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Body beautiful

March 16, 2013

Lent 5

John 12:1-10

Marian Free

In the name of God who formed us and called us God’s own. Amen.

There is a beautiful Japanese movie called “Departures”. It tells the tale of a cellist whose orchestra disbands and of his subsequent struggle to find work. Daigo has no qualifications or talents apart from his music and he becomes increasingly desperate to earn an income. Eventually he returns to his hometown and answers a job advertisement for a company called “Departures”. He is shocked and dismayed to discover that the company is not a travel agency as he had expected, but the Japanese equivalent of a funeral company. In Japan, a Nokanashi or undertaker is the most despised of professions. Those who practice the art of preparing people for cremation are shunned by society and excluded from all social activities. Daigo has no choice, so he takes the job but tells no one – not even his wife.

His first days on the job are shocking. The company are called to a home in which the occupant has been dead for sometime and the sight and the smells are more than Daigo can bear. He is called out at all hours which makes his secret hard to keep. Over time however, he begins to appreciate the privilege and responsibility of preparing the bodies for cremation and caring for the families of the deceased. With the family in the room, the Nokanashi gently wash and dress the dead and lay them out in a bed with beautiful white linen before placing them in a coffin and taking them away. (Like many aspects of Japanese life – tea making, flower arranging – preparing a body after death is highly ritualised and full of grace. It is beautiful to watch.)

While Daigo is learning to love his work, his wife becomes increasingly suspicious of his activity. Finally he has to tell her about the job and to confront her anger and dismay for by association she shares the taint that the job brings with it. However, when Daigo’s estranged Father dies, Mika accompanies Daigo as he attends to his Father’s body. When she sees for herself the care and respect that is given to the dead, and the love and compassion that is shown to the family and understands that despite societal attitudes the job is not something that contaminates the encoffenier, she too appreciates how important the job is. Instead of despising her husband’s decision and feeling anxious for herself and their child, she embraces and supports his choice.

Departures is a lovely, gentle and respectful movie, which has the effect of de-mystifying death and giving us a different appreciation of the human body.

Different cultures have different attitudes to death. People of the Muslim faith believe that a person should be buried as soon after death as possible. The body is wrapped in cloth rather than placed in a coffin and it is laid in the ground such that it is facing Mecca. In Ireland and perhaps other parts of Great Britain a body may be kept in an open coffin in the family home for long enough for family and friends to come and pay their respects. Some ancient cultures had elaborate processes of mummification and the wealthy could build expensive tombs like the pyramids which could be filled with food and possessions to accompany them on their journey to the next life. I could go on, the Indians (or some of them) have the tradition of the funeral pyre and many Chinese burn money for the deceased to spend in the next life.

In Jesus’ time it appears that the dead were anointed with spices before being wrapped in cloth and entombed. The women among Jesus’ friends discovered that the tomb was empty because they had been going to anoint Jesus’ body which, when taken from the cross, had been hurriedly dealt with because of the approach of the Sabbath. According to John, Nicodemus provided about 100 lbs of spices for that task. In today’s gospel however, Jesus is not yet dead so the anointing tells us something different.

There are four different accounts of the woman who anoints Jesus. John’s account has a number of unique features – the timing is very specific, the characters in the story – Martha, Mary, Lazarus and Judas are all named and the woman (Mary) wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Jesus is with friends which makes Mary’s action less shocking and inappropriate. While the timing in John’s gospel is precise – six days before Passover – other aspects of time are confused in this period of Jesus’ life. For example, John alludes to this event before he reports the raising of Lazarus and in this passage we read: “Leave her alone, she kept it for the day of my burial.” As Jesus is not yet dead, that he should be anointed for burial is confusing. Alternately, if Mary was going to keep the ointment for Jesus’ death, why is she using it now?

These questions cannot be resolved but the stories tell us about a respect and care for the body which Western Christianity (based, in part, on a misinterpretation of Paul’s use of the word “flesh”) seems to have lost. Many of us have, deep in our psyche, a belief that our physical bodies are something of a hindrance, that they have uncontrollable urges which are shameful and have to be subdued and tamed. Not quite so extreme is our concern with normal bodily functions. We deodorise our sweat, listerine our breath, shave off hair that grows where we do not want it. Our hatred of (or ambivalence towards) the body is demonstrated today by extreme dieting or an obsession with body building or sculpting. Bodies are so dangerous or so unpleasant that many people in our culture have a difficulty with touch.

The reverence, extravagance and intimacy with which Mary handles Jesus’ body and Jesus’ willing acceptance of her ministrations tell a different story. Neither of them are embarrassed or ashamed of their bodies, they have no fear of what another might see or feel, no self-consciousness about touch. Their physical presence is a very real part of who they are. Jesus’ feet may have been rough and calloused from all the walking, Mary’s hair may not have been recently washed. Neither will have spent time with the beauty therapist to ensure that they looked and smelt their best for this moment. They were two friends who accepted each other and each other’s bodies just as they were.

Whatever this account tells us about the foreboding of Jesus’ death, the avarice in Judas’ nature or the careless abandon of Mary’s love, it is also a telling insight into the value of our physical selves. God gave us physical bodies to house our emotion, our intellect and even our souls and God took on that human body for himself when he entered our existence. Our bodies may not be all that we wish and they may express needs that we are not always happy to admit or indulge but in the end they are God’s creation and the body God chose to inhabit. They are not to be despised and subdued but celebrated and enjoyed. They are not to be bullied and re-shaped, but treasured and cared for. They are not a burden or embarrassment, but a gift from God our creator who thought that they were a suitable vessel for God’s very self. Our bodies are a precious gift. There is no need to deny them affection and touch, reverence and respect. If the human body was good enough for God, surely it is good enough for us.

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Jesus at a wedding

January 19, 2013

Epiphany 2, 2013

Wedding at Cana – John 2:1-11

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who showers us with abundant blessings and reveals himself to us through his Son Jesus. Amen.

 

I don’t need to tell you that I know a great deal about weddings. Not only do I conduct numerous weddings but I had a hand in planning my wedding and have been involved in the planning of my children’s weddings. Even quite simple ceremonies take quite a deal of planning. A bare minimum requires the signing of the Notice of Intent at least one month before the ceremony, arranging a celebrant a venue and two witnesses. Anything more elaborate also involves deciding on the number of guests, sending invitations, choosing music, booking a reception centre, selecting a menu, organizing a cake, making or purchasing a dress, hiring or buying a suit, buying shoes and flowers, planning the seating arrangements, thinking of and inviting someone to be an MC and hopefully planning a honeymoon. For those who want to go to more trouble cars need to be hired, a photographer booked, wedding favours made or purchased, bridesmaid’s dresses made or bought and the list goes on (and on).  No wonder people find it stressful, I’m exhausted just listing what needs to be done!

Weddings in the first century were quite different, but I presume that they also required a great deal of planning. From what we can re-create from the literature available, it appears that in the first century all of the village would have been invited and the festivities would have lasted for seven days. The celebrations would have started, not at 3pm at an appointed time, but whenever the friends of the bridegroom arrived with the bride. One can only imagine the sort of organisation that would go into such an event. Feeding a large crowd over a number of days would involve a considerable amount of preparation – beasts would have to be chosen, slaughtered, prepared, and cooked, bread and sweets would have to be made and enough wine procured. Other arrangements such as dowries would have had to have been settled long beforehand.

It is interesting that the first event in Jesus’ life that is recorded by the author of John’s gospel is that of a wedding not a healing. What is more, the story raises a number of questions – not least of which is why the hosts ran out of wine. Were the groom’s parents really so unprepared as to not have enough to drink, or was it, as some suggest, that Jesus and the disciples did not observe the tradition of bringing a contribution to the festivities? Other questions arise: Whose wedding was it? Why was Mary concerned about the lack of wine if she was not the host? Why does Jesus address his mother in such an abrupt way: “woman”? Scholars have had a field day with the question of Mary’s interference in the festivities. It is this story that has led to the theory (used by Dan Brown) that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. If this were the case, it would explain Mary’s concern with the wine – she is the host of the celebration. It is her responsibility to have catered adequately for the party, it is her reputation that will be harmed if she proven to be an inadequate host. This is why Mary notices the shortfall and looks to Jesus for a solution.

Commentaries on John’s gospel provide answers to some of these questions, but the real key to the story lies not in the specific details, but in the evangelist’s purpose in recording it. The heart of the account is not Jesus’ relationship with his mother, nor is it the miracle itself, nor even the vast quantity of wine that results. The last line of the story tells us that its primary purpose is the revelation of the person of Jesus – to the disciples who are present and to those who will read the account later.

From start to finish, the author of John’s gospel is intent on making known that Jesus is the one who is to come, the one sent by God to bring salvation to the world and eternal life to those who believe. As we learn in chapter 20, John’s gospel is written: “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” So the purpose of the first of Jesus’ miracles recorded by John is to bring people to faith in him.

Unlike the Synoptic Gospels which begin with Jesus’ healing the sick and casting out demons, John begins with a wedding and a miracle of abundance. What is not readily obvious to us will have been clear to Jesus’ disciples and would certainly have been plain to those for whom the Gospel was written. Through the use of symbol and allusion, John portrays Jesus as the one who will bring the redemption promised by God. For example, as today’s reading from Isaiah indicates, marriage is a sign of the restoration of Israel – the people will be the bride and God the groom, their shame will be taken away and they will be able to hold their heads high among the people. A wedding and a feast imply that Jesus is the one who was to come.

Elsewhere, Jesus speaks of the danger of putting new wine into old wine skins. Wine replacing water is suggestive of a new and different era replacing the old. Lastly, the water to which Jesus refers is stored in stone jars, jars which because they were not porous and could not be contaminated, held the water used for the ritual of purification. John’s readers would have understood the illusion – Jesus’ salvific action replaces the need for repeated ritual purification. Through Jesus, the people have been put right with God for all time.

In the written account at least, and possibly in the actual event, all of these images would have spoken to the disciples of the fact that God, through Jesus, was doing something new. Something that has been pointed to by the prophets was now a reality in the life and presence of Jesus. Through allusions to OT expectations John presents Jesus as God’s answer to all that has been promised. He suggests that through Jesus the relationship between the people and God has been healed, the promised banquet has begun, the forsakennness of Israel has been supplanted by marriage and that because of Jesus the need for purification has become redundant.

So you can see, there is so much more to this wedding than a miracle. The wedding allows Jesus glory to be revealed which in turn leads to the disciples’ belief in him. The revelation of Jesus in John’s gospel has one purpose and one alone, that those who see and those who hear come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

A miracle-worker does not change the world. Someone who turns water into wine does not bring about the salvation of humankind. The extraordinary thing about Jesus, as John’s gospel will make clear over and over again, is that he and the Father are one and that through him, the world is redeemed and the relationship with God is restored.

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What is truth?

November 24, 2012

The Reign Of Christ – 2012

John 18:38 What is truth?

 

Marian Free

 In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier who leads us into all truth. Amen.

I imagine that when most of us think about truth, we think about the truth, about firm facts and figures that remain constant over time. We believe that if we look hard enough we will discover some universal consistency, some shared knowledge or beliefs that are true for all people and in all situations. I’m not a philosopher, but I have learnt over time that it is not as easy as that.

So what is truth? The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy tells us that the question of truth has been debated for thousands of years. It states that truth is not only one of the central topics of philosophy, but also the largest. In fact the article claims that a “huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth” making truth a central platform of that discipline. Within philosophy itself there are a number of ways of looking at truth. For example, one way of determining truth is to determine whether or not a statement corresponds to a fact. The statement: “James walks” can be easily verified by the observation of James walking. Another way of looking at truth is to determine whether or not a set of beliefs is coherent. A set of beliefs which says that cows are four legged, milk producing mammals with different coloured hides that sometimes have three legs is not coherent and therefore not true. Cows cannot three legs and at the same time have four legs.

The Catholic Encyclopedia is no more helpful in its definition of truth. In fact  it could be argued that it is less helpful because it relates truth to God and God is a quantity that cannot be tied down. This site uses terms like ontological truth and logical truth and speaks of truth as being in the mind of God -as if the mind of God were something we could mine for facts about the world and about existence.

Another site, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – at least in its Google tag – uses John 18:38 from today’s gospel as evidence that the question of truth has been around for at least 2,000 years. The biblical reference proves to be a distraction because on inspection the site is just as difficult for the uninitiated as the former two. I leave it to the philosophers among you to explore the matter further. The point is that truth is not so easily described and prescribed as we might sometimes like to imagine – which makes John 18:38 particularly interesting.

Depending on where I am coming from at the time, I see Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”, as either cynical or poignant – cynical, because history tells us that Pilate was a cruel and insecure ruler or poignant because seen sympathetically, it is an expression of confusion and a desire to see and therefore respond more clearly to the situation before him. His question comes on the heels of Jesus’ self description – “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

We too might ask Pilate’s question – what is truth? In this complex and confusing world, sometimes it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad, to know when we are protecting our own self interests and when we are establishing laws that protect the safety of all.

In John’s Gospel, “αλήθεια” – “truth” is used 29 times, significantly more than it is used in any other gospel. From the first chapter in which Jesus is described as full of “grace and truth”, through chapter 8 in which Jesus says, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” to the well known, “I am the way, the truth and the light”, truth is a consistent theme. Truth, according to the author of the gospel, relates to Jesus’ unity with God which allows him to be or to reveal what is true. Further it is the relationship between God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit which enables Jesus to promise that the Holy Spirit will lead believers in to the truth. Through the Trinity, Jesus’ claims, those who believe in him will know the truth and this knowledge will set apart those who belong to him from those who do not.

Having had a brief look at the way in which the philosophers define truth, it is interesting to consider the way in which it is used by the author of John’s gospel. Here the expression is used in a very particular way. “Truth” in the fourth gospel refers to right judgement – knowing truth from falsehood, distinguishing good from evil, being able, as God is, to make right judgements. When we understand this, it becomes easier to understand Pilate’s question.

Pilate’s dilemma was just this. He has been asked to make a judgement based, it would appear, on very little evidence and despite his reputation he seems to be loathe to become involved in something that is not strictly his provenance – a question of religious law. As a way to avoid decision-making, he first of all tries to hand the decision back to those who brought Jesus to him. When that fails, he gives Jesus the responsibility to acquit or condemn himself. Perhaps, if Jesus will say that he is a King, Pilate will be relieved of making a decision because the course in front of him would be clear – he could put him to death for treason.

It is curious that even though Pilate has the authority to rule and the authority to judge, he wants to abdicate that responsibility in this instance. Even though history records that he is a vicious, uncompromising man, John depicts him as indecisive and at least a little bit concerned to do the right thing. In the end though, Pilate fails. He is unable to make the decision. The fact that he does not know the truth (ie that he cannot make right judgements) is exposed for all to see. Pilate was unable to make the distinction between right and wrong, he was not able to make the right choice between the angry crowd and the innocent man. Though he had authority over the people before him and as the person with authority was in a position to judge, in this instance at least he could not make the decision. in the final analysis, he could not make the choice to do what was right.

What is truth? Pilate’s question resonates throughout history and history records that by and large humanity is very poor at making the right judgements. In the end only God can truly distinguish between good and evil. As Christians, as those who claim to hear Jesus’ voice, we have the potential to be united with Jesus and have been promised the gift of the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth. There are no easy answers to Pilate’s question. In the end truth, right judgement belongs to God. If we seek the truth, we need to submerge our egos and deflate our arrogance. The more we confront our selfishness and self interest, the more we will be able to become one with Christ and the more easily will we be guided by the Holy Spirit. The best that we can do is to give ourselves over to God and do the best we can.

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When it gets too hard do you wish to go away?

August 19, 2012

Pentecost 12

John 6:51-58

Marian Free

 In the name of God – source of life, wisdom and joy. Amen.

 “Do you also wish to go away?” Jesus’ question to his disciples in verse 67 catches us by surprise. These are the people with whom he has chosen to share his mission, his most private moments. In their turn, they have chosen to follow him despite what others might think. Why would they now want to go away? Today’s gospel helps us to understand the lead up to Jesus’ question. In fact, we have to go back to the beginning of chapter 6 to see how the tension builds to the point where some disciples leave Jesus and Jesus is forced to ask the remainder if they too wish to leave. The author of John’s gospel records the account of the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus’ walking on the water as do the other three gospels. According to the author of John, the crowds which have been following Jesus, discover that he is on the other side of the lake and pursue him. This provides Jesus with an opportunity to challenge their self-centredness and to elaborate on his role and his mission.

Jesus perceives that the crowds are primarily interested in what he can do for them – provide food, heal the sick and so on. These signs, while important, are not the real reason that Jesus is here. He challenges those who have followed to seek the deeper meaning of Jesus’ presence among them. Bread sustains the body for a limited time. Jesus asks his listeners to consider the sort of food that will sustain them in the present and more importantly for eternity. He asks them to look beyond their physical needs for sustenance and to seek the food that endures – the spiritual food that sustains the soul. This is the food that he provides to those who seek it.

As part of this argument, Jesus claims to be the ‘bread of life’. We are so familiar with this concept that it can be difficult for us to understand how such a discussion could create the sort of offense that would cause some of Jesus’ disciples to abandon him and Jesus to ask if others too wish to go away. Jesus as the ‘bread of life’ provides us with strength and courage, spiritual nourishment and support.  Perhaps if Jesus had left the argument there his disciples would have remained with him. However, Jesus has claimed to be the bread from heaven which endures forever – unlike the manna in the wilderness which sustained the Israelites in the present, but which was unable to give them eternal life. Among his listeners would have been those who would have heard Jesus’ suggestion that he was more important than – in fact that he had superseded Moses.

If that claim were not confronting enough, Jesus makes the even more disturbing claim: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this brad will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Not only is the idea of eating flesh and drinking blood utterly repulsive, it is impossible for Jesus’ audience to grasp such a difficult and distressing concept. Many of them know Jesus, they know his mother and his father. They know that he is a human being like themselves – how can he say that he has come down from heaven? It is impossible for them to even begin to conceive that it is possible, let alone necessary for them to consume this man’s flesh and blood if they are to have eternal life! No wonder many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him! They say: “This teaching is difficult, who can accept it?”

They have failed to understand that Jesus, through this dramatic and uncomfortable language, Jesus is asking his followers not to physically eat him, but to become one with him, to allow him to become so much a part of them that it is as if they are indeed one flesh and blood. Eating and drinking are metaphors for this complete unity. In some way faith is a process of somehow absorbing Jesus into our lives and allowing our lives to be absorbed into that of Jesus.

Eating and drinking are strong images, but they are not totally unfamiliar. We say to children: “I could just eat you!” We don’t mean that literally, we just mean that we love them so much that we don’t want to be separated from them. This is the sort of relationship that Jesus is asking his disciples (and us) to have with him.

It is at this point that Jesus asks those who remain: “Do you also wish to go away?” To which Peter responds: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” Peter, who so often fails to understand, who so often gets it wrong has cut to the core. He may not always understand what Jesus has to say, but he knows what Jesus means – to himself and to the world. Peter may not really understand Jesus’ teaching at this point, but he is sure of one thing – that there is nowhere that he would rather be, nowhere else that he would receive the sort of spiritual guidance that he has found in Jesus. He knows that in the present and in the future, it is his relationship with Jesus that has opened the doors of heaven.

I suspect that it is the same for us. There may be times when we do not understand – when scripture seems too difficult, when the events of our lives or the lives of others seem inexplicable – but we with Peter know that Jesus is the means to eternal life. We have thrown in our lot with Jesus, and nothing in this life or the next will separate us.

 

 

 

 

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Bread of life

August 11, 2012

Pentecost 11

John 6:35, 41-51 

Marian Free

In the name of God who sustains and fulfils us. Amen.

 Some years ago there was an advertisement for a (then) popular deodorant. The ad featured a beautiful woman holding up various essential items and saying things like: “I can do without my iPhone, I can do without my hair dryer, I can do without my first cup of coffee, but I can’t do without my Mum.” Of course, it’s a play on words. Our minds immediately leap to the conclusion that she can’t do without her mother, but in fact Mum is the brand name of the deodorant that she is promoting! It was a clever piece of advertising – not only because obviously I still remember it, but also because for a while, the phrase: “I can’t do without” passed into common use.

In the scale of things, deodorant is a particularly superficial item to be unable to go without. People are starving and dying of disease every day, surely we can go without something that is not vital to our well-being, but only to our vanity. However, the goal of advertising is to convince us that we simply cannot do without the latest fashion, the latest kitchen items, the latest phone or computer. Many of us today have lives cluttered with things that we do not absolutely need, but which seemed a good idea at the time. It gives pause for thought. What do we really require for a reasonable life? What things are absolutely essential for our well-being and what things are essentially luxuries?

Some of the things we need are obvious. We simply cannot survive without water, oxygen and a certain amount of food. Warmth and shelter are also good but not necessary. In 1943 a man named Abraham Maslow published a seminal paper in which he identified a hierarchy of needs. All these years later psychology students would be familiar, if not with his work, then with the hierarchy to which he gave his name. The hierarchy he developed suggests that a person’s basic needs must be met in order for them to be creative and moral. So at the bottom of the hierarchy are things like breathing, food, water, sex. When those needs are met a person may becomes aware of the need for safety (both physical and economic). When one is fed and safe, love and belonging become important for happiness. These are followed, Maslow would say, by the need for self-esteem (confidence, achievement, respect form others). It is only when all these underlying needs are met, he claims, that a person is able to achieve self-actualisation – creativity, spontaneity, lack of prejudice and so on.

There are some flaws in Maslow’s argument. A number of creative people are creative, not because they have reached some higher dimension of existence, but precisely because their needs for love or something else have not been met. Their art is drawn not from their self-fulfilment, but from their suffering. Likewise we often witness people who to us, seem to be living in the most dire of circumstances and yet who are able to express surprising joy and inclusiveness.

Today’s gospel is part of a long discourse on bread in which Jesus claims to be both the bread of life and the living bread that has come down from heaven. For many people bread is one of the staples of life. Jesus appears to be claiming that he is both essential for life and that a relationship with him is the key to eternal life. In contrast to Maslow’s hierarchy, Jesus places himself at the bottom of the pyramid and implies that all else in life is built on faith in him.

As he does so often, Jesus seems to be challenging his audience to consider where their priorities lie and where they place their relationship with him in comparison to their other needs and wants. By claiming to be the bread of life and by comparing himself with the manna in the wilderness, Jesus is suggesting that his listeners need to place him at the centre of their lives, to have the confidence that if they put him at the heart, all else will fall into place. Jesus is claiming that faith in him is essential to the well-being of all people. It is not an optional extra that can be drawn on only when it is absolutely needed, rather it is the central requirement for a life that is rich and satisfying.

This is more difficult that it appears – especially for Jesus listeners. Many of them have known him all his life, they know his parents and they know that he didn’t come down from heaven, but was born in the usual way. For Jesus’ audience accepting that he was who he said he was meant suspending their rational minds and allowing themselves to trust that what Jesus said was indeed true and that he could supply all their wants. Further, it meant letting go what they had believed until now and trusting that God was indeed doing something new in Jesus, that they faith they had held was being enlarged to include all that Jesus did and taught. For many this was an impossible task. They simply could not make the leap. They could accept Jesus as a miracle worker, but not as the source of their being or the most essential part of their lives.

This sort of faith is no easier for our generation. Faith still does involve a suspension of the rational and a belief in something that ultimately cannot be proven. The faith that Jesus demands is not new to us as it was to Jesus’ first century listeners. We are not caught by surprise as they were. However, that does not mean that it is easy. For ourselves, accepting Jesus as the bread of life entails trusting Jesus with one’s whole life and not just with part of it. It means relying on Jesus (and not on our own strength) when things get tough. It means learning to be grateful for all that we have and knowing that Jesus will give us those things that we really need. It means that Jesus is the one thing in life that we simply cannot do without.

What is the one thing in life that you cannot do without? Is your answer Jesus?

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Knowing Jesus – being part of the story

July 28, 2012

Pentecost 9

John 6:1-21

Marian Free

In the name of God who is the end of all our stories. Amen.

 There is a wonderful movie called “When Harry met Sally”. It is about two graduates who share a ride to New York, separate, meet again, separate and finally admit that they want to spend their lives together. I watched the movie again recently and was reminded that one of Harry’s habits was that he liked to read the end of a book first. He couldn’t stand the suspense of waiting until the end to see how everything worked out, so he would read a few pages at the beginning and then turn to the end before going back to where he had left off.

When I first saw the movie I couldn’t believe that any one could spoil a good read by jumping ahead in that way. However, I have to acknowledge that there are times when I’ve been compelled to ask someone whether or not a book ends well because the suspense is too much for me. I don’t want to know the ending exactly, but I do want to prepare myself to know if, for example, the central characters are going to completely damage their relationship or whether they eventually get it together. If I know that it is all going to end well, then I can cope with the stresses along the way! I have to confess that on one occasion it took me several weeks to read the end of a book, not because I was anxious about the ending, but because I had guessed what the ending was going to be and knew that it would spoil the whole book!

For most of us, knowing the end of a story spoils our enjoyment of it. In fact, reviewers now have an expression: “here comes the spoiler”‘ which acts as a warning for us to stop listening, watching or reading because the end of the story is about to be revealed.

John’s Gospel should perhaps come with such a warning. Throughout John’s gospel we are given a glimpse of the community in the present – the risen Jesus, the Jesus known by believers in the present – makes his presence known in the gospel as much, if not more than, the Jesus of history. This is because the author of John, unlike the authors of Matthew, Mark and Luke, writes from the perspective of a community which understands the historical Jesus as a result of knowing the risen Christ. Jesus is understood and taught from the perspective of those who know the risen Jesus. That is, the end of the story determines the way in which the story is told. That is not to say that the communities of the other gospels did not know the risen Christ and that they did not read that knowledge back into the story as they told it. It just means that they wrote their gospels from a different perspective. The writers of the Synoptic Gospels knew the end of the story but they wrote, by and large, as if they did not.

The account of feeding of the five thousand occurs in all four gospels. In fact in some gospels there are two accounts of miraculous feedings – the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand. Likewise in all four gospels the account of Jesus’ walking on the water is attached to the feeding of the five thousand.

John’s account has some marked differences from the other three. His detail of where the event occurred is more specific. He tells us that the Passover was near – a symbol that is associated with Jesus’ death. In John two disciples, Philip and Andrew, are mentioned by name. The emphasis in John is on the abundant provision of bread rather than the miracle itself. After the feeding, the disciples choose to go on ahead while Jesus withdraws by himself. There is a strong wind, but the disciples are more frightened of Jesus than they are of the storm.

A number of other factors in John’s re-telling stand out. These are what lead scholars to believe that the story is being interpreted in the light of the present situation – that of a community which knows the risen Christ. For example, in John’s account Jesus is completely in control. He is not trying to escape the crowds and they don’t reach the spot before him. It is Jesus, not the disciples who notices the hunger of the crowds and he doesn’t send the disciples to buy food to feed them.

In John’s gospel, Jesus sees the crowds coming, takes the initiative and asks Philip where they can buy bread. However, he does not expect an answer, because he already knows what he is going to do. The Jesus of John doesn’t waste time. As soon as he sees the crowds coming he wonders about feeding (not teaching) them. After they are fed, the crowds declare Jesus to be the prophet who is to come into the world. All this is in contrast with the other gospel writers who emphasize Jesus’ compassion, have Jesus teach and heal before the crowds are fed, and who stress the fact that the disciple’s misunderstand the meaning of the bread.

John’s concern in re-telling the story is less with the miracle itself and more with the question of the identity of Jesus. Even though they get it wrong, the recognition of Jesus by the crowds is an important part of the story. The crowds identify Jesus not just as a miracle worker, but as the prophet who is to come into the world. Mistakenly, they seek to make him king, but he is not the sort of king that they expect.

At the same time, the multiplication of the loaves provides an opportunity for teaching  – something that is a common feature in John’s gospel.  The Jesus of John doesn’t teach and heal the crowds and then feel obliged to feed them because he has kept them so late. In John the crowds are fed first. The miracle of the feeding provides the illustration and sets the scene for the teaching that is to come. (For the remainder of this very long chapter, Jesus will explain the meaning of the bread, claim to be the bread of life and demand that people identify completely with him by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. In fact, as we will discover the teaching is so difficult that it separates the Jesus’ true followers from those who just want what Jesus can do for them.)

As in Matthew and Mark, John’s account is followed by Jesus’ walking on the water. Again there are a number of differences in John which suggest an interpretation by the post-resurrection church. Two features stand out – Jesus comes to the disciples (as he does after the resurrection) and the key to the story is the recognition of Jesus by the disciples (they don’t mistake him for a ghost). When Jesus walks towards the boat the disciples are terrified, but when they know it is Jesus, they try to get him to come into the boat with him.

Their recognition of Jesus also serves to separate the disciples from the rest of the world. The disciples recognise Jesus for who he is, whereas the crowds see him as they want to see him. The crowds judge Jesus by worldly not other-worldly categories, they can see him only in earthly terms. The disciples know the deeper, spiritual significance of Jesus, and understand that as a result of such knowing they are set apart as the community that follows in his name.

Like the gospel writers, we too know the end of the Jesus’ story. Like the community for whom John’s gospel was written, our lives and our understanding of Jesus are determined as much by the Jesus who is present with us, as they are by our knowledge of the historic Jesus. The story of the historical Jesus is essential for our understanding of our faith, but it is the risen Jesus who informs, teaches, challenges and guides all that we do in the present.

Our present is the end of the story so far, our past is already a part of the story, and our future will determine how the story is told. In fact our future may determine whether or not the story continues to be told.

May we live in such a way that the story known through us is a story which is filled with the transforming power of the risen Christ in our lives.

(I am indebted to L.Th. Witkamp “Some Specific Johannine Features in John 6:1-21.” in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 40 (1990) 43-60. for some of the ideas above.)

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Boxed in

July 21, 2012

Mary Magdalene 2012 (Pentecost 8)

John 20:1-18

Marian Free

In the name of God who values us all, created as we are in the image of God. Amen.

On Friday evening Michael and I attended a play at the Cremorne Theatre called: “Head full of Love”. The play chronicles the friendship that develops between two unlikely women – a Northern Territory Aboriginal suffering from renal failure and an anxiety-ridden white woman who has run away from her over-bearing son. As the two women circle around, trying to understand each other, the dialogue between them exposes the sorts of prejudices and false assumptions that many white people make of the original inhabitants of this land and how difficult it can be to overturn those prejudices, even when contrary evidence stares you in the face.

Lilly requires five hours of dialysis five times a week. Nina naturally assumes that her kidney problems are a result of alcohol abuse. She blunders around trying to get Lilly to admit that this is true and initially refuses point blank to accept that Lilly has never drunk alcohol. It takes some time for Lilly to convince Nina that she, like many other indigenous people are simply born with underdeveloped kidneys, often as a result of low birth weight. Nina has absorbed one type of folklore about aboriginals which she unquestioningly applies to Lilly. When that view is challenged she finds it difficult to change her mindset and to see the issue through a different set of lenses.

Nina is not alone. When people do not have a wide variety of experience, or a personal knowledge of those who are different from themselves, they tend to accept the prevailing view as not only valid, but as characteristic of a whole group of people. So there are those who accept the view that all boat people are terrorists, or that all welfare recipients are lazy and don’t want to work, or that all members of Generation Y are unreliable and flighty. . The world is much simpler to understand and manage if we categorise people according to their gender, their age, their profession, their race or by any other characteristic that they might have in common. Once we have grouped people together we begin to see the ways in which they are the same and become blinded to the ways in which those within the group exhibit a huge variety of ability, intention and behaviour.

The human need to classify is as true with regard to individuals as it is to groups of people.

Our opinion of someone is formed on the basis of what we observe to be true and we find it hard to change that opinion even when all the evidence indicates that we were wrong or that the person has changed. No one expects an ugly duckling to become a swan, or the leopard to change its spots.

Mary Magdalene is one such person who has been defined and categorised to the point that many of us assume that we know all there is to know about her. Yet Mary remains an enigma. Over the past two thousand years she has been cast in many roles. She has been identified as sinner, lover, witness to the resurrection and more. Scholars and novelists have made her a person of interest – building on or breaking down the mythology that surrounds her. For example, scholars have made the claim that Mary was married to Jesus and Dan Brown has used her to forward an argument that Jesus produced children and that Jesus’ descendants continue to walk the earth.

Given the degree of interest in her that is shown in art, scholarship and fiction, it is interesting to note that Mary is mentioned rarely in the gospels. Most of the mythology that surrounds her is based on conjecture. Luke mentions Mary as one of the women who supported Jesus in his ministry  (8:1-3, cf Mark 14:40-43) and all four gospels include Mary in the accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection. She is the woman from whom seven demons are cast out (Lk 8:2) and the one who announced the resurrection to the disciples (Jn  20:18).

Even though the gospels contain so few references to Mary, she has been identified with at least two of the unnamed women – the sinful woman who anointed Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great sealed her fate by identifying Mary as the repentant sinner who washed Jesus’ feet. For centuries Mary Magdalene became Mary the reformed prostitute. It was only in the last century that feminists, determined to rescue her from this unwarranted position of subjugation, tried to reclaim her. In so doing they found the Mary of John’s gospel and the Mary of the Gospel of Philip. Mary Magdalene – the apostle to the apostles – had been buried under centuries of complacent presupposition even though she had had a prominent and leading role in the early Christian community.

Pope Gregory made Mary into a fallen woman – the perfect foil the other Mary, the Virgin who remained pure and sinless. These two women became images for womanhood -woman is either fallen or pure. Feminists may have redeemed Magdalene, but their weakness was to imply that Mary had value only when she could be demonstrated to hold a position of authority within the early church. Neither categorisation is satisfactory. The problem with both approaches is that they serve to colonize and to appropriate Mary to serve a particular purpose, rather than allow her to be herself – whatever that may be. If Pope Gregory relegated Mary to the role of repentant sinner, the feminists have inadvertently implied that for a person to be deemed as significant, they must be shown hold a position of authority.  In this way Mary is redeemed at the expense of the millions of Christians throughout the ages who have not aspired to or attained leadership roles with the Christian community.

Whatever scholars uncover about the Mary of history – and that will not be very much, we can be sure that she was a unique individual who brought to the early church a variety of gifts and talents and that her past – whether as sinner or leader – did not continue to define her. We can learn from the treatment of Mary throughout history and even in recent times, that we do a great injustice to people – individuals and groups- when we attempt to define them or when we use a few basic characteristics to classify and to categorise them.

If we believe that all people are created in God’s image and that everyone is precious in God’s sight it is incumbent upon us all to create environments that allow people from all races, genders and backgrounds to reach their full potential. It is important to value all people – especially those who are different from ourselves -, to help them to find and name their own identity – not one we have imposed on them, and to recognize and treasure the gifts that each person brings to the body of Christ.

We are all so many things, family and friend, teacher and student, helper and helped. None of us would like to be known for only one aspect of who we are and none of us would like to think that something from our past continued to define us in the present.

Life might be easier if we put individuals and groups into neat little packages, however, we do no one a service if we do not allow them to continually surprise or astonish us. We will find ourselves the poorer if we box people in and expect them to always behave in a consistent way and we will be guilty of failing to recognize the wonder and diversity of God’s creation if we hold on to our prejudices in the face of information which conflicts with what we think we know.

Centuries after Jesus walked on earth, the true Mary continues to elude us.

May she be a reminder to us that we do not always see all that there is to see and may we accept the challenge to be ready, open and willing to learn about and from those whom today we do not fully understand.

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