 | The Geelong City Parish, UCA |
 |
| Set your
mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,
for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
(Colossians 3: 1-11) In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
I am the master of my
fate
I am the captain of my soul
Some of you might recognize
those famous closing words from W E Henley’s poem, Invictus
(which, for those whose Latin is a little rusty, means ‘unconquerable’.
It is something of a monument in praise of what is considered the
cornerstone, the foundational building block of the whole of western
civilization: the individual, the self-made man
(or woman) who has weathered the tests of time, who has wrestled
with and made the most of what fates or gods have sent, who even
stares death in the face and yet remains strong, upright, unbeaten,
victorious, in charge, and in control!!:
‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’!
We have been bombarded
of late with a barrage of books on the ‘delusional’
nature of religious belief, and the unhealthy dependence it inculcates
on allegedly mythical divinities, the so called ‘God delusion’.
I’ve had my little bit to say about that already. It seems
to me, though, that our culture, our modern, or postmodern western
culture in particular, remains in thrall to a far more pervasive
and damaging myth - and it is this image of the ideal modern person
as a powerful, masterful, self-made, self-enclosed, self-sustaining
individual. The one who stands apart, secure in their own selfhood,
needing no-one, dependent on no-one, relying on no-one except themselves
and their own power.
We celebrate just this kind of person – who starts, allegedly
from and with little or nothing, and who through sheer self-will,
self-belief, dedication, application, perseverance, personal ingenuity,
talent, skill and charm, manages to push up and through, emerging
somewhere further up the line, on top of the pile, victorious, a
success! The hero of our modern, liberal society – a society
that offers, allegedly, a fair go to all individuals, equally, and
which is only to happy to very richly reward those who make the
most of their individual rights and opportunities and run furthest
with them.
It is a myth that runs deep, deep in our culture, deep in our collective and individual psyches – until we forget that it is just that, a myth.
There is no such thing as a self-made man or women. None of us spontaneously erupted out of the bowels of the earth – all of come, not just from somewhere but from someone. All of us owe our being to what is actually the most basic and fundamental human reality - and that is most certainly not the individual, but the community: The two or more from whom each one of us have come - the couple, the family, the street, the church, the town, the nation. We each come from and belong to a community however basic, however small, however ideal or far from the ideal – that is the basic building block, the basic human reality. The notion that we come into this world and are destined to lead lives as self generating and self-sustaining individuals is the real delusion that we all need, desperately need, to be freed from.
If Christian faith has a ‘natural enemy’ then it is this deluded figure of the self-creating individual who must make and shape his or her own way in the world, who must secure his or her own status and position. A little like the fool we encounter in our reading from Luke this morning. Rich to the point of an extraordinary abundance, overflowing the capacity of his existing barns, what does he do? Hand over some of the excess to those a little less well off? Nope!! He draws up the plans for an even bigger barn, to secure for himself a long and happy future - after all, he’s earned it, through all those long years of hard work and dedication……. He is the epitome of the self-made man!
And he is a fool! Not because he is rich – but because he thinks that in his wealth he has managed to make and secure himself, that he has manage to make and secure his soul: ‘Soul’, he says, ‘you have ample goods laid up for many years: relax, eat, drink, be merry…’
A fool - because at some stage, probably not sooner than later, he will discover, that the things that we gather around ourselves for our personal pleasure, comfort and security, the things we collect and grasp hold of in our attempt to make something of ourselves in our world, do not and cannot bring the deep joy and peace that our soul seeks and craves. One night, perhaps ‘this night’, the fool will learn that for himself.
If Christian faith is anything it is one sustained call, invitation, plea, and promise that there is more, far more to our life that what we can grab and make for ourselves. Our reading for Colossians puts it in an even far more challenging way – our life, our real life, far from being the life we make and create and build around us, far from being the sum of the things we have done, or have failed to do, our real life is not what we do for and in ourselves, but what has been done for us, for and in an other. Our life, our real life, is not the life we have made for ourselves, however wonderful, however disastrous, but the life that has been made for us: the life that Christ has made for us, made possible for us. Our real life is not manifest in our deeds and our misdeeds, in our successes and failures, in our overflowing barns empty cupboards, our real life is hidden from us, ‘hidden’ in someone else’s life, in Christ’s, which we, by grace are invited to share.
That is not going to sound very much like good news to those aspirational individuals who are hell-bent on accumulating for themselves sufficient resources to fund the lifestyle to which they will no doubt become quickly accustomed. It is remarkably good news to those who know that however much or however little they have - it is not who they are.
Who they are is not what they have – or haven’t - made for themselves, but what Christ has made them to be: No more and no less than a child of God, a beloved son or daughter, loved simply for the fact that they exist, no more and no less than a beloved brother and sister to Christ and to all who share his life. No longer an individual living for themselves and theirs, but a person, alive in the in image of God, living with and for the good of all of God’s children.
There is a lifestyle that corresponds to this new, hidden life we find in Christ: we put aside the things that build up the individuals at the expense of the common life we share, we set aside self-interested, self-magnifying ego games, temper tantrums and grudges, greed - the grasping of things for oneself and ones own gain. ‘Idolatry’ Paul calls it! Instead we put on a new life, a life that builds up the whole: truthfulness and integrity in our dealings with one another, embracing one another in inclusive and just relationships – because we are, in this new life, no longer separated and isolated individuals, we are no longer defined by the lives we are thrust into or struggle to carve our for ourselves – we are no longer Greek of Jew, slave or free, successes or failures… ‘Christ is all and in all’ – and we are together in him, thanks be to God.
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