting character. But I have been disappointed by the marketing of the popular release of the Gospel of Judas. The impression has been created that this “new” release will shake the foundations of Christianity.

In fact, the Gospel of Judas is one of many gospels that have been known about and consistently rejected by the church since the second century AD. The reason for this rejection is not because it contains something that will undermine the veracity of Christian claims, but because it belonged to a decidedly un-Christian movement. That movement had Christian connections but was - and still is - not Christian. The movement was called Gnosticism, from the Greek word for ‘knowledge’.

Gnosticism has reared its head in the church and elsewhere throughout history. It is based on two core principles, which you may recognise in some aspects of what is punted as Christian these days.

Firstly, Gnosticism believes that salvation comes from secret knowledge, which God has, and which God gives to certain privileged individuals who, as guardians of “the truth”, will in turn impart this knowledge to an elect few. Listen to the opening lines of the Gospel of Judas: “The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot” (emphasis added).

Now, it is unlikely that Judas had anything to do with authoring the Gospel, but it seems consistent at least with his commitments. Judas conspired and plotted. He belonged to that section of the Jewish people that was working in secret to overthrow the Romans. When it became apparent that Jesus might need a little push in the right direction, Judas’ plotting even turned against Jesus. His secrecy in the end was not so secret nor at all successful as Jesus did not retaliate against his arrest, nor call down the anger of revolutionary ferment at his trial. Judas’ secrets caught up with him and he could no longer face the demons in his dark night.

I find plots and intrigue beguiling. Having secret knowledge makes me feel powerful. To be part of those who are creating dissent without showing our faces, feels at once naughty and potent. But it is ultimately doomed to failure as plots beget plots and those who take over become the same as that which they sought to change.

By contrast hear the first scripture reading of the Church at Pentecost as Peter quoted from Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” The Good News is for all people and all creation and it is for telling, not keeping.

So the example of Jesus calls us to work for societal change out in the open where our enemies can clearly see what we are doing. This prevents us working according to the adage: “the means justifies the end”. Our means must be moral and just. Our means must be as convincing as the hope toward which we press. Indeed, the means creates the end. So, Christian non-violent direct action is shocking in its openness and public nature, which invites even enemies into the change.

Secondly, Gnosticism viewed the body, earth and all material reality as evil. Only spirit is good and it is the goal of good spirituality to organise the escape of the spirit from the body. The Gospel of Judas says that Jesus gave Judas secret knowledge about how the betrayal would aid Jesus in liberating his spirit from his body, thereby lending justification for Judas’ actions.

Again, I find myself resonating with this idea for it is much easier to pray than to care. I can pray for my enemies, but to make them my friends is too much. It is easier to be a good religious person than to actually follow Jesus. I would rather be the professional spiritual leader than stoop to the level of the ‘suffering servant’.

And yet this is exactly the call upon my life. It is this world, my fellow humans, even my own flesh, which I am called to help heal. From the beginning to the end the Bible speaks of the inherent goodness of creation and the inescapable connection between God and God’s world. Genesis declares at every injection of life into the universe, that it is good, it is good, it is good! And Jesus is the word made flesh - not some vessel into which God inserted divinity only to suck it out again at the end. We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The Cross presents a challenge and choice to us all, but particularly those of us closely associated with holy things. Proximity to the Divine in Jesus did not guarantee Judas of salvation. He still made the choice that catapulted him to disaster. Perhaps because he was so fervent about his beliefs, he was more vulnerable to the temptations of secrecy, power and the heady ideas of revolutionary change. Religious people everywhere can hear in Judas’ story a warning. The choice is still there to make every day and every moment: will we be like secret, elitist Judas or will we be like vulnerable Jesus?

Pedal to the Metal

While I was waiting for my tire to be replaced and William was waiting for his bike's damage to be appraised, we wondered around the BMW shop drooling. I came across a beautiful F650 GS for Katie. I signed up for the finance option but the bank turned me down.

Meanwhile, “rumours of my death have been grossly exaggerated”...

William decided to crash some luckless student yesterday, making this the second time I have had to ride pillion while the driver is mucking up the road. I think Kevin is still in therapy after he took me for a buzz up to Constantia neck and we spilled on a slow corner.

The other two accidents William is talking about: the slide I describe on the Iron John weekend and the slide on oil a few days before getting shot of the cheap Chinese rubbish I rode for a year before getting my licence. A beamer sure spoils one...

Pillion Poked

This was written by William…

Hey Ho IRON JOHN Mateys!! Here is the official version of the accident. (i.e. what I told the police last night...) I picked Greg up at his flat at 8 am on Monday to take him to his bike in Parow (it had a flat tyre). I was entering the slipway onto Woolsack Drive from Rondebosch Main Road, when a young man attempted to run across the road in front of me. It was a weird scene: his brain had obviously sent the message to his legs to run across, but his eyes stretched wide open as he saw the bike approaching. His eyes could not relay the message thru to his legs fast enough, and he ran. I hit the hooter and the front brakes hard. He hit the bike just left of centre, flying off like a rag-doll. I thought he was dead or maimed for sure. While I was contending with an armful of broken windshield, plastic and dials, and bringing the bike to a stop, Greg jumped off to check on the lad. He lay there, dazed, while Greg shouted "Get up! Get up!" (also fearing the lad was dead) The lad got up, bruised and scratched, but not seriously hurt! His book-bag was a touch messed up. I picked up lots of plastic and Perspex pieces, and Greg and I continued on our mission to rescue his bike... "Yes officer, I promise, that it is what happened..." I said later that night… Bike damage : R13 500. Ouch.

What Really happened: I offered to pick Greg up in the morning to rescue his bike. We went along Rondebosch Main Road, and up toward UCT. So far so good.Then a young lad ran into the road, hoping to cross it in front of us.. Greg shouted "Get the bastaaaaaard!!!!" Greg's blood curdling scream awakened a deep primitive hunting instinct in me. Cross hairs appeared in my eyes. The young man tried to run back, pretended to swing right, darted left. But Greg, being an expert roller-blader was up on the footpegs, anticipating the prey's every move, We swerved left, right, left, hit the accelerator at the last moment and the young man went flying! Dazed and confused I slowed down. Greg did a back-flip off the slowing bike and raced to the victim. I turned round and saw Greg doing a rain dance round the motionless body shouting " Woooop, wooop, 10 points! 10 points! Whose your daddy, whose your daddy!!!!???" He then caught sight of the mangled book-bag, pointed and shouted with glee " Bonus point! Bonus point!!!" By this time civilization had returned to my mind, and with a mighty blow of my helmet onto his, I managed to daze Greg long enough to get him back onto the bike and let the cold wind cool his wild hunting frenzy. What was left of the youth nobody knows.

But I do now know why Greg has been in 3 bike accidents in his few months of biking. Be afraid out there.... Be very afraid.

THE PRESIDENT

Sermon Palm Sunday 2006

Read Mark 11:1-11

The first time I registered as a taxpayer I was daunted. I felt they knew stuff about me that I didn’t even know - like they were going to discover my dirty little secrets. I went to the Receiver of Revenue in Plein Street and asked for assistance in filling out the forms. The clerk asked my name. For a moment my fear paralysed my brain and I just stared at her gaping nonsense until eventually from the recesses of my blighted memory I dredged up my identity. Needless to say, she didn’t seem entirely convinced that I was Gregory John Andrews.

Life has a way of dropping one a notch or two whenever one gets too high and mighty. My connection with the establishment I railed against didn't just start with taxes...

At university I was very impressed with myself for being a conscientious objector when every one else was off to serve in the Apartheid government’s militia, the “SA Defence Force”. It didn’t occur to me at the time that my study costs were being paid for by the State because Dad was a lecturer and so entitled to a ¾ bursary from the State for his kids. The same State I refused to serve by arms. The same State that used soldiers for acts of terrorism in the townships. The same State that imprisoned black students without trial who protested.

Whether we like it or not we are all complicit at some level in the systems of violence and exploitation that characterise this world. Try as we might - and try we must - we cannot see how our work, our play, our decisions, our relationships may somehow be connected to actions or values we do not consciously espouse.

We cannot wash our hands clean. Pontius Pilate tried when he judged Jesus.

Unlike the Roman Governor, who enters Jerusalem on a mighty warhorse with the conquered in his wake, Jesus enters the not-so-holy city with a rag-tag mob of joyful misfits as his retinue. Unlike Pilate, who plays politics to keep himself in unassailable power, Jesus relinquishes Divinity to die for his accusers. Unlike Pilate, who washes his hands of the messiness of the world, Jesus’ calloused carpenter hands have touched the diseased, held the heart-broken and embraced the untouchable.

Do we seek to be holy to preserve our own holiness, or is our faith about genuine transformation?

Pilate, and the religious establishment he conspires with, work hard at their own holiness and in the end lose their souls. Jesus, who thumbs his nose at religion and empire, is holiness personified.

This is Holy Week. Let’s reflect on whether our holiness is religious or messy. Are we following Pilate toward the pristine temple and courts of power or are we marching with Jesus in the squalor of the street to a ragged hill with a tormented cross?

(Inspired by Sarah)

Points Political to Ponder from Pres. Katie II

Transport is something most people take for granted or see only as a means to an end. Not me; I've built my career on this very important aspect of life. It is essential that one's subjects understand one's centrallity in their lives and there is nothing quite as effective in communicating this than the right kind of locomotion. Now some will settle for the black Mercedes, but methinks this is too conventional. One needs something that will attract attention.

Here I am out for my morning run with the Minister of Sport and Entertainment. No he is not crying... just wiping away the sweat from his eyes. I take pride in my hard working Cabinet members!

Notice that I am quite visible - not hidden behind tinted windows - able to commune with my subjects on my way past. Notice also that I am able in this manner to cover terrain that most polticians would never come close to. Think if the ground I can cover!

The Devil in my Garden

Every day I wake up and spend a little time looking at this view of Devil's Peak, my favourite part of the mountain. Wind swept and tempestuous, it's moods are various and unpredictable. It reminds me of the frailty of my tiny life and the transcience of the daily problems I face. Even this massive monolithic presence is being eroded by the persistence of wetness. It’s character is the evidence of thousands of years of struggle against the elements, creased by rivers, softened by green and crowned with golden clouds.

As we woke a fog covered the flanks of the mountain so Katie, Jürgen and I expected a cold morning run. This is Katie’s cold weather suit, a present from her aunt, uncle and cousin (Immy, David and Llew) in England. Only the English know how to make things really water proof…

Running up through the fog we broke through into a sunny day above Rhodes Memorial, looking through misted trees to a glowing sun-lit peak. A thousand wonders are born every moment that will never be appreciated, but I am grateful for the few that surprise me and wake me from my routined stupor.

Thanks be to God for the Devils Peak! ;-)

Points Political to Ponder from Pres. Katie

Shopping time in the afternoon is a great occasion for self-promotion. One should always make sure that when meeting one's people you are ready to engage in their way of life. Here I am off shopping with my neighbours, Lucy and Lyn. No doubt about who they’ll vote for… And damn good publicity too: face-time with the local pensioners. Now, if only I can convince them to buy chocolate instead of broccoli…

Sermon Lent 4 2006

Read John 12:20-33

Most great spiritual leaders end up writing a set of rules, which become the code for their followers. Often these rules become quite complicated and long winded. John Wesley wrote to his people called Methodist the following Rule of Conduct:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

For someone like me, this is a lot easier to grasp but very difficult to actually do. Much of my life is spent being too busy, making excuses and then feeling guilty about it – what a waste! I long to emulate Mr. Wesley in the practice of good. Oh to be as good as he was!

In the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus” starring Richard Dreyfus, Mr Holland finds himself distracted from the grand vision of composing a symphony. His mundane tasks of managing a family and his music students continually get in the way. He longs to be able to be The Composer and is frustrated by such seemingly less important endeavours.

At the end of the movie we, and Mr Holland, realise that it is the lives of his students that collectively create a far more significant symphony than anything he could ever compose. His contribution to this world, far from being frustrated, has been nurtured in the very place he least expected.

“When a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it surrenders to new life and bears much fruit.”

Sometimes I need a perspective shift to see what is happening around me: that my value is not so much measured by my dream of changing the world – which I never get right – but is measured more in the seemingly insignificant, serendipitous connections I make in daily life, amidst the frustrations of the mundane (often despite my best efforts!). That is what changes the world.

But I have been bamboozled by this world into thinking that the only change that matters is grand change; that the only people who are truly significant are those who have shaken the earth. I wait for the world to make me a great person; I long for the ability, the training, the vision, the time, the money, the self-actualisation that will propel me to become a hero and save the world. In short, I need permission to do good (check Sarah’s lectionary blog on this point).

“Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Jesus has judged this world’s values by living in direct opposition to the falseness of this world’s deceptions. Jesus has liberated us from the romance of hero worship. His foolishness has proven wiser than anything we know.

So he draws us all in; every one of us: the gentile Greek who thinks he needs Phillip’s permission to speak to Rabbi Jesus, Phillip who still thinks he needs to consult his more Jewish colleague, Andrew, on the best approach to the Master and Andrew who still thinks that two will be more convincing than one when they ask permission for an audience for the foreigner. But Jesus is no hero. He draws all to him. He does not live up to his disciple’s infatuation. He dies for their worship of the hero.

When I am able to let go of my infatuation with my own hero-vision of myself, I will begin to see the value I have already in the unwitting composition of my daily life. I will be able to participate more fully in the drawing of all people into the heart of God. I will no longer need the world’s permission to be part of God’s great love. I will live from the simplicity of knowing that I am loved, and I love. This is enough.

Charmer

President Katie had her first year check up last Wednesday. While in the waiting room, she got a hold of this pushcart with blocks and walked herself around the waiting room like a pro. Her Cabinet are at once excited and nervous of these new abilities. Given her startling ability to disappear on all fours, we shudder to imagine the potential of bipedal locomotion.

While waiting for the doc (Carl), Katie made friends with a little baby boy sitting placidly in his carry-car-seat thingy. She crawled right in next to him and made herself comfortable. I prayed fervently that she wouldn’t bite him. Fortunately he took a shining to her and was quite upset when his mom removed him for his own appointment.

Carl was pleased with her progress, with many assurances to her nervous parents. Even with Carl’s teddy bear persona, his scrutiny of our family’s private life feels worse than writing matric. Katie loved having her heart listened to, remaining quite still as Carl moved the disc of his stethoscope around her chest. I think she has a crush on him…

She got a chicken pox jab. Horrible. Lots of shouting and tears, but recovered quickly and still had eyes for Carl, much to his surprise.

Gush… yes, she is cute. Send me an email if you want a small video of Katie doing her Presidential walk-about in the doc’s waiting room.

Shark toothpic

Now this is wild! Check out the full article here. The photo was taken just off the coast last year. The kayaker is a researcher who uses the kayak as the best way to get close to sharks without disturbing them or attracting them with chum. Cage diving is for sissies!