Off the Wall 9/10/13
Over the past few years, this column has
been a way of me, as a Christian Fijian, sharing reflections on our society and
on my experiences. While some of the articles in this column have had an
obvious Christian or faith-based theme, those more secular topics and issues
have still undergone some form of theological reflection – a sort of Christian
response (or my response as a Christian) to the issue in question, even though
I may have not written it explicitly.
Last week a group of Methodists and
their friends from other denominations (among them Catholics, Seventh Day
Adventists, members of Fiji Community Churches of Christ, Presbyterian) spent
three days in Suva reflecting on how the Christian faith addresses matters in society
at large.
The three-day workshop, titled “The Practice of Christ: Living the Lord's Prayer,” was an
opportunity to to examine closely the composition and consequences of
the Lord’s Prayer, led by two leading contextual theologians from the Uniting
Church of Australia, Rev. Drs. Clive Pearson and Dean Drayton.
According to Drayton and Pearson, the Lord’s Prayer is
the most well known Christian prayer and yet it suffers through its over
familiarity and regular use. They ask the question, “what happens to our
understanding of what it means to be Christian when we slow down and explore
the various petitions within the prayer? What does it mean for our Christian
life to pray: your will be done; your kingdom come; lead us not into
temptation; give us our daily bread; forgive us our sins?”
For Drayton and Pearson, there is more than meets the
eye in the Lord’s Prayer. It has a rich history and how it is has been
understood differs from one period in time to another, one culture to another. “What’s
its place in the life of the church in Fiji? How does that role stand in
relation to its biblical contexts in the gospels of Luke and Matthew?”
“The Lord’s prayer is a summary of the Christian Life.
It is the essence of the gospel,” said Pearson, former Principal of United
Theological College in Sydney and Head of the School of Theology at Charles
Sturt University, in his introduction to the workshop. As the Church we need to
discover the therapeutic relevance of the gospel, which, from the understanding
of therapeutic as healing means there are things that the gospel needs to
engage with – things that are broken, things that are fragile and things that
need reconciliation and restoration.”
Drayton, former President of the Uniting
Church in Australia, has spent years meditating on the Lord's Prayer and using
it as his principal framework for organising his thinking and his life, took
the group through the scriptural and historical background of the Lord’s Prayer
and then looked at its implications for today’s context. Drayton suggested,
that as many often simply recite the prayer automatically, it was important for
Christians to reflect on each line of the prayer and what it meant for Jesus,
for the disciples, for the early church and for the world today.
The reflection on what the Lord’s Prayer
means today led to the discussion on the, a public church and the public witness of the
Christian faith often termed “Public Theology.” Pearson who has written extensively on the
topic describes Public Theology as:
·
Practical and intellectual
Christian engagement in the major issues of society;
·
Recognising both the marginal
location of the Christian faith in a post-Christendom world, and the value of
other disciplines;
·
Addressing practical questions,
often in the secular language of human rights, justice, etc;
·
One voice among many in the
marketplace of ideas, concerned with the well-being of society; and
·
Seeking to provide resources
for people to make connections between their faith and the practical issues
facing society.
“Each Sunday we are involved in public
worship – it is not meant to be hidden, it is for society. The Lord’s Prayer is
a public prayer, which incorporates everyone when we say ‘Our Father’,” said
Drayton.
“The public ministry of Jesus and the
purpose of God, the overflowing love and care of God, expressed in the Lord’s
Prayer, is for the sake of our world. We are to be involved with the whole
world, not just the Church,” he said.
Participants in groups envisioned what
the apostle Paul would have written to the Church in Fiji and then wrote their
own letters in that same fashion, calling the Church to involved in the events
in the community.
 |
| Pastor Raj Deo and Rev. Dr. Tuikilakila Waqairatu take a break from the "Living the Lord's Prayer"workshop |
“We have learned a lot of new things in
this symposium,” said Raj Deo, a pastor with Fiji Community Churches of Christ,
serving in Nausori. “I have never
thought of the impact of the Lord’s Prayer for our community in this way
before.”
Methodist Church President, Rev. Dr.
Tuikilakila Waqairatu, said that the revisiting of the Lord’s Prayer and the
Apostle’s Creed through the new persepectives provided by Drayton and Pearson
were a simple yet profound challenge for the Church to address the different
kinds of human issues we are facing in 21st century Fiji, against
the background of a multiplicity of race, gender, religion and social status. We
have been helped to reflect on the situation we see and to act because our
faith is not only private, but a public faith that should bring about the greatest
good for the flourishing of all.”
The test of faith, personal as it may be, is then how
it enables a practitioner to face the situations in society as they arise, for
the common good.
No comments:
Post a Comment