http://www.orgcode.com/2012/05/01/theres-a-difference-between-wanting-to-end-homelessness-and-committing-to-end-homelessness/

If you work in the homeless service sector you should have a very simple career goal – to put yourself out of a job.

I have this belief that homeless and housing support services exist to end homelessness. They don’t exist to make people in human services feel good about themselves. They don’t exist to cleanse the consciousness of corporations through their philanthropy. They don’t exist to keep government bureaucracies humming along.

There is a difference between wanting to end homelessness and committing to end homelessness.

If you want to do something, you may or may not achieve it, and likely only under certain favorable conditions.

If you commit to do something you will have steadfast fixity of purpose. When the conditions are unfavorable you will be the catalyst to actively change those conditions, remaining solution-focused all the while instead of accepting barriers as immovable, intractable problems that get in the way of ending homelessness.

Am I so naïve to think we will never need homeless shelters again? Heck no. But we will have a lot less of them and they will return to their original use – short term, infrequent stays to meet emergency needs. They will no longer be de facto housing. They will no longer be places that we load in program incentives that actually make it difficult to leave. I like to think of homeless shelters in the same way that I think of fire stations – I hope I never need the fire department, but I sure am glad they are around when there is an emergency.

When I make a commitment to end homelessness, I am talking about the entire spectrum of homeless people. Statistically speaking, most people who use alcohol or other drugs are housed – including people with addictions – and therefore I see no reason for homeless people to have to be clean and sober unless that is there choice to be so. My commitment to end homelessness includes people who are actively using…like millions of other people around the world who actively use and have housing.

Statistically speaking, most people with compromised mental wellness – including people who don’t take their meds or see their psychiatrist – never experience homelessness, so I see no reason for homeless people to see psychiatrists or take their meds unless that is there choice to be so. My commitment to end homelessness includes people who are unwell and “non-compliant”…like millions of other people around the world who are in similar circumstances and have housing.

I commit to ending homelessness for people who believe in Jesus as well as those that don’t. If people want to be baptized or join a faith group and begin to worship, so be it. But Christianity – or any other religious belief – is not a requirement to be successfully housed. There are millions of other people around the world who are atheists, agnostics, infidels or skeptics and have housing.

I commit to ending homelessness for people who have experienced conflict with the law, including those people that have done awful things to other human beings young and old. For one, I believe that time served is time served; that the sentence does not continue post-release. For another, and entirely pragmatically, if the evidence is clear that re-offending goes down if people have secure housing, isn’t that in my best interest? There are millions of people around the world that have been incarcerated and gone on to be successfully housed.

So you got a plan to end homelessness? Is that something you want to do or is that something you are committed to doing? The way you go about implementing the plan takes on completely different characteristics depending on which one you believe. And it usually points to particular biases in avoiding service of particular populations, whether it is explicit or not.

So your organization delivers services to people that are homeless? How about putting up on the wall somewhere for everyone to see that your ambition is to solve people’s homelessness so that your organization is no longer required? That you are working for the day where you can close the doors of your drop-in center, sell your outreach vans, give away the beds you no longer need in the shelter, etc.?

I can tell commitment when I see it, and I suspect you can too.

Commitment results in some organizations losing their money because they only wanted to serve homeless people (not end their homelessness) and reinvested in organizations that are committed to ending people’s homelessness.

Commitment results in using data to drive program change and improvements, to reflect on practice and make tough decisions, not as something that is nice to have in annual reports or collected only because some funder asked for it.

Commitment results in recruiting highly skilled people that have a passion for professional development and see their work as professional, not well-intentioned people who have neither the experience nor expertise.

Commitment results in doing your homework to see what else is working, not assuming that you are automatically doing the best work or, heaven forbid, trying to “create a best practice”.

Commitment results in having external folks – other professionals, senior managers from other agencies, funder staff – review and provide helpful commentary on how to make your work even better, not shielding away from criticism or doing nothing with information when it is provided by highly qualified people.

Commitment changes the way we talk about the issues and what we are going to do about it. No longer do we say people “aren’t housing ready” or “service resistant” or any other such phrase. No, committed folks turn that around and instead of blaming the consumer of services instead ask themselves what other types of housing or other types of services do I need to offer to be inclusive of all homeless people?

Want is an inclination. It is a desire. It can be directed to a specific need. But there is no obligation to address wants.

Commitment is a pledge. It is a promise. It means that you are going to do it. It has integrity. It is not just a dream. It is not lip service. It is putting the promise into action. Once you commit – truly commit – you are obligated to make it happen.

Many times I have seen drafts of 10 Year Plans expurgate those sections that speak of commitment or making tough choices, thinking, I suppose, that cleaning out those sections – with the obscene suggestion that we have to do things differently – will make the document more inclusive and readily accepted. Great, so a wide-range of service providers are happy, but what about the people that are supposed to be served by those providers?

I don’t accept homelessness. I am committed to end it. I will speak truth to power in the process. I hope you will too.

About Iain De Jong

Iain has held senior management and professional positions in government, non-profits and the private sector. He has also been a high school teacher in Oakland, California; a community-development worker in St. Lucia; a chaplain in a mental health facility in Toronto; and, a community-organizer in various communities throughout Canada and the United States. Iain joined John at the helm of OrgCode late in 2009. In addition to his work with OrgCode, Iain holds a part-time faculty position in the Graduate Urban Planning Programme at York University, and the emphasis of his teaching and research pertains to housing, homelessness, community development, public participation, social determinants of health, urban and community planning, and, applied social policy.

That reminds me of the story: A disciple comes before the Master (his meditation teacher) and asks “is it okay to use email?” “Of course” said the teacher, “as long as there are no attachments!”

Recently on my way to the office I had the good fortune of listening to Richard Fidler Conversation with Paul Keating recorded before a live audience at the Brisbane Powerhouse last year. Paul Keating, the former Federal Treasurer and Prime Minister between 1991 and 1996, spoke freely, as only Paul Keating can, about his life and his timid views (not) about the state of play in Australian politics.

There were many fascinating and interesting things he spoke of, but one that lifted my spirits was the place of music in his life (especially Mahler).

He spoke of its power to expand the mind, to inspire creativity and make one want to do the big things and attempt the seemingly impossible. To risk everything, to take on the world he often used the saying: “off we go, down the slope, one ski, no poles.”

And, after listening to a moving orchestral performance the night before, he said, coming into work the next day made the next Cabinet minute of the day seem like the dust between the floorboards.

Music, like all good art, poetry, dance and story has the power to move us out of our rational, linear, judging, small minds, into the larger mind, as Paul Keating says the place of the Big Ideas where nothing seems impossible.

Good art is the language of the spirit for it defies description and definition; it cannot be boxed and captured which religion at its worst always attempts.

This type of religion loves to capture and control interpretation, it takes ownership of metaphors, literalizing them, trade-marking them for its own private, exclusive use of its members. Or as the famous Buddhist saying goes: It mistakes the finger pointing at the moon, as the moon itself.

It’s the trap we can all make for every opinion or belief we form, we can mistake it for the object to which it points. But that to which it ultimately points transcends description and definition.

Holding lightly our opinions and beliefs can be a scary thing to do if we are not anchored into the deeper place of our being. The one being, the beloved that holds us and us, the beloved.

When we become divorced of this deep connection with the one, we move into the world of separation, us and them, me and you, and we cling to our opinions and beliefs as the TRUTH furthering the division and separation.

When we move from this deeper space as the writer of the first letter of St John, “we shall be like God, because we shall see God as God really is”       (1John 3²)

The great mystics throughout the ages knew this in the core of their beings.

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), a Dominican priest, wrote of this, seeing as God sees, being like God, and it was why he was before the Inquisition when he died, a church inquisition that condemned and suppressed his work until this day.

His writings are like the music Paul Keating speaks of in his interview with Richard Fidler. They take us to that larger place, where all is one, nothing is impossible, that place of no separation, where all else in comparison is like the dust between the floorboards.

WHEN I WAS THE FOREST by Meister Eckhardt

“When I was the stream, when I was the forest, when I was still the field, when I was every hoof, foot, fin and wing, when I was the sky itself,

No one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever wondered was there anything I might need, for there was nothing I could not love.

It was when I left all we once were that the agony began, the fear and questions came, and I wept, I wept. And tears I had never known before.

So I returned to the river, I returned to the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again, I begged – I begged to wed every object and creature,

And when they accepted, God was ever present in my arms.

And he did not say, “Where have you been?”

For then I knew my soul- every soul – has always held Him.”

Robert Crotty joined a monastic order when he was 17, but left the priesthood after a stint in Jerusalem changed his mind about the Bible.

Click here to listen to interview (.mp3)

Professor Robert Crotty was brought up in the Catholic church and his imagination was inflamed by the stories of miracles and visions in the Bible.

But as he began to look back into where the books of the Bible actually came from, Robert questioned what was true, and what was a beautiful fiction.

He was charged with heresy by the Catholic Church, and although he was acquitted he decided to leave the priesthood. Robert is now the Director of the South Australian Ethics Centre. Three Revolutions: Three Drastic Changes in Interpreting the Bible published ATF Press.

Yesterday we buried Scott McKenzie, Barbara’s husband and close friend to St Mary’s. Barbara suggested that we begin the Liturgy of farewell with some words from Michael Morwood reminding us of our deep connection to the Universe.

At the beginning of the Liturgy we lit a candle to remind us of our great birth at the beginning of time – that great explosion of light we call the big bang, from which we gradually emerged over billions of years.

With Scott’s body in the coffin before us all, I read:

“Do you know?

That every atom in my body

Here before you,

Was manufactured in a massive explosion

In a star

Billions of years ago?
WOW

What a thought to contemplate any time. The miracle, that there is even life on this planet, and the absolute minute chance, of this ever happening. Carbon, the essential element to form life formed in the heart of a dying supernova, a dying star in temperatures of up to 10 billion degrees Celsius.

That so much energy was required for this remarkable element to be formed, and the only element in the universe capable of folding back on itself so that life could even contemplate its existence. Here we glimpse the death, rebirth motif for the first time, that motif that gets repeated time and time again in this remarkable universe.

Jesus refers to this motif prior to his death in John’s Gospel when he refers to the grain of wheat that must die in order to yield a rich harvest.

He is inviting us to ‘not a physical death’, but the death of the ego-centred self, the small self. That small self, which we see dethroned in the initiation rites of many indigenous peoples, that self which can be a threat to the survival of a tribe reliant on its deep connection and understanding to the earth.

Important in these rituals, to remind the initiate, that there is something more than themselves, if they and the tribe are to survive. A deep reliance on a something mysterious beyond them, and the elders who have gone before them – a reliance on the collective communal self.

A living for the Common Good.

John has made from the Symbols we have journeyed with over Lent into a Tomb from whence the light of the world emerges at Easter.

On this Good Friday we have placed before us the Central Symbol of Christianity, the Cross, to be a reminder not so much of Jesus’ death, but a reminder to the death we must undertake every day.

A death to the separate self. And it is from this death that is the waking up St Paul speaks of over and over. “Wake up sleeper;” – asleep to the knowledge that I am really part of the great I AM. I am not separate.

Paul continues “Rise from the dead”, because you are really dead if you believe that this material world and your form are all there is. Let the Christ enlighten you. Let the deep knowing that you are part of the great universal consciousness that gave birth to those first atoms and the birth of the universe.

Immersed in this you become enlightened, folded in light. You have come into the light. The Lenten journey has brought you to this – the stripping back of all the inessentials to be embraced by that universal Light, who you truly are.

If you wish, there is now an opportunity to come forward to venerate and acknowledge the Cross, and the need for the death and moving into the tomb with the separate self so necessary in order to merge with the Light, and with St Paul to say “It is no longer I that live, but Christ (universal consciousness), now lives in me.

Recently I watched a deeply moving South African film called “Life Above All”. It had won Best International Film at the Sydney and Canberra Film Festivals in2010 and 2011. Its focus is a 12 year old girl Chandra, a hardworking, promising young student with a bright future, but her life changes dramatically when her baby sister unexpectedly dies. Heartbroken Chandra’s mother, Lillian, in turn becomes severely ill, leaving the young girl to take care of her two smaller siblings. When the small community of which they are a part irrationally turns on her and her family, Chandra sets out to face the deeply ingrained misunderstanding and prejudices surrounding AIDS.

Despite being ostracized by the community, Chandra stands her ground and continues doing what she believes is the right thing to do. That is caring for her 2 siblings and her mother with AIDS in the midst of a community which wants her mother as far away as possible. Her only other friend is another who is ostracized by the community because of becoming a child prostitute in order to survive after the death from AIDS of her 2 parents. This further alienates Chandra from the community.

Chandra is the Jesus figure throughout this powerfully moving and evocative film. She moves and acts from a place of deep wisdom and compassion despite enormous pressures to do otherwise. Although this is only a movie, it reflects the stories of so many thrust by life’s circumstances into impossible situations and forced to respond. No external law or commandment is there to force them to act, but something much bigger and expansive, inspires their every move. It is captured in the words of the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading. “For deep within them I will plant my Law, writing it on their hearts.” In this deep place within each of us is a quiet wisdom that comes from being connected to the quiet stillness which is the great I AM, Breath of Life Yah-Weh, the name not to be named.

Hardships, Crises, Sickness, Marginalization, Isolation and having to stand alone as in the case of Chandra, can force us to the place of the Heart where deep wisdom resides. There are many ways to this place of the heart. For the prophets of the Old Testament, they were drawn to the desert, the wilderness place, where God could speak to their hearts, away from the distractions of life, and at the beginning of Lent we hear from the prophet Hosea, “That is why I am going to lure you and lead you out into the wilderness and speak to your heart.” (Hos 2¹⁴)

We heard in the commentaries in the election results last night of how Labor has been exiled into the wilderness, in its massive defeat at the hands of the LNP. Maybe this will be an opportunity for Labor to reconnect with its heart to rediscover its deepest core values and visions. The heart, the very core of our being, where we are one with all, where there is no separation. It is the place of no ego. The place Jesus invites us to in today’s Gospel where the grain of wheat that must die in order to yield a rich harvest, the place of no self.

For many of us it is in the quiet space, the desert space that we connect on this deeper level of heart. Throughout Lent we have tried to emphasize and invite people to a quiet place, an empty place everyday, the place where the still small voice within can be heard.

Some of us have had the good fortune of making a day of silent retreating. A day to get out of our heads, our thinking, judging, planning mind into our lives, or as Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh says “Life is available only in the present moment. If you are distracted, if your mind is not there with your body, then you miss your appointment with life.”

Recently I have had the opportunity to go into Milperra School for refugees where the principal is Adele Rice. Adele invited me to teach some interested students how to meditate. There are about 10 students; most of them are Hazaran refugees from Afghanistan. Wonderful people, but one problem for me and the task set, was the barrier of language and communication.

Most of them have never meditated or even know much about it. The first two sessions I have struggled mainly because they didn’t understand why one would want to learn to meditate.

In my last session I was fortunate to have Abdul, a community worker in the school, who was able to translate for me. Now we have had the conversation around why we meditate, a new eagerness and enthusiasm is present among them, eager to learn and know more. A lot of it has to do with them not wanting to miss their appointment with life and eager to embrace life in that alert, awake state which a practice of meditation and mindfulness can generate.

I would like to finish with a story which speaks of acting from that deep heart space which can inspire our every action.

A wood carver called Ching had just finished work on a bell frame. Everyone who saw it marveled for it seemed to be the work of the spirits. When the emperor saw it, he asked, what sort of genius is yours that you could make such a thing? The woodcarver replied: “Sire, I am only a simple workman. I am not a genius… But there is one thing. When I am going to make a bell frame I meditate for 3 days to calm my mind.  When I have meditated for 3 days I think no more about rewards or recognition. When I have meditated for 5 days I no longer think of praise or blame, skillfulness or awkwardness. When I have meditated for 7 days I suddenly forget my limbs, my body: no I forget my very self. I lose consciousness of the court and my surroundings. Only my skill remains .In that state I walk into the forest and examine each tree until I find one in which I see the bell-frame in all its perfection. Then my hands go to the task. Having set myself aside, nature meets nature in the work that is performed through me. This is no doubt the reason why everyone says that the finished product is the work of the spirits.”

When the Community of St Mary’s marched into exile, I as a long-time member, felt it was a community alive with zeal for the future.  I believe that most of the people who marched were not blindly following Peter and Terry.  It seemed they knew that the faith journey they had travelled so far would not allow them to stay in their Parish Church and accept the style of church that the Archbishop had ordered them to return to. To understand SMX I believe it is important to understand the nature of the Community of people who became St Mary’s Community. 

St Mary’s started forming in the early 1980s with people who came from far and wide, most from beyond the inner suburbs. Many people who were unhappy with the slow progress in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s reforms in their own parishes were looking for a spiritual home. Peter Kennedy welcomed all. Under the encouraging leadership from their two Priests over years they developed a Liturgy and a social outreach and practices, suitable to the needs of their diverse Community. It was not just a Community of Catholic Christians.  For almost thirty years it was a catholic (embracing all) Community of people who were inspired by what they understood of the life and work of Jesus of the Gospels.

Good Liturgy was the cement which bound together the Community at St Mary’s. Through our Liturgy we endeavoured to express our spiritual hopes and aspirations, to seek solidarity with one another, and a sense of collective connection to that Mystery, that One Life, that is at the core of our lives and binds us together as a Community.

St Mary’s was a Eucharistic community with regular meaningful, community-inspired Eucharistic Liturgies that made being part of the weekend Masses at St Mary’s  look-forward-to events.  On almost all of our weekly Mass Sheets there was that call-to-action quote from Micah; this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.

For me this was at the guts of St Mary’s appeal―a Community of Followers of the Way of Jesus.

That wonderful spirit-inspiring recessional hymn, We are Called, which often sent us home spiritually uplifted, was a reminder that Micah was an important outreach at St Mary’s.

We learnt that Faith is not about what you believe but about what you do. Our Faith Journey and the Scripture was addressed without presenting the message literally.

The regular acceptance of all archdiocesan dues paid by St Mary’s surely could be taken as Archdiocesan approval of their source.

The Archbishop declared that it’s a clerical Church; we make the rules, you obey or you are no longer a member of the Roman Catholic Church. For most of my life I never realised that Roman was essential to being recognised as Catholic.  We were told we were Catholics, and on the census and official forms we were to declare ourselves as Catholics and not Roman Catholics as those Protestants insist on naming us. I cannot recall ever seeing a Sign Board outside any Catholic Church declaring it as a Roman Catholic Church.

The Archbishop stated that he would not talk to St Mary’s Community; and he wanted no letters from its members.  As the Archbishop, it is he who directs Peter as to what is required, and Peter is then responsible to direct the laity (us) to obey. His command was for us to give blind belief, based on ignorance and the rigidity of tradition.  He would have no dialogue with us or seek our concerns. This is an Archbishop whose own condition of appointment is an oath of blind, unquestioning, obedience to the Pope and his Roman Curia, fully aware that by doing so, he will be restrained from addressing or discussing with his people, what is most needed here in his own diocese. Surely, an abysmal model of a Good Shepherd!!

The Roman hierarchs’ judgement on St Mary’s was totally materialistic. The sincere expression of faith and good works by the laity at St Mary’s had no value in their eyes.  For them religious materialism, judged by dogmas, rules and rubrics took precedence over spiritual sincerity. Knowing how church hierarchs use every means to ensure that the parishioners, who pay for the buildings and their maintenance, have no say in how they are used, reclaiming the occupancy of St Mary’s real estate would have also played a large part in the eviction.

I left St Mary’s, and walked that Walk to the TLC, because I knew for me it was the right thing to do. It was for me a symbolic turning point in my life journey.

I knew we were bringing with us into exile the Eucharistic Liturgies, as well as all else that St Mary’s had going for it.

I knew we would be leaving behind the soon-to-be compulsory new English Language Liturgy,   the result of Cardinal Pell’s retranslation victory in the liturgy wars. Many Liturgy and Language experts point out that this remake of the old Mass contains scriptural blunders, awkward syntax, gross Latinisms, ill judged shifts of register, superfluities, cultural inconsistencies, arbitrary quaintness, obscure terminology, Jacobean officialise (be pleased to grant). It is fixated on rubrics and legalism, the exclusive sacrificial role of the priest, no inclusive language, or any use of feminine descriptions when referring to God.

I was glad to be leaving behind the temple police and their authoritarian masters with their insistence on their clerical-imposed rules and rubrics, and all their distorted Church teachings on numerous other issues.

After the euphoria of the walkout from St Mary’s has died down, what now?/where to? are concerns that would be in the minds of most thinking people. I believe there was then in the Community a positive feeling of Hope.

I believe we would all claim ownership to what we brought with us into exile.

We are now as our name implies, St Mary’s in Exile (SMX) – a community on its own, in exile, with the need to feel we are treading on firm ground.

However people forced out from under very restrictive church/clerical control/ temple police interference are quite rightly guarded and questioning when further new changes are imposed on them without their having been part of the process that instigated these changes.

We are not looking for answers, but if we are seeking to continue to be a spiritual community, we need to continue to ask the right questions.

A Community, itself a Web of Life, is a group of people who surrender some of their own authority for what they perceive as the common good of all.

Democracy is the most favoured governance structure in our times but there is an inbuilt hostility to democracy inherent in clerical leadership. To a certain degree this has also happened in leadership at St Mary’s, and it still has residual effects on our Eucharistic leadership style.

Leadership and authority are certainly needed but can only be justified by an authentic, transparent governance body which is put in place by a democratic process and not one that is imposed by “someone”, or “some group”, either clerical or lay. The desirability for democratic processes is surely inborn in most of the members who are now part of SMX.

No community can survive without some formalisation of its structure. This also applies to a Faith Community, such as SMX.  The important principle is to ensure that whatever structure is erected, it has as its function the facilitation of the purposes of the particular society.  While most of those who marched were relieved to have moved away from the rigid, highly centralised structure of Benedict XVI and his temple police, clerical hangovers certainly came with us, and I believe it is a divisive issue which is causing harm to our growth.  Sadly this principle, so far as SMX is concerned, has become obscured by the lack of community building catechesis on the part of our homilists.

Community building is something all must actively participate in. It must be an ongoing activity.

You have to be a very sure and confident person to be prepared to sit back and allow the direction of your spiritual journey to be shaped by others without any input of your own.  SMX members’ sense of spiritual freedom has been sharpened by recent events. They would consider themselves no longer a flock of blind sheep.

Nobody should be made to feel that they are giving up their cultural religious tradition.  All are on a journey of living life to the full, at peace with the questions, not dogmatising any answers.

It is important to be in touch with the “Spirit” alive and present in the community.  Occasions, for “hearing “all voices should be held regularly:  not necessarily aiming at adopting all proposals but to ensure we have heard a broad consensus of opinion. All should be able to feel that they have been heard.

Breakfasts, dinners, etc, in a café, restaurant or football club, may certainly be good social occasions for those who have the money and the transport to get to them, but are those places suitable venues for our only community building activities? 

Important aspects of the life of the Faith Community at SMX which remain to be considered include: a suitable introductory statement to that part in our Liturgy that we call Prayer of the Faithful; strengthening SMX’s support for the work of Micah; leadership within the Community. This is paramount and needs to be addressed by the Community. Teams of Elders is a model worth looking at.

Our homilies  as with our rituals should continue to inspire, challenge, enable and encourage our human longing for company as we make this journey through life, addressing our needs and capacities to face up to the burdens of life: birth, death, breakups, homelessness, violence, and abuse, enabling us to make and cope with significant changes in our lives.

We have been inspired and challenged over the years by Peter and Terry, and other homilists who have shared their faith experiences with us and have encouraged us to endeavour to reflect gospel values in our lives.

Presenters such as Judith Lucy are entertaining as speakers at an SMX social function but are surely not suitable at our one-a-week community liturgies. Perhaps the Community needs to reflect on what part homilies are to play in our Liturgies.

A number of people have expressed concern at Peter’s denial of the historical Jesus. I take it as nothing more than Peter openly questioning where he is in his own faith journey as to what the word Jesus means for him. It is perhaps not a public questioning that others at SMX are prepared to express.  Personally I leave the Jesus, as proclaimed in the Creeds of the Church, to those whose blind faith compels them to express acceptance.

However, I believe that the research and study by the Jesus Seminar, and other scholars, reveals a figure of no resemblance to that depicted in the Nicene Creed, but does go a long way towards validating an historical Jesus that inspired his earlier followers, and lay behind some of the teaching contained in the early Christian writings.

From these scholars we learn that Jesus spoke often in parables.  He lived close to nature and was inspired by its beauty and harmony, which were a revelation of the love and providence of God towards all.

Sri Lankan theologian, Tissa Balasuriya, points out that the teaching of Jesus is very clear in his words and deeds as reported in the Gospels, without the philosophical complications of later theologies.

Jesus was a societal rebel who preached and practised a message of radical equality.  He was more radical and threatening than any political revolutionary leader of his time or since because he espoused absolute equality in a society completely segregated by deep-seated exploitation. The poor, the weak, the ignorant, the women, the children, the publicans, and the “sinners” (people suffering physical and mental illnesses) were all exploited in different ways by the rich, the powerful, the local elite  and the foreign rulers.  Religion, too, aided and abetted in this ill treatment.

Jesus dethroned the prevailing values of money, power, and prestige, and group selfishness.  Instead he proposed sharing, service, love of the human person for what it is, and a universal solidarity.

When Jesus spoke about “love” it was not something vague and romantic.  It was something concrete and challenging.  Loving the neighbour meant working to end injustice, and the unjust structures, that prevented people from living dignified lives.

Jesus was not crucified because he preached some vague “sermons” about loving God and your neighbour, and about dying for the sins of mankind. Crucifixion was a political and military punishment. Jesus was executed as a rebel.

The central teaching of Jesus was that God is love. Jesus in his ministry did not act out of any awareness whatsoever that the poor, the sinners, whoever, had lost God’s friendship. It was quite the opposite. He wanted people to rid themselves (turn from, convert) any ideas, attitudes, or religious practices that suggested God was not close to them in an unconditional loving way. Jesus was not concerned with changing any attitude within God.  He was clearly focused on changing their wrong images of God. The healing activities of Jesus were not so much miracles of physical transformation but were liberating declarations that sick people were fully acceptable members of society rather than untouchables, afflicted by God for some sin.

Whether Jesus was the Son of God, or went up to heaven, or was born of a virgin is really of no importance to the life of the earthly Jesus that the Jesus Scholars have pondered over and whose myth has inspired many for two millennia.

It was through Constantine, centuries after the death of Jesus that the Christian power-players were invited to be part of the Imperial power structure, and so the hierarchy began to create for themselves a respected place in the authority pattern of the Empire. So Jesus needed to be “enhanced” and “cleaned-up” somewhat.

Joseph Chilton Pearce proposes that Jesus was retroactively fitted out with a mythological story, including a reason for his life through a long organic process of imaginative growth that allowed many storytellers and chroniclers to add their imaginative pieces. In the long and often bloody turmoil over whose mythical interpretations of Jesus would be accepted, religious culture was strengthened.

Pearce writes that Christianity turned Jesus from our evolutionary model into the greatest tool of culture. Converted into the Christ, Jesus became the Great Mediator. No longer the model of higher development, Jesus as the Christ became a go-between, mediating between the wrath of Jehovah and the same old, sinful, victimised and helpless human. The Church, having invented this new additional mythical role of the great mediator for Jesus, so as his heir, it takes on this new and powerful role. With this extraordinarily efficient means of cultural and social control in its hands, the Church has fought ever since to be its sole guardian.

It took less than five centuries after the death of Jesus for his self-described “successors” to have jumped into bed with the Establishment.  In fact they eventually became the very same oppressive Establishment that Jesus himself had struggled against. Nothing in the Jesus Story validates their authority.

From then on Jesus, that Joy of Man’s defining, became part of their Godhead, and a rich, well developed, “divinely inspired” Christology, with its corresponding Christian Dogmas and Ethics, has become part of the fabric of Western Civilisation, but sadly in the process the human Jesus of the Gospels has been changed beyond all recognition.

There is one important fact that we here at SMX should bear in mind. I believe it authenticates our existence as SMX.  The Second Vatican Council was an Ecumenical Council where over 2500 of the world’s bishops gathered together with the Pope and formed the largest magisterium of the Church ever to exercise its teaching authority.  Most of its decrees, deliberations and decisions received the authoritative approval of over 90% of the bishops in attendance. By Church teaching and long held tradition, decisions of Ecumenical Councils, its vision, its principles, and the directions it sets are binding on all the Church, and are to be implemented by all ― the Pope, his Curia, the Hierarchy, the Priests and Religious, and the Laity.

The spirit of the Council which took hold in the imagination was that voiced by John XXIII, who said in his opening speech that the Church is called to serve the World, not condemn it.  He went on that today the Bride of Christ prefers to use the medicine of mercy rather than severity, that she considers that she meets the needs of the present age by showing the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations.  Pope John said that the Church, that changeless and perfect thing Catholics have relied on, needed catching up with the times (aggiornamento), what he called in his opening address a leap forward.

Unfortunately there is a small powerful ultra conservative rump within the Church who has not accepted the opening of the windows of the Church as envisaged by John XXIII’s Council, and has been working through the last two pontificates to restore the centralism which the Council clearly wanted to dismantle. Their resistance covers all the major matters raised by the Council.

So perhaps we need to be in touch again with the non churchy, radical Christianity which was lived and proclaimed by Jesus.  He was strong and uncompromising in his stand against injustice and the abuse of power by religious and civic leaders.  The way he lived was a challenge to others for he was breaking through the taboos of his environment.  Now that the ultra conservative leaders of the Church have succeeded in winding back the liberating influences of Vatican II it is time to choose between a Jesus Faith and a pre Second Vatican Council Church. This we have been freed to choose at SMX.

As many of the traditional Christian absolutes fall out of focus I am more and more confronted with the Divine Mystery of Creation; the sacred aspect of the natural world. One is filled with the sense of the truth that nature is a living, interdependent, and mutually beneficial interaction of individual and socially organised things. I am not writing that I do not believe in God. But for me, the word God takes on another meaning. I am not denying anything; I wish only to live with the Mystery. This I have been freed to believe at SMX.

Without the need for any creedal-based responses, this spiritual landscape of Nature demonstrates to me the connectedness with the Divine at the heart of all this Creation.  It somehow now appears a little easier to understand that, as a creature, I belong to and am a part of, this great cosmic story, this Mystery of Life.     This eternal, ever-present moment, this eternal unknown, is beyond our human words and images, energising, holding everything in connectedness and relationship.

Eckhart Tolle writes that the essence of our Being is this eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.

Proactive support for Life in all its forms, not just for the unborn, is now easily espoused. Within this I have been freed to live at SMX.

Bridget Mary Meehan’s reflection on Dr Robert McClory’s book, Hijacking of Vatican II, is timely for us here at St Mary’s in Exile (SMX):

For many Catholics there is no turning back, only moving forward together.  The Spirit of God is in the People of God and continues to speak today through the movement for a more just Church and World.  One example, the Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement provides another vision of a more open, just and inclusive Church…… I think we are creating a bridge for the “faithful” to cross from the present paradigm to a church where all are welcome to receive sacraments and celebrate inclusive liturgies and where all are called to share their spiritual gifts in a community of equals in service of God’s People. We the people of God are the Church, as Vatican II taught.

I believe St Mary’s in Exile (SMX) also provides another vision of a more open, just and inclusive Faith Community ― the Spirit blows where it will.

5^th January, 2012.

I read and glean widely using whatever sources which come to hand, not so much to form my ideas, but to prop up the opinions I have already formed.  This paper is for private reflective use at SMX.

Tim

The experience of Robert, one of the many homeless, sadly is not in isolation to the 114 people that we have housed since we undertook Registry week in June 2010 of 50 Lives 50 Homes.

Over the years we have been learning and developing better processes for linking people not simply with housing but also with the supportive services that they require. Services which enable each person to develop a different lifestyle so they can pay their rent, be a neighbour, sustain good health, make community connections and reconnect with family. It all sounds normal and simple but of course it isn’t

The whole process itself is not only characterised by new responsibilities and challenges but can often trigger the memories of past experiences and trauma – related both to when people were sleeping rough but also when they were last living in a place they called home.

For some that maybe the memory of their first behavioural episode that leads to being diagnosed with a mental illness or experiences of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence that have marked their childhood or adult life.

One person with an addiction, after the first day of being housed said:

“Wow when I close this door and you leave I really am just with me”…..Such a difference to sleeping and living in public places.

Does this mean that we should not be on this journey?

Some may say yes! – We are setting people up to fail

As  we are committed to working on bringing to each person what they need to make it work we believe in what we are doing despite the challenges.

We know that to do so goes well beyond what we as an organisation alone can do. Once we resolve a person’s  homelessness it is then a matter of continuing the journey of creating new connections in the community , old connections with family and friends and tackling the reality of what living in poverty is like when housed compared to when homeless….

So much of the discourse around disadvantage people is about them becoming self reliant and responsible when if fact what they need are services designed to recognise the very real barriers that impact on their life on a daily basis.

How people access housing and healthcare are the two stand out issues confronting our Street to Home workers everyday. We have to keep advocating for the range and mix of services that people need to move beyond being trapped by homelessness, social isolation and poverty.

Common Ground as you know is currently being built and we hope that it will provide us with some new opportunities to change the way people access services.

It will provide another 76 units targeting people who are sleeping rough.  We are certainly advocating that some of the people we currently support can access a transfer to Common Ground as on site services will be of greater benefit.  We also   hope that the units they currently occupy m can be accessible also to rough sleepers so that we can continue to reduce the number of people sleeping rough in Brisbane.

The onsite services include concierge and support workers who will provide onsite tenant services and link people with the services they are entitled to from the community.

The Mater Health Services and Mater Foundation are assisting us to find a philanthropic sponsor to enable us to have as a staff member a clinical nurse who can assist in integrating health into the supportive services.  We have learnt this is a critical success factor for many people who have experienced chronic homelessness in making the transition to having a home and improving their health and quality of life.

Currently the timeline for Common Ground to be completed is April and we will be selecting tenants over the next couple of months.  As you may know there is 146 units with half allocated to low income workers as well as the half of people who have experienced homelessness. The building has many sustainability features such as recycled water and solar panels and green switch in each unit which allow with the flick of a switch all power to be turned off.  The design has been particularly attentive to air flow and ventilation all things that help make a home more comfortable across the seasons

The process of advocating for and implementing Common Ground here in Brisbane as we often say “A little bit of New York in South Brisbane” is one that has been filled with challenges and opportunities that I am proud that we all as a community  and as an organisation have been associated with.

The networks among our community of people who have contacted their local member, or put in submissions supporting the project, have contributed donations to building up the evidence with us that such an inniative will work here.

Each time I go to Brisbane Common Ground I also pass St Marys Church which has been under renovation.  I often find myself reflecting on our journey as a community with people and especially many of the indigenous people whom we still support.  The days when we had over 50 people sleeping in the car park behind the house and others out the front of the church, when people would randomly take their place around the table with us. … Some of these people have died  since we shared those experiences, but less have died on the streets thanks to a change in polices which started to focus on providing housing fist..

I know sometimes people have said how much that interaction is missed now we are here…. but I have found myself thinking we should be much happier knowing that people are not reliant on coming into a church to beg or ask for some money… because now they have a home.

Whilst it presents many challenges for them our efforts is far better placed working out how to support and enable them too keep their home and a better quality of life. This I believe gives them more dignity then acceptance for the interruptions that once characterised our liturgies.

It is somehow ironical that now instead of people sleeping out  around us we are watching just down the street the emergence of a building that will house and support some of the very people who once were around the premises of St Marys.

It is great that our efforts have enabled people who for many years have slept on the river bank, around the church, even on the ground at the site of Common Ground can now remain part of this neighbourhood.  South Brisbane is   an ever changing landscape as an inner city community and it is great to see in the midst of multiple unit building one that will provide a place for people on low incomes who call this community their home.

It gives us a great sense of bringing to reality our mission to create justice and respond to injustice when we see the signs on the posts around  South Brisbane saying  “ Welcome to the Precinct for Business, Arts and Culture, Education Dining and living “

Knowing that 146 people can afford to be a part of this precinct despite being on low incomes and many of the businesses, arts, health and educational institutions want to partner with us to ensure people feel connected and part of the neighbourhood is a great support to us and Common Ground Qld as we move forward in tenanting the units.

We will definitely keep you informed over the next couple of months.

We will be needing volunteers if you have time in setting up the building and getting ready.

One of the lessons we have learnt is that if the unit is established with the essentials of crockery and linen, furniture then the transition for a person is easier and over time they can personalise and change things as it becomes their home.  So we will be preparing unit, providing welcoming packs which some of the schools have already begun to assist with.

Call us at Micah if you or someone you know is interested in becoming a tenant.  We can provide the application kit.

Common Ground nor the Street to Home 50 Lives 50 Homes Campaign have ended homelessness in Brisbane, nor have they been able to prevent the hundreds of low income people who have been displaces but we know that by taking a systematic approach for the 114 people currently housed, our efforts have made a difference, and we are very excited to have the opportunity to extend this to another 76 people.

Once again I would like to thank the many people in the community who have been on this journey with us because it is the community effort both from St Marys’ and the broader community that makes all the difference to achieving the outcome we want which is a home for any person who is living on the streets of Brisbane.

In ending I would like to share with you the quote on the Brisbane Common Ground Booklet

Hope: a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to

happen

a feeling of trust

15 Hope Street is a great address

Thank you

This year we mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the so-called ‘King James Bible’ (KJB) under the authority of King James I of England in 1611. That particular version of the Bible has had a profound impact on the history of religion in the English-speaking world, as well as playing a powerful role in the shaping of modern English. As a result of its influence on modern English and the subsequent development of English as the lingua franca of the modern world, the KJB has enjoyed an influence that its translators could never have imagined. Not  only is the Christian religion in a very different place because of the influence of this book, but even the present form of our global society owes a great debt to the KJB.

This is a good moment in time to pause and reflect on our debt to the forty-four scholars who worked in six different teams to prepare this translation, as well as to civil and religious authorities who sponsored the project, and the craftsman printers who brought the complicated project to a successful conclusion. They could never have imagined the migration of English dissenters to North America, nor the subsequent development of Anglophone cultural, economic and political influence around the globe. Four hundred years later we look back over a rich and complex story, and express our gratitude to the mostly nameless heroes whose efforts laid the basis of our modern world.

On reflection we note how much that we now take for granted was once controversial and highly contested. This Bible comes to us from the world before the Enlightenment, while we are very much children of the Enlightenment. In the world from which this version of the Bible derives, people were imprisoned, exiled and even killed by state and church authorities. This book comes from a world where kings exercised absolute authority and parliaments were yet to find their power to limit the prerogatives of the king.

The KJB was essentially a project to control dissent and limit religious diversity within the English-speaking kingdoms of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. At the time it was barely imaginable that significant numbers of Englishmen (sic) would be found beyond the shores of the British Isles. When the KJB project was commissioned at the Hampton Court conference of 1604, the colony at Jamestown, Virginia had not yet been founded. That would happen in 1607 while work on the KJB was underway. The Pilgrim Fathers were not to sail from Plymouth until September 6, 1620; some nine years after the publication of KJB.

I note in passing that my own direct ancestor, Joseph Jenkes, did not arrive in Massachusetts until 1642. Some twelve generations later I stand here as a visitor from an even more distant English society that also been profoundly shaped by the KJB and was equally beyond the imagination of King James and his Privy Council. Joseph was a dissenter who fled England to make a new life for himself in the colonies, and we can be reasonably sure he owned a copy of the KJB. More than three hundred years later, that same version of the Bible would dominate the religious community in which I was born and raised.

Much as we celebrate the heroic achievements of those who struggled for the right to read the Bible in their own language, and to do so free of interference by church or state, we also note those ways in which the Bible has been co-opted as a tool in the religious and social controversies of the modern world. The same Bible that served as an icon of liberty was used to justify slavery, to reinforce the supremacy of men over women, and to validate racism.

Today we find the KJB invoked by ultra-conservatives who wish to deny the humanity and the civil liberties of gay and lesbian persons. Their attachment to the KJB is even more remarkable given the well-known homosexuality of King James himself. We need not delve into those matters now, but it sometimes seems to me that the King James Bible might be better labeled as the ‘Queen James Bible.’

Re-imagining the Bible back then

We tend to look back at the KJB as the beginning of a long period of cultural and religious influence. It is natural and right to do that. However, the production of the KJB was also the conclusion to a process of change in attitudes to the Bible that had been taking place over the previous century as the Protestant Reformation upturned the religious and social order of Europe.

On the eve of All Saints Day in 1517, a Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Saxony. That act launched a major transition in the life of the European church. It marked the beginning of a process of reform and renewal of which the KJB was one of the most prominent fruits.

The Reformation especially impacted how the Bible was understood. This is often overlooked but it deserves our attention. The Bible before the Reformation was very different to the Bible after the Reformation.

At that time there was a significant re-imagining of the Bible, so that it came to be imagined  (at  least  in  Protestant  circles)  in  the  ways  in  which  we  so often  find  it understood today. Roman Catholics never accepted this unilateral re-imagining of the Bible, and it has never been a part of the Christian faith among the Greek Orthodox, the Russian Orthodox, or the many ancient Eastern churches: Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, or Mar Thoma Christians. Even the Anglicans were prepared to retain them within the Bible while abstaining from using them as authoritative for doctrine.

This novel re-imagining of the Bible among Protestants in NW Europe involved at least five major changes in the way the Bible was understood.

First, the contents and the sequence of the Old Testamentwere changed, after more than one thousand years of continuous Christian practice, to exclude those books found in the ancient Greek versions of the Bible but not found in the Hebrew versions of the Jewish Tanakh.

Secondly, the language of the Bible was changed. We sometimes struggle with issues of inclusive language, but the reformers engaged in a much more profound task as they took the risk (sometimes at the cost of their own lives) of making the Bible available in the vernacular.

Thirdly, new technologies impacted on the ways in which the Bible was re- imagined. Now copies of the Bible could be produced in great number and at low cost. Combined with the move to the vernacular, this helped to spread the influence of these news ways of imagining the Bible, including its recently reduced contents without the Apocrypha.

The fourth new development was that daily reading of the Bible by lay people became a possibility for the very first time in Christian history, albeit only in Protestant areas of NW Europe. We take this for granted, but without a growing level of literacy in the population, and also the invention of the printing press, this could simply not have happened. No longer the privilege of the religious orders, the Bible could now be owned and read by any person with enough wealth to secure a minimal education.

Of course they were mostly men, and men with power and status. Their reading of the Bible, now conveniently expressed in their own language, tended to reinforce their existing social privilege, and their views of women, children, servants, and hired labor.

Finally, a new degree of authority was attributed to the Bible. People who imagined the Bible in this way gave lesser weight to the authority of Popes and Bishops, the rulings of Church Councils, the force of Church Tradition, and even the prerogatives of the king. Heads rolled and thrones tottered as this new way of imagining the Bible took hold on the public.

We tend to note the last development, but not appreciate how radical all five changes were. In a very sense, Bible was re-imagined and re-engineered at the Reformation. This was not simply a recovery of ancient practices, but the development of a whole new set of possibilities for the Bible in the life of the church.

While this brave new way of imagining the Bible was soon challenged by the humanistic cultural revolution of the Enlightenment, it continues to shape the religion of many devout Christians as well as to attract the disdain of a skeptical public. It is, however, an unsustainable way of imagining the Bible and it is time for us to re-imagine the Bible all over again so that it can continue to serve as a sacred text for the churches in the third millennium.

Engaging with the ‘problem’ of the Bible

Since the Reformation—and especially in the last 150 years—grassroots Christian views of the Bible have become increasingly exaggerated and naïve, claiming far too much for the Bible. In this uncritical attachment to the Bible (known as ‘Biblicism’) the Christian Scriptures are defended as uniquely authoritative, inerrant, infallible, historically correct, self-sufficient, internally consistent, self-evident in their meaning, and universal applicable.1

The cultural revolution of the Enlightenment would soon mean that this high water mark of the Bible’s influence would subside as the Bible became the site for a profound and continuing challenge to the authority of the church. For cultural, historical, political, and social reasons, the nature and authority of the Scriptures were challenged by humanists and defended by religionists.

The controversy continues to our own time, although the churches mostly act as if the authority of the Bible is beyond question. In formal religious statements it often remains sufficient simply to cite a biblical reference to settle a theological point.

In  the  contemporary  church  we  can  observe  both  conservative  and progressive readings of Scriptures. This is a divide that cuts across traditional Catholic/ Protestant, Conservative/Liberal categories, and it exposes a reactionary/progressive dynamic within all expressions of Christianity. As people of faith, do we read Scripture primarily to preserve and protect beliefs, rituals and roles inherited from the past, or to seek new insights and gain fresh wisdom for the challenges of being faithful today? And if both, then what kind of creative balance is achieved, and how is it maintained?

At the heart of critical biblical scholarship—and indeed all scholarship, religious or otherwise— is a critical mindset that challenges traditional ways of thinking, including time-honored ways of using Scripture. The critical method is a sustained existential interrogative: Why? Why that? Why now? Why here? Why not? What if?

One significant danger associated with such a sustained critical perspective is the risk of discarding too much wisdom from the past in the quest for new and improved solutions to current challenges. But that risk does not outweigh the advantages of fresh insights that may arise from a persistent quest for improvement: better analysis, better diagnosis, and better praxis.

While critical religion scholarship has its own philosophical and theological grounds for such a critical (prophetic?) stance towards the tradition, it also acts as part of a broad progressive cultural alliance. Where ascendant religion tends to cling to power and protect its privileges, prophetic religion operates from the margins of respectability and may find common ground with artists, philosophers, scientists, and literary scholars.

Points of confrontation and challenge

We can usefully consider the problem posed by the Bible for theologians and church leaders under three categories: the world behind the text, the world within the text, and the world in front of the text. This metaphor of three biblical ‘worlds’ has been developed by Sandra Schneiders,2 and it will allow us to group the major problematic dimensions of the Bible according to their primary location in the historical world behind the text, within the text itself, or within our own acts of interpretation as readers.

From the perspective of the world behind the biblical textthere have been a considerable number of challenges posed for people of faith by critical biblical scholarship. The central characteristic of these challenges relates to the deconstructive impact of critical attention to questions of historicity, to traditional assumptions about the origins of the biblical writings, and to the increased number of ancient manuscripts now available to scholars.

As a result of our increased knowledge of the ancient past, the historical character of the Bible has been seriously compromised. The relationship between what ‘actually happened’ in the ancient past and how those events are narrated in the biblical texts is far more complex than has often been assumed by previous generations of Bible readers.

At the same time as the historicity of the Bible has been challenged, we have been able to gain a much more accurate understanding of the cultural and social dynamics of the ancient communities who first created and used these texts. We find ourselves knowing more about what life was like ‘back then,’ and yet also being less certain of the historicity of the biblical narratives. In this complex process it is tempting to seek short- term polemical advantage in certain discoveries or models, but perhaps wiser to refrain from doing so.

The need to suspend judgment on the historicity of the biblical narrative already implies a significant reduction of the claims so often made on behalf of the Bible and its contribution to Christian thought and practice. While it seems certain that ‘David’ was a ruler in Jerusalem during the tenth century BCE, it is even more certain that his achievements were nothing like those attributed to him in the Bible, and his vast empire is an exercise in religious imagination. Such historical reservations have significant religious and theological implications for people for whom God’s ‘mighty acts’ in the past are the basis of faith here and now. What if those mighty acts are fictional?

Not only are the events represented in the Bible more often fictional than historical, but the texts themselves have an uncertain pedigree as well as a confused history of copying and transmission. Moses did not write the Pentateuch, and David did not write the Psalms. More seriously, the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that only Psalms 1–91 were finalized by the second century BCE, and books such as Samuel and Jeremiah existed in both longer and shorter versions just a century or so before the time of Jesus.

Critical investigation of the world behind the biblical texts has established beyond reasonable doubt that the origins of the Bible were very different than Christians like to imagine. While this does not prevent us using the Scriptures in new and creative ways, it does require us to rethink how these sacred texts function in the life of the contemporary church.

As questions around the world behind the text multiplied, some scholars turned their attention to the world within the biblical text. Here we seem to be on firmer ground. No longer adrift in a world of historical ambiguity, the reader can simply engage with the texts as they stand. The historical questions can be set aside as we enter the world of the text.

In this hermeneutical move, the focus shifts from defending the historicity of the Bible to appreciating the literary artistry of the authors. But these were human authors, and ancient ones as well. They imagined their texts under the influence of literary and rhetorical conventions that are very different from those of today’s readers. These writers were shaped by Homer, and operated on the basis of mimesis and intertextual dynamics whose finer points escape us moderns.

The nagging historical anxiety of the modern West refuses to leave us alone even in the relative sanctuary of the biblical text. Are we reading accounts of actual events or symbolic narratives? And  even  when  the  events  may  have happened  (as  with  the crucifixion of Jesus), is the narrative more the product of imagination than memory? Is everything just melting away into (mere) story? Does this wonderful narrative have any basis in real events in the lives of actual people? Is Christian faith anything more than a heroic act of imagination?

More confronting still, what of the unacceptable values and immoral practices encoded in the text?3 Even if God did not command the ethnic cleansing of ancient Palestine, the Bible seems to have been written and approved by people who liked to imagine that she did. These sacred texts are increasingly recognized as artifacts created by persons with particular cultural and religious agendas in the ancient world, and the modern reader can find herself an intruder in an unfamiliar landscape when exploring the world of the text.

Then there is the world in front of the text, the lived realities of the actual readers here and now. Not only is it clear that it makes a difference who is doing the reading, it is also becoming increasingly clear that a text without a reader is a document that has no significance.

The impact of different readers is simple enough to recognize. Not only do different people discover (construct?) different meanings in the same text, but the same persons at different times in  their own practice as readers will report finding quite different meanings in the same texts.

It is for this reason, surely, that a classic text such as the Twenty-Third Psalm can be read at funerals as well as at weddings. The text has not changed, but the readers and their contexts certainly have.

As scholars of communication and literature rethink the relationship between author, text and reader there are clear implications for Scripture, which exists and functions as text at the hands and in the imaginations of readers. We are learning to reimagine what a text is and how it operates. While every text comes with certain assumptions, these operating conditions may not be valid at the time when it is read.

To remain significant, and especially to continue as a site for divine-human encounter, the Bible may need to be read contrary to its literal and historical significance. Only then can it serve as a source of wisdom for readers in contexts beyond the imagination of its authors and previous readers.

This is a necessary corollary for a sacred text in a religious tradition that accords primacy to the freedom of the divine Spirit to speak a prophetic word to the contemporary context of the faithful. However, it destabilizes both the text and the traditional interpretations of its significance. Under what conditions could we ever imagine the Bible to be the unchanging and self-explicating revelation of what the Spirit is saying to the churches?