The Minister and Mick

Alan Shatter TD and Minister for Justice is a solicitor with a proven track record, particularly in the area of family law. It is ironic then that such an able legal mind should have perhaps committed such a basic legal faux-pas that would threaten the future of his political career. It remains to be seen whether any offence will be deemed to have been committed but even to place himself in a situation where the question can be asked shows a lack of judgment on the part of the Minister. Surely a man of Shatter’s experience and standing would realize that the use of privileged information in a political context is exceedingly dangerous. 

I sympathize with his frustration in sharing a platform with Mick Wallace who to my mind belongs anywhere but in public office, but that was the will of the people in our democracy, which all politicians, Shatter included, are sworn to uphold.  The Minister should know better than to let himself be risen by such buffoonery.

And yet Shatter’s response has been anything but conciliatory. His familiar arrogance has been to the fore as he has tried to bluster his way out of an exceedingly tight corner. I am quite certain that the Minister knows that he has at best pushed the boundaries of his office to a new limit and at worst may have committed an offence under data protection legislation.

So why does he not simply apologize to Mick Wallace and the Irish people for overstepping the boundaries of his office? Surely one such as he who has devoted his professional life to the law, its formation and enforcement would not wish (no matter how arrogant he is) to stand over actions which if condoned would undermine the basis of our democracy. Surely even he would eat a little humble pie for the sake of the Law. I use capital letters for Law here intentionally because I do believe he would see it as one of the pillars of our society.

So why not hold his hands up and ask for forgiveness? I think this is the nub of the matter. He knows that there will be no forgiveness. To admit to having, however inadvertently, broken the law is career suicide. That will be the end of Alan Shatter TD and Minister for Justice and it will be not only his loss but ours too for he has made a considerable contribution to Irish politics and law in his lifetime. It will indeed be a sad end if this does prove to be his nemesis.

However as long as Shatter persists in defending the indefensible he will simultaneously diminish the democratic capital of this State. However provoked we cannot allow those with such weighty responsibility to abuse their privileged status for political point scoring. This is a dangerous precedent and one which must be stopped in its tracks! As it stands the best solution for the ongoing integrity of our democracy would be that the Minister would relinquish office.

I wish it were other, but in an unforgiving society there is no alternative. I wish we lived in a society where people could admit to mistakes and failures and be allowed the opportunity to learn from them. I would much prefer to have Alan Shatter continue in office, having eaten the necessary humble pie, and through the whole experience grow in stature and integrity. But that will never be unless things change radically and we abandon the culture of spin and systems failure where nobody is ever responsible for anything or anyone. In the meantime in this imperfect world I hope the Minister does the right thing.

Sermon for Sunday 5th May 2013

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them…..the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.”

Jesus words to Judas are words addressed to all his disciples and indeed to us today. We are called not only to Love as we heard in last weeks Gospel but to the implications of that Love. Here it is spelt out for us in greater detail:

“Those who love me will keep my word”….. It seems clear enough and yet through the centuries the Church has often misunderstood what that means.

The word keep is a word open to misinterpretation – does keep his Word and God’s Word, for that is what Jesus says it is – does that mean observe it in everything that we do – follow its instruction and do as Jesus told us or does it mean to guard it, to keep it safe, to keep it to ourselves and not let anyone who isn’t in the Church have access to it?

Most of us would probably say its about following God’s commands and wishes for us as we engage with the world but very often in practice it has meant the opposite. We are inclined to keep God and God’s Word to ourselves and not always intentionally. We do it sometimes by putting up accidental barriers to communication with the world we are called to serve.

One of the greatest and worst barriers we construct is the one of language – we speak a language in church and in church circles that is quite different than the language we use in the rest of our lives. We throw around words like ‘Kingdom’ ‘Salvation’ ‘Redemption’ ‘Sin’ & ‘Judgement’ without either really understanding what we mean and certainly not explaining it to those outside the inner circle.

It is a kind of jargon or shop-talk that is every bit as effective in keeping the stranger away as erecting a barbed wire fence around the perimeter of our buildings. We don’t do it intentionally but we do it unthinkingly and it is something that clergy and congregations are equally guilty of.

There is often a demand to make the Gospel relevant – we don’t need to do that – The Gospel is already relevant – God has made it so but we as the vessels in which that Gospel is communicated must make it intelligible to the world in which we find ourselves.

That is no easy task either because the Church is increasingly alien to its own environment. We live in a digital culture which for better or worse is driven by a demand for instant and universal communication and transparency – It is no longer the privileged few who control the flow of information in society – we are all broadcasters, or can be if we want to through the medium of social networks. We may be uncomfortable with them, we may actively dislike them but if we do not engage with them we may as well close the doors. What is happening today is every bit as revolutionary as the Printing Press and it was the Churches early adoption of printing that ensured the spread and growth of the Gospel.

Keeping Gods Word today may actually mean entering into this new world of communication, collaboration and sharing. Like all new developments there is good and bad but it is the primary place where those who we seek to share the Word of God are ‘hanging out’ for want of a better word.

For those of us not at all comfortable with this digital world there are alternatives – other ways in which we can break down the walls around the Church so that the Word can permeate through our world. What does that look like ? – Quite simply putting Love at the centre of everything we do.

It means using Love as the litmus paper or test of the goodness of what we are doing.  If we do this then we are told that God will come to us and make his home with us. That home is to be found wherever the Church, you and me, are active in his service in the world. People will always recognize and respond to a Church that does what it says on the tin – May we as disciples of Jesus and living stones of the Church of Christ be the walking witness of his Love in the world. Amen.

Sermon for Sunday 28th April 2013

Love Love me Do, The Power of Love, Love can build a bridge, Love can mend a broken heart, Endless Love, Love me Tender, Dream Lover, I can’t stop loving you, You’ve lost that loving feeling, Will you love me tomorrow………..

That is but a small sample of the songs that have been written about Love in the last 50 or 60 years – I went online to have a look at how many there were and one site listed just shy of 1200 love songs – I was going to read them all and end by thanking God for the gift of love but thought I might not get away with that.

But there is an important point in this – Our music is a reflection of our culture at any given time in our history – Music reflects the mood and the events of life both on the large scale and on the deeply personal scale – Think back to Band Aid when Bob Geldof’s song captured the moment of the Ethiopian famine and not only reflected the compassion of people for the starving but motivated people to take action. So we need to take music seriously. And obviously judging by the number of songs written about Love we need to take Love very seriously indeed!

In today’s Gospel from John 13 we have the support of our Lord in this prioritizing of Love.

‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

It is also important to be aware of the context of this command to Love – When we think of love we perhaps think of the excitement of first love, the embrace of a loved one, a wedding or even a cosy meal by candlelight.

It actually was at a meal that Jesus gave this command, probably by candlelight / torchlight but it was certainly wasn’t romantic! Jesus gave us the command to love one another at the Last Supper shortly after Judas had left the upper room on his way to betray Jesus!

So this central teaching of Jesus – this command to Love came in a moment of crisis, a moment of sadness, a moment of huge challenge and almost certainly fear.

That’s generally not how we think about Love – we have for the most part a very sanitized view of Love. We see it as a spontaneous thing, a mutual and balanced relationship between two people. 

But Love is much more than that and to fully understand that we have to look to the events that were to follow that fateful night when Jesus gave us this command to Love.

The most perfect vision of Love that we can look to is the Cross – In the Cross God in Christ gives his life so that we may live…. He gives something that we can never return in equivalent scale. And in giving that Love, without demanding a return he actually transforms us and allows us the potential to be the best that we can be…..but it is our choice, God’s Grace freely given which we can decide to accept or reject…..Pure Love!

While we cannot match what God has done we can be what God has given us the potential to be – we can Love in a divine way and we too can be part of that transformative work. But it means practicing another kind of love – Don’t worry you don’t have to stop loving the people you already love but you and I are called to broaden the horizons of our love. So that means loving not just those who are family, not just those who deserve our love, not just those who we feel sorry for but also those we dislike, those we hate and those who hate us.

Why do that? Because if we like God take the initiative in showing Love to the undeserving and the stranger extraordinary things can happen – Look at Saul for example – He hated God with every fibre of his body and God Loved him into becoming his disciple. That is the example we are called to follow. We don’t have to to like everybody but difficult and all as it is we do have to Love everybody!

What does that look like today? Well it means taking off our Love blinkers and looking around us to see those in pain and despair and ask ourselves how my loving them could make a difference. It also involves thinking about our behaviour as consumers as we shop for cheap clothing which is brought to us at the expense of workers in desperate conditions in sweatshops throughout the world, as was highlighted in last weeks tragedy in Bangladesh. It means constantly asking ourselves what are the fruits of my actions – Are they furthering the cause of Love or are they furthering my own selfish desires.

May our example be the one who loved us more than we can ever comprehend. He loved us when we were unlovable and somehow through that love we were transformed. We do not need to wait for love to be deserved – if God had done that we would never have known his Love. Love is the first step, not the last – so let us Love and so transform the world into what God wishes it to be.

Amen.

Sermon for Easter 2 - Crackpots for Jesus?

It’s the Sunday after Easter – We in the modern Church know the whole story of Easter by now – We are happily celebrating the Resurrection and all that it means – apart from lots of sick stomachs after an overabundance of chocolate!

But when we turn to Scripture there is a strong sense of discord because our Gospel starts on anything but a joyous note! It starts in fear – Jesus friends and followers are hiding like refugees or criminals. They are behind locked doors. They have lost everything that they held dear – their future has been thrown into turmoil and they are to put it mildly terrified.

They are deeply traumatized by their loss – it means adjusting their whole approach to life.
And even when Jesus reveals himself the trauma is not ended because this is still not how they planned it – Jesus wasn’t meant to die – Yes he is resurrected but he will be with them for but a little time before they have to get used to loosing him all over again.

Yes they will have the Spirit but they like we form strong relationships and attachments and however strongly we believe in resurrection and eternity find it hard to lose the ones we love. It is not a sign of the weakness of our faith but rather the depth of our Love – loving and losing and the pain that goes with it are a part of the human condition. It is what makes us the beautiful and fragile creations that each one of us is.

The whole of life can be described as loving and loosing – whether it is a loved one, our hopes and dreams, our plans and ambitions, our health and even our own lives, everything and everybody we love apart from God himself is transient and fleeting.

I have been thinking about loss quite a bit this week and especially after listening to an interview (via www.onbeing.org) with a man called Kevin Kling, a comedian, poet and playwright. Born with a disabled left arm, he lost the use of his right one after a motorcycle accident nearly killed him.

He thus experienced two very different kinds of loss in his life, one inherited and one acquired and he makes some interesting observations in comparing the kinds of loss he experienced.
Quoting from one of his poems he says this:
'Now when you're born into loss, you grow from it.
But when you experience loss later in life, you grow toward it.'

What did he mean by that? Well if I interpret him correctly - that if you are born with a loss, of whatever kind it is already a part of you and you don’t have to make a conscious effort to adjust to it – you move outward from it and it is something that is a part of your subconscious.

But when you loose something later in life you have to adjust to the new circumstance – you have to dig deep into your own reserves and find those things that a part of you that will help you to live with your new reality. In this sense you almost have to go back to a sort of childhood and begin your life again in the light of the new you. You do this so that you can incorporate this change and loss into your life rather than allowing it to end your life.

Kling tells a parable which he wrote himself which illustrates the point beautifully – Its called The story of the cracked pot:

'Back in the days when pots and pans could talk, which indeed they still do, there lived a man. And in order to have water, every day he had to walk down the hill and fill two pots and walk them home. One day, it was discovered one of the pots had a crack, and as time went on, the crack widened. Finally, the pot turned to the man and said, "You know, every day you take me to the river, and by the time you get home, half of the water's leaked out. Please replace me with a better pot." And the man said, "You don't understand. As you spill, you water the wild flowers by the side of the path." And sure enough, on the side of the path where the cracked pot was carried, beautiful flowers grew, while the other side was barren. "I think I'll keep you," said the man.'

The story it seems to me is a wonderful illustration of the beauty that can come from brokenness and loss. Its also as the author himself observed in that interview about how we respond to loss rather than being defined by that which we have lost….'what we bring rather than what we are not.'

But lets bring all this back to disciples and their fear and loss and lets put ourselves in their shoes for a moment, because we are – this story is our story too.
What does it mean for us and for them? Well I think it is about our baptism – where we are baptized into the death of Jesus Christ so that we may rise with him. Those words are part of our baptism liturgy – I wonder how often we really think about their implications? We have to reorient our lives to that change – we have to go back to the beginning and live in the light of the pain and death of Holy Week so that we can enter into the joy of the Resurrection.
We also have to fight the temptation to allow the hurts and pains of this life define us – we have to grow towards our pains and our losses so that we can with Gods help turn them inside out and allow them to become sources of hope and inspiration, moments of Grace even

All of this is possible because of what Jesus did for us, cracked pots that we are (as opposed to crackpots, a subtle distinction) – let us not waste the unlimited potential that is in every single person created in his image. Let loss not cause us to fear loving but let our loving transform our loss.
Amen.

Photos from recent travels in US

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And to finish a few fun pics here

Savita Halappanavar - A life lost but let it not be in vain!

Woman 'denied a termination' dies in hospital 

(Click on heading above to read story from Irish Times)

This was the horror story that Ireland woke up to this morning! 

As the day progressed many voices from the ‘pro-life’ lobby protested that this tragedy was being used by some to further the cause of abortion legislation in Ireland and that it was far too soon to rush to judgement on the basis of newspaper articles alone. It was also argued that our existing case law arising from the ‘X’ case would have allowed for a termination and that the fault lay with the medical practitioners rather than the legislature.

Whatever the truth in this specific case, and it is indeed true that we cannot be sure of the whole story at this early stage, it is obvious that the current situation is untenable. It seems that despite the ruling on the ‘X’ case there is enough ambiguity and uncertainty around the grounds for a lawful termination to suggest that the events that may have led to the death of Savita Halappanavar could yet be repeated. That is an unacceptable prospect and so something must be done. Twenty years of political inactivity appears to have resulted in the most bitter of fruit.

Not surprisingly there is no political appetite to legislate for the ‘X’ case. Abortion is the single most divisive and dangerous issue that any politician will engage with. It seems almost impossible to have a reasoned and tempered discussion on the issue without it descending into bilateral abuse and rhetoric. The main problem it seems to me with this debate as it has been conducted to date is that it is dominated by the extremes. The ‘Pro-life’ and ‘Pro-choice’ groups have set themselves up in direct opposition to one another and any who occupy the middle ground run the risk of being caught in the crossfire and so have been sidelined and silenced. This despite the fact that this middle ground may well be in the majority.

There is fault to be found in both of the polar opposites as they have positioned themselves. The ‘Pro-choice’ group have failed to take seriously enough the fact that abortion is always a tragedy and should not be glossed over callously as no more significant than a tooth extraction. Whether abortion on demand (which incidentally I am absolutely opposed to) or due to threat to the mother’s life, rape or unviability of foetus, it is the termination of life and to minimize that is to undermine our own humanity. I say this not as a religious person, which I am, but as a human being. Respect for life is not the sole preserve of the religious.

When it comes to the ‘Pro-life’ group the principal fault is ironically the failure to take seriously the life of the mother. Their pro-life stance is somewhat selective. The mother is portrayed as a vessel whose sole purpose is to support the life within her with no account for her own humanity, welfare and integrity. Her motivations in choosing abortion, no matter how traumatic or medically necessary, are ignored and her actions are described in terms of murder regardless of the circumstances. This is cruel and for want of a better word tantamount to misogyny.

The only hope for a reasonable debate and a mature and responsible approach to this issue which we have never faced up to as a nation is for the middle ground to find its voice. There is an alternative to the current polarisation which has poisoned any attempts to find a way forward. It is possible to be both ‘Pro-Life’ and ‘Pro-Choice’. We can simultaneously respect the right to life of the unborn and the life of the mother. Sometimes sadly there will be a conflict and difficult choices may need to be made but if those decisions are made in the context of an overarching respect for all life then while there will be pain our integrity as human beings is maintained. If we refuse to let the extremes dictate the agenda the previously vacated middle ground can become common ground and we can show the world that there is a third way that isn’t about mothers v babies but rather about discovering a much richer and comprehensive reverence for all life 

PS: Worth reading this which comes from friend and fellow blogger Ferdinand Von Prondzynski: Cruel Principles?

Civil Conversations - Learning to Disagree

My all time favourite Radio show / Podcast OnBeing with Krista Tippett is running a series at the moment on the 'Civil Conversations Project' - The conversations hosted by Krista herself deal with all the hot button issues of our time but in a way that brings new light and hope into our human condition.
An earlier series of these conversations can be found here.
Each of the conversations is in podcast,video & transcript format.