Archive for the ‘cross’ Category

Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies

March 16, 2024

Lent 5 -2024

John 12:20-30

Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver. Amen.

John’s Jesus has a tendency to be obscure. This has a number of advantages. The first is that Jesus’ vagueness opens a conversation in which the author of John’s gospel can expand on a particular theological idea. Take for example Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus tells the woman that, if she had asked, he would have given her “living water”. Of course, the woman’s curiosity is piqued and, taking Jesus literally she asks for the living water so that she would no longer have to come to the well. We know that she has missed the point, but for the purpose of the gospel writer, her misunderstanding provides an opportunity for a discussion about Jesus’ identity. At the end of that conversation, the woman concludes that Jesus is the Christ. A consequence of the discussion, and of the woman’s discernment is that her whole community come to faith.

Another examples of Jesus’ ambiguity can be found in Jesus’ discussions about his departure. In chapter 14 Jesus announces the disciples know the way to where he is going. When Thomas exclaims that they do not know the way, Jesus responds: “I am the way, the truth and the light.” While that has become a much-quoted phrase, it really does nothing to enlighten the disciples as to the direction they must take.  (Note that earlier Jesus has told the disciples that “where he is going they cannot come.” 13:33) The effect of such /contradictory statements is that the reader/listener is forced into a state of suspended animation – caught between one way of thinking and another. Such uncertainty saves them (and us) from the confidence that they (we) understand the mystery of the divine.

Other statements in the gospel force the reader/listener to think, to puzzle through what Jesus says to discern it’s meaning. Take today’s convoluted story for example. It is worth quoting in full.  ‘Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”’

Here we see that a relatively simple request from some Greeks leads to a complex series of events and a convoluted response from Jesus. The Greeks tell Philip that they’d like to see Jesus, Philip finds Andrew. They both go and tell Jesus and Jesus launches into an unrelated speech on discipleship. We don’t learn to whom he addresses his monologue or if the Greeks were ever taken to Jesus.

There is obviously more to this account than at first meets the eye. Here it is useful to remember that the gospels, especially the Gospel of John, were written with the reader in mind and with the goal of bringing them to faith. John’s gospel is particularly explicit in this regard (20:30) and, given Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in chapters 14-17, it is clear that one intention of the John’s gospel is to form disciples. It is also helpful if we understand that John’s gospel has a certain circularity or repetitive nature to it so that what we read today almost certainly relates to a theme already introduced. 

All of which sheds some light on what is going on in this morning’s gospel – the obscurity of Jesus’ response makes us pay attention and the reference to death recalls times when Jesus has referred to his own death.  Last Sunday, for example, we looked at the phrase “lifted up” which Jesus uses with reference to his own crucifixion and death. We saw that for the author of John, it was the cross, not the resurrection that was the place of victory, because it was on the cross that Jesus defeated evil and death. Two thousand years later, in the face of all the tragedy and cruelty in the world, it is difficult to continue make the claim that Jesus has defeated evil. Last week I concluded that the fact that there is still evil in world comes down to us and: “our desire to conform to society rather than to confront injustice, our concern to protect our own comfort and security and our refusal to see that our relative comfort comes at the expense of the discomfort of others, and our willingness to make compromises that result in our shoring up the status quo.”

Today’s gospel indirectly supports that conclusion. Using the image of a seed falling into the ground and dying in order to bear fruit, Jesus continues: “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus may not be responding directly to the request of the Greeks, but what he is doing is giving generalised instruction regarding discipleship (to all his listeners). 

Here in Jerusalem Jesus is at the threshold of the final part of his journey. He is aware that death/glory awaits him. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”. In the following chapters, over a final meal, Jesus will prepare the disciples for his death and at the same time give them instructions as to how to continue as a community without him.  As part of this preparation Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, tells them that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, warns that they will be hated and persecuted and that those who kill them will think that they are doing so to worship God.

Discipleship is not some cosy adherence to the ten commandments, gathering for worship on a Sunday, or blending in with the crowd. Jesus makes it clear through teaching and through his own example that discipleship is a costly enterprise, it demands the selflessness to put the needs of others first, the courage to challenge unjust structures, the confidence to speak truth to power and the willingness to pay the ultimate price – giving one’s life so that others might be free to live. 

If evil is to be defeated, and if the world is to be a kinder, more just and more equitable place  something of us must we let die, so that others have a chance to simply live. 

– “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies” –

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Snakes alive! Jesus’ being lifted up

March 9, 2024

Lent 4 – 2024

John 3:14-21

Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

Snakes alive! Today’s gospel is so dense and so filled with complex ideas that it is easy to overlook the almost throw-away line that likens Jesus to a serpent and his crucifixion to a bronze serpent placed on a pole to ward off death. 

The image of a serpent in today’s gospel is disturbing to say the least. Even though our lectionary gives us the OT Testament reference – the plague of snakes and the bronze serpent as the cure, it can be difficult to see the connection between looking at a bronze likeness and living. It is even harder to see any relationship between Jesus and this almost superstitious solution to the poisonous snakes. In the OT account, the bronze snake represents both the cause of death and the cure – (in much the same way that modern day vaccinations use the source of a disease to inoculate us against that disease). In the gospel, John is less concerned with the prevention of death and more interested in the idea that the serpent was “lifted up”.  He contends that just as the serpent was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

“Being lifted up” is a key phrase in John’s gospel. We meet it for the first time here, but we also come across the expression in chapter 8: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, (28) and again in  Chapter 12 where Jesus tells the crowd: “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”(32).

Chapter 12 v33 makes it clear that, in John, “lifting up” refers to Jesus’ crucifixion – not to the resurrection or ascension. Here, the author adds an aside: “He said this (about being lifted up) to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” In other words, for this gospel writer, Jesus’ being lifted up and his dying are one and the same. Jesus is lifted up on the cross and he dies on the cross. People will see Jesus lifted up, will see  the lengths that Jesus/God will go to for us and will believe. 

In John, the cross takes centre stage. It is on the cross, not through the resurrection, that victory is won. The cross is the sign of victory, not defeat, because it is on the cross that evil is defeated, and the ruler of this world is driven out. By willingly submitting to crucifixion, Jesus demonstrates that evil and death have no power over him – they can do their worst because Jesus is not in thrall to them, he will not avoid or evade them, because power belongs to God.. The cross is the place of victory because Jesus is not a victim, nor is he at the mercy of secular or supernatural powers. He could choose to avoid the cross, but he does not. In the cross is victory, not because Jesus sacrifices himself, or because an angry God demands to be appeased. In the cross is victory, because it is there, in the midst of suffering and death, that God fully identifies with the suffering and pain of the world.

The cross is a sign of Jesus’ victory not in the sense that he wants to draw attention to himself, or that he is making the choice to be a heroic martyr. Jesus chooses the cross in the sense that he doesn’t avoid it, in the sense that he follows the path set before him, even though he knows it leads to torture and death and in the sense that he refuses to be cowed by evil or by the worldly forces that conspire against him. Jesus submits to the cross because he chooses crucifixion and death over self-preservation. He chooses to walk into the lion’s den, to confront evil and to take on the ruler of this world no matter the cost.

John’s gospel depicts Jesus as a man who, from beginning to end is the master of his own destiny. There were many times and many ways that Jesus could have avoided such a gruesome end. He could have succumbed to the temptations in the wilderness and walked his own path not God’s. He could have remained in Galilee and lived out his life as a well-respected teacher and worker of miracles.  He could have kept quiet about the misleading teaching, the corruption, and the injustices that he observed both within the church and in the governing powers. 

Jesus would not save himself if it meant being complicit with the powers that control and subdue the people, he would not take the easy way out and protect his own life when there were truths to be told and he would not make compromises that would in effect be colluding with the powers of this world. 

Even though the cross led to Jesus’ death, the author of John can claim that the cross (not the resurrection) is the place of victory because Jesus did not allow his message to be contained, colonised, sanitised, or moderated. He held to the truth even though to do so was dangerous. He refused to compromise, even when compromise would have been safer.  He defeated evil by refusing to give evil the last word. 

Today, in the face of the horrors that we are witnessing in Gaza, the Ukraine, the Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and countless other places I find myself asking in what way is the cross a sign of victory here and now? How can we claim victory when injustice abounds and whole nations are oppressed, when people continue to live in abject poverty and when there is an inequitable distribution of the world’s resources?  

I suspect that the answer lies with us. The cross was the place of victory, because on the cross, instead of putting himself first, Jesus aligned himself with all the suffering of the world.  That the world continues to promote violence, oppression and injustice, relates in part to our desire to conform to society rather than to confront injustice, our concern to protect our own comfort and security and our refusal to see that our relative comfort comes at the expense of the discomfort of others, and our willingness to make compromises that result in our shoring up the status quo.

The cross is the place of Jesus’ victory, but it can only be the place of victory for all people if we make it so, if we continue Jesus’ self-giving, self-denying confrontation of evil.

Jesus has demonstrated that evil can be defeated, but it will only be truly defeated when it loses its power over us.

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How do we measure up?

September 2, 2022

Pentecost 13 – 2022
Luke 14:25-33
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God, Earthmaker, Painbearer and Lifegiver. Amen.

Some time ago a friend of ours who is a clinical psychologist was an advisor to the reality TV show “Big Brother”. It was her responsibility to assess whether or not potential competitors would be psychologically able to cope with the rigors and demands of the competition. In other words, she had to assure the producers of the programme that potential candidates would be able to go the distance without experiencing any sort of psychological breakdown. The show depended on the resilience of the participants and not only did the producers want to protect their brand and to entertain their audiences, but they also had an ethical and moral responsibility to the successful entrants. I only watched a few episodes, but they were enough to persuade me that the psychological stresses faced in the “house” and the mind games that were played were enough to send the sanest person mad .

Jesus did not have the advantages of modern science to screen potential followers, but he did have some idea of the sorts of hurdles that they would encounter and therefore the personal characteristics that would be required for the journey they were undertaking. He knew that being a disciple would be challenging, uncomfortable and, in some cases, life threatening. For proof, he only needed to look at his own experience. His efforts to relieve the suffering of others and to share the good news of God’s love, were met with scepticism, censure, and downright opposition. Among other things, Jesus was criticised for healing on the Sabbath, for telling people that their sins were forgiven, and for allowing a woman to anoint him. The authorities were threatened by him and were constantly trying to discredit him. Not that Jesus made it easy for himself. He didn’t play it safe – he exposed the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and inverted their sense of the proper order of things, he ate with sinners and tax collectors and generally behaved in ways that flouted the religious and cultural norms his day.

For many, Jesus was not a comfortable person to be around, and, from the very beginning of his ministry, there were attempts on his life (Luke 4:28). It is little wonder that Jesus wanted to be sure of the commitment and the determination of those who expressed a desire to follow him.

In the passage from today’s gospel, it appears that Jesus recognised that in the crowd that followed him were those who were simply caught up in the excitement that surrounded him, those who were only interested in the miracles that he performed and those who were attracted by the fact that he was not afraid to confront the religious authorities. He was conscious that there were some among them who had the potential to discredit his movement by their weakness, their self-interest and their shallow understanding of his mission. Perhaps too, he wanted to protect those who would be unable to withstand the hardships that might come their way as a consequence of their being his disciples. So, he did his own, crude, form of screening.

In a manner that seems to our sensibilities to be abrupt and uncalled for, Jesus “turns on” the crowds who are following him, implies that they are not really committed to the cause and sets what seems to be impossible standards for them to prove their worth. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” I mean, imagine it – it’s rather like me saying to you: “Don’t bother coming to church unless you are prepared to abandon everything else including those whom you love the most. In fact, don’t pretend to be a follower of Jesus unless you are prepared to die for him!”

It is confronting language and doesn’t fit the Jesus who heals the sick, seeks the lost and eats with sinners. Sure, there are times when Jesus is firm, even angry – but he reserves his disapproval for the self-righteous Pharisees and the self-protective priests. So why now does he turn on the crowds – those who are not connected with the establishment; those who have apparently already left their homes to follow him to Jerusalem? In other words – why does he seem to turn on us?

Jesus, it seems, wants to be sure that we can finish the journey in a time and place that is vastly different. Might we fall away because our expectations have not been met? Could we be accused of hypocrisy because our lives and our faith do not match up? Is there a possibility that disappointment and bitterness would lead us to disparage him and to discredit what he stands for.

Our lives are not in danger as a consequence of our faith, but that does not mean that life is entirely without its hurdles or that there will not be times that will test our trust in and our reliance on Jesus. Life can and will throw us all sorts of curved balls – the death of a child, the loss of our job, our health, or our home. Our reaction to events such as these will reveal whether we follow Jesus for the sense of security and comfort that our faith gives us – or whether we have completely abandoned ourselves to God and to God’s will for our lives. Those whose faith is based on a belief that God will take care of them and protect them from the dangers of this world, will be confused and hurt by trauma and loss. They will bear the wounds of perceived betrayal that may never heal, and their bitterness and anger will cause them to speak ill of God and of Christ. They did not understand what they were committing to.

Those who faith is deep and strong and who truly understand what they have signed up for, will grieve their loss and acknowledge their pain, but will hold fast to Jesus, knowing that he did not promise a pain-free life and understanding that faith alone will see them through their anguish.

If today’s gospel is a form of screening for discipleship – how do we measure up?

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Can we do better?

September 18, 2021

Pentecost 17 – 2021
Mark 9:30-37
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer and Life-Giver. Amen.

Several years ago, a medical conference was held in Hawaii to examine the multi-cultural aspects of effective treatment. Hawaii is apparently the most racially diverse place in the world and the hospital staff there were discovering that patients responded differently according to their backgrounds and their expectations. A story that has stayed with me from that report is the account of the death of one of their patients. The gentleman concerned was from Turkey. When he died his wife and daughter howled inconsolably – ululating loudly and swaying back and forth. Without thinking the staff tried to comfort the grieving women, to offer words of consolation that might help them in this moment of utter desolation. What they didn’t realise at the time was that their attempts were not only futile but were in fact both unwarranted and unwanted. Both mother and daughter were behaving in a way that for them was culturally appropriate. Loud and lengthy wailing was their way of coping with grief and in trying to calm them down the staff were in fact preventing them from doing what, to them, was the most helpful response to the situation.

At times when we feel uncomfortable, we behave in ways that lessen our own sense of unease without necessarily thinking about the impact our behaviour will have on others. When we hear bad news, a natural response is to try to find explanations for what is happening, as if understanding a calamity might mitigate its effect. In the face of danger, we may deny what is happening or try to imagine a positive outcome rather than face the horror of reality. If someone says something difficult or confronting, we may be tempted to change the subject so that we don’t have to deal with the issue at hand.

Certainly, the disciples respond in all these ways to Jesus’ announcement that he must suffer and die, before rising from the dead. Three times Jesus announces his impending arrest, suffering, death, and resurrection and three times the disciples respond in ways that demonstrate that they do not want (or simply cannot bear) to hear what he has to say. They are confused and frightened so they turn the conversation towards topics that they can understand and over which they have some control. Last week we heard that Peter was so upset by Jesus’ announcement that he rebuked (tried to silence) him. Today we learn that the disciples as a group turn the discussion to something very earthly – who is the greatest. Next week we will discover that James and John have completely blocked out what Jesus has said and have convinced themselves that Jesus really is the one who is going to reclaim the kingdom from the Romans and who can offer them positions of power commensurate to his own.

Each of these accounts follow a similar pattern: Jesus’ prediction, the disciple’s failure to understand and Jesus’ correction of their misunderstanding followed by an illustration of the meaning of discipleship. Jesus points out that instead of avoiding death, the disciples are to meet it front on. They are to take up their cross and follow him. Instead of competing as to who is the greatest, they are to put themselves last by placing the most vulnerable, the most marginalised ahead of themselves. Rather than seeing discipleship as an opportunity to “lord it over others” Jesus’ followers are reminded that they are not to be like the Gentiles but are to serve one another. In each instance Jesus turns the cultural expectations of his time on their head. He knows that it is natural to want to preserve one’s life, to establish one’s place in the pecking order and to seek recognition. For disciples though the opposite is expected.

Clearly Jesus’ teaching is difficult for the disciples to comprehend. They have yet to understand the nature of Jesus’ ministry and the consequences that will ensue. They want to prevent his death and they want to continue to believe that in following him they will share in his reflected glory. They cannot, at least for the moment, suspend their cultural expectations and allow themselves to be fully caught up in Jesus’ reversal of those attitudes.

So uncomprehending are the disciples that Jesus is forced to repeat himself three times in three different ways and still the disciples cannot grasp the implications of what he is saying – about himself and about what it means to follow him. It is not until they are faced with the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection that they finally grasp what it means to be disciples – they are to take hold of life with both hands and with no fear of death, they are to broaden their concept of who is in and who is out such that no one is excluded and they are to lead, not by lording it over others, but through service to them. Discipleship may not, in fact probably won’t, lead to fame and fortune but it will at its best turn the world on its head.

As members of the institutional church, we too often find ourselves as part of the establishment, supporters of the status quo, bound by cultural norms. Since Constantine our bishops have had positions of status (and even power) in the community. For centuries the church (as institution) has engaged in more in self-preservation than in the protection of the vulnerable (as the child sex abuse reports reveal). Throughout the centuries there have many issues on which the Church has been more concerned with its reputation than with providing a welcome for the marginalised – the single mother, the divorced, the ex-prisoner, the druggie. Indeed, rather than embrace the outsider, the Church has at times been guilty of looking down on (and even excluding) those considered to be disreputable – those who threaten the sanctity of the church.

In other words, Jesus’ instructions on discipleship continue to fall on deaf ears.

Perhaps after all three times is not enough. Perhaps Jesus needs to repeat over and over and over again that he will suffer, die and rise and that we his disciples must take up our cross, welcome the vulnerable and marginalised and eschew power for servanthood.

Can we do better? I suspect that we can.

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How do we see Jesus?

March 20, 2021

Lent 5 – 2021

John 12-20-33 (++)

Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

On the night before she was due to be executed, Edith Cavell – a British nurse serving during the first world war – had a visit from a chaplain. After they had spoken for a while, they prayed, and Edith asked that they might sing the hymn “Abide with me”. “Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heav’ns morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee. In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.” Cavell had it right – at what was her lowest point she looked – not to Jesus’ resurrection – but to the cross – for it was there that the victory had been won.   

Today’s reading from the gospel of John has been ripped from its context and presented as if it could stand on its own. While the metaphor of the seed falling to the ground makes a certain amount of sense, the surrounding text seems unconnected both to the metaphor and to the request of the Greeks. We are left in the dark as to why the Greeks want to see Jesus in the first place and indeed why the Greeks are in Jerusalem at all. Without the wider context, we are left wondering why Jesus appears to have so rudely ignored their request.

If we lived in the first or perhaps even the second century, we might have expected to hear the story as John told it from beginning to end in one sitting. In so doing we would have seen how the different parts of the story connect with and speak to each other. We would have become aware of the way in which the Johannine author winds back around on himself, reiterating and reinforcing some of the key Johannine concepts as he goes. Light and dark, life and death, joy and the relationship between the Father and the Son are all repeated over and over. By the time the reader had reached this point in the story, we would have understood that the phrase “being lifted up” referred to Jesus’ death on the cross. 

The immediate context of today’s gospel is Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but in order to truly understand what is happening here and where the story is going, we have to go back a little further – to the raising of Lazarus. Bethany was close to Jerusalem, so it is not surprising that some informants had reported Jesus’ actions to the Pharisees who in turn had called a council with the chief priests to consider what to do about Jesus and the threat that he posed. The raising of Lazarus had greatly increased Jesus’ stature and renown and witnesses to the event could not help but testify to it, which made Jesus even more of an attraction. According to the gospel, people were deserting the Jews and believing in Jesus – which only exacerbated the antagonism of the Pharisees and chief priests. 

It was dangerous for Jesus to come to Jerusalem for the Passover – orders had been given that anyone who knew his whereabouts should inform the chief priests and Pharisees so they could arrest him. Many wondered if Jesus would actually come, but come he did, and when the crowds heard of his arrival, they took branches to greet him, shouting “Hosanna to the King of Israel”.  At this the Pharisees despaired: “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him (12:19).” 

Knowing the context helps us to make better sense of this morning’s gospel. We know that people from every nation, Jew and Greek, flooded to Jerusalem for the Passover. Many of them will have heard of Jesus and will have known that he raised Lazarus from the dead. No doubt they were both amazed and curious – anxious to see the man behind the stories. It may be for this reason that Jesus didn’t respond when he was told that the Greeks wished to see him. He resented being seen as a tourist attraction. He felt that it was important that those who wanted to see him realized that they must learn to see not the miracle worker but the crucified one. In response to the request of the Greeks Jesus reiterated what he had said at the beginning of his ministry (as we heard last week) that the “Son of Man must be lifted up” – on the cross. Those who sought him out must understand that following Jesus had nothing to do with fame and fortune but rather would lead to suffering and to death. They would need to find the courage to lose their lives in order to gain their lives.

Instead of agreeing to see the Greeks, Jesus spoke about the life of discipleship. He reflected on what lay ahead wondered to himself whether he could avoid the pain and agony of the cross. But he knew that it was for the cross that he had come. He understood that it was when he was lifted up, that all who chose to, would be able to see him and would understand that he had sought, not fame and fortune, but to give himself entirely into God’s hands. In this is Jesus’ victory not that he raised someone from the dead but that he faced the worst, confident that God would not abandon him. He submitted his life to God’s will rather than seeking to create a life of his own making. The Greekswould see him but only if they had the courage to see victory in defeat, success in failure, life in death. 

We cannot have the resurrection without the crucifixion. We cannot be truly alive unless we put to death those things that are life-denying. As we draw near to Good Friday we are reminded that we follow a Saviour who was brutally crucified and whose triumph lies not in what he did, but in what he allowed to be done to him. 

Do we have the courage to face the agony and shame of the cross, or do we look past the cross to the victory of Easter Day?

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