Farewell and thanks for the conscience

News this week of the death of Pete Seeger, American activist and singer-song writer, left me in a place of introspection. Seeger (“We Shall Overcome”, “Turn, Turn, Turn” and innumerable more songs) was, more or less, the last of the generation of prophets that inspired the generation of prophets that inspired my generation. Okay: that’s a long daisy chain, and in any case, I’m hardly in the same prophetic league as the singer-songwriters, but we all live in our own shoes, and I guess as a stormy adolescent these were the voices that spoke to my angst, and I hope a spark or two remains in my belly.

Seeger never ceased to prick the conscience of the West. As my generation marched against the Springbok Tour we sang Seeger. Some years later, as we joined massive (but toothless) peace marches in Australia, we sang Seeger. Student protests since Seeger’s heyday have become more and more self-centred and obscure, a sort of devaluation of his remarkable and tenacious vision, but his songs will continue to be sung wherever human hearts long for a more just and equitable world in the face of human corruption and evil.

Seeger’s commitment to justice never failed. His belief in the labour movement in the 1940s, and ’50s, the anti-war movements of the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s and ’90s and … the  fight to clean up the Hudson River in recent decades, his battles against the corrupt and Neanderthal House Un-American Activities Committee … these were courageous battles against popularism, corruption, inhumanity and the dominant paradigm of selfishness. These were fights that put most of us to shame. Where most of us have stayed frozen like a possum in the headlights, Seeger actually had an impact on the world’s thought. His performance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Obama’s inauguration may not have ushered in the Reign of God, but it was a symbolic reminder that we’ve come a long way since the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover.

So we farewell a prophetic voice—like that of Mandela not so very long ago. I personally thank God that there are still around us those prepared to stand in the line of the great Prophets, the Isaiahs and Jeremiahs and Hoseas and Amoses—and Jesus—who dare to speak with a voice akin to the voice of God. Seeger was 94, and that’s probably time to sing somewhere else. But thanks, big buddy, for singing, and for pricking the conscience of three generations.

Being Community: address to a Civic Service

The Napier Inner-City Churches, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican, share in a covenant:

Believing that God is One, and there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; that God calls us to be one in Jesus Christ by the power which the Holy Spirit gives; that we are called to hold together the rich variety of our heritage and of our ways of worship within the one Body; that we are called to venture together in work and witness for Christ, and to commit ourselves to each other and to serve our Church and our City, as we celebrate the presence of God working amongst us to make all things new.

 

When I asked Parish Administrator Margaret to email Deputy Mayor Faye White to invite her to speak at this service we received along with an acceptance a slightly unsettling warning that she had attended these things before and found them distastefully long! I asked Margaret to shoot an email back pointing out that we had done almost all we could to pare the service down, and that the remaining variable was the length of her address!

I lied! There was another variable, and that was the length of my address. However I have promised that I will not exceed four minutes, and one of those minutes is almost gone!

So: two things.

One: I believe most human beings cry out for community. We are not good at community, as disturbing statistics of suicide darkly remind us, and as the horrible tales of citizens crying out for help while on-lookers remain unmoved, the so-called by-stander effect, remind us far more often than we care to admit. Suspicion and hatred of the outsider, enshrined in government policy across the Tasman, but potentially little better here, remind us that we do hospitality only on our terms, and by and large commune with people only if they look like us, behave like us, and don’t mess with our economic or social convenience.

Two: At the heart of the Christian message, almost (but not quite) more powerful than the Christian messages of hope and salvation, is the entwined message of hospitality, community, and compassion. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures boring law after boring law and nail-biting narrative after nail-biting narrative tell the people of God to have compassion, exercise costly hospitality, and to be community in the image of God: “It is not good that a person should live alone” says the narrative of Genesis, so that “male and female” God created us, to live together, love together, practice justice and compassion together in the image of the community God, the inseparable community God, the earth-maker, pain-bearer, hope bringer Father Son and Holy Spirit God who emerges from the stories of our forebears in faith.

Three: okay I lied again: there is one more point. It’s no good talking about this if we do not do this community thing. As bearers of Christ we must be at the forefront of the wider community’s life, rumouring and better still practising the aroha-love, the agape-love, the inconvenient and costly love that is at the heart of God. This love must be at the heart of our mission if we call ourselves (or others call us) Christian. As Colin Gibson puts it: “we are many, we are one, and the work of Christ is done when we learn to live in true community.” Of course John Lennon had something to say too: “Christ you know it ain’t easy.” So we need the help of the Spirit of Christ if we are to be the community Christ calls us to be, ignoring John Lennon’s plea to “imagine there’s no heaven”, but nevertheless working to rumour a foretaste of God’s eternal heavenly community amidst the confusion and loneliness of earth.

We’re under four minutes, so perhaps I didn’t lie after all! Let us stand and sing not John Lennon’s but Colin Gibson’s dream of unity.