Leading Saturday Lives: the Experience of Disappointment as an Authentic Relational Engagement by Cathryn McKinney A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Divinity 2018 i Abstract This interdisciplinary thesis explores the nature of connectedness between people and God and I assert that authentic relationships are the most important aspect of life. As a minister in an inner-city community church, a teacher of pastoral theology and a chaplain to women in prison I have consistently found myself in relationships with people who are identified as being on the margins of society and it is in this context that my interest in disappointment as a living reality was formed. I correlate the particular emotional experience of being disappointed with a “Holy Saturday” existence and I argue that the most disappointing encounters in life can be understood as central to an authentic understanding of a Christian theology – from Mary as bereaved mother to the presence of the absence of God in the disappointment of Holy Saturday. “Leading Saturday Lives” is a personal theological response to the living experience of disappointment. ii Declaration of Originality I declare that this thesis does not contain any material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text or footnotes. Signed: Dated: iii Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 1 Foreword—An Invitation to Engage .......................................................................................... 2 Chapter One—Leading Saturday Lives: The Experience of Disappointment as an Authentic Relational Engagement .............................................................................................................. 6 Introduction................................................................................................................ 6 Practical Theology .................................................................................................... 10 Theology-In-Action ................................................................................................... 21 Ministry .................................................................................................................... 24 Relational/Relationship ............................................................................................ 27 Authentic Relationships ............................................................................................ 29 Compassion .............................................................................................................. 34 The Practice of Compassion: Theology-in-Action .................................................... 36 Enquiry ..................................................................................................................... 39 A Personal Situating: St Martin’s Community Church ............................................. 42 Tony – With an “I” .................................................................................................... 46 Disappointment: A Personal Context ....................................................................... 48 Structure of this Thesis ............................................................................................. 53 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 59 Chapter Two—The Experience of Disappointment ................................................................. 61 Introduction.............................................................................................................. 61 When Easter Dawns, and All is Not Well: A Pastoral Encounter with Disappointment. ................................................................................................................... 62 iv The Experience of Being Disappointed .................................................................... 70 Disappointment: A “Slum-Like” Existence ............................................................... 76 Jakob von Uexküll and his Biology of Connectedness ............................................. 83 Connected and Distinct Existence ............................................................................ 88 Umwelt: A Specific Existence in a Relational Context .............................................. 96 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 99 Chapter Three—Worth and Relational Engagement: The Experience of Mary and Jesus as the Embodiment of the Initial Christian Community of Faith ............................................... 103 Introduction............................................................................................................ 103 A Pastoral Narrative: “How Much Am I Worth?” ................................................... 105 Self-Worth .............................................................................................................. 109 The Worth of All People ......................................................................................... 113 An Initial Relational Engagement: A (M)other and an Infant ................................ 118 The Experience of Being “We”: An Authentic Relational Encounter in the World 124 The Raw Moment of Otherness ............................................................................. 128 A Personal Engagement With a (M)other and Her Child ....................................... 130 A Sacred Relationship: Mother Mary and the Infant Jesus.................................... 132 The Flesh of Jesus: A Sacred Controversy .............................................................. 133 From the Outset: Meaningful Bodies: “Good” Flesh ............................................. 138 The Scandal of Mary and Jesus as the Mother with her Child ............................... 141 Mother Mary and the Infant Jesus: An Authentic Relational Engagement ........... 145 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 153 Chapter Four—“Waiting”: An Integral Aspect of Authentic Relational Engagement ........... 155 v Introduction............................................................................................................ 156 Waiting In and With and For Christ ........................................................................ 158 Waiting For and With Another Person ................................................................... 162 “Waiting” as a Situational Reality, a Hopeful Encounter and a Devastatingly Disappointing State of Being .............................................................................................. 170 Warten: In Life, We All Wait ................................................................................... 171 The Living Experience of Warten ........................................................................... 171 Erwarten: Anticipatory Hope in the Presence of God ............................................ 175 The Experience of Erwarten ................................................................................... 178 Abwarten: All is Lost ............................................................................................... 180 The Abwarten Experience of Mary ........................................................................ 187 The Abwarten Experience of Mary as the Mother ................................................. 192 Mary as a “Wholly Other” Person in the World ..................................................... 195 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 199 Chapter Five—Disappointment: A Holy Saturday Encounter ................................................ 204 Introduction............................................................................................................ 204 The Death of Donna: A Pastoral Engagement In and With Disappointment ......... 206 A Shared Encounter with Disappointment ............................................................ 210 Reading Saturday ................................................................................................... 212 Holy Saturday ......................................................................................................... 219 Holy Saturday’s Liturgical Presence ....................................................................... 227 Grief and Disappointment: Differences in Sorrow ................................................. 234 Saturday as Christologically Significant .................................................................. 239 vi Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Holy Saturday ................................................................ 246 Saturday as Pastorally Significant .......................................................................... 247 The Significance of Holy Saturday .......................................................................... 252 Jesus as Passive in Solidarity with the “Dead”: Utterly Abandoned ...................... 258 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 266 Chapter Six—Compassionate Reappointment .....................................................................