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How do we know it’s Jesus?

December 14, 2025

Advent 3 – 2026

Matthew 11:2-11

Marian Free

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

 

Recently I have come to understand the appeal of ‘the rapture’ – the idea that Jesus’ return will be accompanied by angels with trumpets and those who are considered worthy will be swept into heaven while the unworthy will be left to face the utter destruction of the world. It occurs to me that believing in the rapture makes everything so easy. When Jesus returns it will be clear that it really is Jesus – angels, trumpets and the raising of the dead will be obvious to all and are definitely not associated with any other expectation. It will it be impossible to miss the rapture (and Jesus’ return). The other advantage of the rapture is that belief in the rapture is that it has the effect of taking away personal responsibility. Somehow the belief itself  builds up confidence in believers that they are among the ones who will be gathered up because they are among the chosen.

According to this the surprise has been taken away. Jesus’ warning that the day will come as a thief in the night is conveniently ignored. The timing of the rapture can apparently be predicted. Those who believe in the rapture do not have to worry about being prepared, because they have prepared themselves simply by being members of  the believing group. (The fact as recently as this year the prediction failed to come to fruition does not seem to worry adherents, they will happily accept the explanations offered for its failure to materialise.)

Another flaw in this belief is that those who believe in the rapture also seem to think that the rapture will occur in a particular place at a particular time and that believers have to be in that place to be gathered up. This would imply that Jesus’ coming at the end of time will not be a universal, but a very limited event OR that those of us who are not in the in crowd will simply  be left behind.

I’ve been thinking about the rapture, not because some people expected it occur in September this year, but because I’ve also been pondering Jesus’ return – how it will happen and how we will know. It seems to me that if it was difficult for people to recognise Jesus in a tiny nation with a relatively small population how much more difficult will it be today when the population has blown out from 170 – 300 million to around 8.26 billion. How would the word spread? How would we know if it really was Jesus if he appeared in a place a long way distant from where we live to a people with a culture very different from ours? If say, people in Mongolia were convinced that Jesus had come among them, what would they need to do to convince the rest of us to believe them?  Even if Jesus came to a city like Brisbane with a population of nearly 3 million, most of us would only hear rumours that someone amazing was making a difference in the lives of the poor and marginalised. It would be easier not to believe that it was Jesus, easier to believe that those making the claims were simply religious fanatics.

For me this has always been a challenging issue.  We are led to expect that when Jesus comes it will be glaringly obvious – angels and trumpets making the announcement so clear that no one will miss it but is that really how it will be?

In today’s world which is surely as rife with injustice, inequality and conflict as that of the first century there are thousands of good, selfless people, risking their lives and living simply in order to bring healing and hope in places of despair and turmoil. In a time of heightened expectation (or despair) anyone of a number of today’s heroes could be named as (or could claim to be) the one sent by God.

So you see I have a great deal of sympathy for John the Baptist. His successful ministry has brought him into conflict with Herod and he is now in prison – a particularly unpleasant place to be in the first century. He will not have known what the future would bring, but it is not surprising that he is questioning his choices, asking himself if he got it right, if Jesus really was the one who was to come. (After all in his time too there were many ‘messianic’ figures.) John had handed his ministry to Jesus but he is not seeing the dramatic changes he might have expected – the nation as a whole has not turned back to God, the Romans continue their oppressive rule and Jesus is not behaving in a way that will bring about radical change. He must have wondered whether he had got it right.

Jesus’ reply echoes the words of God in the Psalms and in Isaiah, in which God’s promise is that the blind will receive their sight, the lame will walk, the lepers will cleansed, the prisoners set free, the deaf will  hear, and the dead will raised. These subtle signs are evidence of God’s presence on earth but they are signs that we might miss. It is much easier as John’s question attests to look for the more dramatic, earth-shattering signs of disruption and the heavenly signs of angels and trumpets.

If we are to know Jesus at his coming, it is essential that we come to know Jesus now, that we open our hearts and lives to his transforming love, that we seek to understand (and practice in our own lives) his preference for the marginalised, and that we are always on the lookout for signs of his presence among us now. If we are really attuned to him now not only will our lives already be lived as if he were here, but we will not fail to meet him when he returns (in glory or not).

 

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Pointing beyond ourselves. Advent 2

December 6, 2025

Advent 2 – 2025

Matthew 3:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to point away from ourselves to God. Amen.

I am the first born in my family, so I have very little experience of what it is to live in someone else’s shadow. No one has ever said to me: “You’re not as clever as or as good as Marian.”  No teacher, guide leader or other adult has ever been able to compare me with a family member who came before me. No one has had unrealistic expectations of me based on what an older sibling achieved before me.  I do know that this is a realty for many younger siblings – always having to live up to some sort of standard set by the eldest, always having their own gifts and talents ignored. It is slightly different if the younger excels more than the elder but differences between siblings tend not to go unnoticed – at least by the siblings themselves.

This week I found myself wondering about John the Baptist, and whether his childhood and youth was overshadowed by that of his cousin, Jesus. John’s calling was predicted before his birth, and it is clear that by the time he was thirty he was living out his vocation and that he had a passion for God that drew a significant following (one sufficiently strong that it continues to this day). It makes you wonder: How did he feel when his younger cousin Jesus came along and started preaching the same message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”? 

If Luke’s account is correct John, even though he was the elder by a few months, must have always been overshadowed by Jesus.  You can imagine some of the conversations when he was growing up: “John, it is true that God has given you a role to play, but your role is to support not to outshine Jesus.” “John, I know that your father prophesied many things about you, but remember your task is to point away from yourself to Jesus. You are to prepare the way, but Jesus will be the way.”  “Yes I know that you and Jesus are the same age that he is allowed to drink, but the angel specifically said that you were not to drink wine or strong drink.”

I wonder if there were times when a teenaged John quietly raged against the expectations that were placed on him – even before he was born. I wonder too, if there weren’t times when he was furious that his younger cousin had so much more freedom, possibly even fewer expectations. Were there moments when John thought that it was simply unfair that Jesus, who didn’t even have his priestly heritage, was chosen for the more important role? Were here times when the idea that he had to serve his younger cousin simply rankled? Later, after John had begun his ministry, fired up with a desire to restore the people to their right relationship with God, calling them to turn their lives around, did he feel just a pang of resentment when Jesus came along to steal his thunder, to draw his disciples away from him and to begin a movement of his own? 

From before his birth John was destined to be the forerunner, to always be in Jesus’ shadow. Our scriptures and religious art smooth over any questions John might have had about the clear distinctions between the two but that is not to say that there were not tensions or misunderstandings. After all, prophet or not, John was a real person with real feelings and almost certainly with real failings. To make him a super human is to do him a disservice. It also diminishes his role as a model and guide to those of us who come after.

That John was very much a human being will be made evident in next week’s gospel when, despite his confidence at Jesus’ baptism, John, now in prison, begins to question whether Jesus really is the one who is to come.

In order for us to identify with John we have to see in him characteristics that we can reasonably emulate. 

Whether or not John felt the imbalance between himself and Jesus, it is clear from our gospel accounts that at least once he had begun his ministry John understood that his vocation was to prepare the way. This he does with such grace. Even as the people, including the church leaders, throng to him he resists creating his own movement but points away from himself to Jesus, with whom, he says he is not worthy to be compared. 

John may well have known his destiny from birth, but as we have the story, he was one of those rare people who was willing to allow himself to diminish so that someone else could flourish, he was able to allow someone else take the credit for the movement he had begun, and to allow that person to take his movement forward and in a different direction.

John, as we meet him in scriptures, models what it is to be people who point the way to God and who draw others into faithful relationship with Jesus. He models what it is to proclaim the one who has come and is coming. He encourages us to prepare the way for God – smoothing away the difficulties that prevent people from engaging with the faith and removing the obstacles of bad theology and bad behaviour that turns good people away. He reminds us that if others take the credit for the ground work we have done, we are to rejoice that someone has come to faith and not be resentful that we have not received praise for simply doing what we are called to do. He shows us that instead of drawing attention to our own talents and abilities, we are to encourage and build up others so that they might discover and develop their own gifts and abilities. 

In Advent we the church proclaim the coming of Jesus. May we with John, point away from ourselves so that others might see Jesus, enable others to develop and flourish (even at our own expense) and rejoice when seeds that we have sown take root and grow under someone else’s watchful eye. 

Preparing the way, is never about us but always about the one who is to come.

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‘There’s a crack where the light gets in’ – the beheading of John the Baptist

July 13, 2024

Pentecost 8 – 2024

Mark 6:14-29

Marian Free

In the name of God whose light shines in the darkness and whose strength holds us in the midst of our pain. Amen.

I confess that I am a great fan of Leonard Cohen and while I can’t claim to fully understand the lyrics of his songs, I think I get the gist of what he is saying. By and large he presents a bleak view of the world and the people in it. For example, in what I believe was the last song he wrote before he died, ‘You want it Darker’, Cohen wrote: 

‘If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame.’

Later he repeats a line: ‘A million candles burning
For the help that never came’, replacing the word help with love the second time around. ‘A million candles burning for the love that never came.’ (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=you+want+it+darker+lyrics&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

Cohen’s lyrics could be a song for our time. We live in a world which appears to be fracturing along many different fault lines. The Russia/Ukraine war has divided nations along much the same lines as the Cold War. Across the globe countries which are proudly refusing to become directly involved in the war are not so reluctant to supply one side or the other with arms and military equipment thereby deepening the rifts between them. The Israel/Gaza conflict is threatening to split once harmonious communities in all corners of the world. Natural disasters are wreaking havoc on a scale not witnessed before and the gap between rich and poor are increasing at an alarming rate.  

These and other events are enough to drive the most hopeful among us to despair – to sing with Cohen that there are a million candles burning for the help that never came. We live in a time when we cannot ignore the very real presence of evil, the impact that human greed and selfishness are having on the planet and the capacity of human beings to inflict horrendous suffering on others.

Cohen is not afraid to name the darkness that hovers over us.

In the same way, the Bible refuses to paper over the ugliness of human existence, to sugar coat the terrors that human beings inflict on each other or to pretend that God can once and for all miraculously sweep away all that is wrong with the world. From the beginning to the end of our scriptures we are confronted with the capacity for evil that resides in each one of us. Cain kills Abel, the Israelites destroy the inhabitants of Canaan, Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah murders anyone who stands between herself and the crown and on it goes. The story of the death of John the Baptist is just one story in a litany of accounts of the frailty and insecurity of human beings. 

There is no way to gloss over or to find good news in the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. Here, Mark, who is known more for his brevity than his attention to detail, does not spare us. In his account the worst of humanity is exposed – Herod’s pride and insecurity, and his need to keep face (honour and power) at whatever cost.  Herodias’ spite at the Baptist’s moral stance and the supposedly innocent pawn – the daughter – who refuses to trust her own judgement but defers to her mother and who not only willingly enters into the unfolding drama but who adds her own particularly gruesome detail in asking that the head of John the Baptist be brought to her on a platter.

In placing the story here, Mark does two things (apart from reporting on the event itself). Firstly, he is making it clear that it is not only demons and evil spirits who cannot bear their wickedness to be exposed by Jesus’ goodness. Evil is not external to but integral to the human condition. Herodias wants John gone because he makes her feel uncomfortable (just as Jesus unsettled the demons). John has pointed out what Herodias already knows – that her divorce and remarriage are against the law – something she does not want to be reminded of.  

Secondly the account of John’s beheading acts as a sort of corrective to any misunderstanding about Jesus – his role and his powers. For the readers of the gospel who have been caught up by the miraculous events of the story – Jesus’ ability to cast out demons, heal the sick and even to calm a storm, Mark, through this story makes it clear that there is no magic wand or miracle cure for the ills of the world. The world and all its wickedness will not suddenly be transformed by the presence of Jesus. There will always be Herod’s – the immoral, the volatile, the power hungry, and the selfish. The evil that resides in the human heart will have to be confronted one person at a time.

That said, the story ends on a hopeful note. Mark tells us that John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. John’s life and ministry have not come to an abrupt halt. Herodias has not won. In the midst of darkness and despair God’s goodness and love has broken-in.

To return to Leonard Cohen. Another of his songs include the line: “There’s a crack in everything that’s where the light gets in.” Rabbi David Sachs tells us that this image comes a story in Jewish mysticism, known as: “The breaking of vessels”. According to the story, when God created the world and filled it with light the world was simply not strong enough to hold that light, so the vessels containing the light broke and everywhere there are broken vessels and within those vessels is divine light.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s3kQSZ_Qxk)

The death of John the Baptist is a stark reminder of humanity’s ability to defy God, and to desecrate goodness, but just as John’s disciples faithfully took and buried his body, so there are in every generation those who, despite the consequences will be the presence of goodness and holiness in the world. Despair, horror and evil will never hold sway because wherever there is an act of courage, of kindness or selflessness, we are reminded that there is a crack in everything and that’s where the light gets in.

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Voices in the wilderness – John the Baptist

December 9, 2023

Advent 2 – 2023

Mark 1:1-8

Marian Free

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

Most of us associate wilderness with the season of Lent and Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness, but here, on the second Sunday of Advent, Mark’s gospel compels us to face the wilderness in this season of preparation for Christmas.  John the Baptist, dressed in camel skin and eating locusts and honey, has chosen the wilderness, as they place to which he will draw people to face their past (confess their sins) and to embrace their future (look for the one more powerful than he). 

John is a bridge between the world of the prophets and the coming of Christ. He represents an era that is coming to an end and points forward to an era that is about to begin. As such John’s voice in the wilderness is a potent reminder that Advent is not only a wilderness time, it is also an in-between time – the time between what was and what will be, between what is and the potential of what might come. Advent wilderness provides time for reflection. It is an in-between time in which we can ask ourselves what got us to where we are? And how can we move on from here? 

In the language of the gospel, we are being provoked to prepare a way for the Lord and to do that by confessing our sins (past faults) and seeking John’s baptism (being made ready for the coming of Jesus).  

As we come to the end of 2023 and stand on the threshold of 2024, we face a world that is so much bleaker than it was twelve months ago. The war in Ukraine continues to drag on with its loss of life and the destruction of families, homes, and lives. Awful as that it is, it is now overshadowed by the conflict in Israel/Palestine – the horrendous acts of October 7 and the ongoing devastation of Gaza and its populations. In another part of the world, we face the possibility of war between Brazil and Venezuela. The daily news reminds us of the social collapse of Haiti, warns of the increasing instability that threatens Myanmar and, in many places in the world, the growing intolerance of and hostility towards, those who are in any way different from a perceived norm (European, white, Christian)[1].

Throughout the world there are millions of displaced or stateless persons who are struggling to survive and thousands who have lost their lives trying to escape situations that have left them totally without hope. In addition, our generation are witness to the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

Here, at home – in one of the world’s richest nations – the increased cost of living is sending many people to the brink, there are an increasing number of people (including families) who are impacted by the housing crisis, and we seem to be unable to prevent the over representation of indigenous people in our criminal justice system.

At the end of 2023, the voices of those in the wilderness threaten to deafen us –

  • The children caught up in events not of their own making, traumatized by war, separated from their families, 
  • the parents who cannot keep their children safe, who cannot feed or house them, or offer them a future,
  • the civilians caught in a conflict not of their making, who have lost homes, livelihoods, loved ones,
  • the refugees and the stateless who have nowhere to call home,
  • the migrants, the LGBTQIA+ community and all who are vilified and marginalised because they are different,
  • and the many others whose voices are drowned out by the volume of need, or whose voices are silenced by our indifference.

In today’s gospel, John the Baptist represents all these voices in the wilderness, voices calling us to pay attention and to recognise the injustice and trauma in the world and hear the cries of the suffering and the dispossessed, voices that demand that we confess our failure to act and commit to turning our lives around. Above all, John’s voice in the wilderness challenges us to soften our hearts so that we might be ready to see in the infant Jesus the one who has come to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free, and, having seen,  be ready and be willing to join him in the task of transforming the world. The voices in the wilderness demand that we prepare a way, that we make room in our hearts for the Christ-child to take up residence. The voices in the wilderness insist that we see the face of Christ in the traumatized, the marginalised, the lost, the homeless and the imprisoned.

The Psalmist says: “Righteousness will go before him and make a path for his steps” (Ps 85:1).  John makes it clear that we are responsible for that path, for the righteousness that goes before the Lord.

This Advent, may voices in the wilderness find in us a willing listener, an open heart, and a desire to make a difference (if only in our small corner of the world).

[1] In Europe that is.

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What’s in a name

January 14, 2023

Epiphany 2 – 2023
John 1:29-42
Marian Free

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

At the beginning of my ministry, I was based in a small country town. Even though it was close to a major city and not far from the capital, there were many in the town who had lived there all their lives. They had been to school together and had worked together in the nearby railway workshops. They were so familiar with each other that they knew each other by names that they had been given based on physical or personal characteristics. When I met with families to plan the funeral of their father, I would begin by asking them to tell me about him – his childhood, his family life, his work life and so on. Then, in order to put together an order of service, I would ask for more specific details such as full name and date of birth. At this point I was often interrupted as someone would say: “No one will know who you are talking about if you call him “Robert, John, Peter” or whatever his name was. I quickly learnt to ask how they would like their father referred to, and after the first formal reference to the deceased. I would make sure that for the rest of the service I would use the name by which he was known, not the name given him at birth. It was an important lesson as many people are known, not by their given name but by a term of affection, by their nickname or by their middle name.

Names are important, they are how others identify us and very often, they are how we come to identify ourselves.

In today’s gospel (which bridges last week’s reference to Jesus’ baptism and next week’s account of Jesus’ calling the four fishermen) includes four names for Jesus – Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi and Messiah (which means anointed). In the same reading Simon is given a new name Cephas (in Aramaic), Petros (in Greek) which means ‘rock’. Simon’s change of name tells us something about the way in which Jesus sees him. Apparently, despite all his wavering and his final denial of Jesus, Jesus can see in Peter something firm and solid – reliable even.

That is clear enough, but how are we to account for the number of (unrelated) names that are applied to Jesus? The four mentioned here are only a few of those that we encounter in the first chapter of John’s gospel. Others are Word, light, life, the one about whom Moses in the law and the prophets spoke, the one who is coming after me, the one who ranks ahead of me, Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth and Son of Man. It seems that not one word or phrase is sufficient to capture all that Jesus is and all that he signifies. There were so many expectations of one who would save Israel, so many hopes that God would send someone to redeem the people that it was difficult for Jesus’ contemporaries to decide which of these categories best suited the man whom they were sure was the one. Which of the ancient prophecies did Jesus fulfill? Which of the recent hopes did Jesus live up to?

The problem for us all these centuries later is to try to come to grips with terminology which in the first century may not even have had the same meaning that it had in the times of the prophets. So many influences had entered Jewish thought in the intervening years, so much life experience had impacted on the ways in which the Pentateuch and the prophets were written.

It is left for modern scholars to discern what might be meant when expressions such as “Lamb of God” are used for Jesus, or when Jesus takes upon himself the title “Son of Man”.

Names are both descriptive and determinative, both flattering and derogatory. They try to capture the essence of a person, but they can also define a person such that they unable to be seen in any other way. Jesus as “Lamb of God” can be seen as the sacrificial lamb, the Servant of Isaiah. Jesus “Son of David” creates a more militaristic image. Jesus Son of Joseph of Nazareth (carpenter’s son) is familial – and is not a term that earns Jesus respect.

For this reason, names/labels can be divisive.

How we see/name Jesus matters. How we name Jesus will determine how we live out our faith. The name/s that we give Jesus will provide the lens through which others will see him.

What are the expressions that you use when thinking about/addressing Jesus (biblical and other)? What do those words mean to you? Do they make you feel comfortable or do they challenge you? Are you so used to naming Jesus in one particular way, that you have forgotten that words cannot contain him? This week, as we stand on the threshold of exploring Jesus’ ministry through the eyes of Matthew, try to think of all the names you use for Jesus (and the names that you do not use). Try to use some new and unfamiliar names – Lover, Pain-bearer, Friend – how do they change/expand the way you think of Jesus? How do they change your relationship with him?

Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah, Word, light, life, the one about whom Moses in the law and the prophets spoke, the one who is coming after me, the one who ranks ahead of me, Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth, Son of Man – all of these and yet none of these truly captures who Jesus is. Let us not mistake the power of naming and limit Jesus to the confines of human understanding.

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God in the small things

December 17, 2022

Advent 3 – 2022
Matthew 11:2-11 (some belated thoughts)
Marian Free

What no eye has seen nor ear heard, the Lord has prepared for those who love him. Amen.

Even though none of us can predict the future, we all have certain expectations. Some expectations are realistic – the sun will rise tomorrow, we will get older rather than younger, we will continue to love our children. Much, however, is beyond our control. We cannot know with any certainty what tomorrow will bring – whether we will still have a job, whether our health will hold, what the weather will do. Even so, because it is difficult to live with uncertainty we make plans, we assume that things will stay the same and that we will be able to determine our futures. For many of us, things work out – if not exactly as expected. We finish our education, get a job, form a relationship, and are generally satisfied with our lot. Others, for reasons that are not always within their control, reach a certain age and find themselves wondering what went wrong, why their life hasn’t worked out as they thought it would. In the worst-case scenarios, some wonder if they have wasted their lives, or if fate has been against them.

This seems to be the situation in which John the Baptist. now finds himself. Having started out confident that he knew what the future held, he now finds himself languishing in prison, wondering if he was right when, certain that God’s promised one would come, he had announced that Jesus was the one. Now he is not so sure. His expectations (whatever they were), have not been met. The Roman oppressors have not been overthrown, the Temple practices are still corrupt and the difference between rich and poor remains the same. Has his life been wasted? Should he have taken a different turn? Did he mistake his role, his place in God’s plan?

Whatever was going on in John’s mind, it is clear that he needed some reassurance, some certainty that he had been on the right track. He sends his disciples to Jesus. to ask whether he really is the one who is to come, or should they be looking for another?

Jesus’ response is interesting. Instead of answering John’s disciples directly, he tells them to look around themselves and to notice that the blind have received their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. In other words, Jesus points out to John that there are signs that God is active in the world in ways that God had not been active before. The signs are subtle to be sure, but they are obvious to anyone who looks carefully. God (through Jesus) is not upending the world, overthrowing the oppressors, demanding complete and total obedience from God’s followers. God is making the sorts of changes in peoples’ lives that allow them to live well under any external circumstances. Jesus is making people whole. He is not filling them with rage and encouraging them to use violence to overthrow the Romans – that would be only a temporary solution. The blind would still be blind, the lepers unclean. People would still be unsatisfied with their lot.

Jesus brings wholeness – not revolution. John’s fiery proclamation was to turn people’s hearts towards God, to enable them to be receptive to the one whom God sent, to be willing to submit themselves to God’s will, rather than to long for God to radically change the world.

We are not told John’s reaction to Jesus’ response, but there is of course a lesson for us in this gospel.

In a world beset by war and terror, the effects of climate change, corruption and inequity, it can be difficult to see the evidence that God is active in the world. We, like John, can be filled with despair and wonder if we have it right. At such times we, like John need to be reminded that God is not to be found in the dramatic, that God does not take sides (which might make things worse rather than better), and that humankind has not, as a whole, turned to God. Jesus wants us to see that none of that means that God is absent from the world or from our lives. God can be found in everyday miracles – new shoots after a fire, a child’s smile, the goodness of strangers, the sacrificial acts of aid workers and more especially in the birth of a child – who contrary to all expectations will change the world.

–>

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Don’t wait for heaven – live it now

December 11, 2021

Advent 3 – 2021

Luke 3:7-18

Marian Free

May we allow Christ into our lives so that we might be transformed into people who will know themselves at home in heaven. Amen.

Some years ago, I was impressed by a statement written be C.S. Lewis. In Mere Christianity Lewis wrote: “We might think that the ‘virtues’ were necessary only for this present life – that in the other world we could stop being just because there is nothing to quarrel about and stop being brave because there is no danger (or stop being good because there is no reason to be bad)[1]. Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous (or virtuous) acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people we can become only as a result of doing such acts here. The point is not that God will not refuse you admission to his Eternal world  if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of these qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make it Heaven for them, that is could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakeable kind of happiness that God intends for us.”

I find Lewis notoriously difficult to re-phrase but I took this to mean that if we want to feel at home in heaven that we should begin changing our behavior now. That is if, as we imagine heaven is a place of peace, joy and harmony we should, in the present begin to practice those qualities in our own lives and to begin to excise those parts of us that will not be comfortable in such an environment. We should in the present, try to remove from our lives anything that would make others feel uncomfortable – self righteousness, judgementalism, anger, hatred and so on. It is a challenging concept – especially for those of us who are carrying grudges and who have an expectation that we will be vindicated in the life hereafter. A heaven filled with sour, unforgiving people would be no heaven at all and those who are sour and unforgiving would not be at all comfortable in a place full of peace and joy. Fear of hell is no reason to be good now, but wanting to be at home is every reason to practice being heavenly now.

In her sermon commentary for this week Chelsea Harmon says a similar thing from a different perspective. She asks: “When the world ends and all that’s left of you is what is of God and his Kingdom, will you be able to recognize yourself?”[2] If I found Lewis’s idea challenging, I find Chelsea’s even more confronting. What would remain of me if everything that was not of God was taken away?

Lewis’s image allows us to imagine that we can act in a way that prepares us for heaven, that we can practice the virtues that will fit us for everlasting life. In Harmon’s image we see ourselves completely stripped bare, with only what is Godly remaining. In essence, the ideas are exactly the same but the first allows room for us to act, the second reminds us that one of our tasks in this life is to get ourselves out of the way so that our lives and our actions are determined by the presence of God in us.

Either way, as Richard Rohr points out, “We don’t go to heaven, we learn how to live in heaven now. If try to prove that we’re better than everybody else or believe that we’re worse than everybody else, we are already in hell.” (12/3/21)

According to today’s gospel, crowds have been drawn into the wilderness seeking John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Among those who came were tax collectors and soldiers – those despised by the general population because (for whatever reason) they were in the service of Rome. Instead of welcoming the crowds, John’s tone is harsh and judgmental: “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” he asks. Apparently, he doubts their sincerity. By implication, he is accusing them of being self-serving – wanting to find an easy (superficial) way to avoid God’s judgement. Their question tells us otherwise. They (especially those whose situation is one of compromise and obligation) genuinely want to know what they must do. John’s response is to tell them how to behave according to the values of heaven. That is, instead of taking advantage of others because of their positions they are to live (as much as is possible) generously and with integrity. In other words, they are to live the life of the kingdom now, so that when it comes, they will be at home.

It is quite clear to us that the urgency with which John proclaimed his message was misplaced. The world did not come to a physical end. His generation did not experience the wrath of God. But God did come. God came – not in power and with wrath but in obscurity and with peace. Jesus entered the world, not to judge but to transform, to turn hearts to God and lives to God’s way of being. John did announce the end, but perhaps not the end he expected. The Incarnation, the coming of Jesus heralded the end of one way of existence and the beginning of a new. John’s listeners had a choice – to continue in their old ways, to demonstrate by their behaviour and their attitudes an unwillingness to become part of God’s kingdom, or to repent (to turn around), to let go of their old, self-centred ways and to begin to live lives focused on God and on their neighbours. They were live as if they were in heaven now.

So it is with us, whether by practicing kingdom values, attitudes and behaviours as Lewis suggests, or divesting ourselves of worldly values, attitudes and behaviours as Harmon says,  John calls us to turn our lives around, to “flee from the wrath to come”, to begin to live in the present as we hope to live for eternity.

This is the choice we are offered again and again every Advent – to hold fast to the values of the world (which is coming to an end) or to allow ourselves to be transformed by the values of the kingdom which never ends.

We have been warned. We have a choice to make.

Will we choose earth or heaven, the present or eternity?

 

 

[1] Italics mine. In Lewis’s book The Great Divorce, he creates a fictional story about a variety of people who self-exclude themselves from heaven – the angry and the bitter who cannot bear to see that the person who has wronged them is already there for example.

[2] For the full article go to https://cepreaching.org/authors/chelsey-harmon/

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Are you the one?

December 14, 2019

Advent 3 – 2020

Matthew 11:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God whom we see only in part. Amen.

When David Jackson premiered his movie The Lord of the Rings, there were cries of disappointment from readers who felt that he had not done justice to Tolkien’s story. Creating a screen play from a novel involves a lot of artistic and practical choices. Screen and print are two very different medium, tension and drama are captured differently and the writers have to translate descriptive words into concrete images. There are time constraints as well. Had Jackson included the apparently well-loved Bombadill, the movie would have been inordinately long and the mounting tension would have dissipated. It is very difficult for a script writer, a movie director, or a casting agent to get inside the heads of the thousands – maybe millions who will watch the final movie.

When we read a novel we form pictures of the characters and the scenery that become inseparable from our experience of the book. We think that because we are putting into imagination what the author has described that everyone else has the same visual image. It can be very disappointing when we feel that books that we have loved do not translate well on the screen.

In first century there was not one common form of Judaism, let alone a single, consistent image of a Messiah – the anointed one whom God would send. When people heard or read the scriptures they found very different expectations of the future – from the annihilation of the world to the building of a peaceful kingdom on earth. Similarly, there were different expectations as to how this would cone about. One stream of thought focused on the promise that God would raise up someone in David’s line to be King over them. Another was that God would come as judge and destroy the wicked- especially the enemies of Israel. The community at Qumran (writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls) expected three different figures to come in the future – one priestly, one kingly and a third who would lead them in battle.

John the Baptist appears to have had a very clear idea as to the person whom God would send. He declares: “I baptise you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Mt 3:11,12). When Jesus came to be baptised John recognized him as the one whom he had expected. How disappointed and confused he must have been when Jesus did not live up to his expectations. Instead of being a fire brand and a judge, Jesus was compassionate and, by and large, non-judgemental. There is no evidence in Jesus’ ministry of the ‘winnowing fork’ or ‘the unquenchable fire’. Instead of condemning the people Jesus healed and restored them. He certainly did not stand out from his contemporaries as the one whom God had sent to separate the wheat from the chaff.

It was no wonder then that John (who was by now in prison), sent his disciples to Jesus to ask: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Frustratingly, Jesus did not answer the question. Instead he said, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” We will never know if this was enough to satisfy John. What is clear is that Jesus saw himself not as the one coming in judgement, but as one who was bringing to fruition a different promise that of Isaiah (Isaiah 42:6f).

As he languished in prison, John faced the possibility that he had been wrong – either in what he has expected orin his announcement that Jesus was the one who was to come.

John’s confusion is a salutary lesson for each of us. If John, with all his confidence! was not sure that Jesus was the one whom he had proclaimed, how can we be confident that we will recognize Jesus when he comes again? We are no more able to read the mind of God than we are able to get inside the heads of script writers. If the characters and scenes of a novel can be imagined in more than one way, how can we be certain that our reading of scripture is the only way that scripture can be read?

Advent is a time of expectation, a time of anticipation. Let us cultivate both so that we are not mired in a mire of certainty – blind to God’s presence with us now and unprepared for the way in which God will be revealed in the future.

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You will be judged

December 7, 2019

Advent 2 – 2019

Matthew 3:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God who will come in judgement. Amen.

It is difficult for us to comprehend that John the Baptist’s followers did not automatically defect to Jesus. The fourth gospel that tells us that Andrew left John to become a disciple, otherwise the gospels are silent on this matter. This seems strange. According to Matthew John recognized Jesus when he came to be baptised and, we have to presume, shared that knowledge with others. Yet, as next week’s reading will make clear, John still had disciples when he was in prison and those disciples took his body and buried it. It appears that there were still followers of John at the gospels were being written and that John’s role had to be clearly delineated and limited such that it was clear that Jesus was the more significant of the two.

The New Testament was only interested in John so far as his life intersected with that of Jesus and the New Testament writers were certainly not interested in what did or did not happen to John’s followers. Notwithstanding this we know that John the Baptist’s ideas and ministry continued to influence people. This is evidenced by the Mandaean faith that originated in Mesopotamia some 2,000 years ago[1]. The Mandaeans worship John the Baptist whom they call Yehyea Yahana. Worldwide there are 60-70,000 Mandaeans and of these 10,000 can be found in Sydney’s western suburbs. Mandaeans are gnostic, that is they believe that they have access to secret knowledge and that their soul is in exile, seeking to return to its true home.

Not surprisingly, baptism is central to the worship and practice of the Mandaeans. Unlike Christians they can be baptised hundreds or even thousands of times during their lives. Baptism for them is not a sign of entry into the faith or the means by which they receive the Holy Spirit. It is a symbol of purification, an opportunity to cleanse and refresh one’s life and soul. Members are usually baptised in a river where the water is flowing and fresh. Baptism is practiced at significant times in the church calendar and on other occasions including funerals. We know little of their teachings or whether they have records of what the original Baptist taught.

We do know that John seems to have captured the mood of his generation. He established himself on the Jordan River, preached a baptism of repentance, and announced the coming of one who was more powerful than himself. Baptism as a means of entering the Jewish faith was not common if it existed at all. First century Hebrews were familiar with washing as a means of ritually purifying themselves, but it was not related to repentance. Purification related to fitness to worship in the Temple.

The biblical John is somewhat enigmatic and elusive. His role in the New Testament is primarily as a foil for Jesus. Yet, despite their embarrassment about the significance of John – after all Jesus was baptized by him – the Gospel writers are unable to disguise the fact that John had an important ministry and a following of his own.

Like the prophets before him, John named the situation for what it was – a time in which some had lost hope that God would act, and in which others appear to have assumed that their behaviour did matter because God would not act. John’s preaching appears to have exposed the sinfulness and lacklustre faith of his contemporaries. He seems to have struck a chord with both the people and with the religious establishment. John’s call to repentance must have spoken to their hearts and exposed the poverty, selfishness and faithlessness of their lives. Something in his preaching revealed the need for them to turn their lives around. After all, we are told that all Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region of the Jordan were going out to him.

John’s message was not one of comfort and reassurance, but of judgement and condemnation, even his message about Jesus was not designed to encourage, but rather to convince the people of the need to bear good fruit, to turn to God and to be ready for the wrath that was to come. No one was spared John’s tongue. He accused even the penitent Pharisees and Sadducees of being vipers and challenged the complacency that led them to believe that their ancestry assured them of a good outcome at the judgment.

Jesus’ message was quite different. It was aimed more at the people than at the religious hierarchy and was much more conciliatory and compassionate. That said, we forget John’s warning at our peril. Jesus’ death and resurrection may have assured us of God’s love and given us confidence that our sins have been forgiven, but that does not mean that we can afford to be complacent or that we need do nothing in return. Through our baptism we have been made children of God. It is incumbent on us to behave as such. Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom had come near. We, his followers, are called to live as Kingdom people– recognizable as members of that kingdom through all that we do and say.

Advent is a reminder that Jesus will come again and that we will have to answer to him for all that we have done and not done in this life. We will be called to be accountable for the way in which we have used or misused the gifts that God has given us. We will be challenged to consider whether we have taken God’s love and forgiveness for granted or whether the knowledge of God’s love has encouraged us to grow into the people God believes that we can be.

Even though John’s primary role in our faith was to prepare the ground for Jesus’ coming, his words echo down through the generations. We cannot afford to be complacent – repent, be cleansed of your sins – get ready for God to break into the world in judgement!

 

 

 

 

[1] Whether or not this was a direct continuation of John’s ministry is not clear.

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Expect the unexpected

January 12, 2019

Jesus’ Baptism – 2019

Luke 3:15-22

Marian Free

In the name of God who is beyond our wildest imaginings. Amen.

Some of you will know the books “Animalia” and “The Eleventh Hour” by Graeme Base. The former consists of extravagant and alliterative illustrations of the alphabet including Diabolical Dragons Daintily Devouring Delicious Delicacies or Lazy Lions Lounging in the Local Library. The paintings are so filled with detail that the “reader” has to be given hints so that they know what to look for. The pages can be examined time and time again and still the “reader” will not see everything that there is to be seen.

As the author says in the introduction:

“Within the pages of this book
You may discover, if you look
Beyond the spell of written words,
A hidden land of beasts and birds.

For many things are ‘of a kind’,
And those with keenest eyes will find
A thousand things, or maybe more –
It’s up to you to keep the score…”

For a long time, I have thought of the Bible as an elaborate picture book. Even though it does not contain a single illustration it seems to me that its content is so complex that I will never see all that there is to be seen. Each time I read it or read a commentary on a passage or a book of the Bible I discover something new. Sometimes this happens even as I am reading the gospel as a part of the liturgy – a word or a piece of information will jump out at me and I will wonder why I never saw it before. (For example, it wasn’t until someone pointed it out, that I saw that there were children in the Temple when Jesus overturned the tables Mt 21:15.) As is the case with a picture book, once I’ve seen or been alerted to something new, I will see it every time.

I have known for some time (and preached to this effect) that Jesus’ baptism by John was controversial. Why did Jesus need to be baptised? Why indeed did he need to repent? The gospel writers deal with this difficulty in different ways. Only in Mark and Matthew are we explicity told that John baptises Jesus. Even then, in Matthew’s gospel John initially refuses to baptise Jesus only to be told that “it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness” (Mt 3:15). John’s gospel has John identify Jesus, but we are not that Jesus was himself baptised. It was only this week that the Lutheran scholar, Karoline Lewis[1], drew my attention to something I should have noticed before now. In Luke’s gospel too, John does not, indeed cannot baptise Jesus. I have been so used to the idea that Jesus is baptised by John that I had not noticed that when Jesus is baptised in Luke’s gospel, John is absent.

According to Luke Jesus was baptised after everyone else was baptised what we are not told is by whom he was baptised. Up until now the story has been about John so we (or at least I) simply assume that it was John who baptised Jesus. Lewis alerts us to the fact that that may not be the case. John in fact is nowhere to be seen – he is in prison. He has so offended Herod that Herod has locked John up! It is possible that the mention of John’s imprisonment is just a literary aside but, given Luke’s overall agenda, that seems unlikely.

Through the introductory stories of John’s and Jesus’ conception and birth Luke makes it very clear that, of the two men, John is the lesser. John is given credibility and status only because he points the way to Jesus. He has no other role in the story and so, when it is Jesus’ turn to shine, John can be dispensed with. His imprisonment beforeJesus’ baptism removes him from the picture all together. John is no longer a part of the story; his time has ended, and Jesus’ time has begun.

The fact that, more often than not, we overlook John’s absence at Jesus’ baptism reminds us how much we miss when we read our scriptures and how much we read into the story that is not actually there. For example, because the disciples are all men, we fail to see the role that women play in the story, because that is what we have been told. We think that because both Matthew and Luke tell the same parable that it means the same thing in each gospel. We do not notice that Jesus’ travel sometimes makes no sense and that our minds create order where there is none.

The Bible is not a picture book, but it isfull of hidden depths and unexpected surprises. There are gaps in the stories and silences that speak of deliberate or accidental omissions. Puzzles and contradictions abound; and the same story can be told in several different ways. When we read the Bible, we need to learn to read with fresh eyes – looking for things that we have never seen before and noticing the things not said as much as those things that are spoken.

Like God, the Bible really has no beginning and no end. There is much that we can learn from what we “see” and “hear” and “read” and “experience”, but there is so much more to be learnt from what is unseen, unheard, unreadable and beyond our experience. No matter how often and how deeply we immerse ourselves in our scriptures we will never see all that there is to see or know all that there is to know. What is important is that we do not settle, that we do not content ourselves with what is obvious or become comfortable with the “truths” that we hold, but that we always strive to see beyond the merely superficial, always expect to be surprised and even shocked and always remember that the subject of our scriptures – the creator of the universe – is forever beyond our grasp.

[1]Working Preacher

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