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Does this offend you? Eating flesh and drinking blood

August 24, 2024

Pentecost 14 – 2024

John 6:56-69

Marian Free

In the name of God who shakes us out of our complacency so that we might always see the world afresh. Amen.

“Does this offend you?”  Jesus ask the disciples in today’s gospel.  

Unfortunately, the church/Christian faith in our time causes offense for all the wrong reasons. In the minds of many, religion is associated with warfare, often with good reason. The Crusades were a cynical attempt not so much to restore Jerusalem to the Christians, but to secure the trade route to Asia; and throughout the ages professed Christians have used their faith to defend aggression against others. An apparently closed mind towards science and innovation has meant that in some places and in. some minds the church has been left behind or has slipped into irrelevance. In recent decades the prevalence of child sex abuse and domestic violence within the church have caused many to react with revulsion and disgust towards the church – which, at best ignored perpetrators, and at worst protected them. Holier-than-thou attitudes towards and the exclusion of those who didn’t fit the narrow definition of “good” Christians – divorcees, single parents and members of the LGBTQI+ communities have led to great hurt and confusion among those who would be part of the church if only they were accepted. 

As a consequence of such behaviour and attitudes, many would-be believers have voted with their feet, have abandoned their faith and left the church.

As we come to the end of Jesus’ discourse on bread, we come face-to-face with the confronting imagery of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. According to the Gospel this teaching is so difficult that “many of Jesus’ disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” In the early church this teaching, expressed in the language of the Eucharist, continued to cause offense to the extent that early believers were accused of cannibalism. A second century document The Octavius of Minicius Felix[1] describes a debate between a Christian and a pagan. In it, “Caecilius The Pagan states: You Christians are the worst breed ever to affect the world. You deserve every punishment you can get! Nobody likes you. It would be better if you and your Jesus had never been born. We hear that you are all cannibals–you eat the flesh of your children in your sacred meetings.”

It is good that the church is no longer accused of cannibalism, superstition or any of the other false charges levelled against it in the first couple of centuries. What is sad is that in general the church has lost its capacity to shock and to offend, the ability to encourage people to think, to reevaluate their values and their ideas and to radically challenge injustice and oppression. In the minds of many (at least in the West) the church seems to have sunk into irrelevance.  It would appear that there is nothing about the church, its teachings or about our lives together that makes it stand out as different from almost any other not-for-profit organisation or that suggests that it has anything to offer a world that is suffering both from consumerism and from the current cost of living crisis. In many ways the church has become so bland that there is little that it says or does to draw the interest of the press or the attention of the public. Over the centuries Jesus’ radical teaching and behaviour has gradually been softened or has been modified so as not to draw attention. 

“Does this offend you?” Underlying Jesus’ shocking claim that; “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood” is the promise that faith in and an intimate relationship with him is the gateway to life – both in the present and for eternity. In contrast to the church and the state of his day, Jesus presented to a world that was hungry and thirsty, a gospel that was satisfying, life-giving and life-affirming. He was crucified in part because he dared to cause offense, because he refused to conform to the life-denying norms of his time or to the stultifying, out-dated, and restrictive teachings of the church in his time and place. Jesus drew people to him because he dared to critique the laws of church and state that oppressed, divided and excluded and that imposed unnecessary limitations and. which prevented people from being fully alive.

In the centuries that have followed Jesus’ death, the church at times has been guilty of colonising and appropriating Jesus’ teaching. Instead of celebrating Jesus’ radical inclusiveness of those on the margins and those already condemned by society, the church has from time to time weaponised Jesus’ teaching to exclude those who do not conform to a narrow definition of who is acceptable and who is not. Instead of rejoicing in Jesus’ loosening the strings of a restrictive and deadening law, the church has at times imposed limitations and created laws of its own making. Jesus’ relaxation of the Sabbath rest has (certainly in recent times) given reign to a culture in which rest can be seen as a weakness rather than a source of strength. Jesus’ liberation of the law surrounding divorce was used to keep abused women and unhappy men and women in marriages that were already dead. And so it goes.

“Does this offend you?” There is so much to takeout of today’s gospel, but let this be the year when we focus on the offence that Jesus caused and ask ourselves why we are no longer offensive. Are we content to blend in with the society in which we find ourselves or are we courageous enough to challenge those structures and institutions that are failing the poor, the refugee, the first nations people of this land and to preach a gospel of life abundant for ALL. Do we also “want to go away” or have we truly grasped the radical, uncompromising, life-giving potential of being Jesus’ disciples? 

[1] https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/why-early-christians-were-despised-11629610.html#google_vignette

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Living Bread – are our expectations of God based on what we think God can do for us?

August 10, 2024

Pentecost 12 – 2024

John 6:35, 41-51

Marian Free

In the name of God, whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts. Amen.

I don’t know about you but every now and then I find that I am a little disappointed in God, or at least in the simplistic idea of a ‘fix-it’ God that has somehow remains in my brain – despite all attempts to remove that image.

 I am guilty, for example, of wondering why, if we had to have COVID, God didn’t allow some truly awful people to die from it? And there are times, I confess, when I ask myself how God can continue to remain aloof when for example, a powerful nation invades and overrules another weaker nation? Why doesn’t God jump in, boots and all, and end the conflicts and all the suffering in the world? Surely that would be a piece of cake for the ruler of the universe. A dictator could die of COVID, the tanks of an aggressor could become mired in mud, poverty and oppression could be alleviated. Any number of solutions come into my mind – especially when I am feeling powerless to make a difference in the world.

Of course, I can answer my own questions. I do know that God cannot be manipulated by me or be answerable to my concerns alone. I am also aware that I do not see the whole picture and that I cannot envision all the consequences of actions that I think will fix the problems of the world. In my heart if not in my head, I understand that if God did intervene in the course of history, by manipulating the death of a dictator or disabling the weapons of a perceived aggressor, the consequences might be far worse than the present reality. I am also aware that, sadly, many of the world’s ills are of our own making (a result of human greed and selfishness, and desire for power and wealth). I know too that issues like war, and poverty are not always black and white but are usually a complex shade of grey and that a mere mortal like myself doesn’t always have all the facts at my fingertips.

If I am disappointed in God then, it means that my expectations of God have, at least temporarily, been allowed to get out of hand, or that I have imprinted my image of God on to a God who is ultimately beyond comprehension and certainly beyond description.

Perhaps you too have expectations about God that God does not live up to. What is your image of God? How do you expect God to respond to what is going on in the world or in your own lives? Do you imagine that if only you pray hard enough or long enough that God will do what you want (maybe at the expense of what someone else wants)?

One of the issues today’s gospel addresses is that of expectations – the expectations of the people and the reality that is Jesus.

You might remember that last week we learned that the people followed Jesus across the lake because he had satisfied their physical hunger. They were not really interested in Jesus, or in who Jesus represented, but only in what he could do. So, when Jesus makes the outrageous claim that he is the bread that came down from heaven they are uncomprehending. Jesus simply doesn’t fit their expectations of a heavenly figure. Apart from anything else, they know his earthly reality. They know that he didn’t come down from heaven – his parents are known to them. He is no different from them – just the son of Joseph. Sure, he could feed a crowd with a small amount of food, but the living bread that came down from heaven? Impossible.

The crowds are not interested in who Jesus is, but in what he can do for them here and now. They want him to alleviate their hunger in the present. Jesus wants to satisfy a hunger for things that last. The crowds are focused solely on their earthly needs. Jesus wants to meet their spiritual needs. The crowds want to fit Jesus into some sort of stereotype with which they are familiar – Moses for example, who fed them in the wilderness. Jesus wants them to know who he really is, where he comes from and who he represents. 

Jesus and the people are at cross purposes, they want different things. The crowd want what can be seen and felt and, in this case, eaten.  Jesus wants to give them something intangible and permanent, something that will satisfy their deepest longings for eternity not just their superficial, present needs. Jesus can give them, something that will sustain them forever, in every circumstance, not something that will last for a moment and need to be replenished on a daily basis. 

The crowd want Jesus to give them what they want – in this case food. Jesus wants to give them what they need, spiritual sustenance that will enable them to face any difficulty, to endure any trials, to be at peace with themselves and with the world. The crowd wants something that they can see and feel and touch. Jesus offers living bread.  He wants them to rely totally on him, not just for their immediate physical needs but for their spiritual and eternal needs. 

Which brings me back to my starting point – expectations. How realistic our expectations of God? Do we expect a short-term miracle worker, a ‘fix-it’ God, or a God who can see into the distant future?  Do we expect God to work with us in a superficial way or do we understand that God can meet our deepest needs in the present and forever?  Have. our longings been satisfied by Jesus the living bread or are we still restless, searching out what we do not yet have?

Our expectations will of course determine the outcome. If we expect God to wave magic wand to solve all the problems of the world, we have failed to understand that our self-absorption and our desire to have God do what we want makes us part of the problem. If on the other hand, we have grasped that in Jesus God has come as close as God can to changing the world for the better then our expectations of what God can do will be tempered by an understanding of what we have failed to do. We have failed to trust God, to depend on God to satisfy all our needs, to accept from God the living bread which in turn will free us from the self-interest which makes demands of God, and will fill us with a deep sense of contentment, which will make us at peace with the world and in turn will ultimately make peace in the world.

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Bread from heaven – satisfying our deepest needs

August 4, 2024

Pentecost 11 – 2024

John 6:24-35

Marian Free

In the name of God, who gives us more than we could ever need. Amen.

Last week I concluded that if nothing else, the account of Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand was a reminder that Jesus cared about the whole person. He didn’t try to address issues of faith and spirituality when he knew that people were starving – he simply satisfied their hunger.  He didn’t talk to the terrified disciples about having faith before he calmed the storm, he stilled the wind and waves and then asked why they were so worried. In other words, over and over again, we see that Jesus cared for people as and where they were. He didn’t demand that they sign up as card-carrying believers before he addressed what they require, he met them where they were and responded to their needs. 

That does not mean that Jesus let the crowds (or the disciples) off the hook, or that he didn’t challenge those who followed him to think about the ways in which their lives could be transformed through his presence in and with them. Caring about the whole person meant that Jesus did address their spiritual needs as well as their spiritual needs, he did confront deeper issues of meaning as well as the superficial needs of existence.  Afterhe calmed the storm he questioned the disciples’ lack of faith (their inability to ride the storms of life), after he fed them he accused them of seeking him out not because of the signs but because they ate their fill and were satisfied. Jesus showed that he cares for the body and the soul – the whole person.

So it is that when those who have been fed sought Jesus out, he tried to move them beyond their superficial understanding of the miracle of the loaves to its deeper meaning. In other words, he attempted to help them to see what it meant that he, Jesus, has fed them. He tried to lift their gaze from their earthly needs to the spiritual benefits that are available to those who were willing to see in the miracle a God reaching out to them with gifts that are beyond price. 

Jesus discerned that the crowds who had followed him from Tiberius to Capernaum were fixated on being fed, on having their physical needs met. They were hoping that if they found Jesus, that he would continue to perform miracles – like feeding crowds and that they would be able to (at worst) exploit and (at best) to take advantage of his ability to perform miracles.  Of course, it was within Jesus’ power to be a worker of miracles, but he knew that if the people were to be truly whole they would need to find a way to fill not just the emptiness of their stomachs but the emptiness of their lives. They would need to address the deeper issues that confronted them in ways that were not dependent on external factors, but which drew on a source of strength that was greater than them. They would need to rely on the spiritual (not physical substance) with which Jesus feeds them – bread which would last not just for a day, but which would endure for eternity. In the process they will need to adjust their expectations regarding Jesus and learn who he really is – the presence of the divine in their midst. 

Jesus makes his point by using a technique that he has used since his encounter with Nicodemus. He turns a question back on the one or ones who have asked and uses the misunderstanding to open their minds to the deeper spiritual truth. In this instance the crowds who have followed Jesus begin by asking: “How did you get here”?  Jesus ignores their question, choosing instead to confront their focus on their physical needs – they have followed him, not because of who he is but because they have had their fill of bread – but they understand bread in only one way as food for the stomach. Jesus wants them to recognise another hunger – a hunger for wholeness and life.  He points out that bread, such as that with which he fed them with the previous day, satisfies only for a short time, but the bread that is his presence among them can feed for eternity.

Of course, this doesn’t make sense to the he crowds who can’t shift their focus from the physical bread to the spiritual and they can’t comprehend that they could be given something for nothing. “What must we do?”  they ask. Jesus informs them that all they have to do is to believe in him as one sent by God and they will be satisfied for eternity. It is impossible for the crowd to believe that anything could be so simple. They demand another sign, proof that Jesus comes from God, does represent God. After all, they contend, Moses gave them food from heaven!

Their misunderstanding provides another opportunity for Jesus to try to open their minds to a new way of seeing. He corrects their misunderstanding. It was not Moses, but God who sent the bread – the true bread from heaven. Moses was the prophet who interceded, not the agent who sent the bread. The logical conclusion is that if he, Jesus, has fed the crowds with bread in the wilderness, then he, Jesus, is God (provider of the true bread). Jesus takes the claim even further – he is the bread from heaven, the food that sustains body and soul. He is “the bread of God”, the bread that will last, the bread that gives life to the world”.

Finally, at least for now, Jesus claims – “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Believing in him, Jesus asserts will satisfy the crowds deepest longings, will take away their trivial anxieties, will calm their troubled souls and will put everything into its proper perspective.

Over and over again in John’s gospel Jesus claims to be all that we need – the light of the world, living water, the true vine, the good shepherd, the bread of life. If we place our trust in Jesus, if we believe that Jesus will light our way and sustain us, we will not be spared those things that affect the rest of humankind, but we will be given the strength and courage to face them, the assurance that we are not alone and the confidence that whatever trials this life offers, we have the certainty of an eternity in the presence of God.

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So much grass – feeding 5,000

July 29, 2024

Pentecost 10 – 2024

John 6:1-21

Marian Free

In the name of God who delights in the ordinary and who feeds us – body, mind and soul. Amen.

Sometimes I wonder if we take ourselves (and therefore our faith) too seriously. Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 is one such example.  Much ink has been spilled in the attempt to explain just what happened. Was it a miracle in the sense that Jesus was able to turn five small loaves into enough bread to feed such an enormous crowd? OR was the miracle the small boy’s offering – which in turn exposed the selfishness of the crowd who then produced the food that they had brought with them?  If wondering about the miracle were not enough, others (like myself last week) focus on what the author’s intention was in re-telling the story. For example, as I said, Mark seems to be deliberately contrasting Jesus’ selflessness and humility with Herod’s self-centredness and pride. John, as we shall see, uses the miracle as a stepping off point for a long discourse on bread and possibly on Eucharistic theology.

Knowing the scholarship adds depth and breadth to our understanding, but it doesn’t hurt to have a more playful look at the text, to wonder at the detail and to try to put ourselves into the story. Instead of asking about meaning, we can take the story at face value and imagine it being related to a congregation of believers who might be trying to get a sense of what it was like to be in the presence of Jesus. Sometimes little details stand out and bring a smile to our face reminding us that Jesus was real, that he was human just like us, that the disciples didn’t completely understand or trust Jesus (a bit like us) that the people who followed Jesus were interested in him because of what he could do (at least a little bit like us).

So, Jesus – who if we read back – has just finished a long dispute with the Jewish authorities randomly decides to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. We are not told how he gets there! A large crowd continues to follow him either because they are interested in his showmanship or because they believe he has the power to heal. When Jesus gets to the other side of the Sea, he goes up the mountain and sits down with his disciples – only then does he appear to notice the crowd coming up behind. 

He doesn’t teach (as in Mark and Luke) or heal (as in Matthew and Luke) but turns to Philip and poses a “teaser[1]”: “Where are we to buy enough bread for these people to eat?” We can imagine Jesus’ lips curling slightly and his eyes twinkling as he tries to suppress a smile. He knows ahead of time that Philip will take him seriously and misunderstand him. Perhaps Jesus even imagines Philip doing the maths in his head. Indeed, Philip doesn’t even answer Jesus’ question which was “where” not “how” will we buy bread.

Then “miraculously’ the bread appears in the form of a small boy who has brought his lunch to Andrew and in Andrew who, even though he thinks the offering much too small, still brings the boy to Jesus. Jesus makes no comment about the bread but tells Andrew to make the peoples sit down and, as if it is an important detail, the gospel writer tells us that there was a “great deal of grass in the place”. (Mark and Matthew mention the grass, or the green grass, but not how much there is.) This comment about the grass, adds nothing to the miracle story, but it does situate the story and allows us to picture the scene and to put ourselves in it.

I draw out these details rather than the number fed, or the baskets left over, to demonstrate the ways in which the author has tried to make the text come alive for his listeners. Through this retelling, we are shown Jesus’ initial indifference (not that he doesn’t care, but that he is so focussed on what he is doing that he doesn’t at first notice the crowd). We can also see something of Jesus’ playfulness – life doesn’t have to be taken too seriously!  At the same time through Philip, we can see the consequences of taking things too seriously – we get the wrong end of the stick, we look for the wrong solution, we don’t listen carefully to the question! In Andrew, we observe the faith that is tentative, but not afraid of being disparaged or put down. Lastly, the plentiful grass is evidence that however we understand it, and however it actually happened, there was a time and a place when a great crowd gathered around Jesus, sat on the grass, and were fed.

If we pay attention to the detail, it is easier to see what is going on, and to put ourselves into the picture – are we part of the crowd, or do we relate to the pragmatic Philip or to the hesitant Andrew? How do we feel about Jesus’ gentle teasing of Philip? What do we make of the “great deal of grass”?

The Ignatians have a method of reading the bible which might be called imaginative contemplation. This method invites us to approach the bible with all our senses, to see, hear, feel and smell what is happening, to put ourselves into the story as one of the characters and to imagine what they are thinking[2]. To do this, you first open oneself to the presence of God, before reading the passage slowly once or twice so as to become familiar with it. Then you try to put yourself in the story as one of the people or simply as an observer (perhaps a maid from the inn peaking in on the Nativity). Finally, you turn to Jesus and speak to him. If you’d like to try. This method, John 6:1-21 would be a good place to start.

Who knows what really happened and what the miracle of the feeding really was, but from this story we learn that Jesus was real, that he had a sense of humour and that he cared, about the whole person – body, mind and soul, and that the people needed full stomachs as much as they needed to hear him or to be cured of their illnesses.

[1] A much better word than ‘test”.

[2] Christina Miller gives a simple explanation here https://blog.bible/bible-engagers-blog/entry/ignatian-contemplation-how-to-read-the-bible-with-your-imagination

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Another way – Herod vs Jesus

July 20, 2024

Pentecost 9 – 2024

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Marian Free

In the name of God who shows us another way, a better away. Amen.

There have been times I admit when, exhausted from a day of minding children or simply bored with an inane children’s story, that I have skipped a page that I determined was not essential to the plot. I rarely got away with the omission – it was usually met with: “you missed a page!” For the child each page was integral to the plot and to the pleasure of having the story read to them. 

Most stories have a trajectory and are carefully constructed so as to take the reader along with them. This is why it can be frustrating when the lectionary writers leave out sections of the readings as is the case this morning. The missing verses in this instance are Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5000 and the rationale for omitting them is that for the next five weeks we will be focussing on John’s version of the same event. Wisely, the lectionary writers try to avoid too much repetition, but what that means is that we lose Mark’s voice, when it comes to this story and his voice is important.  

As might be expected, the author of John’s gospel takes a very different approach to the re-telling of this miracle. John uses the feeding of the 5,000 to introduce a very long discourse on the theme of bread. Here, Jesus compares himself to the manna in the wilderness, he claims to be the Bread of Life and he states that those who do not eat his flesh and drink his blood have no life in them. The Jesus of John’s gospel appears to be at least a little confrontational here – “if you don’t do this then this will happen”. Jesus’ language and assertiveness mean that some disciples find his teaching too difficult, and they turn away from him.

Mark’s account of the same event is very different. In Mark’ recounting, the emphasis is placed on Jesus’ compassion; on Jesus as shepherd of a people who are lost and who are looking for someone to lead them. Jesus does teach the crowd, but the content of that teaching is not considered worth reporting.  What is important to Mark is Jesus’ response to the crowds who have sought him out – the very crowds he was trying to escape. Though Jesus is desperately tired (and possibly wanting to grieve the death of John the Baptist and to process what that might mean for him) he doesn’t turn the people away. Jesus knows that he needs silence and solitude, and he has taken his disciples to a desolate place. But when he sees the crowd instead of being frustrated, he sees their need and puts aside his own. He teaches and heals the crowd and then, instead of sending them away as would make sense, he feeds them. Jesus draws on an inner strength which enables him to put his own needs last and the needs of the people first.  

Whereas in John’s gospel Jesus gives the crowds a metaphor – “I am the Bread of Life”, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus gives himself, all that he is.  

By leaving Mark’s version of the story out of our Sunday readings, we are prevented from comparing the two accounts, but the real damage caused by the omission of Mark. verses 35-52, is that it does not give us an opportunity to see the way in which Mark is constructing his gospel and the way in which the positioning of this story is significant for the gospel as a whole.

As we will see over the course of the next five weeks, John places the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in the context of the growing tension between Jesus and the authorities and the discourse which follows highlights the misunderstanding and the. tension. Mark uses the story very differently – to make clear the contradiction between the ways of the world and the way of God (as exemplified by Jesus).

In Mark’s gospel the feeding of the 5,000 follows the gruesome account of Herod’s banquet[1].

As you will remember, last week I concluded that there was no good news in the account of the beheading of John which reminds us that the world can be an ugly place in which brutal events occur, in which those who are innocent suffer and God has no magic wand to make everything right. But by juxtaposing John’s beheading with the feeding of the 5,000 Mark makes it clear that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is another way – a way that is not prideful, self-serving and destructive, but is humble, self-sacrificial and life-giving. 

As Donahue and Harrington point out, Herod’s banquet takes place in a palace. It is a birthday and only those who will enhance Herod’s honour will have been invited. The food is not mentioned but is surely fitting for such an occasion. Jesus’ banquet takes place somewhere desolate, it is not planned, the attendees (ordinary people, who have nothing to offer) have invited themselves, and the food is only that which is available – a paltry two fish and five loaves. Herod’s banquet is overshadowed by Herod’s immoral behaviour, Jesus’ banquet is characterised by his compassion. Jesus responds to the crowd by offering them food, Herod’s response (to the expectation of) his guests is to have John the Baptist beheaded. Herod’s concern was to hold on to his power and to his position at all costs. Jesus was willing to relinquish his own needs to serve the needs of others.

Herod’s hubris, self-centredness and his focus on what he can gain lead to division, brutality, violence. 

Jesus’ humility, his self-effacement and his willingness to put others first create unity, tenderness and peace. 

Herod and Jesus – two different ways. of living and being.

Whose example will we follow? What sort of world do we want to create?

[1] I am grateful to Donahue and Harrington for this insight. Donahue, S.J, John R, and Harrington, Daniel J, S.J. The Gospel of Mark. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2002, 209.

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Jesus our mother

August 28, 2021

Pentecost 13 – 2021
John 6:56-69
Marian Free

In the name of God who is always beyond our capacity to fully know. Amen.

On Friday I attended a virtual seminar titled “Speaking of Christ, Christa, Christx”. I imagine that for a great many, if not all of you, the presentations would have been challenging and confronting especially if you were being exposed to these ideas for the first time. Having begun my biblical studies at a time when feminism was beginning to make an impact on the ways in which theology and the bible were studied, I found the day stimulating and refreshing. As the title of the seminar suggests, the papers were based around the idea that just as God is genderless, so too is the Christ. That is, while it is undeniable that Jesus inhabited a male body, the second person of the Trinity represents all humanity, in all its expressions. We affirm this Sunday by Sunday in the words of the Nicene Creed when we say: “Jesus became truly human”.

The idea that Jesus can represent both the masculine and the feminine is not new, but was a view commonly held in the Middle Ages. At that time in history the focus of the church was on the fate of the individual at the point of death and in particular on judgement and hell. In both literature and the visual arts lurid depictions of hell included such things eternally burning fire, demons with pitchforks and screaming human beings.

In reaction to this emphasis on hell and therefore on a demanding, oppressive, and even cruel God a number of things happened.
• The idea of purgatory was developed – a place between heaven and hell in which the (imperfect) soul could be purified and so achieve the state of holiness required to enter heaven.
• Devotion to Mary grew. In Mary the general populace found a softer, feminine force who could intercede with a forbidding God on their behalf.
• It was not only Mary who represented the feminine. The second person of the Trinity came to characterise the feminine aspect of God. Julian of Norwich for example consistently spoke of Jesus as mother. She writes: “our true Mother Jesus, he alone bears us for joy and for endless life. So, he carries us within him in love. The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself.” In a similar vein Anselm of Canterbury wrote: “Jesus, as a mother you gather your people to you; you are gentle with us as a mother with her child.” (For the full version of this poem see p428 of your prayer book).

All these things I know from my study of Medieval History and Friday’s seminar did not revisit these concepts but explored new ideas relevant to our time and place in history. Something that particularly piqued my interest was a paper that claimed that the earliest images of Christ included the feminine. Of course, I have not had time to follow this up with my own research, but I should not have been surprised. The Christ hymn, with which John’s gospel begins speaks of Jesus as Word or wisdom/Sophia. We first come across Sophia in the book of Proverbs in which wisdom/Word/Sophia is unequivocally female. In Proverbs 1 we read: “Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares she raises her voice.
21 At the busiest corner she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks (Proverbs 1:20,21). Wisdom is co-creator with God and exists from the beginning with God – language later appropriated in the Christ hymn.

What was new to me – and this is where the seminar meets today’s gospel – was the claim that the images that we find in John 6 of eating flesh and drinking blood were, in the earliest post-resurrection days, associated with breast feeding. While I would have to read more to confirm this, it fits with the imagery later used by Julian of Norwich who compares partaking of the sacrament with breast-feeding. Indeed, the imagery of idea of pregnancy and breast feeding is very compelling and much less offensive than that of consuming actual flesh and blood. In the womb the unborn child is sustained by the blood of the mother and after birth, the child feeds from the breast. A child exists because it feeds off the flesh and blood of its mother.

However we understand Jesus’ imagery of eating flesh and drinking blood, it is quite clear that his audience found his language offensive. As I said last week, eating an animal with its blood was absolutely forbidden in Jewish law. Jesus’ language was so confronting that many of his disciples turned back. They could understand the miracle of the manna in the wilderness. That did not require any leap of the imagination. While it was not actual bread, the manna was edible, and it did sustain the Israelites through their long journey in the desert. What the people didn’t seem to understand was that while manna was physical and visible, its effects were temporary. Manna could sustain earthly existence, bodily flesh, what it could not do was feed the spirit or offer life beyond the grave. In his imagery of eating flesh and drinking blood, Jesus challenged his followers to consume those things that are spiritual and that prepare and equip a person for eternity.

I understand that the image of a genderless Christ may not speak to you. The point of my illustration is this, that whether we like them or not, we should never completely close ourselves to new ideas, to new ways of seeing. Many of those who followed Jesus simply could not embrace anything new. Their imaginations were limited to what they could see and feel and as a consequence, they turned away from a relationship with Jesus that we know to be life-giving and sustaining.

The lesson of today’s gospel is this: if we hold on to what we think we know, if confine our understanding to physical realities and if we hold on to earthly ways of thinking, we will be no different from those who turned away from Jesus and from Jesus’ difficult sayings. We will close the door on new possibilities for relationship and for being.

The unknowable God is constantly revealing God’s self to those who are willing expose themselves to new ideas, new ways of knowing God. Faith after all is a journey, not a destination. My prayer for all of us is that we will continue to deepen and to grow our relationship with the living God – Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver – however uncomfortable and challenging that may be.

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The offence of the Gospel

August 14, 2021

Pentecost 12 – 2021

John 6:51-58

Marian Free

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

A recent post on Facebook directed me to an article written in September 2019 for Esquire by Shane Claibourne. He wrote: “To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity. Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.” It is quite a confronting statement. He goes on to quote a (then) recent study of the top three perceptions of Christians among young non-Christians in the United States. Their opinion of Christians in that nation was that they were anti-gay, judgement and hypocritical.

I understand and share Claibourne’s angst. It grieves me to observe that collectively, the church – at least in the western world – causes offense in all the wrong ways. Instead of being generally respected, the church today is often a source of scepticism, ridicule and even of anger. To take the most recent example, the churches are currently under attack for (possibly) making a profit out of Jobkeeper. We have lost our standing in the wider community and have become a target for criticism rather than for congratulation. Much of the great work that is undertaken by the church throuhg our welfare agencies goes unnoticed and our misdemeanours are writ large in the public eye.

There are a multitude of factors that have contributed to our fall in grace. These include the fact that we have promoted obedience to a set of rules rather than submission to a God of love and we have focussed on the afterlife (be it heaven or hell) rather than emphasising what faith has to offer in the present. Instead of being seen as promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and unconditional love the church as a whole is more likely to be identified with upholding conservative values, preaching exclusion, or preserving the status quo. In recent times we could have been accused of protecting our own self-interests (the Freedom of Religion Bill being one such example) and of making out that we are being persecuted. We might have been better to acknowledge to ourselves that our place in the public eye has changed considerably during our own lifetimes.

During this period our hypocrisy and lack of openness have been laid bare as the scandal of child sex abuse has been revealed and as high-profile church leaders have been exposed as having extra-marital affairs or having embezzled church funds. We can no longer hide behind a veil of respectability and nor can we afford to take the moral high ground.

Of course, I’m using a very broad brush here. The criticisms I’ve listed cannot be levelled at all churches, but the general public do not necessarily distinguish between the traditional churches and the more recent, more conservative non-denominational churches. In the minds of many we are all grouped together – the sins (or neglect) of one are attributed to us all. Publicly, the voice that receives the greatest attention tends to be the Australian Christian Lobby which, at best, tells us something about how quiet our voices now are or, at worst, how disinterested the public has become in what we, the mainline churches have to say.

These days, as I have said, the church seems to cause offense for all the wrong reasons. Yet there have been times in recent memory when the church caused offence for all the right reasons. For example, in the late 1980’s our voices were raised in support of legislation related to gun control and Anglicans across Australia signed petitions in favour of tougher gun ownership laws. When Bob Hawke’s promise that “no child would live in poverty by 1990” began to falter, mainline churches lobbied successive governments to try make that promise a reality. Nationally today Anglicare continues to argue for a living wage for all people, but that receives little media attention.

Today’s gospel centres around offense. Jesus makes the challenging statement that: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”.  To his Jewish audience for whom the eating of blood was absolutely forbidden, this saying, taken at face-value, was utterly offensive. Despite this, and despite the fact that Jesus, and possibly the author of this gospel, were Jews, Jesus repeats this point at least six times – “eat my flesh, drink my blood, eat my flesh, drink my blood” over and over.

I hazard a guess that if we were hearing this for the first time we would be discomforted if not appalled.

No matter what he did, Jesus managed to cause offense in one quarter or another. Whether he was healing on the Sabbath, dining with sinners and tax collectors, confronting the authorities, breaking the law, or questioning long held traditions Jesus seemed to manage to put someone or some group offside. Jesus was always on the side of the oppressed, the disadvantaged and the demonised. This, needless to say, put him into conflict with the ruling authorities. Yet even though Jesus knew that he was causing offense and even though people rejected him and rejected his teaching, he could not stop. He knew who he was and what he was called to do, and nothing (not even the threat of death) would stand in his way.

If we are truly followers of Jesus, we too should be among those who cause offense by challenging unjust structures, lobbying on behalf of the marginalised and the dispossessed, and questioning laws that oppress rather than liberate.

For many of us it would go against the grain but perhaps, just perhaps, in the name of Christ we should cause offense. Instead of trying to fit in we should try to stand out, instead of being silent we should raise our voices for the needy, the destitute and the burdened and instead of trying to present ourselves as perfect, we should humble admit our shortcomings. Maybe then, those who are longing for God’s kingdom to come, will see in us a community determined to see it come about.

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Seeing in a mirror dimly – exploring John

August 7, 2021

Pentecost 11 – 2021
John 6:35, 41-51
Marian Free

In the name of God whom we see only in a mirror, dimly. Amen.

I have just finished reading Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro the author of Remains of the Day and Never let me go. Ishiguro has an interesting writing style. Instead of setting the scene at the beginning, he dives straight into the story leaving the reader to gradually piece together what is happening. For example, in Klara and the Sun, we realise immediately that Klara is a type of artificial intelligence in the form of a teenage girl, but we don’t know her purpose. Nor do we know what lies behind the illness that afflicts the girl for whom she is a companion. It is only as the story unfolds that we begin to understand that in this future world, society is deeply stratified on the basis of intellectual ability. We are much further into the story when Ishiguro reveals that some families go as far as genetically altering their children in order for the children to succeed. Reading Ishiguro’s novels can be frustrating. Even though the story is engaging, a reader is impatient for the gaps to be filled so that they can fully grasp what is going on.

It occurs to me that John’s gospel is somewhat similar. It is extraordinarily readable, and for many people it is their favourite gospel. At the same time, it is frustratingly opaque, full of mysterious statements and images that don’t at first sight make sense. The author repeats the same themes over and over, circles round on himself and even at times contradicts himself. Added to this confusion is the fact that story is multi-layered. Details are added piece by piece until the picture becomes a little bit clearer (or at least until the listener gives up and goes away). Reading this gospel in sections, as we do in the context of our worship, means that we miss the subtleties in John’s writing and the connections between the various sections and themes. We get the best out of this gospel if we read it from start to finish – preferably in one sitting – and allow John’s message to seep deep into us.

Today’s gospel is a case in point. Jesus’ discussion about the bread of heaven belongs to the account of the feeding of the 5,000. The literal bread of that miracle has now become a metaphor for the person of Jesus. When the crowd followed him, he challenged them to seek not bread but that which would last for eternity, not those things which satisfy temporarily, but those which will have a lasting effect.

There are similarities between this encounter and Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well. In both cases Jesus offers something (living water, living bread) that will satisfy for ever. In both instances, Jesus’ offer is misunderstood. It is extremely difficult for people (many of whom will know what it is to be hungry) to imagine that there is something intangible that can truly satisfy them. The woman wants the living water so that she will not have to come to the well and those whom Jesus has fed want something to always keep hunger at bay.

In John’s gospel this theme of reliance on Jesus is not limited to food and water. For example, immediately prior to the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus has challenged the crowd’s dependence on material things rather than on the spiritual. He has criticised their reliance on scripture rather on himself and the fact that instead of seeing Jesus/God as the source of life, they have focussed on the written word.

Within chapter six itself, we see a microcosm of John’s writing technique. The feeding of the 5,000 and the interaction that follows circle around a number of related themes – hunger, bread, the manna in the wilderness, doing the work of God and the relationship between the Father and Jesus. Another theme that is picked up here is the scepticism of the Jewish leaders and especially their failure to see beyond the superficial. In the chapter, each section builds on what came before it so that bread becomes looking for meaning, belief in Jesus and life eternal and scepticism becomes rejection and antagonism.

That the chapter should be read as a whole is clearly demonstrated by the cliffhanger with which today’s gospel ends. If Jesus’ listeners were confused about “living bread coming down from heaven” or about the fact that those who come to Jesus “will never be hungry and those who believe in him will never be thirsty”, or that those who eat the bread that Jesus gives will never die, imagine their reaction when he says: “the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh!” Unfortunately, unless you read the whole of chapter six during the week, you will have to make sure that you tune in for the next two weeks in order to get to the end of the story.

Unlike the Synoptic gospel writers, John does not simply tell the story of Jesus’ life. He tries to draw us in to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God and he does this by reiterating the same themes in multiple different ways so that if we don’t understand one image, there is another that might make what he is saying clearer. In this way John gradually draws us in and slowly builds up a picture of Jesus’ nature and purpose and of Jesus’ relationship to the Father. To use his own words John gradually leads those who are willing, from darkness into light.

Taken as a whole, John’s gospel could be seen as a metaphor for the Christian journey, in particular our relationship with the Trinity. As we grow in faith and understanding, things that were not clear become clearer. As our experience of God grows, so too does our appreciation of the way God works in the world. Faith is not something that comes to us fully formed. It is only as we expose ourselves to the presence of God through prayer, scripture and worship, that our hearts, our minds and our souls are truly opened to the nature of God and to God’s presence with us.

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It is what God does, not what we do

July 31, 2021

Pentecost 10 – 2021
John 6:24-35 (a reflection)
Marian Free

In the name of God, in whom we live and breathe and have our being. Amen.

There are a number of hymns that formed my faith at a time when I was too young and therefore too ill-informed to put words to my thoughts and feelings. The most powerful lyric for my young self was the line from “Hallelujah! Sing to Jesus” which we would have sung today had we not been in lockdown. The second verse begins: “Hallelujah! not as orphans, are we left in sorrow now.” For reasons that I do not understand, I found these words incredibly comforting. I have hummed them to myself over and over and they have sustained me throughout my Christian journey. Another line that struck a chord in my young self comes from the hymn “Immortal, invisible” – “from Christ in the story, to Christ in the heart.” Even in my primary school years, those words made it clear to me that having a relationship with God was so much more than intellectual assent.

The hymn “Dear Lord and Father of mankind” (or its new form “Dear Father, Lord of humankind”) is another that has continued to inform my spiritual life. The entire hymn speaks of allowing ourselves to rest in Jesus, but the words that I find myself humming from time to time – especially when I am stressed or anxious are:

“Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease,
take from our souls the strain and stress
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace,
the beauty of thy peace.”

When I first began practicing meditation, I took myself very seriously and did all that I could to achieve a state of detachment or at least some sort of mental state that was free from all distractions. In other words I was “striving” to reach some imagined ideal! I now realise that this was an unrealistic goal, and that meditation – like all spiritual practices – is meant to be more a “relaxing into” than a “striving for”. In fact, striving to achieve any sort of goal is counter to the goal of meditation which is more about letting go and letting God.

I think that this may be the point of this morning’s gospel.

If you did not already know, the entirety of chapter six in John is a discourse on bread. (As we read the entire chapter over the course of six weeks, it can be a real challenge for the preacher and for anyone unlucky enough to be choosing hymns!) To recap – Jesus has just fed a crowd of 5,000 with five barley loaves and two small fish. Needless to say, the crowd are impressed by Jesus’ actions, and they begin to murmur among themselves: “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, aware of this and that the crowd intend to make him king, withdraws by himself.

Meantime the disciples have returned by sea to Capernaum where Jesus joins them (having walked on the water to do so). It is here that our gospel today begins. The crowd, seeing that a boat is missing, realise that Jesus and the disciples have crossed the lake. They too make their way over the lake in search of Jesus. When they find him, they ask: “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus is suspicious about their motives in seeking him out and the ensuing conversation proves him to be correct. While the crowd have intuited something about Jesus, their understanding is still very basic, and this is the crunch – they ask: “What must we do to perform the works of God?” The crowd don’t get it, they think that they need to do something for God and they don’t yet understand that the important thing is simply to accept what God does for them. They want to be active, not passive, they want to strive, not to rest.

This is often our problem. We too want to do something. We want to have something to show for our efforts, to have something that will affirm our sense of self, something that will demonstrate that we are worthy of God’s attention or something that might just be a basis for a pat on the back. We live in a world in which nothing is for nothing. We are used to an economy of exchange – you do something for me, and I will do something for you. If you want something you will have to pay for it. It is hard to imagine that our relationship with God should be any different.

This is the tension of the spiritual life. It is natural for us to want to strive, to attain a level of perfection, or to have a standard against which to measure ourselves, when all that Jesus wants is for us to trust. The work of God, Jesus says is: “to believe (trust) in him whom God has sent” (6:29). Instead of focussing on what they can do Jesus suggests, the crowd should focus on what God has done for them. They should trust in God’s love for them that has been demonstrated in God’s sending Jesus (God’s only Son) into the world. God’s hope is that through trusting Jesus, the people will come to trust God (John 3:16). The crux of the matter then, is whether or not we trust in God, whether we believe that our salvation depends on what we do or on what God has done.

If we truly believe that God sent Jesus into the world to save the world, we can stop striving, because the hard work has already been done (and not by us).

All that is left for us to do is to trust in God and in God’s unwavering love for us.

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Besides women and children

August 1, 2020

Pentecost 9 – 2020

Matthew 14:13-21

Marian Free

“And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children.” Matt 14:21

In the name of God who by becoming one of us affirms the dignity of all humanity. Amen.

Some time ago I watched a rather harrowing movie – The Whistle-blower – starring Rachel Weisz. The movie is based on the real story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a police officer in Nebraska, who was recruited by an American company, DynCorp International. DynCorp had a contract with the United Nations to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kathryn had not been in Bosnia long when she came across Raya, a young Ukrainian woman, who had managed to escape from a brothel where she was being sexually exploited and abused. Raya had been trafficked across the border by the uncle of a friend who had persuaded both girls that he had found them a job in a hotel. It was a sophisticated operation. He had brochures of the hotel and job descriptions but in reality, he was preying on their financial vulnerability and their trust in him. When the girls arrived in Bosnia, they discovered that they had been sold into prostitution. If the movie was accurate, the conditions in which the women were kept was appalling and the brutality they experienced at the hands of their “keepers” was horrendous. 

Bolkovac endeavoured to find a place of safety for Raya only to discover that her employer, DynCorp was facilitating the sex trafficking and worse, that the international peacekeepers knew of the operation but chose to turn a blind eye. As a consequence, Raya’s whereabouts was leaked, she was recaptured, violently punished. Within a few weeks was shot dead as an example to others. Kathryn tried to bring the situation to the attention of the United Nations and as a result she received death threats and was fired. She took her employers to court for unfair dismissal and won, but while she reported that the company was involved in prostitution, rape and sex-trafficking, only local employees were prosecuted as UN contractors had immunity from prosecution.

The deliberate, calculating trafficking of people for profit is endemic. Despite the efforts of William Wilberforce and others in the late 18th, early 19th century, slavery is far from dead. At any one time in 2016 there were an estimated 40.3 million people held in slavery. Over 40 million people – that is 5.4 people for every thousand person on the planet! The statistics are horrendous:  

  • 51% of identified victims of trafficking are women, 28% children and 21% men
  • 72% people exploited in the sex industry are women
  • 63% of identified traffickers were men and 37% women
  • 99%  percent of all women and girls who are trafficked are trafficked into the commercial sex industry.[1]

Australia is not immune to this trade in human beings. In 2018, Anti-Slavery Australia helped over 123 people who had been trafficked to or from Australia.[2]  A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology published in February last year estimated that in 2015-16, 2016-7 the number of people trafficked or forced into slavery in Australia was between 1,300 and 1,900 meaning that for every person who is identified as being trafficked or enslaved, there are another four who are not identified.[3]

Trafficking is only the beginning of a lifetime of exploitation, torture and abuse.

There are millions of stories of trafficking, exploitation and abuse – slavery in the 21st century.

The human capacity to denigrate, dehumanise or ignore others is almost beyond comprehension. The ability to be blind to the talents, hopes and dreams of those who are different from ourselves almost defies belief. And yet, as is evidenced by modern day slavery, both are very real human characteristics. 

Whenever we view another person or group of people as lesser than ourselves, we are in danger of dehumanising them – as if there were gradations of being human. When we consider that another person is of less value than ourselves, we free ourselves to disregard their needs, their feelings and their ambitions which in turn frees us to treat them in ways that are cruel, degrading and exploitative. When we take the view that a person or group of people exists primarily as a source of our own comfort or our own enrichment, we become blind to their needs for comfort and security. Whenever people are put to use to improve the lifestyles of others, they are vulnerable to financial exploitation or to physical or sexual abuse. 

Failing to take notice of the gifts, talents and capacities of people whose race, background or economic status are different from our own, impoverishes all of us. We not only lose the contribution they could make to our society; we also allow our own selfishness free rein. At the same time, we also excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for their well-being, and fail to advocate on their behalf. 

In today’s gospel it is the women and children who are unnoticed. Jesus fed 5,000 men we are told by Mark and Luke to which Matthew adds as something of an afterthought: “besides woman and children”. Only John includes everyone in the story.

Throughout history many people have been left out of our story – women and children, the poor, the disenfranchised, the disadvantaged, the prisoner, people of colour, people whose faith is different from our own, people whose sexual orientation or gender identification does not conform – on and on it goes. 

If slavery and exploitation are to end, it has to begin here, with us – with our own attitudes, beliefs and values. 

Who are the people whom we leave out of the story and whom are we abandoning to potential abuse and exploitation by our ignorance, our blindness, our selfishness and our desire to pay less than a product is truly worth?

In other words, who are the “besides” in our story and what will it take from us to ensure that they are included?

[1] https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/human-trafficking/

[2] https://theconversation.com/human-trafficking-and-slavery-still-happen-in-australia-this-comic-explains-how-112294

[3] https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sb/sb16

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