Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- Firbush Retreat Summer 2017 June 15, 2017 Trevor Hart, "Creation, Eucharist and New Creation I" https://tftorrance.org/firbushS2017 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:04 Before now I'd hoped to be here for the whole time but I came down with the mother of all colds about 00:04-00:09 five days ago and it only really began to raise its 00:09-00:16 alcohol yesterday so hopefully my voice will hold out through this and I don't think I'm still 00:16-00:23 infectious so it's good to be here it's nice to see lots of people I know from lots of different 00:23-00:29 places over several decades some of whom I haven't seen for several decades so that's always a 00:29-00:38 pleasure. Creation, you Kristen, you creation. I've got the peculiar benefit or disadvantage of having 00:38-00:47 two time slots interrupted rudely by dinner so I mean I've got material which I think will probably 00:47-00:53 break naturally at a certain point if we have to break it unnaturally then we'll just do that 00:53-01:01 that's fine. I mean I am going to talk to you and I have some things to say but I also want us to get 01:01-01:04 involved in conversation and discussion and I don't just mean question and answer I mean 01:04-01:10 discussion because we can all learn from each other about this. I'm a bit out of practice 01:10-01:15 on academic things three years or more ago now three and a half years ago I moved from 01:15-01:21 being a professor of divinity at the university to being full-time rector of an episcopal church 01:21-01:30 in the town so this is a nice excuse to do something academic but it's a while since 01:30-01:35 I've done anything academic so if it comes across in places like a sermon it'll be no worse for that 01:35-01:42 I'm sure. Tom's students always used to say that his opening prayers were the best bit of 01:42-01:47 his theology lectures but I think it's a long time since anybody actually remembers. Anybody 01:47-01:54 here remember Tom? There must be some, yes there we are so you can bear eloquent witness. So to get us started 01:54-02:00 I am going to talk about you Chris but not in the first instance I'm going to pick up on what I 02:00-02:05 gather you've been talking about I presume you've been talking about since you began and that is the 02:05-02:10 relationship between new and old creation and the nature of Christian hope in the new creation 02:12-02:20 and I want in due course to persuade you if I can that our capacity for acts of imagination 02:20-02:25 are very important in this regard I was delighted to see it the table at the back among all the Tom 02:25-02:32 Torrens books and books about Tom Torrens a single John McIntyre book, Faith, Theology and Imagination 02:32-02:37 book which I read when it came out in the 1980s and had a very big impact on me and a very good 02:37-02:45 book but rather under read I think so have a glance at it. I want to persuade you as I say that our 02:45-02:51 capacity for acts of imagination as human beings are vital to firstly our apprehension of the 02:51-02:58 contours of God's promise concerning the world's future in his hands, secondly to appreciating the 02:58-03:03 nature of Eucharist, the Lord's Supper and thirdly to grasping the way in which those two things might be 03:04-03:09 mixed up with one another. So by way of preference and to get you a bit warmed up because 03:09-03:14 you've probably got soaked like me this afternoon and feeling in need of being a bit warmed up 03:14-03:18 and thinking along the right lines I've got a little exercise for you to do and you can do it 03:18-03:24 just where you're sitting with in groups of three maybe, could be four, could even be two but that's 03:24-03:32 a bit intimate so let's do three or four. What I want you to do is have a think and then identify 03:33-03:38 ten things between you if you can come up with ten have a stab at it that we would immediately 03:38-03:47 cease to be able to do as human beings if we were subject to an imaginedectomy were such a thing 03:47-03:52 medically possible. I don't think it is unfortunately but let's imagine that it were 03:52-03:59 what things would immediately fall out of our orbit of capacity. Just have a 04:01-04:04 I think the lady boss calls them bus groups we don't need to call them bus groups but just 04:04-04:07 have a conversation about that for a few minutes. 04:07-04:18 Mr. 04:18-04:29 O'Brien 07:36-07:39 Okay folks let's 07:39-07:44 come back to order 07:44-07:57 Right okay that's got to be talking to each other which is good in itself. It may also have come up 07:57-08:02 with some answers to the question which could be helpful so who wants to have a stab just throw out 08:02-08:07 a batter. I need to come in any particular order and chat them out. 08:07-08:08 I'm unable to plan. 08:08-08:10 Plan good right. 08:10-08:12 Or envisage change. 08:12-08:14 Right good envisage change. What else? 08:14-08:18 No surprise. 08:18-08:19 No surprise. 08:19-08:20 No art no music. 08:20-08:23 Okay art music obviously yeah good. 08:23-08:25 Science. 08:25-08:27 Science. Okay everyone said a little bit more about science. 08:27-08:28 Inventions. 08:28-08:29 Inventions. 08:37-08:40 Good yeah connections absolutely good. 08:40-08:42 Couldn't sympathise with other people. 08:42-08:44 Thank you. Sympathy. 08:44-08:52 You can't get out of so you can't think of creative ways of solving problems otherwise 08:52-08:55 yeah problem solving whatever yeah okay good any others? 08:55-08:57 Poetry. 08:57-08:59 Poetry thank you. 08:59-09:04 We discussed about the visions and dreams. 09:04-09:08 Yeah insight yeah insight good. 09:08-09:14 Social etiquette. 09:14-09:17 Be polite to people dealing with people yeah yeah. 09:17-09:18 No humour. 09:18-09:23 Yeah I have a second. 09:24-09:27 Want me to be able to read the bible properly I'm going to put that in just as it is we 09:27-09:30 can come back to that but yeah read the bible properly yeah. 09:30-09:31 No fear. 09:31-09:34 No fear ah that's a good one. 09:34-09:36 Okay yes good. 09:36-09:37 Historiography. 09:37-09:38 Historiography yeah. 09:38-09:42 Virtually everything apart from being a robot. 09:42-09:46 Virtually everything apart from being a robot. 09:46-09:49 Right you couldn't even do that exercise. 09:49-09:53 Well you couldn't do what you've been doing that's for sure. 09:53-09:58 All right I'm going to draw a line under what Bob just said because in a sense I think it 09:58-10:01 sort of makes one of the points I want to make which is we could go on doing this for 10:01-10:05 another 10, 15, 20 minutes and still only have scratched the surface because when you 10:05-10:09 stop to think about it you realize that our capacity for active imagination of one sort 10:09-10:13 or another some which are much more explicitly imaginative than others and we're conscious 10:13-10:17 of being imaginative others when we're much less conscious of it that we're doing it 10:17-10:21 tacitly it's shot through the hole of what we do as human beings. 10:23-10:28 It's pervasive and the capacity for it is really a fundamental feature of what it means 10:28-10:33 to be a human being relating to the world God has made relating to other people relating 10:33-10:39 to God no one mentioned prayer or worship but you know I don't know what you have I 10:39-10:42 don't know what you do what happens in your mind's eye when you're praying but something's 10:42-10:42 going on. 10:42-10:48 So yeah okay so first of all imagination we could say if we wanted to come up with a 10:49-10:53 definition with a sort of working definition or a cluster of things which get to the heart 10:53-11:02 of it imagination is all pervasive it's powerful it can be good it can be bad. 11:02-11:07 I used to teach a course on theology and the imagination and it has abused people of some 11:07-11:14 of the excesses of 19th century idealist notions of the imagination I remind students that 11:14-11:16 you know there's nothing more imaginative than a torture chamber. 11:18-11:24 Add to exact maximum pain for people so it can be good it can be bad but it is powerful 11:24-11:32 and in a sense it makes our lives complicated I should put a slide of a Labrador lying 11:32-11:34 sleeping in front of the fire or something because I often think life would be an awful 11:34-11:39 lot easier if we were like a Labrador we sort of exist in the moment you know we don't need 11:39-11:42 to think about things we don't need to worry about anything we don't get excited about 11:42-11:46 anything that's going to happen it just when it happens we get excited we don't have to 11:46-11:52 think about the past we just dwell in the moment but we're not like that our imagination is working 11:52-12:00 all the time situating us in a wide spectrum of different things so one way of pinning 12:00-12:04 down some of the fundamental things imagination does would be to say it enables us in one way or 12:04-12:10 another and there are lots of ways to trespass beyond the immediacy of the moment trespass 12:10-12:15 beyond the immediacy of what is presented to us I'm already wondering what's for dinner 12:16-12:22 right I'm not looking at you at all I'm thinking about the three-course dinner and whatever anyway 12:22-12:29 um and in lots of different ways that is true whether the immediacy we trespass into the past 12:29-12:36 or into the future or into some possible future or into some impossible state of affair we can 12:36-12:40 trespass beyond the immediacy of what we're presented with and secondly I would say one 12:40-12:46 of the fundamental things that imagination does and one two people's uh observations pointed to it 12:46-12:53 is it helps us to make connections or we might say it helps us to situate particular things in 12:53-13:00 wider patterns of meaning it's a thing which enables us to find meaning in things to recognize 13:00-13:08 one thing as like another and therefore as a type of thing or to recognize a fact as significant 13:08-13:14 in the situation for all sorts of possible outcomes that cs lewis refers to the imagination 13:14-13:20 as the organ of meaning now things can be meaningful and totally false but the point is 13:20-13:27 meaningfulness is tied up with our recognition of pattern and that's an imaginative disposition the 13:27-13:34 ability to construct pattern the imaginative the capacity to recognize it so why is that relevant 13:34-13:41 in any way shape or form to what we're here to talk about well because futurity our capacity to 13:41-13:50 apprehend grasp picture entertain ideas of the future and how we might move into the future 13:50-13:59 that is a fundamental task of our imaginative capacity it's been suggested more than once 14:00-14:06 that our capacity to do this to reach forward to construct or to apprehend things which as yet are 14:06-14:13 in that uncertain territory of the future is essential to our creaturely being uh creaturely 14:13-14:19 nature rather as human beings as opposed to labradors okay um and that can be a good thing 14:19-14:25 because it means we can hope it means we can have expectation it can be a bad thing it means we can 14:25-14:32 live in fear in terror sometimes it's pathological um but the capacity itself is highly highly 14:32-14:38 imaginative that we are particular you'll notice that we generally are situated in particular 14:38-14:43 places and particular times and although the nature of temporality is more complex than it 14:43-14:50 sometimes seems to us to be we generally know that we can only be in one place and one moment 14:50-14:55 at once despite the demands of modern living and the availability of everything on your phone 14:55-15:01 nevertheless you can only be in one place at one time but that means that the texture of our 15:01-15:08 apprehension of the present and of the past are a little bit different from one another 15:08-15:13 and both are different again from our apprehension of what is still in the future after all in a 15:13-15:18 sense we can know the past we can know things that have happened we can log them chart them describe 15:18-15:24 them make statements about them with a certain degree of reliability although as soon as you 15:24-15:30 push that hard you begin to realize actually there's a certain unreliability too and a lot 15:30-15:35 of interpretation comes in that's an imaginative activity why did things happen the way they did 15:35-15:41 how did they happen um and of course memory if yours is anything like mine um also doesn't always 15:41-15:47 serve us with hard nuggets of fact the way things absolutely were even before we get into 15:47-15:51 interpretation i find that my memory lets me down increasingly about all sorts of things 15:51-15:56 and i misremember things sometimes i remember them the way i've narrated them for the last 15:56-16:01 10 years and then i discovered that it was just that's how i've been telling people it was um 16:01-16:06 so memory is sort of firm sort of gives us something to work with but it's still fairly 16:06-16:13 pliable and when we think about the future we're in even more difficult territory our apprehension 16:13-16:21 of the future is always provisional it's always partial and it's always subject to a high degree 16:21-16:29 of fallibility we might say but the fact that we're not trapped in the present moment the fact 16:29-16:35 that we're not trapped or absorbed by the present moment that we can trust us beyond it in what we 16:35-16:42 call memory and especially what we call hope that is essential to the structuring and the peculiar 16:42-16:47 value of human existence we spend a lot of our time in other words looking forward to things 16:47-16:53 i think we sometimes think that we live wholly in the present moment 16:53-16:58 because i've already suggested my my what's going on in my consciousness insofar as i'm aware of it 16:58-17:02 and stop and think about it it's constant flickering between past present and future 17:02-17:11 it's not a simple uh unadorned experience of the now it's constantly expectation fear anxiety 17:11-17:17 memory regret all those things feed in so that we sort of have a past present and a 17:17-17:24 future present it's all mixed together and it's vitally important that we can look forward to 17:24-17:28 things because as we'll see it makes a huge difference to the shape of who and what we are 17:28-17:35 and do in the here and now and who and what we are gradually becoming as we press on and move into 17:35-17:41 the relatively unknown territory of later on of tomorrow and of whatever lies beyond that 17:42-17:45 uh in his book after babel which is a book about language in translation 17:45-17:53 george steiner philosopher man of letters i don't know what you call him really um says that the 17:53-17:57 fact that our language possesses a future tense i mean imagine for a minute if our language didn't 17:57-18:05 possess a future tense that we couldn't say anything about the future what would that be like 18:05-18:10 the fact he says that our language possesses a future tense that we can construct 18:11-18:17 and project statements about what may yet be or what yet will be is vital to our existence 18:17-18:23 as creatures directed narratively that's to say situating ourselves in some story that we tell 18:23-18:28 about ourselves that we tell about god that we tell about the world that we tell about human 18:28-18:34 history and directed situated in the present moment with an awareness of a past from which 18:34-18:41 we've come and which shapes us memory identity and the future towards which we're moving 18:41-18:46 we're not creatures whose responses to the world in other words are dependent only 18:46-18:54 on instinct and desire back to the labrador again we used to have a labrador that's the only reason 18:54-18:59 i keep using this we now have a moratorium who is a completely different animal we thought we 18:59-19:07 were downsizing um if ever you're faced with that choice get a labrador they take up a lot less 19:07-19:16 space george steiner says this oh it's not the right thing sorry i'll get to save that for later 19:16-19:22 we move forward he says in the slipstream that's right of the statements we make about tomorrow 19:22-19:30 morning we move forward we direct ourselves in the slipstream of statements we make about tomorrow 19:30-19:37 morning or next week or we project states of affairs we picture states of affairs and then 19:37-19:44 we move into them we strive to realize them or perhaps we seek to avoid them the point is that 19:44-19:51 that capacity to look forward to imagine future is vital to the shaping of our living and generally 19:51-19:58 we move forward eagerly expectantly looking forward to what the day the week the decade even may bring 19:58-20:07 i'm now 56. we don't keep pushing pensions on and on and on i'm sort of half looking forward to 20:07-20:12 the end of my next decade from the relaxation i'm sure it's going to bring 20:18-20:23 don't disabuse me of my my illusions otherwise i'll never get through the next nine years 20:23-20:30 there's a certain sort of insatiability about us as human beings that's another thing that comes 20:30-20:37 out of the writing on all this there is a relative lack of contentment relative lack of contentment 20:37-20:41 not absolute but a relative lack of contentment with whatever we've known in the past 20:41-20:47 although we do sometimes have that sort of davidic monarchy golden age 20:48-20:50 previous rectum was better than you you know that sort of thing we all know that 20:50-20:59 and the relative lack of contentment with the state of play no matter how good we have it 20:59-21:04 we're never quite comfortable we're never quite content there's a hunger for something more 21:04-21:11 for something better for something as yet still to be and it's our capacity to picture those things 21:11-21:15 no matter how realistic they are retirement or anything else 21:16-21:21 to configure them in our mind's eye that's to say to hold those pictures those visions in our mind's 21:21-21:29 eye to trespass beyond the apparent limits and lacks and wants of the here and now which energizes 21:29-21:38 and informs our inventiveness invention our creativeness our curiosity our resilience 21:38-21:46 in the present moment because something better to come will struggle to get there our tireless 21:46-21:54 pursuit of meaning truth goodness and beauty none of which we feel we have access to or full immersion 21:54-22:02 in now and yet there is more to come and so that expectation that hope is what keeps us moving what 22:02-22:08 energizes us as human beings and if we couldn't picture it we would be literally or would be 22:08-22:14 hopeless and we'd be stuck in the present in a way that actually i think a lot of contemporary 22:14-22:20 culture seems to be becoming there's no way forward it's all pretty much going to be the 22:20-22:26 same tomorrow as it has been today and so we just knuckle down and keep doing the same old things 22:26-22:32 now as i said of course futurity is never unambiguously positive our capacity to imagine 22:32-22:39 future states is also that which enables fear anxiety worry what about the test results still 22:39-22:46 to come back from the clinic what about a danger of a terrorist incident at the airport what about 22:46-22:52 the melting of polar ice caps the poisoning of the oceans by pollutants the threats of wholesale 22:52-22:58 immigration from the global south to the global north as rising sea levels flood low-lying land 22:58-23:04 matters and render them uninhabitable we could go on our capacity to imagine future is not 23:04-23:10 unambiguously positive but hope steiner insists isn't incompatible with fears and worries 23:10-23:20 it actually coexists with them and it functions despite them hope he says plans it strategizes 23:20-23:28 it strives to do whatever can be done and whatever is needful in order to meet those challenges real 23:28-23:34 and sizable though they may well be uh problem solving someone said well ratchet that up to the 23:34-23:40 major scale okay what do we need to do to deal with this so hope isn't actually incompatible 23:40-23:48 with realistic negative imagining of the future it actually is what energizes to cope with it 23:48-23:55 and to struggle to get beyond it hope the jesuit theologian william lynch puts it even in the midst 23:55-24:00 of the most difficult and threatening of situations sees a bigger picture of possibilities hope is 24:00-24:07 always slow he says to admit that all the facts are in hope is always slow to admit that all the 24:07-24:15 doors have been tried and that it's defeated steiner again comments on how this is closely 24:15-24:20 bound up with our capacity for language the conventions of forwardness he says that are so 24:20-24:28 deeply entrenched in our syntax make for a constant sometimes involuntary resilience drown as we may 24:28-24:37 the idiom of hope so immediate to the mind thrust us to the surface natural selection he says has 24:37-24:46 favored the subjunctive the capacity to inquire in every circumstance we face what if we lose that 24:47-24:55 we lose everything now i can put this on there we go this is also william lynch hope he says 24:55-25:00 and you can see why he says it now hope comes close to being the very heart and center 25:00-25:09 of human being i'm not going to make sweeping universal claims about how it differentiates us 25:09-25:13 from other animals because you immediately invite um you know people saying quite rightly well how 25:13-25:17 do you know i have no idea but it does seem to be a distinctively human thing nevertheless 25:17-25:26 that we um are capable of doing this strange thing hoping envisaging and then working towards 25:26-25:33 moving towards futures which we entertain in our mind's eye and that means of course in theological 25:33-25:38 terms it gets you wondering whether this theology is going to come into this as well as being a 25:38-25:47 fundamentally human uh condition hopefulness is basic to the sorts of creatures that god has made 25:47-26:00 us and that god calls us to be they've gone to the future you see that everybody that's the one bit 26:00-26:08 of clever technology used this afternoon so you may as well enjoy it okay hope in the shape of our faith 26:08-26:13 but hope of course is also basic to the substance and the shape of christian faith 26:13-26:23 jurgen maltman german theologian who has structured his entire corpus of writings over his career 26:23-26:29 since 1960s around eschatology the doctrine of the last things or but for him it's not just about the 26:29-26:34 last thing it's about the whole of theology the whole of reality in the light of the last things 26:34-26:42 for him christian faith is from first to last found up with jesus who is the risen lord of the church 26:42-26:49 and israel's messiah the hoped for one the one who comes in the fulfillment of promise promising 26:49-26:56 is another thing which is fundamentally imaginative both in its being given and in it being received 26:58-27:02 it's a faith which while it has its roots in a narrated past and while it's called to live 27:02-27:08 distinctively within a given present it's a faith which is fundamentally orientated towards the 27:08-27:16 future and to the substance and shape of god's promise rather than working just with what 27:16-27:23 otherwise seems humanly probable or humanly possible given the way the world is and given 27:23-27:29 the sorts of creatures human beings are christian hope has a distinctive dimension to it and we'll 27:29-27:39 come back to that in a few moments let me pause at this point to suggest and you can test it later 27:39-27:46 if you like that the way in which this future orientated faith is generated and nurtured is 27:46-27:52 again fundamentally imaginative it relies from first to last on our capacity for imagining which 27:52-27:59 means that what mormon says the whole of christian theology is cast in the disposition in the mode of 27:59-28:05 hope um not that that's to deny memory or any other but that's the thing it's forward-looking 28:05-28:13 that means that really theology faith and the theology which is born of faith is a fundamentally 28:13-28:22 imaginative activity from first to last it draws us out of the present moment and orientates us 28:22-28:29 towards god's promised future that's true not just in the relatively prosaic sense that we can 28:29-28:33 imagine things that haven't yet come to pass i mean i can imagine driving home tomorrow 28:33-28:38 i can imagine having relatively little time left this week to prepare my sermon for sunday 28:38-28:44 i can imagine the outcomes of that on sunday morning and so on and it's true in the more 28:44-28:51 literary sense too our apprehension for god's promise our apprehension of god's promise rather 28:51-28:58 is shaped and nourished by a series of images images that we find shot through scripture 28:58-29:06 and which duly come to shape both our liturgy and our theology so there's a sense in which theology 29:06-29:14 is a form of politics as well we're working with imaginative materials 29:14-29:20 we're working responsibly with imaginative materials we're certainly working with imaginative 29:20-29:31 materials now new creation is precisely one such image it calls us to picture an unknown and in some 29:31-29:39 ways no doubt unimaginable state of affairs what god will do in some future moment on the basis of 29:39-29:46 another slightly more familiar though strictly speaking also unknown and unimaginable circumstance 29:46-29:53 in the story of gods of the world's coming to be in the hands of god what will happen in the future 29:53-29:59 is analogous to what once happened in the beginning another short exercise for you 29:59-30:07 wait those of you up drifting off into that pre-dinner snooze which at this time of the day 30:07-30:12 is extremely attractive um and i'm going to take a couple of minutes to have one while you're 30:14-30:21 exercise back in your bus group for a minute identify five other significant eschatological 30:21-30:29 images images of god's promised future in terms of which scripture encourages us to imagine 30:29-30:36 the shape of that future and then secondly i shouldn't take you very long secondly 30:37-30:45 what amongst all those do you think is the particular theological force of the image of new 30:45-30:51 creation so you've already got one new creation you'll need four more um and then what is the 30:51-30:56 distinct what is it about the image of new creation what does that say that perhaps none 30:56-31:01 of the others stay in quite the same way what does it draw attention to what weight does it seem to 31:01-31:07 have theologically um which perhaps others don't have because we've got more than one to work with 31:07-31:14 this one's quite a significant one um and probably the most forceful um take four five minutes and 31:14-31:26 then we'll have a bit of feedback 31:26-31:37 is 31:37-31:45 so 31:46-31:46 a lot of 31:46-31:54 is 31:54-32:01 yeah 32:01-32:08 so 32:08-32:16 anyway 32:16-32:23 so 32:23-32:30 well 32:30-32:35 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:35-32:40 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:40-32:44 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:44-32:49 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:49-32:53 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:53-32:57 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 32:57-33:02 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:02-33:06 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:06-33:11 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:11-33:15 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:15-33:20 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:20-33:24 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:24-33:28 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:28-33:33 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:33-33:37 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:37-33:42 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:42-33:46 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:46-33:51 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:51-33:55 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 33:55-34:00 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:00-34:04 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:04-34:08 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:08-34:13 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:13-34:17 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:17-34:22 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:22-34:26 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:26-34:31 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:31-34:35 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:35-34:40 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:40-34:44 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:44-34:48 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:48-34:53 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:53-34:57 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 34:57-35:02 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:02-35:06 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:06-35:11 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:11-35:15 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:15-35:19 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:19-35:24 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:24-35:28 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:28-35:33 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:33-35:37 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:37-35:42 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:42-35:46 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:46-35:51 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:51-35:55 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:55-35:59 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 35:59-36:03 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 36:03-36:07 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 36:17-36:21 OK, folks, let's gather our thoughts. 36:21-36:25 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 36:25-36:29 [SIDE CONVERSATIONS] 36:29-36:35 And we're all encouraged to say academic circles when we do these sorts of things. There are no wrong answers. 36:35-36:42 There probably are, but I won't bother telling you. Anyway, so, first of all, just some rapid fire suggestions. 36:42-36:50 Apart from New Creation, we've got that one. Other images that scripture feeds into our thinking, our reflection? 36:50-36:51 The Holy City. 36:51-36:56 The Holy City, thank you. Yeah, that's good. Thanks, John. Others? 36:56-36:58 A banquet. 36:58-37:02 Banquet, yeah. Marriage feast, banquet. Good, yeah. Having a cough. 37:02-37:04 Constant presence of God. 37:04-37:07 Yep, so being in God's presence, yeah. 37:07-37:09 The line of the land. 37:09-37:13 Uh huh, yeah. Yep, good. 37:13-37:14 No sorrow. 37:14-37:18 Thank you. Which is an interesting one, because sometimes that's what the scripture does. 37:18-37:23 It actually takes negative states of affairs in the current world and goes, "We're not having any of that." 37:23-37:28 Which is sort of an interesting way of working. Other times it takes good things and says, 37:28-37:31 it's sort of like that, but so much more. 37:31-37:34 Yeah, but no sorrow, no pain, no death. 37:34-37:36 Judgement. 37:36-37:38 Judgement, yeah, good. 37:38-37:39 Beauty. 37:39-37:40 Yeah. 37:40-37:41 Healing. 37:41-37:42 Yep. 37:42-37:44 Your aging. 37:44-37:46 Yeah, my, yeah. 37:46-37:47 Early gates. 37:47-37:48 Hmm? 37:48-37:49 Early gates. 37:49-37:50 Early gates. 37:50-37:52 Yeah, I suppose we could. 37:52-37:54 Garden. 37:54-37:56 Precious stones and the splendor of colour. 37:56-37:59 Okay. Hang on, hang on. 37:59-38:03 Can't hear if everybody's chattering. 38:03-38:04 Uh, thoughts? 38:04-38:05 Order. 38:05-38:08 Order? Yeah, yeah, good. 38:08-38:10 Resilient and poities. 38:10-38:15 Yeah, resurrection, I mean, actually is an image. I know it's also something else, but I mean, it's actually, 38:15-38:20 you know, what are we doing when we go resurrection? We're imagining people coming back to life from death. 38:20-38:21 To righteousness. 38:21-38:23 Righteousness? Yeah. 38:23-38:24 Yep. 38:24-38:26 Creativity in music art. 38:26-38:28 Okay, yeah. 38:28-38:31 No temple level, no church. 38:31-38:34 Hallelujah. 38:34-38:37 Yeah, good. 38:37-38:42 Alright, the only other one I've got on my list that you haven't got so far is Sabbath Rest, which is, 38:42-38:43 Worship. 38:43-38:46 Well, yeah, worship is a good one, so, yeah. 38:46-38:53 Alright, let's, let's, we could go on forever with that as well, and, you know, perhaps more will come to you over dinner and things, which is good. 38:53-39:00 But let's move on to the second part, which is perhaps the more challenging question, I suppose, is what, what, 39:00-39:06 what, you've got all those to choose from, so what, because I think in some sense new creation is a, 39:06-39:11 in the same way that, the way you come to images of the atonement and so on, there's a sense in which, 39:11-39:17 you know, some images seem to have more centrality and more normative status than others, even though there are lots of others. 39:17-39:23 And I think in terms of eschatology, new creation is one of those images that seems to bring a lot of others to a head, 39:23-39:27 and certainly one of the more forceful ones, when you think about what it's saying. 39:27-39:35 It's not simply taking a state of affairs from it, state of affairs from it, it's all of us, and either denying it or saying more of the same, 39:35-39:42 it's doing something more fundamental than that, so what does that connote, what does it seem to be saying when scripture reaches that image? 39:42-39:45 Universality? 39:45-39:47 Universality. OK, good. 39:47-39:52 Perfect relationships, both between us and the person. 39:52-39:54 OK, so, perfection, yeah. 39:54-39:57 The reconstitution of what already is. 39:57-39:59 Right, OK. 39:59-40:02 The reconstitution, yeah. 40:02-40:06 It's hard to come up with the right verbs, isn't it, at that point, but yeah, I think we know what you mean. 40:06-40:08 Very green. 40:08-40:11 Very green? OK. 40:11-40:13 In the eco sense, you think? 40:13-40:14 Yes. 40:14-40:16 Good, OK. 40:16-40:18 Good, OK. 40:18-40:22 OK, well, I mean, come up, here's what I got for this. 40:22-40:32 I mean, it seems to me that if you're talking about, if you're saying God's promise is to do something which is analogous to the original creation, 40:32-40:44 then you're saying that whatever God is going to do is a radical, from the bottom up, wholesale transformation or transfiguration of the creation, 40:44-40:56 so drastic as to be analogous with that original 'let there be', which surely is the most amazing, remarkable thing we could ever imagine. 40:56-40:58 We have difficulty imagining it. 40:58-41:08 So, something radically and drastically new, because it's fundamentally from the bottom up renewed, but it's new. 41:08-41:20 And in its newness, in some fundamental ways, discontinuous with the current order of things, with the old creation, to call it that, the world as it is. 41:20-41:25 I mean, if you're going to have a place where, you know, lions and lambs... 41:25-41:32 When I first had a Mac computer in the 1980s, there was a little game you could play, which was an ecology game, whereby you got to choose foxes and rabbits, 41:32-41:38 and you put a certain number of foxes with a certain number of rabbits, and then the computer calculated what would happen if you had that combination of... 41:38-41:44 Either the place, suddenly, loads and loads of foxes, and then there were no rabbits and the foxes all died, or... 41:44-41:48 Anyway, just reminded me of that, but lions and lambs... 41:48-41:52 I mean, if you're going to have an ecology in which lions lie down with lambs rather than helping themselves to dinner, 41:52-42:01 then clearly something very, very different is going on from the biological and zoological thing we're used to. 42:01-42:10 If you're going to have a world in which there's no death and no sorrow, I mean, we're talking about something where we might have to say there's going to have to be a new physics. 42:10-42:20 Something so radical that the very constituent parts and relationships between those parts of the cosmos are going to be fundamentally changed, 42:20-42:25 because we can't imagine otherwise how what we know could possibly... 42:25-42:30 You know, it just couldn't, with the current constitution of things, physically, chemically, biologically. 42:30-42:37 It's going to be so new that we can't even imagine it. That's the irony. It's beyond the level of our imagining. 42:37-42:46 And that means something in terms of our hoping, something which is unconstrained, 42:46-42:56 something which is unlimited by the possibilities and potentialities of the world we know, both in nature and in history and culture. 42:56-43:09 Our expectation of what that will be like, if new creation is an appropriate image, need not be constrained by what science tells us is probable or possible in the natural world, 43:09-43:16 and what we know of the history of human beings tells us is probable or possible in the human world. 43:16-43:24 The only thing that could strain our imagining of that new creation, we might say, is what is possible for the god. 43:24-43:32 We've called the world into being out of nothing, who drew life out of death in the resurrection, 43:32-43:42 and who promises to make all things new in an act which is fundamentally analogous to new creation. 43:42-43:48 Let me quote myself and my colleague Richard Borkham, who wrote a book back in the early 90s called Hope Against Hope, 43:48-43:56 talking about this image, among other things, that new creation, by evoking an analogy with creation in the beginning, 43:56-44:08 requires us to think of a newly creative act of god in which possibilities will be realised which do not belong to the imminent potentiality of the first creation, 44:08-44:15 but which come from the transcendent possibilities of god's creative power and love. 44:15-44:21 At the same time, new creation is paradoxical as this may first sound. 44:21-44:30 New creation is the new creation of this present creation. It's renewal, not it's replacement. 44:30-44:34 So it's holding those two things in tension. 44:34-44:49 Now that, if we take it seriously and work with it, seems fairly obviously to set Christian hope radically apart from all other forms of human hopefulness, 44:49-44:58 although I think that's not to say there's anything bad or wasteful or unnecessary about... 44:58-45:02 I mean, human hopefulness in general is very important to human existence in the world, 45:02-45:08 but when it comes to the hope that Christians have for the world, it's set radically apart. 45:08-45:17 And it's set radically apart because here our dreaming of dreams and seeing of visions reaches beyond the limits of the world itself, 45:17-45:26 to which our ordinary language, our ordinary powers of reasoning, our knowledge, our understanding, are fitted to deal with. 45:26-45:31 The conditions to which creativity, thought and speech pertain. 45:31-45:35 It's a form of hope which we might call transcendent hope. 45:35-45:42 It's a hope for God to come in and do something radically new, so radically new, as to be analogous with the first creation. 45:42-45:46 It's not constrained by what we know has always been the case historically, 45:46-45:54 by what we know the natural world is going to do in... scientists can tell us that, I mean, very helpfully. 45:54-46:03 But in some sense that cannot and need not constrain the substance of Christian hope, 46:03-46:11 if we believe that that hope is contingent on the promise of a God who is not himself constrained by creation, 46:11-46:19 but holds it in being and has promised to step in and to do something with it, which is fundamentally new, 46:19-46:26 which will frankly render all our history and all our science immediately irrelevant in lots of ways, 46:26-46:31 other than as a fascinating, you know, nice to have all that knowledge. 46:31-46:38 But we'll have to start again, because science in a new creation will have some really exciting and great news for scientists, 46:38-46:43 because suddenly there'll be loads of things to discover and loads of things to explore. 46:43-46:49 And it may even be good news for theologians and historians and artists and others, 46:49-46:56 because the resources with which they work will be replenished in quite a drastic way. 46:56-47:05 Now, the weird thing then is that really, if we take this transcendent hope, this image of new creation, 47:05-47:12 we can only grasp it imaginatively, and yet even imaginatively we can only go so far with it. 47:12-47:20 We can only, as it were, I use the word 'playful', I don't want to invoke the demigods of postmodernity, 47:20-47:24 all I'm saying is it's something like the way an artist works, with an idea. 47:24-47:30 It's great and it's joyful. We can imagine, and we can bear witness to what we imagine. 47:30-47:37 But we have to be very clear that we can't make strong statements about what we know, because we don't know and we can't learn. 47:37-47:44 There is a limit on our language, a limit on our reasoning, which enables only to bear testimony to it, 47:44-47:51 in terms of the images which scripture gives to us, and we should be cautious of placing too much weight on those 47:51-47:55 as if they were sort of literal descriptions. How could they be? 47:55-48:01 The words we use, the ideas we have pertain to this world. We're not talking about this world anymore. 48:01-48:08 It's a bit like the relationship between what we mean when we say 'father' humanly and what we mean when we say 'father of God'. 48:08-48:15 There is a big gap, and there must be a gap, and therefore we have to be cautious about the language we use. 48:15-48:22 But speak of it in the best terms available to us, we must, because we're called to bear witness. 48:22-48:30 And that may and will involve much more than simple words. Speaking of it is one way of dealing with the situation. 48:30-48:38 But, as I want to suggest in a moment, there are other creative ways which actually are even more fundamental 48:38-48:41 because they involve the transformation of the ways in which we live. 48:41-48:52 I'm going to the fourth section, how are we doing for time? Oh, we've got loads of time. What time have we finished, Bob? 48:52-48:55 What about six? Is that when? Yeah, that's fine. 48:55-49:03 Gorilla theatre. Gorilla theatre is a term, a phrase, of Amos Wilder. 49:03-49:06 Don't let that bother you. I just like it. 49:06-49:18 Heralding the coming kingdom, from his point is there are acts of dramatic performances, like prophetic symbolism, 49:18-49:23 and that sort of thing, which counters gorilla theatre in Amos Wilder's terms. 49:23-49:28 It's a commonplace of Christian eschatology to observe that we now live in between the times, 49:28-49:35 in the uncomfortable circumstance in which the already and the not yet are fused together. 49:35-49:41 In other words, we live in a transitional time when the decisive act of God in creating our world, 49:41-49:48 and our humanity anew, has in a sense already begun the down payment in the resurrection, 49:48-49:56 the spirit does things in the church and in human lives, it's already broken messily into the world, 49:56-50:05 and yet only in fragmentary and subversive ways, the wider pattern of things remaining for now 50:05-50:12 under the conditions of the old creation and awaiting their transformation at God's hands and in God's good time. 50:12-50:20 What does this mean in practice? Well, in Paul's highly imaginative portrayal in Romans 8, of course, 50:20-50:26 it means that we, together with the wider creation and with the spirit of God himself, 50:26-50:32 who unites our inarticulate utterance with his own articulate utterance, 50:32-50:38 we groan and shriek and cry out like a woman in labour. 50:38-50:45 There's an image for you, one which I suspect will have more resonance for some members of the gathered throng 50:45-50:54 than for others of us, who can only, as it were, imagine it from our particular perspective on those events, 50:54-51:01 which was bad enough. But we scream and cry out, like a woman in labour says, Paul, 51:01-51:09 impatience waiting for creation's liberation from bondage and subjection to decay. 51:09-51:14 It's a powerful image. And in the midst of all this, Paul says, it is hope. 51:14-51:24 It is our capacity to hold on to that which we do not yet see that sustains us. Romans 8. 24. 51:24-51:30 Now, we saw earlier on that in all sorts of ways, hope, by enabling us to picture possible states of affairs, 51:30-51:36 is in general a liberating and invigorating disposition, which has the power to transfigure the present 51:36-51:42 precisely by relating it to, or by bathing it in the light of, a vision of the future. 51:42-51:48 However, that vision is constructed, whatever materials are drawn into it, woven into it. 51:48-51:57 But we need to be very clear, I think, at this point about the nature of this eschatological looking forward to, 51:57-52:02 or the precise sort of patience which Christian hope instils in us. 52:02-52:09 The classic misunderstanding and misrepresentation of it, of course, is that of Karl Marx's classic deconstruction 52:09-52:18 of eschatological beliefs. That is to say, his insistence that religious hope serves as an opiate for the masses, 52:18-52:25 that's to say, an analgesic designed to dull the pain and the suffering, the screaming out of the woman in labour, 52:25-52:31 of the poor and the vulnerable, and administered by the rich and the powerful, 52:31-52:41 and thereby prevent the otherwise inevitable reaction to cultures of sustained injustice, exploitation and deprivation. 52:41-52:49 Pie in the sky, by and by, as it's sometimes more parochial to put. 52:49-52:56 A hope, in other words, which inculcates and sustains an essentially quietistic disposition, 52:56-53:02 an otherworldly focus for our energies, which renders us, quite another phrase, 53:02-53:06 too heavenly minded to be of much earthly use. 53:06-53:12 A quiet waiting, because we know there's something better to come. 53:12-53:17 Now, the most compelling rejoinder to that presentation of things, that I'm aware of, 53:17-53:21 that comes again from Jurgen Moltmann. 53:21-53:31 Faith, he writes, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest, but unrest. 53:31-53:42 Not patience, but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, it is itself this unquiet heart in man. 53:42-53:48 Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, 53:48-53:52 but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. 53:52-53:57 Peace with God means conflict with the world, 53:57-54:07 for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. 54:07-54:15 The goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. 54:15-54:19 By the way, I should tell you now, when you've already scribbled that down hastily, 54:19-54:24 there is a handout that I'll be giving you later, which will have the key quotations on it, 54:24-54:28 but I won't give it to you now, because it also had the things that I was asking questions about earlier, 54:28-54:30 and then you could simply have read them off the handout. 54:30-54:33 That wouldn't have been very interesting for anyone. 54:33-54:38 So what we're talking about in terms of Christian hoping and Christian waiting, 54:38-54:42 Christian looking forward to, isn't a passive waiting. 54:42-54:46 It's an active and an energised waiting, 54:46-54:50 which, with its eyes set on the horizons of God's promise, 54:50-54:58 determines not just to speak of it, not just to bear witness to it in that way, 54:58-55:06 but to perform it, to live it out now, under the conditions of the old creation, 55:06-55:13 the fallen creation, which it refuses to accept any longer as limiting what is real, 55:13-55:18 or, in God's hands, what is possible. 55:18-55:24 Hope for Moltmann transfigures the present not by blocking its lacks and needs and pains, 55:24-55:32 like a sort of eschatological epidural, if I can continue on with that childbirth metaphor, 55:32-55:38 but precisely by enabling us to transcend them imaginatively, 55:38-55:43 and upon our return to perceive them all too clearly, 55:43-55:48 to see the lacks, to see the ills, to see the wants for what they really are 55:48-55:51 in the light of what God has promised will be, 55:51-55:55 and to feel them therefore ever more sharply. 55:55-56:01 Living in the light of new creation, of resurrection, of kingdom reality, 56:01-56:06 rather than submitting to the dictates of a world already marked by terminal decline, 56:06-56:13 disciples of the risen Lord, for Moltmann, are called to engage in a form of guerrilla theatre, 56:13-56:19 acting out, performing parables of the coming reality, 56:19-56:23 here, in the here and now, 56:23-56:30 in the midst and under the forms and within the structures available in the here and now, 56:30-56:37 the world created by God not for eternity, but as a transitional reality for our habitation and enjoyment, 56:37-56:45 scarred and corrupted by human sin, and marked out for redemption in God's good time. 56:45-56:51 Now, such prophetic action, of course, as I say, living in ways which refuses to accept 56:51-56:55 that certain things are the only way to do things, 56:55-57:01 that refuses to accept that injustice is tolerable and should just be put up with 57:01-57:05 because it'll be so much better when the kingdom comes, whatever it is, 57:05-57:10 such prophetic action puts us immediately at odds with much in the patterns 57:10-57:16 which for now continue to dominate natural social, political and economic existence in the world. 57:16-57:22 The patterns of newness, the anticipations of newness which we fashion and inhabit 57:22-57:30 will necessarily interfere with and interrupt and contradict much that is taken for granted by, 57:30-57:37 by most people in our society, as final and definitive, 57:37-57:45 which means that faithfulness to the task will often incur suffering and rejection as its outcome, 57:45-57:52 so far from generating a cosy place where one can withdraw from the world 57:52-57:58 and look forward to a time when everything will be cosy for everybody. 57:58-58:04 This sort of thing actually thrusts you right into the coal face, or at the front line. 58:04-58:13 Faith, when it develops into hope, suffers not less, but more under the conditions of the old creation. 58:13-58:18 For not only is it called to endure those things that have no place in God's new creation, 58:18-58:25 it's likely actively to attract their hostility and attempt to be rid of it. 58:25-58:33 I have never understood, and I find this the last three and a half years in ministry 58:33-58:36 have simply served to convince me that this is indeed the case, 58:36-58:44 that many Christians seem to think that by virtue of being Christians they should expect life to be at least comfortable. 58:44-58:58 It wasn't comfortable for Jesus, and I don't think we have any reason to suppose 58:58-59:01 that it should be comfortable for us if it is. 59:01-59:05 First of all, figure out whether that's because we're being disobedient or mazy. 59:05-59:09 Secondly, if it answers no's, hallelujah. 59:09-59:16 But I think faithfulness to a Gospel-centred way of life, 59:16-59:19 and to this sort of eschatological guerrilla theatre, 59:19-59:25 proclaiming in act as well as in word the shape of the coming kingdom, 59:25-59:27 the shape of the new creation. 59:27-59:33 And things that in the current world might be parables of the new creation. 59:33-59:42 Meeting suffering, meeting injustice, seeking to put right what is wrong. 59:42-59:47 Those things are likely to cause hostility in many cases. 59:47-59:53 And that means paradoxically I suppose that life lived faithfully under the sign of the resurrection 59:53-59:59 may, whatever this world perures, necessarily take form of humiliation and crucifixion. 59:59-01:00:06 Before we move on and break for dinner, or have a few minutes to talk, 01:00:06-01:00:09 let's be clear about something. 01:00:09-01:00:13 The sort of thing Moltmann is talking about, and I've been talking about, 01:00:13-01:00:18 this sort of parabolic living, devising and then performing signs of the coming new creation, 01:00:18-01:00:21 or the kingdom of God in the midst of a world 01:00:21-01:00:24 where for now they are notable chiefly by their absence, 01:00:24-01:00:29 isn't undertaken in order gradually to tip the balance 01:00:29-01:00:34 and bring the kingdom in, in the words of some popular Christian songs, 01:00:34-01:00:38 or establish the reality of the kingdom in history's midst. 01:00:38-01:00:45 We all know that the Christendom project didn't succeed in doing that. 01:00:48-01:00:51 It seems to me that it's an inappropriate aspiration. 01:00:51-01:00:54 They are acts of embodied witness, 01:00:54-01:00:58 witness-bearing to a reality which will only become the world's reality 01:00:58-01:01:02 when God acts decisively to make it so. 01:01:02-01:01:07 But they are intrinsically worth doing, 01:01:07-01:01:12 even though there is, mostly anyway, no instrumental payback, 01:01:12-01:01:15 just rejection and hostility very often. 01:01:15-01:01:21 But there is a sort of utilitarian thing that goes on in the church, I think, very often, 01:01:21-01:01:27 that if we can't see how an act of generosity or sacrifice or whatever it is 01:01:27-01:01:34 will tip the calculus or will lead to some identifiable outcome, 01:01:34-01:01:36 then it's probably not worth doing. 01:01:36-01:01:44 On the contrary, things which are small scale and are never going to make the difference 01:01:44-01:01:47 are almost always worth doing, because they're right 01:01:47-01:01:51 and because they're good and because they reflect the character of God. 01:01:51-01:01:54 Again, very often we're locked into a... 01:01:54-01:01:59 because society is locked into a utilitarian, instrumentalist way of thinking 01:01:59-01:02:03 that these things can only be good if we can see how they lead up to or make a difference to. 01:02:03-01:02:07 Very often, of course, they make a difference we'll never be aware of. 01:02:07-01:02:10 But it may be a very small scale difference. 01:02:11-01:02:17 As small scale eruptions of or approximations to something unequivocally good 01:02:17-01:02:21 in the midst of a world so often characterised otherwise than by goodness, 01:02:21-01:02:24 that they are nevertheless powerful in their way 01:02:24-01:02:28 and they may have more impact, as I've said, than we're capable of noticing. 01:02:28-01:02:32 Establishing the kingdom is always going to be God's business, not ours. 01:02:32-01:02:35 But living in the light of the coming kingdom, 01:02:35-01:02:41 working out what the new creation's interruptive appearance in the midst of present reality 01:02:41-01:02:47 might look like in particular times and places and circumstances, and then acting on that. 01:02:47-01:02:53 It's an imaginative, creative envisioning of something 01:02:53-01:02:58 and then not just imagining it but actually allowing it to shape our action. 01:02:58-01:03:04 Those are the things to which the Church is called and for which, in the power of God's Spirit, 01:03:04-01:03:06 we're equipped. 01:03:06-01:03:11 Now, I'm going to stop there because it's a convenient point to stop 01:03:11-01:03:14 and leave a little bit of time for questions. 01:03:14-01:03:19 And after dinner I'm going to come back and say a bit about 01:03:19-01:03:24 how all this factors into the place of Eucharist in the Church's life 01:03:24-01:03:31 and one way of how we might think about that and how it's related to the future hope 01:03:31-01:03:36 rather than simply bound up with present reality or in due past reality. 01:03:36-01:03:40 So I'll stop there and we can have some conversation. 01:03:40-01:03:45 And as I said, I don't really... I don't assume I've got all the answers. I promise you I don't.