Party

Life is a party

Life is a party. God created for joy, for fun. What happened, then, that everything is so serious, so violent, so exclusive and full of conflict? What is joy? I do not mean simply ‘pleasure’ because that could be connected to a masochist hurting for pleasure or self-gratifying activities like masturbation but I think both of these pleasures are possible in joy, properly defined. Joy is presence. “I am” without any end to the predicate is joy. “What are you doing?” I am ‘amming’ could be my answer to provide some colloquial reason that demands an activity or at least a state of being beyond, just, ‘I am’. Look at the birds: according to biologists, they show ‘a demonstrative value of being’ without doing, knowing or having anything.

‘I am’ comes before ‘I do’ or ‘I know’ and well before ‘I have’. Logically, without being there is no one to do, know or possess? Yet we have idolised the latter at the expense of the foundation of life. Only when we restore ‘being’ to the primary role in our lives will we enjoy life as a party. ‘Knowing’ and ‘doing’ are less than ‘being’. They are secondary actors as we agree that life is a party. The key test is to ask the legitimate question, when we are alone and honest and spend time on the Augustinian reversal:

· “It is not that we should use God to enjoy the world but that we should use the world to enjoy God”
Religious people are more openly flagrant users of God to enjoy the world. By our prayers, telling God what to do, we have become demonic consumers. In our madness, we claim God’s healing with personal orders so that we can enjoy the world. “Please God heal my spouse, I’m tired of doing the dishes!” From this doing and knowing global village, it is a logical extension to see inactivity as wrong or a sin. ‘Being’ implies doing nothing. The growth economics law, another demon, demands that we work harder and every year so that we can grow! What is the goal of modern economics ‘so that one day you can retire and do nothing’ but we are doing that already without getting a hernia.

The opposite of joy is godlessness, or not being present! Look at the cross to see the meaning of the absence of joy, the only real place of godlessness, literally demonstrating that God was not present. As Moltmann the theologian put it, God killed God on the cross. Yet it also provides comfort for those who suffer that the presence of that crucified person can give hope that a resurrection in their suffering may and does happen. However, I want to suggest that because of that once-only event, the cross, joy is permanently here. The resurrection declares that God is always present and powerful so that joy is infectious.

Worldwide, the gospel is producing fruit. We may not notice it, especially if we are carriers of the joy by the power of the Spirit, we are too busy infecting all around us with joy. The possible failure in our action is in not telling others, outside of our comfort zone. We do not tell others that heaven is free and they too should enjoy God in a new relationship of grace. Laws, rules and ideology are disguising this fact that we are free. Laws depress us and joy seems far away, a silly mistake brought about by our own misunderstanding. We do not think that God wants to party!

Relatable

Equality

We aspire, says the SA Constitution, to recognising the other person and the earth as equals. ‘Aspiring’ is a pretty idea, if we were en route to equality but many of us we hate it or we struggle to embrace it. On the other hand, in the journey towards a just society, we automatically work towards freedom for others. In this act, ideally, lies the joy of saying as others grab freedom, “now we are equal!” The actual world, though, over thousands of years, has lived unequally. With the exception of Scandinavia, the world does not even aspire to it. Correcting it seems impossible: the history of the accumulation of capital so badly skews in favour of the few. Just inheritance alone for South Africans, means our wretched past re-visits us every time a person from the ‘have-not’ past dies with little to inherit in comparison to the ‘haves’.

With great courage, it is possible for a community to change our world so that we are all actually equal. Slavery took over a hundred years to disappear but Methodists changed that world. Apartheid took three hundred years to die with help from the Spiritual Community. Equality, naturally, will only last a second because some human beings will get drunk and give away their new prosperity. Equality will only have lasted a brief moment in our history but at least equity will prevail where no one loses out. As a campaigning community for equality, we will address education issues so that new South Africans politically liberated but economically shackled will learn how to own property and live sustainably.

Not everyone will cope, even with education. How many very well educated friends do you have that are broke or drunk? That is why we must own the idea of equity, not equality. To try to live up to the high Scandinavian models should be our goal, reaching up for greatness. Not anywhere near mediocrity, equity is the economic model where no one loses out! We are not the same, living equally but we are all satisfied that we have enough. The paradigm in antiquity of the manna and the quails is a simple example. Another more modern example could be Bangladesh.

If we take seriously the Good News that heaven is free and say ‘yes’ to God in gratitude, then God empowers us to work for justice. This power gives us courage to take on massive projects like bringing equality to South Africa. The drive of the Spirit restlessly urges us from within to release power for justice. In fact, despite us in our gemors – forgiven sinners – the Spirit slowly changes us to become courageous (holy) and empowered for action, soaring like eagles.