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Pentecost – not as orphans

June 9, 2025

Pentecost – 2025

John 14:8-27)

Marian Free

In the name of God who inflames, inspires and encourages us. Amen.

Hallelujah! not as orphans,

are we left in sorrow now;

Halleljah! He is near us, 

faith believes nor questions how;

So goes the second verse of the hymn: “Hallelujah! sing to Jesus.” For me, these words bring to mind fond memories of my church-going childhood. I’m not sure why but the words, “not as orphans”, really struck a chord in the young Marian. For some reason the notion of not being abandoned, not being left alone made a powerful impression.  The words had a similar effect to being gathered up in a warm embrace or wrapped in a soft blanket – God might be an amorphous and vague notion, but somehow the fact that God would not leave me orphaned gave God some sort of shape or form. I was also taken with the phrase “faith believes nor questions how.” I’d be quite sure that even then I didn’t think of faith as being blind acceptance of implausible ideas, but, young as I was I had some understanding of faith as mystery.

Of course, I had no idea in my childhood that the hymn writer was quoting the words from John 14 that we heard in this morning’s gospel. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (14:15).

Chapters 14 -17 of John’s gospel are known as Jesus’ farewell speech. Jesus has had what will be his final meal with his disciples, Judas has been sent off to “do what he is going to do” and Jesus has begun to prepare his disciples for his departure. We know that this means his crucifixion, but his disciples are confused and anxious, especially as Jesus continues his pattern of speaking in apparent riddles. “Where I am going you cannot come” (13:33). “I go to prepare a place for you.” “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

At least three key themes run through the Farewell Discourse and in our reading this morning. One is that of love. Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment – to love one another (13:34), those who love Jesus will keep his commandments (14:15),  those who have Jesus’ commandments are those who love him and are loved by the father (14:20) and those who love Jesus will keep his word, the Father will love them and with Jesus, will come and make a home with them (14:23). 

This expressions last draws on another thread – that of the indwelling of the Father and the Son – a mutual indwelling that is extended to each one of us, an indwelling that is supported by and held together through love and which is enhanced by the third member of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity whom Jesus will send to the disciples (the third theme). 

In the midst of their confusion and grief, Jesus assures the disciples of his ongoing presence with them – the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Spirit of truth who, with the Father and the Son will abide in those who love him. 

This concept of mutual indwelling is a very different picture of the Spirit from that presented by Luke in the Book of Acts in which the Spirit rushes upon the disciples from without. The writer of John’s gospel understands the Holy Spirit not so much as an external force that enlivens and empowers, but rather as a deep awareness of the presence of God within and a willingness to allow all one’s own desires and needs to be caught up within the Trinity[1] – God the Trinity in us and we in God. Jesus is one with God and God’s presence is made visible through Jesus, so we, through love, can be absorbed into the divine, and allow the divine in us to shine through us.

As Jesus continues speaking, we learn that the Jesus of John’s gospel is confident that those to whom he is speaking will  be able to let go of their egos and, being free of their egos will be open to the prompting of the Spirit who will remind them of all that Jesus has taught them and who will guide them into all truth (16:12). 

That Jesus’ confidence was misplaced has been demonstrated over and over again throughout the centuries. As the gospel spread and communities of believers formed, so different agendas, priorities and egos began to dominate what became the church. Instead of being one as Jesus prayed (17:22), believers have become fractured and divided into a multitude of communities at least some of whom claim exclusive possession of the truth.  Throughout the centuries the church has become side-tracked; worrying more about right and wrong, who is in and who is out, what is correct worship and what is not. The practice of self-denial has become a practice of going without physical things rather than a practice of denying the self so that the Spirit can direct and control our individual and collective lives. The idealism of John’s Jesus has been buried under human self-interest, a human need to have clear boundaries; rules and regulations rather than to trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.

Jesus’ continued presence through the Holy Spirit does ensure that we are not left orphaned, but his hope that we would be one as he and the Father are one, his desire that we should experience the mutual indwelling with himself, the Father and the Spirit remains an unrealised dream.

[1] Of course, “Trinity” is not John’s language, but our attempt to explain the indwelling of Father, Son and Spirit.

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Being one with God

May 31, 2025

Easter 7 – 2025

John 17:20-26

Marian Free

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

I love learning new words, so you can imagine how excited I was when, doing some reading to try to make sense of today’s gospel, I came across not one, but three new words! Sadly, unlike vituperative or egregious or vertiginous I’m unlikely to use these words in any other context. 

You will remember that three weeks ago I explained that John’s gospel is circular, layered, and repetitive. I failed to mention that the author of the fourth gospel is also very sparing with his vocabulary. John only needs 1011 words to tell the story of Jesus’ life. These words are repeated over and again (making it one of the easiest gospels to read in the original Greek). John’s limited vocabulary is deceiving. Many of the words have double meanings and where John uses different Greek words (for love and sheep in chapter 21) there is no intended difference in meaning. (Jesus wants to know that Peter loves him and will feed his sheep.)

The repetition of key words and themes makes the message of John relatively easy to understand. Jesus is light and life and his desire is to draw people to the light and give them life. That Jesus is one with God is made clear from the beginning and is emphasised in statements like “The Father and are one,” and “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” This relationship is also referred to as “abiding in” – a phrase that is repeated 40 times and is used not only for the Father and the Son,  but is extended to the disciples.

My new words for whom I thank Chelsea Harmon and Bruce Malina are “antilanguage”, “relexicalization” and “overlexicalization.”[1] Whether they were created to describe the phenomena found in John or whether they preexisted the literary study of same I did not try to find out, but they do help us to understand John’s use of language.

“Antilanguage” is an expression to describe the “in-language” of a particular group. This is language that is employed to make it clear that the group in question is distinct from the culture in which it finds itself. It serves the purpose of creating a sense of cohesion within the group and of keeping outsiders (among whom we belong out.

“Relexicalization” and “overlexicalization” are techniques used in antilanguage, understanding provides a key to understanding the code. 

“Relexicalization” (as the word implies) refers to using familiar words in a new way – giving them a meaning that is unique to the group. Perhaps the most obvious word in this category is the word “or glory. John uses  “δοξα” to mean the glory that is associated with God, and which therefore is present in Jesus and but also, paradoxically, uses it to refer to Jesus’ crucifixion – Jesus ‘victory over the devil. The Johannine Jesus also gives new meaning (spiritualises if you will) words like water, bread, light and life.

The concept of oneness as used by John is expressed in a variety of ways. In order to categorise this we need the expression: “overlexicalisation” – that is the use of a cluster or words or phrases to express the same concept. “Being one” is also expressed by “believing in/into” Jesus, “following Jesus”, “abiding in” him, “loving him”, “keeping his word”, “receiving’ him, “having” him or “seeing him”.  

Where does this academic approach to the gospel leave us? It is a reminder that not only are we separated by centuries from the origins of the gospel and of the community that it represents, but we are reassured that those aspects of the gospel that puzzle us, were intended to puzzle us. Those for whom the gospel was written, believed that they had special and unique insight into the teachings of Jesus and that those who didn’t share those insights – Jew or Christian – were destined to remain outsiders. If some things about the gospel are opaque to us, the gospel has succeeded. To that community we are the outsiders, those without the insights unique to the community. 

That said, these concepts of “antilanguage”, “relexicalisatiton” and “overlexicalisation” provide us with tools for understanding, give us a window into the gospel and help us to break down the barriers that were created to protect its and its community’s sense of uniqueness. 

Today’s gospel expresses Jesus’ hope that the disciples may have the same relationship with God that he has. This relationship revealed in glory and demonstrated in love and unity will convince the world that the believers are in God, and God is in them. John’s concept of a privileged and exclusive relationship is not one that we would want to adapt but this gospel informs us that Jesus reveals the union with God which is the purpose and privilege of all human existence. The oneness, the glory and the love that Jesus shares with the Father is freely given to each of us. 

The goal of faith as taught by the writer of John’s gospel is that we are to allow ourselves to be so subsumed by the presence of God within us and caught up in the unity of the Godhead that people who see us see God. If we are truly united to God the glory of God will shine through us and the love God has for us will be the love we have for one another.

In the words of Athanasius: God became human so that humans might become God. 

What do we have to relinquish in order that God’s glory and love might be known through us?

[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-john-1720-26-6

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Do you want to be made well?

May 24, 2025

Easter 6 – 2025

John 5:1-9

Marian Free

In the name of Christ who came that we might have life and have it in abundance. Amen.

“Do you want to be made well?” The invalid in today’s gospel has been unwell for 38 years – an enormous amount of time in any century, but an extraordinary length of time in a period when the average life span was around 30 years! There is no indication how long the man actually enjoyed good health or what his problem was. Perhaps he was born with an unnamed frailty. Regardless, for 38 years the invalid has been dependent on others for his existence – for food, for clothing, for shelter, and as he says, for help to get him into the healing waters of the pool.

“Do you want to be made well?” In all the gospels no one else is asked such a rude and intrusive question. Often Jesus is asked for healing, or he simply assumes that someone wants to receive healing and there is no interaction at all. Jesus isn’t always directly involved. The woman with a haemorrhage merely reaches out and touches Jesus’ cloak and healing flows from him to her. Jesus never asks whether a person deserves healing or not nor does he demand that the person seeking healing has faith.  On the one occasion on which he might have withheld healing, he allows the Canaanite woman to convince him that her daughter is as worthy of healing as any other. 

“Do you want to be made well?” Of all the people waiting for the water to move, Jesus approaches this one man. He doesn’t ask about the man’s condition, doesn’t say who he is, doesn’t engage in small talk – just asks one direct question. “Do you want to be made well?” The answer would appear to be self-evident – of course someone whose life had been limited and marred by frailty would want to be made well.

“Do you want to be made well?” Instead of giving a resounding “yes”, the man becomes defensive. “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” In other words, he is implying that his continued incapacity is everyone else’s fault but his own. Jesus is offering healing but what the invalid really wants is pity!

Jesus has touched a sore spot, forcing the man to ask himself what he really wants.  No doubt man thought that he had no choice, or maybe – at least subconsciously – he had understood that there were some advantages to being unwell. Thirty-eight years is a very long time, long enough for someone to get used to the situation, long enough to be resigned to this way of life, long enough to be unsure that an alternative way of life could be better. The man’s life may seem limited and impoverished from our point of view but that he was still alive after 38 years suggests that he was receiving sufficient support to live whether from his family or from strangers.

 If he were to be made well he would have to take responsibility for himself – find work and somewhere to live, he would be expected to marry, to have and support children of his own. He may have had no skills to earn a living or to reintegrate himself back into a society from which he has been absent for so long. He may have become used to the sympathy and attention that his condition afforded him and, in a world in which most people lived on or below the poverty line, begging may have been as good a way of earning a living as any other. In much the same way that a prisoner who has become used to prison – its routines, and the protection it offers – commits a crime in order to return, so our invalid appears to have become so used to his life that he can see no better way of living.

“Do you want to be made well?” “Are you living your best life?” “Are you making the best of your present circumstances?” “Are you using your God-given gifts to the best of your abilities?’

These are questions Jesus might be posing to any of us who have allowed ourselves to become so comfortable in our present situations that we see no need to change, to any of us who have turned down opportunities because we could not predict the consequences, or because we were worried about what we might have to leave behind, or to any of us who have drawn boundaries around ourselves that limit our growth and our experiences.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus wants us to live our best lives, to be and to do all that is possible with the gifts we have been given and the opportunities with which we have been provided.  He does not want us to be bound by people and things that do not need to be limitations.

“Do you want to be made well?” Jesus takes no notice of the invalid’s excuses. He can see the possibilities that await a man restored to health, to strength, to his family and his society. He can see, that despite the potential difficulties, the man’s life will be fuller, richer and happier if he stops making excuses, if he steps out in faith, if he believes that God does and will be with him. So, without waiting for an affirmative answer, he orders the man to: “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Without hesitation, the man does just that.

“Do you want to be made well?” Do you trust that God knows your potential and has your well-being at heart?                                                       Stand up, take your mat and walk.

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Divisive Shepherd

May 13, 2025

Easter 4 – 2025

John 10:22-30

Marian Free

In the name of God, mysterious, unknowable, unreachable and yet revealed in Jesus. Amen.

Our post Easter season is typically divided into two parts, post resurrection accounts of meetings with Jesus and the promise of the spirit. In the middle, on the fourth Sunday of Easter we mark Good Shepherd Sunday. Over the course of three years, we cover most of John chapter 10 in which Jesus spells out what it means to be shepherd and sheep. The imagery is deceptively simple and heart-warming. I suspect that most of us have been brought up with lovely stories of 1st century Middle Eastern shepherds often accompanied by illustrations of Jesus carrying a white fluffy lamb over his shoulder. 

I say deceptively simple because this chapter, like the rest of John’s gospel, is complex and multi-layered. It is filled with themes and illusions that permeate the gospel and has hidden depths which are easy to overlook if we focus on the superficial imagery of the shepherd. 

John’s gospel stands alone in style and content.  It seems to stir within us something deep and mysterious. It is filled with images that are not always fully spelled out, it demands a knowledge of Judaism that can no longer be taken for granted, it is repetitive and circular as if wanting to be sure that the reader really understands, and yet at the same time it speaks in riddles as if to cloud the meaning from all but a few.

Chapter 10 and the verses we have read this morning serve as a case in point. The content is repetitive, and indirect and it repeats and reinforces themes already referenced in the gospel. The author also assumes a knowledge of Jewish festivals and an insight into his purpose in referencing them.  

The repetitive and circular nature of the gospel is evident in the ways in which the central theme of shepherd is drawn out. The shepherd is compared variously to a thief, a stranger of a hired hand, those who came before him, and even a gate. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep and who will ensure that they have abundant life. Other themes such as life, doing the works of the Father and being one with the Father are peppered throughout the gospel and the theme of Jesus’ voice recurs in Magdalene’s recognition of Jesus’ in the garden.

“At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem”.  What appears to us to be a reference to a time and place has a much deeper significance for the author of this gospel. From this and other references to the Temple and Jewish festivals, we can discern that indirectly John is making the claim that in the person of Jesus all the Jewish Festivals have Jewish festivals have come to their full end – their purposes have been fulfilled. Jesus has made them redundant. 

As the Bread from heaven Jesus replaces the manna in the wilderness, as the light of the world and the living water, Jesus takes the place of the symbols of the Feast of Tabernacles. [That Jesus is crucified on the eve of Passover, suggests that he has replaced the Passover Lamb. Even the Sabbath is replaced as Jesus’ heals on the Sabbath and thus redefines its meaning and purpose.] The Festival of Dedication celebrated the rededication of the Temple. John’s reference here is less a reference to the season and more an indication that Jesus has replaced the Temple. In all these not-so-subtle ways, John is making it clear that worship of the one God can continue without Temple and the Temple rituals – that faith in and worship of Jesus has taken their place.

John’s Jesus can be obtuse and frustrating. His answers to direct questions are often riddles, designed to make one think if not to confuse. Think of his response to Nicodemus – “you must be born from above” and today, when his questioners ask him to tell them plainly, he irritatingly replies: “I have told you and you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” Hardly a helpful response from people who seem to genuinely want to know who he is. It is as if he wants to push them away not draw them in.

The question of Jesus’ identity is another key theme in John’s gospel. While on the one hand John’s Jesus refuses to be specific about his identity, on the other, the author  makes it very clear to the readers who he is. “The Father and I are one,” Jesus says. Over and over again, the fourth gospel makes this same claim. “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” “I and the Father are one.” [With one exception in Matthew, nowhere else are the Father and Son presented as a unity.]

The Shepherding imagery is an extension of Jesus’ identification with God. The imagery of God as shepherd has its roots n the Old Testament – especially in the Psalms and Ezekiel 34.

Another theme, introduced here and developed in the imagery of the vine is that of belonging. Those who know Jesus’ voice will follow him. (10:4), those who belong to the fold will listen to Jesus’ voice (10:16) and “his sheep know his voice” (10:27). John’s gospel can be read as divisive and exclusive. The dualism expressed therein – light/dark, life/perishing, flesh/spirit, above/below those who know/do not know my voice – can be read in the sense that despite the claim that God loves the world, God seems to want to separate those who are in from those who are out, worse, that we can establish boundaries to determine whom to include and whom to exclude. The opposite in fact is true. While John’s gospel does make a clear distinction between those who follow Jesus and those who do not, it also makes it clear that those who do not belong are those who choose not to belong those who self-select to be outside the fold, those whose reaction to Jesus reveals something of their true nature, those who cannot bear to be exposed to the light (3:21).

All of this is a stark reminder that we should not be content with the comforting, the heart-warming, superficial shepherding Jesus, nor should we be complacent about John’s divisive, exclusionary language. John’s gospel reveals that there is time and space before Jesus and a time and space after Jesus. There is a plain-speaking Jesus who is comforting and inclusive and an indirect Jesus who will not give us easy answers to those too lazy to see what is in front of them. There is the divisive Jesus in whose presence we see who we are and are forced to make the decision as to whether or not we belong and whether or not we want to belong. 

Our reaction to Jesus determines whether or not we belong.

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Do you love me?

May 3, 2025

Easter 3 – 2025

John 21:1-19

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who meets us where we are and asks only that we love in return.  Amen.

I have just finished reading an extraordinary book, A Terrible Kindness, by Jo Browning Wroe. It tells the tale of one William Lavery who is the son of a funeral director and who is gifted with a beautiful voice. William’s father dies when he is quite young, and his mother reacts by withdrawing from his father’s brother who is his partner in the funeral business. William receives a place in a choral school in Cambridge where he meets the exuberant Martin with whom he becomes firm friends. On the night when William is due to sing The Misère – what would have been the high point of his time in Cambridge -something awful happens and he cannot sing. He blames his mother, leaves the college, forswears singing, moves in with his uncle, and, as soon as he is old enough he trains to be an embalmer.

 

In Aberfan, Wales, a colliery spoil tip collapsed swallowing up homes and the local school. One hundred and forty people died including 116 children. In the novel, William, who has just completed his training, volunteers to prepare the dead for their funerals. Wroe describes this event with great sensitivity and also its impact on her fictional character William who is deeply traumatised by the sight of so many small, crushed bodies and determines never to have children. His girlfriend, Gloria insists that she will marry him even with that caveat.

 

The early death of his father, his mother’s coolness towards his uncle, an awkward moment with Martin, and the tragedy at Aberfan lead William to make a number of disastrous choices – he cuts off his mother, turns his back on Martin, gives up his love of choral music and finally leaves Gloria who has been steadfast in her love, her understanding and support.

 

What is extraordinary, and what I didn’t fully notice until I had finished reading the book was the unconditional love that William received from all the other characters. His abandoned mother leaves the door open for a reunion, his uncle and partner take him in and never chide him for his hardness of heart, Martin (who is deeply hurt by William’s betrayal and desertion) doesn’t reproach him when they meet again years later, and Gloria allows William back into her life when he comes to his senses. Unlike William, not one of the characters has built up a grudge that would prevent them from welcoming him back into their lives.

 

As I say, the author does labour this point, it is just how she tells the story, but when I read this morning’s gospel it seemed to me that deliberately or not, she had drawn a compelling account of unconditional love, much like the love Jesus extends to Peter in this morning’s gospel.

 

If you remember, Peter who had been adamant that he would not abandon Jesus, even that he would lay down his life for Jesus (Jn 13:17), not only abandoned him to face Pilate alone, but denied three times that he even knew him. In this, the last of John’s resurrection appearances, Jesus prepares breakfast for his friends – all of whom had vanished into the night when he was arrested. After the resurrection the disciples who were at a loose end, decided to go fishing. When they were returning to shore empty handed the Beloved Disciple recognised Jesus on the beach. Immediately Peter leapt out of the boat and waded to shore. He was delighted to see Jesus and is obviously confident that Jesus was not holding his failures against him.

 

Indeed Jesus, who has already appeared to the disciples, shows no indication that he in any way holds them accountable for their desertion, nor Peter for his denial. What Jesus does, is to enable Peter to affirm his love for Jesus. Much has been made of the three questions and the use of different Greek words for love[1] but what seems to be key here is that Jesus is giving primacy to relationship over cowardice. Jesus understands human frailty and his prediction of Peter’s denials demonstrate how well he knew his disciples. In this, his final act, Jesus doesn’t ask Peter to repent, he doesn’t try to make Peter accountable, and he certainly doesn’t withdraw from Peter his unconditional love. What Jesus does do, is to remind Peter of Peter’s love for Jesus. Instead of breaking the relationship, Jesus asks Peter to remember the relationship – a relationship which, from Jesus’ side is constant and unbreakable.

 

As in the novel, William comes to his senses and returns to bask in the love of those on whom he has turned his back, so Peter is fully brought back to himself by having to remind himself three times that (despite his denials) he does love Jesus.

 

Our gospel accounts of the life of Jesus finish with this extraordinary reminder – that we are loved by God wholeheartedly, unconditionally and endlessly, and that no matter what we do, or how far we stray, we will still be loved, if only we can recall how much we love God. God created us for love therefore we are loveable and who are we to de y ourselves or anyone else of that love? God’s love does not demand that we are flawless, it leaves no room for self-reproach, and draws from us the love God seeks in return.

 

“Do you love me?” “Yes, Lord I do.”

 

 

 

[1] Michael Lattke, my Phd supervisor argues that there is no deeper meaning to the use of different words.

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Remember- Jesus’ resurrection body

April 26, 2025

Easter 2 – 2025

John 20:19-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who in Jesus touched and was touched. Amen.

During Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem, his last week of being physically present on earth, his friend Mary anointed his feet with expensive ointment and wiped them with her hair – an act of touch so intimate that it is almost embarrassing to contemplate. A few days later the tables are reversed when (in the middle of a meal) Jesus gets up and washes and dries the feet of his disciples (another intimate, boundary breaking act). Having one’s feet cradled and smoothed by another creates a strong contrast with the way in which Jesus’ body was brutally flogged, cruelly crowned and horrifically nailed to the cross.  

These accounts, gentile and loving, cruel and hateful, tell us that Jesus inhabited a real body, that he had a physical, earthly presence that could be fed and starved, alone and pressed in upon, gently wiped andpitilessly hammered.  

It is interesting to note that many of the resurrection accounts continue this theme of Jesus’ physical presence.  Not only could Jesus be seen by the disciples, but he could eat, and he could touch and be touched. Apart from Mark whose ending is very abrupt, each gospel includes an account which emphasises the physicality of the risen Jesus. According to Matthew, the women hold Jesus’ feet, likewise in John, Magdalene reaches out to touch Jesus. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus sits down to a meal and breaks bread in front of the unsuspecting disciples. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem and appears to the disciples he not only invites them to touch (to prove that he is not a ghost), but he asks for something to eat and is given fish which he eats in their presence (Lk 24:42,3).  Here, in John, when Jesus breaks in to the locked room, he demands that the disciples look at the scars in his hands and feet. When Jesus appears a second time to appease Thomas, he not only shows scars, but invites JThomas to touch.

Of course, we have no idea of the nature of Jesus’ resurrection body. Even though it is reported that he could be touched and that he could eat, he could apparently appear out of nowhere and transport himself through time and space (Luke 24). Given that the stories were retold many times before the evangelists committed them to paper, we cannot be sure how much (or how little the stories) were embellished. However, we can be absolutely certain that in some way that is impossible to explain or even understand, Jesus, who was declared dead on a Friday afternoon, was very much alive from early Sunday morning.

The nature of Jesus’ resurrection body has been a matter for much scholarly debate, but I don’t want to focus on that today. This morning, I would like to reflect on the evangelists’ emphasis on Jesus’ physicality and the possibility that means something other than a need to prove that Jesus really did rise.

As I pondered on the texts that we have read over the past few weeks and as I considered the importance of the fleshly physical nature of Jesus’ earthly body, I wondered if one of the reasons for emphasising this in the post-resurrection appearances was to make sure that we didn’t forget, that we didn’t/don’t allow ourselves to spiritualise Jesus, that we don’t somehow put the earthly Jesus at one remove from us, that we don’t diminish his humanity and focus instead on his divinity. 

Do the gospels focus on touch in the week leading up to the resurrection and in the post-resurrection accounts to make sure that in the centuries following these events that we would never lose sight of the fleshly, physicality of Jesus’ earthly body? Is their emphasis on touch a way of ensuring that we do not make the risen Jesus remote and untouchable, unable to relate to our experiences of hunger and being fed, exhaustion and being rested, sorrow and joyfulness?

Is it even possible that Jesus himself emphasised the physical so that we would remember that he knew what it was like to suffer, to fear and to be abandoned. Did Jesus appear in a physical body to ensure that we would remember that he was once one of us and that just as he was real, so too we should be real. Jesus’ fleshly, physicality resurrection presence is a constant reminder that being human, having human needs and responding with human emotions is not something of which to be ashamed.

If we spiritualise Jesus, deny the physicality of his resurrection body, we are in danger of making him into someone with whom we cannot identify, someone other than us. We face the real danger that by spiritualising him we create a divine figure whose standards of perfection we can never reach.

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus’ resurrected body could touch and was touched, so that we would never lose sight of his earthly body.

Maybe Jesus is saying: “I was real, I was here, I was just like you.  Remember, remember, remember.”

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Wild, extravagant love – Mary anoints Jesus

April 7, 2025

Lent 5 – 2025

John 12:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God who draws us into relationship and who does not pull back when we demonstrate affection wildly, extravagantly and passionately. Amen.

In the 1960’s Harry Harlow carried out a number of experiments in to determine if the mother-child relationship was solely a consequence of the role a mother played in providing food and protection or whether affection and touch played a role.  Of these the most well-known (if unethical) experiment involved removing young monkeys from their mothers just a few hours after birth. The young monkeys were placed in cages with two “mothers” one of which was made of wire and dispensed milk through a baby bottle. The other was made of soft cloth but provided no food. What Harlow discovered was that the monkeys spent a majority of their time clinging to the relative comfort of the cloth mother and went to the wire “mother’ only for food.  In other words, the babies drew more comfort from physical contact than nourishment.  

Thank goodness experiments such as this could not be carried out today but this, and other research demonstrates how important touch is to human development and well-being.  

We don’t need experiments with monkeys to prove this. In recent decades we have come face-to-face with the long-term trauma experienced by those who were removed from their families and placed into orphanages, group homes or foster care in which many experienced abuse and neglect. Many victims of such actions will tell of their continuing inability to feel secure, to form relationships and to trust anyone. 

We live in a society in which touch is carefully regulated – by law, but also by social norms. Touch can be used to demonstrate care, support and intimacy, but it can also be used to abuse, to control and to isolate. Touch is important but it can be misused and misunderstood. The appropriate use of touch differs from country to country and changes over time.  It is only recently (in my lifetime) that it has become widely acceptable for women to shake hands. And it is important to note that while many people welcome a comforting hand on the arm, but there are some who will recoil from physical contact.

While it has proven necessary to legally regulate the use of touch, this in itself has problems. Children and the elderly can often be starved of physical signs of affection. Children who experience neglect at home, can no longer hope for a quick hug from a teacher or sports coach. Older persons in aged care facilities likewise miss out on daily, or even occasional hugs.

Social norms around touch is one of the things that makes today’s reading so extraordinary. In the culture of Jesus’ time and place, the behaviour of women and men was tightly regulated. Women were the property of their father and then their husband. In public a woman would have been forbidden from speaking to a male who was not a member of her family. A woman who physically touched a man to whom she was not related would not only have been seriously castigated, but her behaviour would have sent shock waves through her community. In any other circumstance she would have been labelled as a harlot, as a woman with no morals and no self-respect.

Yet here, as if it were something completely ordinary, we have a scene in which Mary does a number of things which are socially inappropriate – she lets down her hair, she places herself at Jesus’ feet, and using extravagantly costly ointment, proceeds to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair. It is a wonder that it is only Judas who expresses horror at the events unfolding before him.  In a room which is presumably filled with men, in which Mary’s role would have been to join Martha in serving the meal, Mary breaks not one but several social conventions and Jesus instead of condemning her, commends her!

This scene tells us a great deal about Mary’s relationship with Jesus. She obviously felt a very deep affection for him, but it is perhaps more significant to note that she had complete trust in him. She did not feel that she had to stint in her outpouring of love or to keep a distance (physical or emotional) between them. She had no fear that Jesus would reject her expression of the depth of her care and affection. She was confident not only that he would not recoil from her or from her outpouring of love, but that he would protect her from the censure and negativity that her actions would almost certainly engender.

It is too easy to focus on the extravagance of Mary’s gesture (and the meanness of Judas’ response) and to avoid focussing on an action that might make us feel deeply uncomfortable. But Mary’s action is clearly a description of intimacy, service and abundant and extravagant love, the love of a woman for one whom her sister only days before had identified as the Christ. It is an account of intimacy between a believer and God.

By weeks end, Jesus will have been touched by strange and cruel hands. He will have been arrested, roughly handled, whipped and crucified. During these moments of humiliation and torment, will he have remembered the gentle hands of Mary, the caress of her hair and the smoothness of the ointment? Will her wild and extravagant outpouring of love be one of the things that sustains him?

Mary’s actions throw into sharp relief our own elationship with God. How many of us respond to God’s love for us with such wild, extravagant abandon? How many of us truly believe that all God seeks from us is not – as we would believe – mindless obedience, but a selfless, humbling outpouring of our love for God, a love that reveals our understanding of how much God loves us, a love that is utterly confident that God will accept our expression of love, no matter how wild, extravagant and unconventional it may be? God’s love for us is boundless, and unconditional, yet many of us find it hard to trust that God loves us that much, and equally as hard to love God in kind. Many of us portion out our love, tentatively offering God some but not all of us, anxious perhaps that God may not welcome our gift. 

Mary has no such hesitation but throws herself (literally) at God’s (Jesus’) feet, lavishly and liberally covering them with an ointment worth a year’s wages and wiping up the excess with her own hair.

What proof do we need of God’s love for us? What will it take for us to love God in return?

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Water into wine – what does it really tell us?

January 20, 2025

Epiphany 2 – 2025

John 2:1-11

Marian Free

In the name of God, who is not limited or constrained by human doctrine and regulation. Amen.

As I have said many times, the gospels have lost their capacity to shock and to unsettle. Over the past two thousand years we have interpreted and reinterpreted the gospels such that most of us have completely lost touch with the original context. We have developed generalisations to help us to make sense of God’s action in Jesus, simplified his message to statements such as “Jesus is our Saviour” and then have understood the broader story in relation to this.  (Jesus as Saviour may conveniently allow us to overlook Jesus as judge which is another lens through which to interpret the gospel). Instead of seeing the gospels as pointing to a deeper meaning we have turned them into stories about God or Jesus (God is generous, loving, forgiving) or we have made them into moral guidelines insisting that Christianity’s primary purpose is to make us into “good” people (even people who conform to the norms of the society in which they find themselves).  

Seeing Jesus as moral exemplar or benign holy man has blinded us to the absolutely radical, rule-breaking, and shocking teaching and behaviour of Jesus, the Jesus who upset the religious authorities, disregarded the Jewish law and disrupted the norms of the society in which he found himself, the Jesus who caused offense to all respectable, law-abiding people of faith. 

Take for example today’s gospel. We know the story so well. Jesus is at a wedding; the wine runs out and his mother alerts him to the fact. Having initially ignored his mother’s concern Jesus then asks the servants to draw from the jars in which the water for purification was stored. Amazingly, not only has the water become wine, but it was wine of the finest quality and there were litres of it! How extraordinary! What an example of God’s boundless generosity and of Jesus’ concern for those around him!  Who is this Jesus that he can perform such a miracle?  

All of these are valid interpretations of the story, but they fail to take into account the underlying message of the gospel writer – that Jesus has come to disrupt and overturn and even replace the rituals and practices of the faith into which he was born. 

There are a number of unanswered questions in the account of the wedding.  We are not told whose wedding it is or why Jesus, his mother and his disciples have been invited[1]. Nor is there any explanation as to why, when the guests are already drunk (2:10) they need 600 litres of the highest quality wine. It is not clear why Mary thinks it is her business to worry about the wine or lack thereof or why, when this is Mary’s first appearance in the story, that she is in a position to think that Jesus can do something to rectify the situation.  What authority does Mary have that she can tell someone else’s servants what to do? And why does Jesus tell his mother that the wine is not their business and that his time has not yet come AND then solve the problem anyway[2].

All these are imponderables, because they do not contribute to the point that John is making in telling the story and that is that Jesus is the fulfillment and therefore replacement of Jewish practices and rituals[3]. Throughout the gospel we will see this theme repeated. In John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus declares himself to be the Bread of Life, implying that in him the Passover is fulfilled. The Baptist has already identified Jesus as the Lamb of God (the Passover Lamb). Water and light are key parts of the Festival of Booths – Jesus claims to be “living water” and “light of the world” thus making that Festival redundant. Shortly after the wedding at Cana Jesus declares himself to be the Temple suggesting that the Temple and its practices are no longer necessary (2:21). Through these and other images, the author of John is telling us that the old feasts and rituals have been superseded by God’s action in Jesus.

So back to the wedding. What is interesting and scandalous is not so much the wine and the quantity of it, but what Jesus is saying and doing in his choice of the jars intended to hold the water for purification. If the wine has run out, then why not use the empty wine jars or failing that the jars in which water was stored for drinking and cooking? That would have been the obvious solution. By using the jars of purification, Jesus is insinuating that their usefulness has come to an end, that he is ushering in a new era, an era in which the old codes of purity no longer apply.

To get to the heart of this story then, we have to pay attention to the scandalous nature of Jesus’ act. His utter disregard for the religious symbolism of the jars, reveals their irrelevance.  That the new wine is superior to the old implies that so too is the new revelation of God through Jesus.  

Here at the very beginning John sets out his agenda – that in his person and teaching Jesus replaces the Temple, its leadership and practices. We have to understand that faith in Jesus does not require adherence to the old ways of relating to God and that through Jesus all people of faith see and know God. There is no longer any need for intermediaries – priests, rituals and observances – through Jesus each person of faith can be in direct relationship with God.

[1] Some scholars have speculated that it is Jesus’ own wedding.

[2] This is typical of Jesus in John’s gospel – to say he won’t’ do something and then to do it. The theme of the hour is an important theme for another time.

[3] For more on this https://www.scholarscorner.com/review-jewish-feasts-johns-gospel/

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What sort of king?

November 26, 2024

Christ the King – 2024

John 18:33-37

Marian Free

In the name of God who continues to surprise, confound and amaze us.  Amen.

Many years ago, I read an article in an occupational therapy journal about children in foster care. It reported that no matter how much abuse or neglect a child had suffered at the hands of a natural parent they still wanted to go home. It seemed that the idea of family, mother, father created a deep longing to belong, even if the child’s reality did not live up to expectation. Apparently, an abusive mother was better than no mother, a disparaging, derisive father was better than no father. 

Terms like mother, father, mum, dad, family come laden with meaning – often idealistic and vastly different from many people’s reality. Few parents are perfect and even if they were, their styles of parenting would differ according to their own experience, their personalities and the relationship that they have with each other – no one family is the same. Even though the definition of “family” has vastly changed over the last 50 years, still many of us have an idea of what a mother/father/family should be like[1].  

The same is true of the expression “God”. In the eighties and nineties many feminists and others chose to use the term “Godde” to make it clear that the divinity in whom they believed was not a bearded, white-haired man sitting on a throne, condemning people to the fire of hell and that “Godde’ was much bigger and broader than the narrow image that was circulating. Many of us still confront the problem that the God which many of our friends have rejected is unrecognisable to us – a human invention not a revelation of scripture ad certainly not related to our experience.

Over and again, scripture confronts a narrow, unimaginative concept of God, an image of God that is easier to manage, understand and, dare I say, control. In a phrase that I often repeat, Isaiah says: “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways.” (Is 55:8).  Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians makes the same point when he  argues that the cross exposes our false understanding and overturns all our preconceptions. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor 1: 28).

Though there might be some assumptions that we can make about God, God consistently overturns and challenges our simple-minded ideas.  Nowhere is this more obvious than with the person Jesus. On every level, Jesus failed to meet expectations and at every turn Jesus refused to be bound by the limits of the human mind. Jesus came to serve not to be served, he argued that the first would be last, and announced – not that he would lead the Israelites to victory – but that he would suffer and die.

That Jesus confounds every attempt to label him and to box him in, is particularly clear in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate. Despite the fact that Pilate is in a position to put Jesus to death, Jesus refuses to give Pilate a clear answer to Pilate’s question as to who he is. In response to Pilate’s questioning Jesus is evasive, elusive and enigmatic. 

Until the moment of Jesus’ trial, Jesus was probably unknown to Pilate and now he is brought before him by the Jews (whose traditions and laws Pilate does not understand, and over whom he has no jurisdiction). Pilate makes an attempt to discover who and what Jesus is, yet Jesus speaks in riddles and throws Pilates’ questions back to him. “What makes you think I’m a king?”

Jesus does not deny that he is a king, but he is clear that like “God” and “family” the title “king” is impregnated with meaning and expectation and that if he admits to being “king” Pilate (and the crowd) will impose their own understanding on the word – Pilate will see Jesus as a threat to Caesar and the crowd will expect him to seek power.

By prevaricating, by being evasive, by not directly answering Pilate’s question, Jesus is trying to redefine “kingship”. Yes, he is a king, but not the sort of king that people are used to – not a king who enriches himself at the expense of others, not a king who expects everyone to be subservient to him, not a king that seeks to dominate and oppress all the nations of the world. Jesus is king of an unworldly kingdom, a king whose primary purpose is to testify to the truth – the content of which is contained in John’s gospel, the purpose of which is that those who hear Jesus’ voice will attain eternal life.

In just five verses the author of the gospel has de-stabliised and undermined the traditional understanding of what it means to be king. Jesus is king, but he is king on his own terms, he will not be defined and confined by the expectations of others – whether they be his fellow Jews or the representatives of Rome.

The passage is left hanging with Pilate’s question: “What is truth?” 

There is an interesting twist to John’s account of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. Traditionally a name is attached to the cross to identify the one being crucified. Pilate orders that the sign on Jesus’ cross read (in Hebrew, Latin and Greek): “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” Despite the objections of the Jews, Pilate leaves the wording as it is. Has Pilate come to see the truth? Has he grasped that Jesus is a king (albeit a very different one) or is this is Pilate’s way of justifying an execution which at heart he believes is not justified.

Either way, Jesus’ crucifixion is the ultimate act de-stablises, unsettles and even undermines all our expectations of what it means to be King of the Jews, the one sent by God, the anointed.  

Jesus’ dialogue with Pilate, is a reminder that the narrative is not within our control, that God the Trinity will always act in ways that we do not expect and will always defy our attempts to categorise and define.  In the face of Pilate’s efforts to label him Jesus infuses the expression with new meaning.  He is a king, but he is a king like no other (before or since).

May all our longings for the kingdom be tempered by the knowledge that the kingdom is not of our making and that our human intellects are inadequate to the task of truly comprehending who and what God is, what it is that God plans, and what the kingdom will finally be revealed to be.

[1] Of course, the nature of families has completely changed and with that comes a change in expectations.

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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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