Seeing the World Afresh

Google Image

This is third and final blog in a series on an interview with Rowan Williams in the New York Times that was so cogent, so relevant to my goal of helping people searching for God that I don’t want to deprive the blog’s readers of any of his wisdom. For those unfamiliar with him, Williams is a theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury - principal leader of the Church of England. The Times story, is entitled, “The New Atheists Attack a God I Don’t Believe In, Either.”

Throughout the ages, Christians have had so many ways of describing Jesus, and ways he describes himself in the gospels – the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Savior, the Lord, the Suffering Servant, to name a few. But Jesus was also a great storyteller, and that aspect was an important element in his mission.

He knew that we humans are more engaged by stories than by direct preaching.

“One of the things that people seem to have remembered about Jesus,” said Williams, “is that he told extremely good stories and stories which left you with an enormous agenda of self-discovery.

Where Do You Stand?

"So, with the great classical stories like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, you are left not with a neat answer to the question. You are left with a question to you: Who do you identify with? Where do you stand in this? And what are you going to do?

“Are you going to be the sort of person who resents the generosity shown to another, like the elder brother in the Prodigal Son? Are you going to be the sort of person who finds a good religious excuse for not crossing the road to attend to suffering (as in the story of the Good Samaritan)?

“I feel that’s a rather compelling aspect of the story of Jesus. There’s more going on in him than he can express, and sometimes it kind of bursts out. And when I think of what the divinity of Jesus means in that context, one of the signs of it is that feeling he’s got more to say than human language can carry….

Rowan Williams
Google Image

“And it’s almost as if Jesus goes to the cross saying: ‘The only way of telling you what the love of God is like is to absorb this monumental violent injustice (the crucifixion) and show you that God is not crushed by it.

“Not words but the act of redemptive self-giving. The image I’ve sometimes used, especially with St. Mark’s Gospel is it’s almost as if you’re looking at a Jesus who stands at the mouth of an enormous dark cave. Behind is a mystery you can’t get at and express. He’s trying to tell you something about it, and it doesn’t always come through. But it comes through finally in the act and the suffering rather than in the words. And that I’m completely compelled and haunted by.

“But it’s also something about the church, isn’t it? Because people rage at the church, and I don’t blame them. They rage about its history of exclusion of various kinds of people. They rage about its record on child abuse. They rage about its wealth, its indifference, all sorts of things.

We're Still Here

And here am I, ordained in the church. So, I’m part of that system against which they’re raging. And it’s not part of my job to say, “Oh, it’s not as bad as you think,” but to say, “Yep, it’s pretty bad. And the only thing I can tell you is that we’re still here not because we’re succeeding but because God is present.

“What the church does is not to point to itself as an example of impeccable behavior and triumph and success but to point to the faithfulness of God who won’t let go of even this very unpromising human material. So,
all of that somehow comes into this business of accompanying, accepting the pain and the anger and trying not to be crushed by it.

“What I’ve most wanted to convey, I suppose, is that sense of the enrichment just around the corner of your vision, the perspective of that eternally overflowing source of love and mercy and how that lights up everything. I’d like people to see the world afresh.”