Enacting the Kingdom Fr. Yuri Hladio & Fr. Geoffrey Ready

We enter into our new series, Narrative Theology, by considering what it means to do the right thing, and by what methods we should discern what the right thing is anyway. Ethics are based on stories such as what a human person is, what the goal of our being is, and what constitutes a good life. As Christians, our ethics are based on the greatest story of all: the story of God.
Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss the different branches of ethics that many modern-day Christians subscribe to, and the ecclesial ethic that early Christians followed, an ethic which we should strive to return to. It is an ethic that is practiced, like one perfects their craft, until it becomes a habit, and habit becomes character, and character forms us to be people who will respond in any given situation by enacting the Kingdom, God’s shalom, God’s peace, for all of creation.
This series on Narrative Theology will centre around internalizing this ethic so that as the Church we can faithfully encounter every situation, including the situations that we never anticipated, without fear, because we’ll have become the right kind of people. God’s people.


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If life is a play, indeed a drama, what are our lines?
Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri explore the analogy of God's story as a five act play, where we have intimate knowledge of the three acts that have come before, book-ended by intimate knowledge of the final act, while in the midst of act four.  
As Christians we often look for a script, or mistakenly think we already have and know the script, when in reality this is an unscripted act.  We have to improvise.  With utter fidelity, we must receive the tradition that has been given us (acts 1-3), and honour the telos we are headed towards (act 5).  We must train, so that we instinctively react in the right way when faced with any given situation, to properly enact God's story in the world.


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In this episode, Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey reflect on a chapter in Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics by Samuel Wells... well, Fr Yuri improvises his part in the reflection (and a good job he does, indeed!).
We make a mistake when we think of ethics as only being issues and struggles that interrupt our "normal life".  In fact, this view is entirely unbiblical and untraditional. We need to think of ethics as the ongoing practice of the Good, so that we have the instincts and habits in order so that we are always acting in accordance with our second nature, a second nature that has been formed by "doing all the drills", living the right way, as children of God being formed increasingly in His likeness.
What are these drills?  What habits do we need to work on?  How do we attain the disponibilité or relaxed awareness, that Sam Wells writes of? Listen in!


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"Assessing Status" is a game that improv actors use to develop their skills, and it's also a game that we play daily as we interact with other people.  It's part of the context of every relationship, every encounter.
High and low status are neither good nor bad in and of themselves, but both are assumed as roles and can be used to move the narrative forward.  Status is also complex and is hardly fixed — it shifts backwards and forwards between high and low as we interact with others.
Fr Yuri and Fr Geoffrey explore examples of this status narrative in the Scriptures and in church history. As we continue on in the fourth act of this five act play, how do we assess and work out what role we as Christians have to address the world and the issues of the day? Spoiler: we don't always have to assume high status!


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"I'm not your mom, and you're actually a dog".
A ridiculous reply, without a doubt (especially taken out of context, but you'll have to listen to the podcast for that).  Tragically, the Church sounds precisely like this most of the time.  
A blocking response like this one is based on fear.  Fear that we cannot let go of control of the narrative, fear that the story will not unfold in the right way.  And what does that say about our ultimate trust in God?  
Accepting an offer, and moving the narrative forward, requires a "Yes, and..." response.  Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss how to say "Yes, and..." and also whether there is a place for "no" within the model of accepting offers.


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In the previous episode "Accepting & Blocking", we discussed the importance in improv of using the strategy of "Yes, and..." to further the narrative.  Of course, there are multiple ways of saying yes, and often this requires us to question givens.  The givens we assume can imprison the way we think and act, but when we question those givens we can receive them as gifts and re-connect to the wider narrative.
There is ultimately only one unquestionable given: God and His story.
Fr Geoffrey and Fr Yuri discuss another maxim of improv theatre, "Don't be bound by your format", and reflect on the current debate in Canada about assisted suicide to illustrate why questioning givens is so vital.


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