Pitt Street Uniting Church, 31 August 2014 Notes from a Conversation between Rev Dr Margaret Mayman and Mr Warren Talbot God is not dead, just unconscious Pentecost 12A Exodus 3: 1-15; Wild Geese by Mary Oliver; Matthew 16: 21-28 I am who I am openness, process, becoming Understanding God in the context of a liberation story. Warren: Today's text from the Hebrew Scriptures concerns our understanding of the Presence we name as "God". I've heard you and other progressive theologians refer to this passage from Exodus 3. Can you tell us why this is an important text for you and for us today? The point of the burning bush story is that the source of love and justice at the heart of the universe is on the side of the dispossessed. God spoke to Moses: "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians... And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people. (Exodus 3:7-8, 10) Moses was comfortable in Midian. God gets the suffering God requires Moses to get off his butt and take on Pharaoh He has an excuse stuttering We like promises. We dislike commands that will lead us into conflict We like to encounter the divine in dramatic nature or in holy places God is concerned about working conditions against slavery and captivity when we go into the places of conflict we are not alone, but God is there too, in friends who join us in struggle, and that makes the struggle worthwhile. Even hopeful. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 1 of 5
Moses doesn t leave God out in the burning bush and arrive in Egypt all alone. When he gets to Pharaoh s court, God is already there. The story tells us that God is not just found in the nice, tidy, inspirational corners of life, bit in the midst of the ugly, messy and threatening centres of life. Warren : You grew up in a Presbyterian family in Aotearoa New Zealand. Can you remember and tell us the image of God you had as a teenage girl? presence. Middle of the road. God male, old in stories but I also had a sense of God s Making sense of heaven and hell (sun and moon) aged 6 or 7. Bible in schools contact with conservative evangelists Personal commitment, intense emotional experience. Really good at Bible quizzes. Academic study of religion in high school. Burning bush self combusting plants in desert Integrate the passion of encounter with God and academic. Close my eyes and feel it, with me, with the earth, calling us all to become who we will become in love and justice. Warren: You commenced your theological education fairly early, and were one of the few women doing theological studies at the time. How did your views about God change? Was there a single or gradual point of change? 1 South Africa: God on the side of the oppressed or oppressor. Reading the Cape Times (Donald Woods) about the deaths of Africans in police custody. Co-exist in the midst of evil. 2 Feminist theology Dr Ruth Page have you heard of feminist theology? Reconsider the traditions, practices, scriptures, and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 2 of 5
Experience of sexism in theological education radicalized me. I took it on especially around language about God. Warren: I found the title our reflection this morning very intriguing. The title is "God is not dead, just unconscious". Many progressive people might agree that the god of traditional theism, the old man in the sky, is dead. What does the title suggest or mean to you? The phrase God is unconscious comes from the philosopher Lacan. For me it evokes the religious capacity of humans even those who see themselves as secular. The search for something more. For an understanding of what we may do and what we may not do as humans. The religiosity of humans still operates in a secular world but we don t have secular language to address it. So it functions unconsciously. Spiritual but not religious. Narcissistic. Individualistic. Dangerous ideas of feminism still needed. The place of Jesus. Can a male savior save women? (Ruether). Resolved in that my understanding of Christ is beyond gender. That of Jesus which is still with us, which was resurrected, was not bound to one historical man. Christ is risen in the community. The risen Christ isn t Jesus still with us as a male person. But as Christa/community. Christa means person who knew and loved a God of justice. (Heyward) Brock on Christa/community preoccupation with heroes community itself is the true redeemer healing centre, the place of redemption, not controlled by Jesus he too is brought into being by it Jesus of the gospels in an allegorical marker for the Christian community of which Jesus is one historical part. Jesus is one piece of the Christ which is Christa/community Death of Jesus is not salvific. It is tragic. The broken heartedness of human social organization as patriarchy and empire. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 3 of 5
The resurrection of Jesus is an image of the powerful need for solidarity among and with victims of oppressive powers. The resurrection affirms that no one person alone can overcome brokenness. Each of us lives in each other in Christa/community. In caring for each other and in passionately affirming erotic power (our power to transform), we struggle on our journey to create spaces for it to flourish. Rita Nakashima Brock Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. New York: Crossroad 1988, p. 103. Warren: Let's conclude by returning to the text. If the loving presence we name as God is "I am" or "I will be", what do you think will be our understanding in the next 10 or 20 years. The gospels lead to the questions: How can I be myself, understanding Christ as Christa community lives in me and in all people? What is my relationship to God, this Christ, others and all creation? What can I do to lessen the pain and suffering we all experience in different ways? Conflictual understandings. I am who I am Marriage discussion live with division, don t suppress the relationships of queer people for the sake of apparent unity We don t have to choose between realism and non-realism. Critical realism. Humanism without the sacred becomes enchanted with science and economics. The progressive perspective sees the nature of the sacred in terms of love and justice. As biblical as the conventional model that sees the sacred as an intervening and retributive power. Love and justice are intimately connected. I love the quote from American philosopher of religion Cornel West who has said that justice is what love looks like in public. So the love of God is not soft and cuddly but passionate for justice for everybody and every aspect of creation. This understanding of God resonates deeply with our own world - where growing numbers of people are outraged about inequality and about the lack of respect with which we are treating the earth. The outcomes from the progressive and the conventional understandings of the sacred are starkly different. If the heart of divinity is love and justice, then the Christian life is about a relationship with that sacredness that transforms us into A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 4 of 5
more compassionate beings. Christianity is about relationship and transformation. It is an invitation. This is how I speak of God, says Brock. A presence gradually unfolded by life in its richness and tragedies, its devastating losses and its abundance: a power calling us to fullness of living, a passion for life, for good and ill: an unquenchable fire at the core of life, glimpsed in light and shadows. Pre-figuring progressive theology by decades, Carter Heyward in her 1982 book "The Redemption of God" named god as "our power in relation and claimed that justice, the actualization of love among us, is the making of right, or mutual, relation. So instead of the brittle question, does God exist? I ask is there a source of healing and transformation that will bring about justice on earth? and can my existence have meaning and purpose if I give my assent to, and participate in, this mystery? A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 5 of 5