It's Not Enough

Aleppo, 2012

"Within the world the way it is, some policing will always be necessary; policing will sometimes involve restraint; restraint will sometimes involve violence. Not to admit this is to risk colluding with the bullies who are waiting in the wings for good people to remove controls."

Tom Wright, Creation, Power and Truth, p 64

It's not enough to simply say that some ruler, or government, or other authority is corrupt and abuses its power, so it should be removed. We live in a fallen world and all authorities are prone to do that to a greater or lesser extent. If you remove authority and allow anarchy to take its place the result is all too often an illustration of just how evil human nature can get.

Syria is a recent illustration of this. Before March 2011 Syria was under a long-term Emergency Law, which allowed extensive government oppression. Over the period from spring 2011 to summer 2012, with extensive western encouragement, unrest and protest escalated into full-scale civil war. An oppressive climate transformed into an out-of-control fratricidal bloodbath, with enormous suffering and no sign of any sort of long term solution arising out of the mess. Not to mention all the foreigners coming in and further destabilising the situation.

Of course, not everybody sees this is a bad thing: the Syrian civil war alters the balance of power between Saudi Arabia and Iran - one a western ally, the other not - as well as leaving serious instability on the borders of Russia. Would anyone, politician or newspaper owner, see this as in any way justifying the evil of an unnecessary civil war? Of course they would, we live in a fallen world.

Tom Wright's quote above was originally in the context of the need for some form of trans-national policing, which can be seen across the board as fair and effective. The US and UK have no credibility in that respect, especially in the Middle East, and have done no good to the authority of the UN in the process.

It's not enough to simply change the ruling class and expect anything to change for the better. Change has to start amongst the people: in civil institutions, in people working together for the common good. Change has to start with conversation and cooperation not with violence. If the authorities are too rigid then change may well eventually involve destruction and violence, but only as a last resort, and only when there is a civil society which can step in to rebuild and continue, speedily and without anarchy.

It looks as though Egypt has fallen at this hurdle - they failed to distinguish between true democracy, which involves a range of civil institutions with checks and balances, and a winner-takes-all majority rule, leading them straight back to yet another military coup (strongly backed by US and Israeli interests, it seems).

It's not enough to say "something must be done" and pressure governments into unhelpful interventions. It certainly isn't helpful for foreigners to get involved directly in another country's internal conflicts - a civil war already has too many factions fighting one another, without bringing in ignorant outsiders to further stir things up.

What would be helpful would be to support strong governance at a grassroots level, to promote fairness and equality internationally - not treating countries as pawns in global power games - and to find better ways of addressing conflicting needs and demands without violence.

To put it another, arguably more religious, way: we need to support justice and peace, whilst recognising that we live in a fallen world. In a Christian context 'justice' is always restorative justice - restoring creation to the way it was made to be - not retributive justice, which has little or nothing to do with peace.

The Sower And The Seed I

The vast majority of the Bible was written to be listened to and discussed in groups, not read alone. There is a breadth of knowledge, wisdom and Spiritual insight in a group which no one person can have on their own. So it is really strange that the standard pattern for teaching and preaching in modern churches is one person spending hours alone in their study then standing up to give a lecture to a congregated, but silent, audience. Maybe that's why so much preaching today fails to engage, with either daily life or even with the Scriptures.

Jesus' parable of the sower and the seed comes up fairly often in churches, as it occurs in all three synoptic Gospels and comes with an 'explanation' from Jesus. It's less well known outside churches, probably because its usual interpretation is not really very interesting or relevant. Jesus does seem inclined to give 'explanations' which raise more questions then they answer, and this parable rather illustrates this.

"Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times."

Then Jesus added "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear" - in a Jewish context 'hearing' is partnered with 'responding', as in the Shema, "Hear, O Israel, ...". So Jesus is presenting this parable as something which should be producing a response in its hearers.

Tom Wright, in his Mark for Everyone study guide, likens Jesus' parables to chords and speaks of choir auditions where he had to pick out and sing individual notes from a chord. A parable can have several separate layers of understanding, from the basic story up through different interpretations until we reach the one which corresponds to our part in the musical score of God's story in our communities.

In medieval times interpreters sometimes went to extreme and, to modern ears, ludicrous lengths to forcibly allegorise their own opinions and prejudices onto parables, so understanding does need to be done with care, humility, and a rootedness in the text. Every harmony needs to relate back to the root, and to the other notes in the chord.

So the basic text, the bass line so to speak, is an odd story of an apparently careless farmer who doesn't bother weeding and destoning his field, and just scatters seed about without visible concern where it lands.

"The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown."

The two quoted sections above are from Mark's gospel, chapter 4; retellings in Matthew 13 and Luke 8 are almost identical, except that Luke likens the seed to "the word of God", whilst Matthew refers to "the message of the kingdom". All three versions place the parable in the context of large crowds of people coming to hear Jesus speak.

So the next note in the chord looks to refer to the thousands of people who came out to listen to Jesus. Some simply saw the latest spectacle and would move on; others might respond initially, but only a minority would stay with Jesus all the way through. But those few would be enough for God to start a movement of people through whom He would change the world.

Which still begs several questions about a farmer who does nothing to clear the weeds and remove the stones, not to mention being so careless about where the seed is scattered. And what does it have to do with us, here, today?

To be continued...