…ultimately, joy is about discovering that the world is more than you ever suspected, and so that you yourself are more than you suspected. The joy of the resurrection has a unique place in Christian faith and imagination because this event breaks open the shell of the world we thought we knew and projects us into the new and mysterious realm in which victorious mercy and inexhaustible love make the rules. And because it is the revelation of something utterly basic about reality itself, it is a joy that cannot just be at the mercy of passing feelings. It roots itself in the heart and remains as a foundation for everything else. The Christian is not therefore the person who has accepted a particular set of theories about the universe but the person who lives by the power of the joy that is laid bare in the event of the resurrection of Jesus. To be baptized ”˜into’ Christ is to be given a lasting connection with joy, a channel through which the basic sense of being where we ought to be can always come through, however much we choke it up with selfishness and worry. Sometimes, clearing out this debris needs a bit of explosive ”“ encounter with an extraordinary person or story, experience of passionate love, witnessing profound suffering, whatever shakes us out of our so-called ”˜normal’ habits. But we can at least contribute to this by giving time to clearing the channel as best we may, in silence, in the space of reflection. And we can also ask persistently what it is in our social environment that will most help create this for others, especially those who live with constant anxiety because of poverty, disability or other sorts of disadvantage.
Christian joy, the joy of Easter, is offered to the world not to guarantee a permanently happy society in the sense of a society free from tension, pain or disappointment, but to affirm that whatever happens in the unpredictable world ”“ sometimes wonderfully, sometimes horribly unpredictable ”“ there is a deeper level of reality, a world within the world, where love and reconciliation are ceaselessly at work, a world with which contact can be made so that we are able to live honestly and courageously with the challenges constantly thrown at us. And on the first Easter morning, it is as if ”˜the fountains of the great deep’ are broken open, and we are allowed to see, like Peter and John at the empty tomb, into the darkness for a moment ”“ and find our world turned upside down, joy made possible.
[blockquote]let a thousand street parties blossom![/blockquote]
‘Let a thousand flowers bloom” was the common translation of Mao’s 1956 invitation to people in China to engage in public ‘constructive criticism’ and led to a massive and brutal crackdown on those, mainly intellectuals, who had unwisely responded to the invitation and outed themselves.
One can, at the least, suggest that the Archbishop would be better employed reading the Holy Bible for quotes, if he still has one, rather than pondering Mao’s Little Red Book.
One just dreads to comtemplate what he will come out with for the Royal Wedding this week.
Hmm, Pageantmaster. I thought it a good sermon. I liked his definition of Christian Joy and the real life examples he gave of it.
He certainly talks about joy; whether it is a Christian definition is another matter. Williams sees the message of the resurrection as opening up a series of questions rather than any set of answers. He seems to think that it leads to openness in interaction with experience, whereas in fact it leads as we well know in his ‘leadership’ of the Communion, to CHAOS.
That is what happens when you think that Christ brings us questions rather than any answers. Do you notice that he manages to go through the whole of his Easter sermon without ever mentioning the G-word? Well, actually, he does once, in the throw-away and somewhat impious: “It is not – God forbid – feeling cheerful” No mention of salvation, redemption, sin, no reference to the Gospels – not really very Christian is it? Christ brings us Hegel, apparently.
As for the suggestion that the Christians of Pakistan and Northern Nigeria are prepared to die for the Archbishop’s definition of joy rather than the hope of salvation as Children of God that they know the death and resurrection of Christ has secured for them, they will have to answer. One has to look at not only what the Archbishop says as well as what he does not say by scrapping away the thick muddle of emotive but insubstantial Welsh dressing with which he smothers his thoughts and seeking for substance. Not much there I am afraid, for the Archbishop offers a muddled and anaemic faith.
Pageantmaster,
I disagree, especially with your last sentence. I’ve read several of the ABC’s books and am aware of how highly regarded he is among orthodox (both small o and capital o) theologians.
While I agree with those who find his leadership skills sorely wanting, I don’t believe for one minute that his FAITH is either “muddled” or “anaemic.” And I find that to be a problematic judgment to make about anyone whose company you don’t keep and whose heart you really don’t know.
But this is indeed a Joyful day and I really don’t want to descend into discussions about personnel and politics. I liked the sermon. ‘Nuff said.
#4 TT
I started off thinking as you; I was impressed by the emotional display and some sparkley thoughts. But then I started to compare what Williams had to say with Creedal Christianity and I started to notice what was missing – the basics, the redefinition of terms, the failure to root what he was saying in the Bible, and the substitution of example and speculation for the Faith as we have received it as Anglicans, indeed the absence of any connection with the Anglican outlook, except in an anything goes sort of definition of Anglicanism. Then I observed the failure to connect words with actions, the indifference to the fate of the flock, the advocating of Sharia when the Northern Nigerians he mentions and the Pakistanis were trying to hold it back, and being persecuted by Sharia, and the indifference and silence when the flock in North America are being ravaged by the wolves, and the public indifference to the imposition of the Ordinariate, save as it caused him public embarrassment.
I came to the conclusion that while he is an academic, his is an undisciplined mind, and one that puts up a fog of sparkly fluff in the hope that it is taken for profound thought, and moreover that he is a man without the first idea of what is required of a shepherd and an arrogant unwillingness to learn beyond going round and round in the same Hegelian rut he has constructed for himself.
And I can think of no more appropriate day to consider this sermon delivered to the flock on Easter Day, than immediately.
One wonders if many would read Williams if he were not ABC. There are better preachers and shepherds about fortunately, although increasingly fewer in the House of Bishops of the Church of England, thanks to Williams.
I was thinking much like your #5, Pageantmaster, after reading the sermon and looking for the good in it. But I think ++Williams had the misfortune to be a very bright, English-speaking, academic born in the 1950s, and thus educated in an insecure society by a system that was becoming increasingly undisciplined, thus producing many such minds. The contrast with former Professor Ratzinger, 25 years older than ++Williams, is remarkable and is due to the former’s education in a system not yet similarly ravaged, and additionally to his spiritual courage and fortitude when as a faculty member he encountered the 1968 movements on campus. The resulting mind is (as Wm. Buckley Jr. might say) lapidary in its theological insights. And being available mainly in German until perhaps the 1980s or later, his writings were less accessible to English speakers.
It occurred to me perhaps the Abp. is focused on joy due in part to the obvious joy he will have marrying William and Katherine next Friday, setting in train the production system for the next, next heir to the throne – should keep it well in hand for the rest of this century at least! I seriously mean that; he is the chief Abp. of the Church of England and it defined itself by having the monarch as its Defender of (the) Faith.