Praying against death in climate chaos

 Richard Beck has recently written a series of blog post on intercessory prayer which express well where I've been coming to in terms of seeing prayer as part of creation -more precisely creatio continua and itself an act of participation in continuous/continuing creation. This is very close to my own thoughts about the structure of creation in relation to justice and peace and the place of corporisations. The third post in Beck's series also puts the helpful perspective ... well, see here:

We have to know that, in this life, praying against death will be an experience of failure. You need to know that before going in. And yet, we also need to know that this failure isn't terminal or final, that Christ has defeated death. Eschatologically, God has answered every petition for life and healing with a resounding "Yes!" Easter is God's answer to every petition against death. All prayers against death have been answered in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I find that very helpful and my mind next goes to praying for /in climate and environmental crises about the things that are going on that makes them crises.  Beck goes on to say that prayers this side of the Last Day are a mix of lament and hope. It seems to me that to attempt to pray in climate and ecological crises is to pray, in some way, against death. Only here we don't only think about the death of people but of species, ecosystems, ways of life, biomes, civilisation ... and perhaps the same insight applies.  In Christ it is 'Yes, yes' but not necessarily before Resurrection. We will fail in our prayers and our physical efforts (which are also, in their way, prayers) for mitigating climate chaos: people and species and biomes will die. But all in the end is harvest, our work in the Lord is not in vain. Somehow. How does that, will that, look in the now-and-not yet, before the End? 

The tension is that we will not bring about the fullness of God's reign, and yet what we do, what we pray, now will be answered 'yes'. And even if it is not yet and not now the act of praying is hope. The act of praying is an act towards discernment whether this petition is for the now or the not-yet End, and if the former, then how are we called to petition with words and/or with deeds.

Christ-centred creation and prodigality

This excerpt from a talk by Tom Wright resonated with some things I've been thinking about in relation to the nature of creation centred in time and space on Christ. +Tom says:

... if creation comes through the kingdom bringing Jesus, we ought to expect it be like a seed growing secretly. That it would involve seed being sown in a prodigal fashion in which a lot went to waste, apparently, but other seed producing a great crop. We ought to expect that it be like a strange, slow process which might suddenly reach some kind of harvest. We ought to expect that it would involve some kind of overcoming of chaos. Above all, we ought to expect that it would be a work of utter, self-giving love. That the power which made the world, like the power which ultimately rescued the world, would be the power not of brute force, but of radical, outpoured generosity. We ought to expect, in other words, that the creation would not look like an oriental despot deciding to build a palace, and just throwing it up at speed, with his architects and builders cowering before him. 

What I find helpful in this is how our attention is drawn to the prodigality of it all. One of the minor objections from creationists is the wastefulness of the processes that the rest of us believe we discern in the geological records and other related evidences. Linking the debate in the way that +Tom does here; to the parable of the sown seed, helps see a kind of implicit endorsement in Jesus' own teaching of a prodigal creative process in which there is some 'hit and miss' element to it all. It kind of finds in creation a prodigality, which Jesus draws attention to and thereby endorses rather than questions. And while this doesn't add up to saying 'this is the meaning of the parable' it does take Jesus' acceptance of the wastefulness of both the creational type and the parabolic antitype as at least the possibility of seeing that generous endowment in which there is more and to spare as the way things are and develop.
I'm finding that really helpful to think further about.

Arthur C. Clarke's 31-Word Sci-Fi Story, "siseneG"

Read Arthur C. Clarke's Super Short, 31-Word Sci-Fi Story, "siseneG" | Open Culture: “siseneG,” a story story — a very short story indeed — Clarke sent in to Analog magazine in 1984:

And God said: DELETE lines One to Aleph. LOAD. RUN.
And the Universe ceased to exist.
Then he pondered for a few aeons, sighed, and added: ERASE.
It never had existed.

I liked this because it does imply some interesting philosophical reflections. Of course, it is hard to really imagine a being outside of time 'pondering for a few aeons' (what could that possibly mean?). But I warmed to the idea that we could perhaps think of the universe as fundamentally code. I think that's where I see a lot of physics thinking at the moment. And then, if code, then what of "In the beginning was the word"?

Does the Church really exist for the worship of God?

What I need to say, right upfront, is that I support, broadly, the organisation Praxis which originated the following definition in support of its mission (this is the UK instantiation of the organisation):

The Church exists for the worship of God.
Worship is the only activity of the Church which will last into eternity.

Worship enriches and transforms our lives.
In Christ we are drawn closer to God in the here and now.
This shapes our beliefs, our actions and our way of life.
God transforms us as individuals, congregations and communities.

Worship provides a vital context for mission, teaching and pastoral care. Good worship and liturgy inspires and attracts, informs and delights. The worship of God can give hope and comfort in times of joy and of sorrow. Despite this significance, we are often under-resourced for worship. Praxis Home

I think the problem with this is a conflation and confusion of different meanings for the word 'worship' which often, I think, ends up misdirecting our attention and effort when it comes to what happens in church buildings.

I think I need to unpack what I mean more. You see, I think that the two meanings of worship play out in that statement but one tends to displace the other while relying on the displaced meaning for its justification.

I guess that still needs unpacking further. So let's start by saying what I think the two meanings are and how they relate to one another.

The first meaning is summed up in Romans 12:1-2 "... in view of God's mercies, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God which is your spiritual worship ...". This is picked up in Anglican communion liturgy in the prayer after communion in which we "offer our souls and bodies to be a living sacrifice". That this is an important way to understand "worship" is accentuated by Matthew Myers Boulton's book God Against Religion, which (drawing on insights from Karl Barth) makes a case for understanding liturgical worship as a fallen artefact and understanding the message of the first chapters of Genesis as showing the more fundamental human calling to be to tend and till creation as created co-creators.

So, I think that there is a problem with "The Church exists for the worship of God" and "Worship is the only activity of the Church which will last into eternity", if "worship" is understood primarily as an assembly for the the performance of  rites, actions, words (what many would call 'liturgy'). Assuming the basic rightness of Boulton's (and Barth's) thesis, the church exists for the worship of God only really if we understand worship primarily as becoming and being part of God's work (and rest from) [re]creating. The problem, it seems to me, with the Praxis landing page blurb is that it seems to shift the meaning into narrowly liturgical events. Such meaning -by the Barthean thesis as picked up by Boulton- is precisely the wrong way to go: there is no temple in the New Jerusalem and the liturgical acts of Revelation chapters 1 to 20 are not to be understood as eschatological but as representations of present reality (as per the kind of approach to interpretation of the book of Revelation in David Wilcox's commentary). The only  kind of worship in the New Jerusalem seems to that which could be included in the wealth of the nations -which would surely be all human achievement rooted in God's own work of creation.

So what place liturgical worship in the Christian life? Well, I think that the blurb does give indication of that where it says:

In Christ we are drawn closer to God in the here and now.
This shapes our beliefs, our actions and our way of life.
God transforms us as individuals, congregations and communities.

 Liturgical activity in the form of "public worship" and it cognates of prayer groups, family prayers, so-called personal devotions and the like, should have the effect all being well of drawing us closer to God, shaping us Christicly and transforming us ("by the renewal of our minds" as Romans 12:2 puts it). Barth and Boulton point out that this can only happen because such a fallen artefact as liturgy is reoccupied (my metaphor not theirs) by Christ who redeems it by the Spirit so that it can accomplish such purposes.

So, when the blurb says; "Worship provides a vital context for mission, teaching and pastoral care." I am inclined to say that it should be more radically stated still: Worship is mission, teaching and pastoral care (Rm.12:1-2, applied), some worship is accomplished through liturgical acts much may be supported by them.

And this speaks to that last line: "Despite this significance, we are often under-resourced for worship".  It might be better to rephrase it "... under-resourced for liturgical events" to help us to recall that the resourcing of these events is meant to be part of equipping the saints. Perhaps even a major part given that for many church folk an hour in church most weeks is it for corporate formation. Thought about like that, perhaps we should indeed be taking with utmost seriousness the potential of liturgy to support and strengthen worship in terms of joining God in mission beyond the service.

Of course, this prompts a question as to whether a lot of liturgical worship really does a good job of promoting in-life worship. I have doubts that  it does, in many cases. I suspect that the confusion between the two meanings of 'worship' misdirects churches as to what we are meant to be about when we meet together round the Lord's Table or other 'services'. Believing that worship is preeminent in Christian life and interpreting it as wh at we do together when gathered for a service, we end up fetishising liturgical acts and the criteria for assessing them becomes detached from -or downgrades- equipping the saints and prioritises aesthetics and/or shared emotion.

That's not to say aesthetics or shared emotion are irrelevant to equipping the saints. However, we should recognise that it is really easy for them to become ends in themselves with little carry over into the service of life. They should play their part in inspiring, encouraging and making connections. They make good servants but terrible masters. So liturgy might be under-resourced, but I'm not convinced. I worry that there may be many churches where liturgy is quite possibly over-resourced in relation to the in-life worship of their members. Where what goes on in church is in effect considered the most important part of discipleship.That would be like considering medical school the most important part of a medic's life and work. It clearly is important but it is supposed to be focussed towards a career which will help many people to be well, become well or not to die so soon.