Archive for the ‘John’s Gospel’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Being truly whole so that we are wholly free to love.

April 23, 2016

Easter 5 – 2015

John 13:31-35

Marian Free

 

In the name of God whose love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave[1]. Amen.

She loves you

She loves you

I can remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the Christmas that I received my first ever record. It was the year that the Beatles had come to Brisbane and I was nine years old. Even though I didn’t listen to the radio and my parents did not own a TV I was caught up in the hype that surrounded their visit. One of my classmates had even taken the day off school to line the street to the airport and welcome them to the city. Another friend used to sing the song: “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you”, the song with which a popular TV show of the day concluded. My nine-year-old self knew that she had to be a part of this phenomenon. So when I was asked what I would like for Christmas, there was no hesitation: “I would like a Beatles record.”

My mother and I went into the city to a record shop. In those days the counters were about four-foot tall so I had to stretch to see. “I’d like a Beatles record please,” said my mother. “Which one?” the assistant replied. Mum looked at me, I looked at her. I had no idea that there would be a choice. Helpfully I replied: “One with ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’ on it.” So that is how I came to own this – an EP with ‘She loves you’ on one side and ‘I’ll get you’ on the other. I’d have to say that the lyrics of these and many of the early Beatles songs are not particularly edifying. ‘She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah, she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah’, and, ‘Love, love me do, you know I love you, so please, love me do’ and yet another, ‘Love is you need, love is you need, love is all you need.’

Love was in the air in the 1960’s and 70’s. Flower children preached it, bumper stickers proclaimed it and popular music extolled it. The problem was that the atmosphere of the day made love sound all too attainable and all too easyms – the answer to all the world’s problems.  Love was not enough to stop the Vietnam war or to bring an end to apartheid and global poverty.

In today’s gospel Jesus enjoins his disciples to love one another in the context of his farewell speech. This includes instructions and warnings, the promise of the Holy Spirit and prayers for the disciples.  The tone for a future without Jesus is set right at the beginning: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

As I have loved you. If love was all that we needed, why do so many relationships end acrimoniously and why are so many families torn apart by disputes? The answer is that while there are good reasons for marriages to end – domestic violence being one – many people have a simple and idealistic notion of love.  Some expect love to fill deep needs of their own, others confuse love with control and its opposite subservience and there are those who expect that the simple fact of being love will ensure that their story will be happily ever after.

Jesus apparently has no such illusions, which is why he adds the rider: “Just as I have loved you.” As I have loved you. This is very different from the commandment that asks us to love our neighbours as ourselves. Jesus’ command forces us to consider his life and example and to model ourselves on him.  I quote: “Christ commands us to love as he did, putting neither reputation, nor wealth, not anything whatever before love of our brothers and sisters.” (Cyril of Alexandria)  In a culture in which honour meant everything, Jesus mixed with the disreputable and the outsider, chose poverty over wealth and acted as a servant to his disciples. Though he was divine, Jesus allowed himself to endure all the indignities of being human. In other words, Jesus’ love was a love that thought not of himself, but only of others.

The love that Jesus insists that we show to others is the sort of selfless love that enables us to give up all thoughts of our own needs and desires – for recognition, comfort, satisfaction and instead to ensure the well-being of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

What this entails in practice is being at peace with ourselves and God, being so sure of our place in the cosmos that we do not need to compete with others in order to feel good about ourselves, recognising that we do not need the world’s approval in order to know our own worth, that we do not need to measure ourselves and our worth according the standards of those around us, but  to only according to the standards that Jesus modelled and that Jesus encouraged. For some of us, this means first of all letting go of our own baggage, seeking wholeness and healing for the hurts we carry and the insecurities that drive our behaviour. In some instances it may mean that we take advantage of professional help to lay aside fear, resentment and anxiety or to let go of our sense of inadequacy because ultimately, we are only able to love selflessly from a position of confidence and strength, from a place in which we are completely free of restraint and in which don’t need others to affirm us so we are free to affirm them.

Only when we are absolutely confident in our own worth can we affirm the worth of others. Only when we are completely sure that we are loved and love

able can we selflessly offer love to others. Only when we are truly whole can we wholly give ourselves away.

“Love one another as I have loved you” – it makes the rest of the commandments look like a walk in the park. First of all we have to do everything in our power to accept Jesus’ love and then we have to do all that we can to give that love away.

 

 

[1] Song of Songs 8:6

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel | Comments Off on Being truly whole so that we are wholly free to love.

In or out?

April 16, 2016

Easter 4 – 2016

Good Shepherd Sunday, John 10:22-30

Marian Free

In the name of God whose love is not limited but boundless, not exclusive, but absolutely inclusive. Amen.

During the week we watched the documentary I am Malala. The account of this most extraordinary young woman – who despite being shot by the Taliban has no trace of bitterness or hatred and who refuses to live her life in fear – is a most humbling experience. Malala was shot because despite the fact that the Taliban banned education, especially education for girls, she not only continued to go to school, but wrote a diary about her experience for the BBC. Her situation sadly, is far from unique. In Nigeria, Boko Haran (which means “Western education is banned”) routinely kidnaps girls from their schools and homes and forces them into domestic and sexual slavery. Both groups claim that their religion forbids the education of women and insists that women have a particular role in society that – if it is not observed – needs to be imposed by force.

Before we pat ourselves on the back and commend ourselves for being a more enlightened society, it is important to remind ourselves that it is only in recent history that girls routinely went to school or that women were allowed to graduate from university. In 1869 women were admitted to Cambridge University but were not allowed to be awarded a degree! Only in 1921 were women allowed to be rewarded for their efforts but only with a Bachelor of Arts. Arguments against the ordination of women made it very clear that there were (are) those who even today believe that the Christian bible insists that women are better placed to be in the home and to be subordinate to men.

It is no wonder that some people are put off religion when some of its adherents assert views that oppress and limits others, or when it uses violence or coercion to enforce behaviours. Often the groups that behave in this way are sects that do not represent the mainstream and the views that they promote are considered by the majority of adherents to be gross distortions of the faith that they claim to affirm. Most Muslims strenuously reject the expressions of the faith that result in terrorism and violence just as most Christians reject practices that limit or oppress others.

There are a number of factors that lead to the misinterpretation of religious texts. The most benign of these include naivety and conservatism – the naivety that leads to a simplistic and fundamental interpretation and the conservatism that results from a pattern of belief that confuses religious belief with the social attitudes and behaviours of a particular time and place[1]. At the other extreme, a desire for personal power that is often accompanied by an inclination to force others to completely submit to their will can result in scriptures being twisted to say what someone wants them to say.

One way to ensure submission to a conservative or abusive practice of faith is to convince followers that only by following a particular interpretation of the bible will they achieve salvation. Leaders of such groups argue that the only way to be saved, to achieve salvation is to belong to their group – which alone has access to the truth. In this way, such groups are able to ensure that those who are vulnerable or naïve, or those who simply want certainty and truth, accept what they are taught to believe and behave how they are told to behave.

How we interpret scripture can be something of a “chicken and egg” situation. If we believe that God is remote and punitive, we will read scripture in a way that is judgmental and exclusive. On the other hand if we accept that God offers unconditional love to any who would accept it, then we will see that love and acceptance on every page.

Today’s gospel reading is one that is in danger of being misinterpreted. At first glance it appears to suggest that there is an ‘in-group’ (those who hear Jesus’ voice) and an ‘out- group’ (those who exclude themselves because they don’t believe). Applied to our context, this text could be taken to mean that only those who believe in Jesus can be saved. A reading such as this ignores both the context into which Jesus speaks and the context in which the evangelist is writing.

The author of John’s gospel is concerned that there are some (in this instance the unbelieving Jews) whose arrogance and complacency mean that they are unable to accept Jesus as the Christ. They are so set in their ways, so sure that they are members of the ‘in-group’ that they are blind to the signs that Jesus does and deaf to Jesus’ teaching. In order to move from their position of comfort they want/need absolute assurance that Jesus really is the Christ. Others, those who do not begin from a position of certainty, have an openness to God and to God’s presence in Jesus. Because of this, they are able to see and to hear and to follow.

Jesus is not being exclusive – just the opposite. What Jesus does is to redefine what it means to belong. Belonging is not a matter of birth, nor is it a matter of clinging on to worn out practices and ideas, nor is it something that depends on adherence to certain views. Belonging demands an openness to Jesus, an ability to see and hear God even if what is seen and heard has no precedence. Belonging demands not so much obedience to the past, but an openness to the future, not pride in our heritage, but humility before God and an understanding that we cannot ever know all that there is to know.

What this means in our, as in any context, is that anyone from any faith and any nation can respond to the voice of God, can recognise the presence of God in their lives and chose to follow. This undercuts any claims to being special, it undermines the assuredness of those who think they have it all sorted, it forces everyone to accept that God will do things in God’s own way in God’s own time. It is not for us to determine who is in and who is out.

Jesus is not frozen in time and history. As the risen Christ, Jesus continues to be a live and vibrant presence in the world. He continues to call and those who are his sheep continue to respond. It is important for us to retain an openness to God and an humility that reminds us that we can never know the mind of God. Only in this way will we be free to hear the voice of Jesus in our age, and to demonstrate that we belong to his sheep.

[1] The requirement that women should cover their heads in church disappeared with barely a whimper, but the idea that those who were divorced could be remarried in church was more hotly contested.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel | Comments Off on In or out?

The body beautiful

April 2, 2016

Easter 2 – 2016

John 20:19-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who ‘did not despise the virgin’s womb’, but who in Jesus embraced human flesh – its mortality, fragility and all its messiness. Amen.

We only have to pick up a magazine to be reminded that in the Western world at least, we have a love/hate relationship with our bodies. We are constantly being bombarded with suggestions as to how we can make ourselves more beautiful though diet, exercise, make-up, hair cuts, fake tans, anti-aging creams or serums and styles of clothing[1]. We can “reshape” our bodies at gyms by focusing on our “trouble spots” or build our bodies so as to have firm pecs or a “six-pack”. Increasingly, we are being given the impression that some sort of major intervention is required if we are to be truly beautiful – Botox, dermal fillers, threading and even plastic surgery. Today it is possible to take bits from here and put them there, to make some parts thinner and others fuller, to extend or to shave our bones, to plump our lips, tighten our faces and to do so over and again as fashions change or as we change.[2]

A negative attitude to the body is often associated with Christianity. After all, isn’t it our bodily desires and needs that lead us to sin? Christianity has had an ambivalent attitude to the body for most of its existence. The ‘sins’ of gluttony, adultery are put down to bodily appetites (as if our minds were unable to exercise authority of our uncontrollable bodily urges). In this debate Romans 7 is often used to suggest that Paul struggled with physical desires,[3] as is the Pauline spirit/flesh divide. This view is a misrepresentation of the central tenet of the faith – that in Jesus God became human. The Christmas hymn puts this well, “God did not despise the virgin’s womb” but took on human flesh with all its limitations. If the creation story were not evidence enough, the incarnation puts the lie to any position that suggests that God has a negative view of the human body. If the divine can take on human flesh surely the human body is not simply impure, baseless and imperfect.

This view of the body suggests a negative view of the God who created the body and who declared it to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31). If the human body was a suitable vessel for the divine to embrace it should be good enough for us.

The source of the body/soul divide (and with it what amounts to the abhorrence of our physical selves) can be traced back, not to the early Christian believers but to the Greek philosophers. It was the separation of the church from its Jewish roots and its movement into the Greek world that saw the Christian faith adopt the dualism between the soul (good) and the body (bad). Plato (429-347 BCE), to whom this view is attributed, taught that all things had a perfect form. The soul pre-existed the body and would outlast it and was always seeking to be free of the body (which Plato called ‘the tomb of the soul’). Such a negative view resulted in all kinds of attempts to subdue or to mortify the body including extreme forms of aestheticism such as castration.

It is no wonder that we have such mixed feelings about our physicality – the body is our enemy, trapping our soul and leading us into all kinds of temptation and sin. Perhaps for this reason we do not often think of Jesus’ physical body and why a great deal of Christian art depicts him as a kind of androgynous angelic figure.

A closer examination of the gospels and of John’s gospel in particular reveal a different picture. In the gospels Jesus is not an ethereal, spiritual presence, but a physical, bodily presence. Jesus’ body could be touched and caressed both before and after the resurrection. Caravaggio has painted a wonderful representation of Jesus’ appearing to Thomas. Thomas’s finger penetrates under Jesus’ skin to feel the hole left by the spear. This is just one representation of Jesus fully inhabiting the human body. If we pay attention to the gospel accounts, we will be surprised by the physicality of Jesus. We will notice too that he is not afraid/ashamed to touch and be touched. So far as the gospels portray Jesus, he is very comfortable in his own skin. He is not at all anxious to be free of his physical form[4].

The Jesus of John’s gospel is perhaps the most spiritual of the four portrayals: “In the beginning was the Word”, yet the Word has no problem becoming flesh and living among us. The Word doesn’t simply appear to take on the human form he becomes one of us. One of the reasons that the religious authorities won’t accept him is because they know where he comes from – he was physically born to flesh and blood parents.

What is more, it is clear that Jesus understands the needs of the body – he changes water into wine, he asks a woman for a drink. In John’s gospel, Jesus himself distributes the bread and fish to the crowds and in the discourse that follows he uses the imagery of eating and drinking his flesh and blood to illustrate the intimacy of the relationship that we can have with him. Other evidence of Jesus’ physicality in John can be found in the fact that he is able to be grasped (the crowds want to take him by force), he makes a whip, he mixes mud and saliva and places it on the eyes of the blind man and he places the bread into the hands of Judas. The human Jesus does not look on from afar, but truly engages with the physicality of the human body. He does not recoil from the stench of death when he calls Lazarus from the tomb, nor does he draw back when Mary stoops to caress his feet with expensive perfume. Jesus himself takes a towel and washes the feet of the disciples (an act only recorded in John).

Our bodies – awkward, ungainly, unique – are the way God made us[5]. If Jesus was not afraid to embrace the human form, perhaps it is time that we started to become more comfortable with our bodies, time that we learned to accept the irregularities that make us who we are, time that we rejoiced in the absolute marvel of the human machine – that despite the complexity that is required to drive it manages to allow most of us to live and breathe, to walk and run, to work and relax, to embrace and to be embraced. In the words of the musical “Hair”. “What a piece of work is man (sic)!” What an extraordinary, wonderful, beautiful, precious thing is the human body!

In Jesus the human and divine are united as one, should not that be the model for us?

[1] Of course, I’m not even starting to name all the beauty options that are out there!

[2] Bigger breasts that were a good idea in our twenties can be reduced when in our thirties we regret our decision. Faces can be sculpted and resculpted until the surgeon’s knife achieves the desired look.

[3] This is a topic I have dealt with in the past. The ‘I’ in Romans 7 is not Paul but Adam. We only have to read Philippians 3:3-6 to be convinced that Paul had no problem at all with the flesh.

[4] As the later (gnostic) Gospel of Judas would have us believe.

[5] The Psalmist reminds us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps 139).

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Easter, John's Gospel | Comments Off on The body beautiful

Abundance not sacrifice – Lent is God’s gift to us, our gift to ourselves

March 12, 2016

Lent 5 – 2016

John 12:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God whose outpouring of love is more than we can ever imagine.  Amen.

It is just possible that I am turning into a grumpy old woman or it may be that I am by nature someone who tends to take the world and faith seriously. Whatever it is, I have found myself being irritated or disappointed by the attitude that some people (particularly via social media) have taken towards Lent. There have been posts on Facebook by people bemoaning the fact that they are saying “goodbye” to beer or wine or some other treat for forty days as if Lent is a burden imposed upon them rather than something taken up freely. Other people have posted cartoons, which again make it seem that Lent is at worst some interminable punishment or at best a trial that has to be endured. To be fair, I am sure that most of the posts are from people who do take Lent seriously and who assume that their friends will understand that they are simply making light of it not expressing how they really feel.

It does concern me however that the negative messages about Lent, give the wrong idea – not only about the practice of Lent but about the Christian faith – to the non-Christians who hear or read them. Those who are not in on the secret could be forgiven for thinking that Lent is a period of misery expected by an exacting and demanding God instead of seeing it as a time of self-imposed abstinence that will liberate us to know more fully an indulgent and affirming deity.

The readings for the first four weeks of Lent have encouraged us to turn our lives around and to remove the barriers that separate us from the overwhelming abundance of God’s love. John the Baptist urged us to “repent” (literally – turn around), the parable of the fig tree reminded us that we share with all of humanity its frailty and imperfections, Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem gave us an insight into the sorrow experienced by God because of our refusal to accept God’s love and the parable of the two sons demonstrated God’s utter refusal to exclude us from that love and at the same time reminded us of the ways in which we place ourselves beyond the reach of God’s affection.

Today, as we approach the end of our forty days, we are confronted by a description of an act of intimacy, extravagance and tenderness – not of God towards us, but of Mary towards God. At first the gospel seems out of place an action of such beauty and lavishness seems to conflict with a time of fasting and self-denial.  But today’s gospel is a perfect fit – not only with the gospel readings that have preceded it, but also with the central purpose of Lent. In conjunction with the gospels of the past four weeks, today’s gospel sums up what Lent is about and what we can hope to achieve.

We discover, if we plumb the lectionary offerings, that Lent is primarily about ensuring that we are in the best condition possible to accept God’s love for us. We allow ourselves a period of prayer and self-examination to reflect on our lives and in particular to consider whether or not we are truly open to the love that God is constantly pouring out on us. Fasting and self-denial are not intended to be a way of  “mortifying” or denying the flesh” but a means of identifying and ridding ourselves of the obstacles that we place between ourselves and God – obstacles which are just as likely to be emotional and psychological as they are to be physical.

When we strip ourselves bare, when we purge ourselves of all the things that prevent us from experiencing the fullness of God’s love, we will be simply overwhelmed by the outpouring God’s grace and the generosity and the bounty of God’s affection. We will be astounded that God could love us so much and we will be acutely aware of our little we deserve that love.

Lent is a lesson of love, God’s extravagant, unconditional and boundless love, which is ours for the taking. The disciplines of Lent are not intended to weigh us down, but to prepare us to receive God’s love without question and without hesitation.

This is where Mary fits in. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, responds to God’s love with an extravagance that matches Jesus’ own. Mary is the perfect example of someone who has allowed herself to be stripped bare, who has opened herself completely and unreservedly to God’s scrutiny and in so doing has discovered not judgement but compassion, not condemnation but understanding, not rejection, but complete and total acceptance. Mary responds in the only way possible – with a demonstration of her deep and humble gratitude.

Even by today’s standards, Mary’s actions open her to disapproval – the loose hair, the public and intimate display of affection, the extravagance and waste. Yet for Mary there is no other response that will adequately express her reaction to God’s love for her. Mary throws caution, propriety and decorum to the wind. She has no thought of what others might think of her only that she must express her own love in a way that matches her experience of the love of God.

Lent then, is not so much about sacrifice as it is about abundance, not so much about self-denial as it is about self-acceptance, not so much about being unable to measure up, but about realizing that there is nothing against which to measure ourselves. Lent is less about sacrifice and more about abundance – about discovering the abundance that emanates from God and not from the world. Lent is less about will power and more about letting go – for it is only when we truly let go that we are able open ourselves to the wealth that is ours for the taking.

During Lent we identify and shed the obstacles that separate us from the love of God – a love so overwhelmingly abundant that it calls for a response that is extravagant, intimate and tender a response like that of Mary sister of Lazarus.

Forty days is not much to ask – in fact it almost seems far too little to give when we gain so much in return.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Anointing, John's Gospel, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Abundance not sacrifice – Lent is God’s gift to us, our gift to ourselves

A frivolous God

January 16, 2016

Epiphany 2 – 2016

John 2:1-11

Marian Free

 Creator God, open our eyes so that we may see you in all things, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary, the mundane as well as the sublime, the frivolous as well as the serious. Amen.

When I was working with the Business Community in Toowong, I did quite a lot of reading around the subject of Faith and Work. One of the concerns was that people’s lives seemed to be divided down the middle. In our secular world, many of them felt obliged to leave their faith or their spirituality at the door. The person they were at work was pragmatic and rational, not influenced or informed by their faith. Some it is true might have had prayers or quotes stuck to their notice boards, but these, rather than influencing what they were doing were simply statements about who they were. Their lives were split in two. They were not taking or being their whole selves in the workplace.

The divide between the spiritual and the mundane is not unique to the work/life situation. It is a malady of the modern world and it affects those of us who think that there are some parts of our lives that are beneath God’s notice or that some aspects of our life and of our being are holy and others are not. This split personality or dualism is a kind of schizophrenia that was unknown to the ancient Celts or to the Christian mystics who were able to recognise that God was in all things and that all things were in God. Such people recognised that the divine was encountered in everything, not just at special times or in special places. and they understood that life is simply not divisible into parts – we are our whole selves or we are not.

Which brings us to today’s gospel A wedding is a funny place to begin the account of Jesus’ ministry. There is nothing mystical about a social occasion or gathering of friends, which makes a wedding an unusual setting for Jesus’ first miracle. Changing water into wine is strange choice as the means to reveal Jesus’ glory for as yet no one knows who Jesus is or what can be expected from him. Jesus has barely been introduced to us and here he is at a party – not teaching or healing, but ensuring that there is enough wine for a good celebration.

Matthew, Mark and Luke all begin their accounts of Jesus’ ministry in a much more serious vein. According to them Jesus is driven into the wilderness where he is tempted and where he refuses to do anything that might be seen as entertainment, or as his drawing attention to himself or as his seeking to compete with God for power or for influence. In stark contrast, John begins with a wedding at which Jesus turns the water into wine so that the wedding host will not be embarrassed. Compared with Jesus’ spiritual battle in the wilderness the miracle of changing water into wine seems both trivial and frivolous – hardly a fitting activity for the Son of God.

This beginning to Jesus’ ministry is even more astonishing given that John’s gospel starts on a much more elevated plane than that of the other three. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John portrays Jesus as nothing less than a co-creator with God – a divine being, who as one with God, has been present for all eternity. According to John, Jesus’ existence did not begin through an action of the Holy Spirit and no earthly genealogy could do him justice because there simply was no time in which Jesus did not exist. In John’s gospel we begin in the heavenly realms, and then, without any warning or any context, we are brought right down to earth. We go from the sublime to the ridiculous, the esoteric to the mundane the extraordinary to the ordinary.

Jesus, his mother and his disciples are guests at a wedding. We are not told whose wedding it is or why Jesus has been invited. Mary’s concern regarding the wine suggests that it the wedding of a family member or a close family friend. So far as we can tell Jesus is not a guest of honour, just one guest among many. In reporting the miracle or sign the gospel writer does not appear to be making a significant theological point nor is Jesus depicted as challenging the social customs of the people as he does at other parties in other gospels.

In a gospel which makes it very clear that Jesus and God are so close as to be indistinguishable, changing water into wine seems a rather trivial, ungodly and even self-indulgent miracle with which to start. After all, this is the same Jesus who elsewhere refused to turn stones into bread – specifically refusing to make showmanship a means of attracting followers. Would someone who takes his ministry so seriously bother about something as ordinary as wine for a party, and indeed, would God – the creator of the universe – really be interested in sparing an inefficient host the embarrassment of running out of wine?

It is, as I say, a strange beginning, an odd way to begin a gospel that makes far more lofty claims for Jesus than do the other gospel writers. Perhaps this is just the point. Perhaps the juxtaposition between the Word who was with God from the beginning and the man at a wedding is intended to demonstrate that the ordinary and the everyday are not beneath God’s dignity, that God in Jesus is as much engaged in the minutiae of daily life as he is in the divine and heavenly realm and that the separation of the spiritual and the unspiritual is a figment of our imagination.

Whether or not this is the author’s intention, it is an important point to make – not only with regard to our understanding of Jesus, but also with regard to our understanding of and our practice of our faith. God does not and cannot stand aloof from our earthly concerns but is intimately engaged with everything that we do. There is no distinction between holy and mundane, extraordinary and ordinary. God is all in all. If God makes no distinction, there is no need for us to compartmentalize our lives or to create false divisions that compromise the true nature of our being.

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

 

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel, Uncategorized | Comments Off on A frivolous God

The truth will set you free

November 21, 2015

Christ the King – 2015

John 18:33-38a

Marian Free

In the name of God who alone is truth. Amen.

Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald reported “a genetically engineered fish has been approved by the United States regulators as fit for consumption”. The fish in question is a salmon that grows much faster than its unmodified version and is therefore ready for sale much sooner. A photo shows two fish the same age. The modified fish appears to be four times the size of its unmodified sibling. Despite the obvious advantages and the fact the the FDA has “thoroughly analysed and evaluated the data and information” provided by the company that developed the fish, consumer groups and environmental groups are arguing that many independent scientists are among those who oppose the decision and are adamant that the fish should not have been approved.

The controversy around genetically modified food is just one example of the way in which scientists can draw different conclusions from studying the same phenomena. Scientists disagree with regard to the effect of the mining of coal seam gas on underground water, and they draw different conclusions as to the relationship between human activity and global warming and on it goes. Absolute truth seems to elude us.

In trying to determine what is true and what is not we have a number of methods available to us – the adversarial, the investigative and the scientific. These methods are not restricted to barristers, the police or to scientists, nor is their use limited to court rooms, detective’s meeting rooms or laboratories. Every one of us consciously or unconsciously, applies these techniques every day as we interrogate the variety of information before us and try to determine whether or not it is to be believed.

The adversarial method of determining truth is that of argument – the stronger argument being given the weight of truth. Our legal system allows both a prosecutor and a defendant to put forward the best argument they can to prove that a person did or did not commit the act for which they are on trial. A jury then decides who has the strongest case. In much the same way we often make decisions by putting a positive and a negative argument side by side to see which is the most convincing.

In other legal systems there is no argument. It is the judge who investigates the crime in order to come up with a judgement. Investigatory analysis might also be carried out by police officers or journalists who collect information before drawing a conclusion as to the most probably scenario given the facts they have gathered. We might apply this technique when we are trying to assess wither our teenager is telling the truth about being late home.

The scientific method of determining truth is usually considered the most objective and reliable of the three. The questions asked are more specific and the methodology requires not only that the information is gathered and observed, but also that it is measured and rigorously tested.

No method however is a guarantee that the truth will really come to light – innocent people are sent to jail, the gullible are taken in and apparently objective research can lead to contradictory conclusions.

John’s gospel is particularly concerned with “truth”. From the beginning when we are told that the Word became flesh “full of grace and truth” (1:14), truth is given priority. The Jesus of John says: “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (4:23-24) and “I am the way, the truth and the life” (14:6). It should come as no surprise then, that Jesus makes a claim about truth when he is brought before Pilate: “I came into the world to testify to the truth” (18:37). Pilate, puzzled, bored, frustrated, curious or furious asks what is perhaps the most important question in the New Testament: “What is truth?” (18:38).

As the Procurator, it is Pilate’s task to determine the truth of the matters presented to him – in this case an internal dispute among the Jews. Jesus – who looks nothing like the truth of which is being accused – that he is King of the Jews – is brought before him. He has none of the distinguishing characteristics of royalty – he is poor, he is vulnerable and his supporters have deserted him. Pilate must have found it hard to take the dispute seriously. How could the Jews possibly accuse this man of claiming to be a king? How could the man before him be considered a threat to Rome?

Jesus does not deny of challenge the charges against him. On the contrary he claims that his kingdom is not in direct competition with Rome. His kingdom is very different: “it is not of this world”. Pilate understands this to mean that Jesus is a king, but Jesus’ response is confusing: “You say that I am a king. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (18:37). Jesus’ kingdom is like no other. It is a kingdom in which truth is proclaimed and in which truth is believed.

The truth Jesus proclaims is unexpected and controversial. It is a truth that gives union with God priority over all other relationships, that understands that true freedom lies in complete submission and that truth is revealed only when we stop seeking and begin receiving the truth that the Holy Spirit instils in us. Jesus is a king, but the kingdom over which he has dominion bears no resemblance to earthly kingdoms. Jesus’ kingdom is one in which power, status and wealth have no place. It is a kingdom in which surrender takes the place of striving, service replaces leadership and vulnerability is valued over being in control.

All of this Jesus has modelled in his life and he models it again in his trial. Paradoxically, by surrendering himself entirely to God Jesus finds himself in complete control of the situation. He doesn’t have anything to fear from earthly authorities and he has nothing to lose because he has placed himself in God’s hands knowing that God alone has power over heaven and earth. The truth that Jesus lives, the truth that Jesus reveals, the truth that has the power to set one free cannot be found by argument, investigation or research but only by listening to Jesus’ voice, following Jesus’ example and in giving up the pretence that we can know anything or achieve anything by our own efforts. The truth that Jesus teaches, the truth that Jesus models is that of complete surrender – becoming one with God, allowing God to work in us and through us, so that what we know and what we do is God’s truth and not our own poor understanding of what truth might be.

Jesus is a king, but his kingdom is not of this world. He knows that truth is not to be found in things that we can see, and touch and feel. Jesus knows that the only truth is God’s truth and that true freedom lies in complete submission to God.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Biblical interpretation, John's Gospel, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The truth will set you free

Is it all too hard?

August 22, 2015

Pentecost 13 – 2015

John 6:56-69 (loosely) – Is it all too hard?

Marian Free

 In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. Amen.

We are told that 3m people in the UK say they would come to church if invited.They are not inclined to gate-crash someone else’s private club & so far nobody ever has invited themThe film clip suggests that in the USA 80% of first time church-goers have come because they have responded to an invitation.

Someone I know watches “Family Feud” so I’ve been initiated into that television programme. If you don’t know it, two families compete to guess the most popular answers to a variety of questions such as: “What is the most popular kitchen implement?” Apparently programme organizers have asked a selection of people that question and ranked the answers according to popularity. A member of each family in turn, has to guess the most popular answer. If they guess the highest- ranking answer they get more points than if they guess those at the bottom.

We are going to something like that this morning, but we are only going to have one question: “Why don’t church-goers invite other people to church?” Instead of having two families, we are going to invite you to write down what you think would be the top 5 responses to that question, for each “correct” answer you will score five points.

Here are some of the excuses people offer for not inviting others to church.

  • It might damage my friendship
  • The congregation will think my friend is not ‘our’ type of person
  • My friends are not the right type of people for our church
  • The church is pretty full already – where would they sit?
  • I’m shy so I would find it difficult
  • Faith is a private thing
  • I don’t want to be seen as strange – a Bible basher
  • I wouldn’t know what to say if they asked me hard theological Qs
  • They might ask me why I go to church
  • I suffer in my church services and so would others
  • Our services are unpredictable – I don’t really trust them
  • Our church is boring – it would put my friend off
  • My friend would not want to go
  • I don’t want to be rejected
  • We have no non-churchgoing friends
  • It’s the leaders’ job to fill the church – not mine
  • My friend said ‘no’ when I asked them last year

This list was drawn up by the team behind the programme: “Leading your Church into Growth” – the theme of the latest Clergy Conference.

Did you get more than five? More than 10?

Did you come up with an answer that is not here?

In today’s gospel we hear that a number of Jesus’ disciples turned back and stopped following him it is all too hard, Jesus says to those who remain: “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter’s response is: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Sharing the gospel can be difficult. We can’t always explain what our faith means to us, or answer complex questions but that does not mean that we turn away. Instead of assuming that our friends and families do not want to come to church, why don’t we begin to imagine that they are simply waiting for our invitation. What’s the worst that can happen if we do? What might happen if we don’t?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lsVsXaOsRTQ

We claim to be follows of the one who gives life in the present AND for eternity. Do we really want to keep that to ourselves

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel | Comments Off on Is it all too hard?

Feeding on Christ

August 15, 2015

Pentecost 12 – 2015

John 6:51-58

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who gives us life in abundance and desires that we share that life with the world. Amen. 

Most of you will have gathered by now that I experience a degree of frustration with regard to the focus on church growth and in particular the time spent in worrying why congregations are declining and the time and money spent on programmes designed to turn the decline around. My concern is that the navel-gazing of the past fifty years has achieved little and has caused us to become inward-looking rather than outward-focussed and that we are more anxious about the survival of the institution of the church than we are with the transmission of the gospel.

I am confident that God will survive with or without the church and will find new ways to make Godself known with or without our assistance. That said, thriving faith communities would ensure that for generations to come, that there will be a place or at least a group to whom people can come to hear the good news, to find spiritual refreshment and to be restored and made whole.

It was interesting therefore to attend the Arnott lecture two weeks ago and to be reminded by Bishop Stephen Cottrell that there are people in the wider community who are yearning for some spiritual connection, who have spiritual thirst that they are longing quench, a hunger they are desperate to satisfy and who are searching for answers in a world that can be isolating, confusing and even hostile.

Last week’s Clergy Conference focussed on Church Growth, but while its proponents did at times seem to be promoting growth for the sake of growth, they too expressed the belief that there are many non-church-goers who are seeking nourishment for their souls, an experience of life that is more satisfying than the material and superficial and a relationship with the utterly other.

The church as a community of faith is in an ideal position to satisfy this longing for meaning, search for depth and hunger for spiritual connection. So why is it that we are in decline? Why is it that those who are seeking turn to other faiths, explore other paths or simply give up the search? Is it because those who are looking for a connection with the sacred do not find it in the church? Is it because it is no longer evident that the church is the place in which spirituality is fed and nurtured? Is it because we have become so comfortable in our faith that we no longer make the effort to work on and to strengthen our relationship with God?

One of the speakers at the Clergy Conference challenged us to ask this question of ourselves and of our congregations: “Where are you with God?” “Where are you with God?” By this he means, “How is your relationship with God?” Are you conscious of the presence of God in your life? Do you nurture your relationship with God through regular prayer, reading God’s word or practicing some form of spiritual discipline? Is your spiritual life sufficiently full and rich that it spills over to enrich and enhance the lives of those around you? In other words are we feeding our own spiritual lives such that we have plenty with which to feed others?

In today’s gospel, Jesus reminds his listeners that he is the bread of life and he challenges them to feed on him, to so take him into themselves, into their lives, that they become a part of him and they of him.

If we really want to turn the church around perhaps we should stop looking for external reasons for the decline in numbers and begin looking at ourselves and the way we practice of our faith. We will have to stop looking back to the golden era of our past, stop believing that the faith is somehow passed on by osmosis or hoping that the right programme, the right youth leader or the ideal priest will turn things around.

The health of the church as a whole is the responsibility of every member of the church. That means that each of us needs to ask ourselves what we are doing about our own spiritual health; to question whether we are really feeding on the bread of life, continually re-fuelling our faith, allowing our relationship with Jesus to be constantly re-energised and enlivened and remind ourselves on a regular basis not only of what we believe, but of the benefits of being in a relationship with the living God.

Are we day by day allowing ourselves to abide in Jesus and allowing Jesus to abide in us?

I believe that the church will grow because we are energised by our faith, because the joy we experience is palpable, because we demonstrate in our own lives God’s unconditional love and because our experience of Jesus as the bread of life fills our longing for meaning and inspires us to share that meaning with those in our community who hunger and thirst for something more.

As you come to the altar this morning, as you take into your very selves the life-giving presence of Jesus, allow yourselves to be changed and transformed by the bread of life, let the Spirit of God burn within you and the creative energy of God inspire you. May our lives overflow with the knowledge and love of God – the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier – such that we cannot help but bring healing to those who are broken, provide direction to those who have lost their way and be a beacon of hope in a world that sometimes seems devoid of meaning.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel | Comments Off on Feeding on Christ

Identity crisis

August 8, 2015

Pentecost 11 – 2015

John 6:35,41-51

Marian Free 

In the name of God, source of all being, giver of all that is good. Amen.

Our recent trip to Israel was incredibly rewarding, but also very disturbing. Among other things I was disillusioned by the presence of the Christian church, in particular the partisanship and the competition for the tourist dollar. The major denominations in particular the Catholics and Orthodox, having vied for their piece of the Holy Land, hold on to it for all their worth. I could give you several examples of stories that filled me with despair, but I will limit myself to just one. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem has no fewer than six custodians – the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic, and Roman Catholic Churches as well as the Coptic, Armenian and Syriac Orthodox Churches. The church itself is divided between all six denominations with some shared areas. When we were there the Catholic Franciscans were preparing for Evensong, which they observe before the Russian Orthodox so as to be sure of a free run of the church. Had we stayed longer, we would have observed them scuffling with the Greek Orthodox whose procession was competing for the same space. It left me wondering what the church was really about and whether it really mattered who had the largest slice of the cake.

The experience confirmed something that I already thought – that today’s church, (and dare I say it, yesterday’s church) – has an identity crisis. It seems at times that we no longer really know who we are. We are not so sure of our place in the world or even in our communities. We are uncertain of our role and as a result we have no real direction. I wonder whether, like the church in the Holy Land, we too are concerned to protect and to hold on to what we have and whether we are struggling to preserve the institution of the church as much as we are trying to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

It used to be so much easier. There was a time when we didn’t have to struggle, a time when everyone knew who we were and what we stood for, a time when we were respected, a time when it was clear that we did some good in the world, a time when we didn’t have to explain or defend ourselves. Sadly today, in the eyes of many, the church is a spent force – at best an anachronism, at worst a laughing stock.

There are now at least two generations of Australians who have had little or no relationship with the church. Ask a class of nine year olds what happened at Easter and you are more likely to be told that Jesus was born (or died) than you are that Jesus rose from the dead.

Not only have we lost our place in the world, we seem to have lost our way. For centuries we were able to be complacent. We could take it for granted that most people knew whom we were and what we were about. Our children (even those who did not attend church) learnt the stories of the faith at school and Christianity provided some sort of moral compass for the world at large. During the colonial era there was a flurry of activity on the mission field as we sought to impose our beliefs on others, but at home we relied on the culture of the day to pass on the faith to others. We took for granted that we were part of the establishment and failed to reflect sufficiently on what it takes to share the good news.

So now we have an identity crisis. Others can now offer what we thought that we had to offer. Many of the services that used to be provided exclusively by the church are now equally the province of secular entities. The government can legislate for good behaviour and can provide social welfare, health care and education and non-government agencies can provide overseas aid. It begs the question: who are we, and what is our role? What do we have to offer that is unique and attractive to today’s world.

This morning’s gospel is in part about identity. Jesus’ listeners cannot get past the fact that Jesus is Joseph’s son. They can see and grasp Jesus’ earthly existence after all they know his mother and his father. Their problem is that they cannot begin to get a handle on his heavenly origins. How can the man whom they see before them have come down from heaven? For them, it is much easier to focus on the material and the physical than to grasp what Jesus is saying – that in his very person heaven has broken into the present, that the barriers the material and the spiritual have been destroyed and that the boundaries between the present and the future have been irrevocably broken for those who are able to comprehend who and what Jesus is.

I wonder sometimes if this is at the heart of our problem – if this is the reason why our churches are no longer full and why people no longer come to us for answers. I wonder if we have found it is easier to focus on the physical and the earthly, on things that can be observed and measured than to point to what cannot be seen and to direct others to realities that are beyond this existence. Yet this is the core of our identity – our understanding that faith in Jesus opens the door to a life beyond this, that for those who have faith the present is radically changed by the in-breaking of God into the world and that we no longer driven by hunger and thirst for something more, because we have found in Jesus all that gives life meaning and value. We do not have rely on the achievements of the past or worry about the uncertainty of the future, because we know that the past no longer has a hold on us and that our future is assured.

While we worry about the survival of the church, there are many in the world who hunger and thirst for meaning, who are looking for relationships that are more than superficial and searching for an assurance that their life has value. It is our responsibility to provide that meaning, our task to reveal the spiritual in the midst of the material and our role to demonstrate in our own lives what it means that the future has broken-in and radically changed our view of the present.

Jesus gave his life, that we might have life. In our turn, we are called to give our lives that others might know what it is like to be truly alive.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Church, John's Gospel, Mission | Comments Off on Identity crisis

Food for the soul

August 1, 2015

Pentecost 10 – 2015

John 6:26-35 (Some thoughts)

Marian Free

In the name of God who feeds our hearts, minds and souls with words of life. Amen.

Bread comes in many forms

Bread comes in many forms

In our Western society in which we have access to supermarkets twenty four hours a day it is difficult to imagine being totally dependent on what we are able to grow for ourselves and, except for the inconvenience of increased prices, we have no real idea how vulnerable food producers are to changes in the weather patterns, to drought and flood. Except in times of natural disaster – when people strip the supermarket shelves of bread, milk and other staples – we have no shortage of bread. Even then, most Australian suburbs boast more than one bakery that even in times of crisis can usually produce fresh bread each morning.

Today, in the West, we have a huge range of foods available to us and we know far more about nutrition than any generation before us, yet we still speak of bread as the “staff of life”. When we stock up on basics we still include quantities of bread because bread is filling and can be used in a variety of ways. Sandwiches can be built on simple spreads or extravagant fillings. Bread comes in a huge variety of forms, shapes and sizes. It fills lunch boxes, accompanies hearty soups, it is eaten on its own or as a accompaniment to a meal, it can be dipped in oil or smeared with honey, it can be toasted or fresh and used to make deserts as well as savoury dishes. The possibilities that a simple loaf of bread provides are seemingly endless.

The ability to grow rather than gather one’s food changed society from one that was always on the move to one that could settle down. Settling down in turn meant not only a need for more social controls but also to the stratification of society. Generally speaking, the vast majority of people existed at a subsistence level in order to feed the rich and powerful who made up a very small percentage of the population. Land was appropriated to feed the growing populations of the cities. This in turn, created a group of people who lacked the means to grow food for themselves and who were forced to hire themselves out as day-labourers, entirely dependent on others for their “daily bread”.

In the Palestine of Jesus’ day most people, including those with a trade, barely earned enough to keep starvation from the door. Their diet would have been limited to what they could grow, the animals they could afford to keep and the fish they were able to catch. Those whom Jesus has just fed with five barley loaves and two small fish, know only too well how dependent they are on the vagaries of the weather and how vulnerable they are should the harvest fail. Full stomachs and food for which they have not had to struggle is a miracle in itself, let alone the fact that Jesus has fed so many with so little.

It is no wonder that they seek Jesus. But Jesus is not impressed. He understands that they see only the superficial and that in seeking him, they are after physical, not spiritual sustenance. In other words, they have not understood the deeper meaning of the miracle that reveals who Jesus is and what he represents. No matter how much bread they have to eat today, they will still need to find bread to eat tomorrow and the following day. Jesus urges them to see beyond the external sign of the multiplication of the loaves to what the miracle is trying to tell them. He is trying to open their eyes to the presence of God in their midst. He wants to direct them away from their physical needs and encourage them to focus not only on their spiritual needs, but also on their eternal salvation.

Jesus points out that like bread the things of this world will perish. It is only those things that are not of this world that will endure forever. The things that are required to meet physical needs constantly have to be replenished, but the food for the soul – that which is required for spiritual well being, in the present and in the future – will be so satisfying that it will never have to be refilled or restocked. Jesus claims to be that bread, that source of nourishment and life that will so completely meet their need for fulfillment and meaning that they will never again hunger or thirst for peace and contentment.

For us, as for Jesus’ listeners, the pressures and demands of our day-to-day life can crowd out our need for spiritual refreshment and rest. The expectations placed on us by family, work and even church can claim our full attention and make us forget the needs of our soul. It is so easy for us to be distracted by the world around us – the world that we can see and feel and touch – that we can forget that for all the pleasure it gives us, this material world is limited in time and space. When it comes to an end or when our time in this world is over, what will we have?

While we are in this world, we will of course be caught up in it. Our physical bodies will require nourishment; our families and other commitments will make claims on our time, as indeed they should.

Today’s gospel reminds us that however much we gain from the things of this world, however much pleasure they give us and however much they meet our needs for achievement and pleasure – there will always be something wanting, we will continue to hunger and thirst for something more.

Jesus claims to be that something more, the source of a deep and lasting sense of fullness and satisfaction that will bring an end to all our striving and discontent in the present and assure us of life forever in the world to come.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Feeding of the five thousand, John's Gospel | Comments Off on Food for the soul

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »