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What is temptation?

February 25, 2023

Lent 1 – 2023 (Notes)
Matthew 4:1-11
Marian Free

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

I wonder what comes to your mind when you think of sin? I know a number of people who associate sin with breaking one of the Ten Commandments. A phrase that I have often heard is: ‘I don’t need to come to church, I am a good person, I don’t break the Ten Commandments.” When they say this, they are usually referring to the last six of the Ten Commandments – those that refer to murder, lying, adultery, murder, envy, honouring one’s parents and stealing. The problem with this attitude is twofold. Firstly, the these six commandments are relatively easy for most of us to keep. Secondly, they are the ground rules for living together in relative harmony. They are not unique to the Judea-Christian tradition, but are common to most cultures.
It is the first four commandments that are challenging and which people who consider themselves to be ‘good, Christian people’ seem to overlook. ‘I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.’ The first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God, the last six, with our relationships with each other. The first four demand an exclusive relationship with the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt, loyalty to the one true God. The others have to do with our relationships with each other. One could go so far as to argue that it is only the former that have to do with faith. The latter are common sense, practical rules to guide our lives together. (Going to church is not a prerequisite for keeping them.)
Unfortunately, the institution of the church has contributed to this oversimplified view of sin. Many of us grew up in a church culture that emphasised goodness over faithfulness. We were led to believe that God wanted us to behave and not taught that what God really wants is to be in relationship with us. This has led to a trivialisation of ‘sin’; a belief that ‘sin’ is misbehaviour and that earning God’s approval is a matter of being good, keeping the rules. As long as we don’t commit the big ticket crimes, we can assure ourselves that God is happy with us and that all is well with the world.
‘Sin’ properly understood is separation from, or competition with, God. This is clear from the very beginning. The first sin, that of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was just that – wanting to be like God, wanting to be God. There is only one tree forbidden to Adam and Eve. It is not the tree of life, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As the serpent points out if they eat of the fruit of that tree: “You will not die; or God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:4,5). The first sin, was was not so much simple disobedience, it was the desire to be God, a desire that is played out again when the Hebrew people build the Tower of Babel.
Murder is a crime, lying, stealing and adultery hurt those whom we deceive or rob, envy eats away at us and failure to honour those who gave us life is a particular sort of selfishness, but believing that we can be God, failing to trust God (creating another kind of security net), or looking for quick fixes are the real sins that separate us from God and ultimately from each other.
These are the temptations that Jesus faces in the wilderness. Jesus is not tempted to steal or lie or to commit adultery. There is no little devil on his shoulder suggesting that he have a second helping of chocolate pudding (or some other trivial test of his character or will power). Jesus is being tempted to give in to those parts of his human nature that would destroy his relationship with God – pride, self-sufficiency and a desire for personal power. If he were to change stones into bread – which of course he could do – he would be demonstrating a reliance on himself rather than trust in God. If he were to throw himself off the steeple, he would be revealing that he saw God as a ‘rescuer’, a deliverer of ‘quick fixes’. If he were to bow down and worship the devil, he would be implying that God was not sufficient.
The temptations in the wilderness had nothing to do with our normal understanding of temptation, but with sin in the true sense of the word – separation from, distrust of and competition with God.
The three temptations can be summed up as: Stones into bread – ‘I can do it! (I don’t need God)’, throwing oneself off the cliff – God is only any good, when God performs miracles and, bowing before Satan – real power doesn’t belong to God.
This Lent, when you think again about what you might give up, what temptations your might resist think of the temptations faced by Jesus and ask yourself not whether or not you will be tempted to eat chocolate, but whether, put to the test, you would hold firm in your faith and resist the lure of self-sufficiency, quick fixes and ‘easy’ power.

Tags:competition, Lent, power, separation from God, sin, temptatin, ten commandments
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What is temptation?

February 25, 2023

Lent 1 – 2023 (Notes)
Matthew 4:1-11
Marian Free

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

Tags:competition, Lent, power, separation from God, sin, temptatin, ten commandments
Posted in Lent, Matthew | Comments Off on What is temptation?

What – no palm branches??

April 9, 2022

Palm Sunday – 2022
Luke 19:28-39
Marian Free

In the name of God who cannot be captured by the limits of our imagination, and who continues to surprise and astound us. Amen.

For many of us Palm Sunday holds special memories – the procession, the hymns, the palms, the drama. “All glory, laud and honour.” The chorus resounds in our heads as we make our way to church and the new palm crosses rest in our hands as we make our way home. The church will have been both bright (with palms) and sombre – all the crosses now covered in purple – a reminder that the triumph of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem heralds the humiliation of the crucifixion. There may have been a dramatization of the gospels and we hear ourselves saying: “Crucify him, crucify him!”

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is one of the stories that, possibly because of its dramatic presentation during the liturgy, captures our imagination and remains with us from our childhood on. We know it so well – the donkey freely given (though the owner does not know for what it will be used), the palms that are waved and used to cover the ground under Jesus, the shouts of the crowds – “Hosanna!” and “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

At least that is what we think the story says. I wonder, how many of us have really paid attention? Now that the account of the passion takes centre stage on Palm Sunday, I suspect that a majority of us rely on our memories rather than on the gospels themselves, for the details of the events that accompany Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Indeed, most of us would not know which gospel formed the basis for our ideas of what occurred and, even if we had taken the time to read all four gospel accounts of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, it is unlikely that we would have noticed the differences between the accounts – which elements have taken centre stage and which have fallen by the wayside.

May I suggest that you take time to read all four different gospel accounts and that you make a point to discern which aspects of the day the different authors emphasised. (I’ll give you a clue. Matthew has the disciples borrow both a donkey and the colt of a donkey because one of his goals is to demonstrate the ways in which Jesus fulfills the Old Testament – in this case the prophet Zechariah 9:9 (“Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”)

Given that our Lectionary this year follows Luke’s gospel, I have paid particular attention to what Luke has written. If you have already read the four gospels, you might have noticed a number of things his account – in particular the fact that there are no palm branches might have stood out for you. Despite the fact that we take for granted that palm branches (or at least branches) were waved in the air, according to Luke not only was nothing waved, but there were no palms at all! If we were solely reliant on Luke’s account of events we would think that there was no waving and that only cloaks were laid on the ground before Jesus. “Cloak Sunday” doesn’t have the same ring to it and our processions would look entirely different if Luke was our only account.

Other details are different in Luke’s version. No one shouts: “Hosanna!” (That word does not occur at all in the third gospel.) Instead, Luke adds the words: “Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” which remind us of the words of the angels to the shepherds. Also, it is difficult to know (from the account in this gospel) whether it is “the crowds” who cheer on Jesus as he enters the city, or whether it is just his disciples. (Luke tells us that it is a multitude of disciples who “praise God in a loud voice” and that the Pharisees order Jesus to stop his disciples.) In other words, those who already know Jesus and have followed him from Galilee are the only people who are shouting out as he enters Jerusalem. These details, I think you will agree, puts an entirely new slant on the story.

That doesn’t mean that we have to let go of our childhood memories, but it does challenge us to pay attention, to recognise that we don’t actually know as much as we think we know, and to let go of our preconceived ideas and our settled approach to our scriptures. The four accounts of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem remind us to ask ourselves: “What else are we missing?”, to understand that it is important that we take nothing for granted, and that we approach scripture with open minds and with a sense of expectancy. If we are not to become stuck in our views or to left behind, it is essential that we anticipate surprises whenever we open our bibles instead of reading scriptures through the lens of what we already know.

Unfortunately, our relationship with God can be the same as our relationship with scripture. Whether we are radical or conservative we can reach a point at which we become complacent, and our notion of God becomes settled. Sadly, when we become comfortable with our image of God we lose our sense of awe and expectancy, we surrender our willingness to be pulled up short by an unexpected revelation of God and we fail to be surprised by the unexpected presence (or absence) of God in a person, a place or an event. We are losers not winners, if we become self-satisfied and comfortable with our faith – because God (and scripture) will ALWAYS have something more to reveal and something more to teach us.

As we approach Holy Week, may we see the events as if for the first time, be attentive to details that we might have missed and filled with the expectation that God always has something new to share with us.

Tags:no crowds, no hosannas, No palms, Palm Sunday, paying attention, reading our bibles with open minds and hearts
Posted in Lent, Luke's gospel, Palm Sunday | 2 Comments »

A matter of life and death

April 2, 2022

Lent 5 – 2022
John 12:1-8
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of our extravagant, spendthrift, wastrel God. Amen.

Australians, those of us privileged to live in well-treed areas, are not inclined to think of possums (the brush-tail variety) with affection. They eat our vegetables, destroy our rose buds and worse, they live in our roofs from which they are notoriously difficult to remove. Once removed, they will frantically claw at the wire-covered entry point hoping to find a point of weakness that will allow them ingress. If allowed to remain in the roof they will disturb our sleep, urinate, and defecate and worst of all, they will die – something that only becomes obvious when the unmistakable stench of decay will tell us that the ceiling must be removed somehow, and the carcass retrieved and disposed of.

The aroma of death hangs in the air in John chapter 12. Lazarus, one of those present at the meal has very recently been sick, dead and entombed for four days. When Jesus (finally) arrives and calls him to come out of the tomb, his sister, Martha objects: “There is already a stench.” Now, six days before the Passover, we the readers are very aware that Jesus’ crucifixion looms near. The danger to Jesus, and even to Lazarus hangs in the air. Indeed, Jesus has been under the sentence of death since chapter seven when he did not want to attend the Festival of Booths, because the leaders of the Jews in Judea “were looking for an opportunity to kill him.” The menace has intensified since Jesus raised Lazarus. As Jesus’ popularity with the crowds increased, so too did the antagonism of the Jewish leaders who were anxious that his renown would draw the attention of the Romans who would, in turn, “destroy the nation”. (Lazarus too is now a threat to the authorities’ sense of well-being, because he is an object of curiosity, and a sign of what Jesus can do.)

The ”stench” of death fills the home of Martha, Mary and Lazurus, the “stench” of pure nard. I say “stench” because even though the Greek words are different, both the smell of Lazarus’ dead body and the aroma of Mary’s ointment can be translated by the English word “stench” (a strong and unpleasant smell). Whether or not the overpowering odour of a pound of nard is unpleasant is irrelevant. What is important here is that the odour of death hangs in the air. So, whether at the tomb or in the house, death pervades the atmosphere, hovering around the little family and their friend.

In the West, death has become somewhat sanitized and distanced from life. Indeed, we cannot even use the language of death. Today people, even people of faith, refer to someone’s having “passed”, as if death were not a definite and finite end to earthly existence. We might make a great deal of fuss about being with a loved one while and when they die, few of us tenderly wash the body of the deceased or prepare them for the grave. Unless it is part of our religious or cultural practice, we do not sit with the corpse for days, praying and processing the event. We do not wail (or employ others to wail for us) or tear out our hair in the face of death. In our culture overt displays of grief are considered unseemly. In public we tend to be restrained if not stoic.

Not only do we keep death at an emotional distance, collectively we do everything we can to prolong life and to avoid death. Advances in medical science mean that we can expect to be cured of most things and to escape most others.

Those who lived in the first century knew no such luxury as medical science. For rich and poor alike, death was a daily reality that could not be ignored. Women (rich and poor) died in childbirth, a large percentage of children (rich and poor) died before their fifth birthday and the life-expectancy of the average male was 29 years.

Those at the little dinner party depicted by John know all too well that death is part and parcel of life. He might be alive today, but the trauma of Lazarus’ death is still very raw. Death and the threat of death hover in the atmosphere. Mary knows as well as anyone does that death is always at the door. It is unpredictable and not at all choosy. No wonder she seizes the moment – if not now when? There is no point saving her precious ointment for some unknown time and place in the future. It is meant to be used, not squirreled away. Jesus is here, now and she can do this one thing for him. Who knows if there will be another opportunity?

Too many of us live tentative, timid lives, storing things up against an unknown future, hesitant to take risks because we are fearful of what might happen, and unwilling to give ourselves freely in case we will be hurt. Our cautious fails to take into account the reality that life is finite and that in the final analysis we cannot control life, nor can we escape death. Accepting death (ours and that of those whom we love) as part and parcel of life, helps us to live each day as it comes, to embrace life in all its complexity, and to live generously, spontaneously and audaciously.

In her poem The Summer Day Mary Oliver speaks of a day spent watching a grasshopper and she asks: “Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Everything and everyone does die at last so – what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Will you hold on or let go? Be frugal or generous? Timid and cautious or adventurous and outrageous? Mary seized the moment – Can we?

What is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Tags:Anointing, fragrance, Lazarus, life and death, Mary and Martha, Mary of Bethany, stench
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Loving the deserving and the undeserving

March 26, 2022

Lent 4 – 2022
Luke 15:11-32
Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God, Earth-maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-giver whose love for us is beyond compare. Amen.

This week one of the disturbing stories that is making the headlines is the inquest into the shocking deaths of Hannah Clarke and her three children at the hands of her husband and their father. It is difficult to imagine how anyone who purports to love someone could be so possessive/obsessive that they would kill the one they loved rather than set them free. “Love” that comes with conditions or strings is not love at all, but something else altogether. “Love” that seeks to dominate or control is not love but a perverted idea of what “loving and being loved” might be.

In our imperfect world, there are many ways in which “love” has been corrupted or distorted. Some women stay with violent partners because they have been led to believe that they don’t deserve better. Some children act out because any attention is better than no attention. Others are overly compliant in the belief that only if they are good enough will they be loved. There are just too many examples of the ways in which love has been misunderstood or misused.

Today’s gospel, one with which we are so very familiar is all about love – giving and receiving love in its purest form – undefiled and unconditional.

Sadly, many of my generation were brought up to believe in heaven and hell, and in judgement that resulted in reward or punishment. Whether it was intended or not, the message that we received was that even though God loved us, that love came with an expectation that we were to be “good” and knowing that our “goodness” was constantly being measured against our “badness”.

In that light, the parable of the Loving Father or Prodigal Son was taught as a story of forgiveness. The bad son, the prodigal, had to recognise his sinfulness, repent, and return to his father – who then forgave him. That was easy enough to understand, but many of us struggled with the older son, the good but resentful son. This, I suspect, was because we identified with him and felt that we should not. Like the older son, our sense of fairness is offended by the father’s overreaction to the return of the prodigal. Like the older son, our notion of God’s love is predicated on its being earned. In the parable, this concept is turned upside down – the bad son who has done nothing to deserve it is rewarded – and the good son – who has done everything right – is not. “It’s not fair!” we shout, as if we were still two years old.
Our innate sense of justice wants God to be fair – at least far as we define it. We are torn between wanting to know that we (despite our inadequacies) are loved and wanting to know that God will rain down punishment on those whom we (not God) deem unworthy of God’s love. We want there to be consequences for good behaviour and for bad – otherwise (as the older son seems to feel) what is the point of being good? We fail to see the irony (as does the older son) that most of us are not driven by the threat of damnation but by the fact that we don’t actually want to be bad! It is not so much that we want to be rewarded, but we sure as heck want those who misbehave to be punished or at least reproved for their behaviour!

The meaning of the parable changes if we take as our starting point – not the behaviour of the brothers – but the actions of the father whose love towards his sons is demonstrated – not just at the home-coming but also at the leaving, not just at the going, but at the staying. Often, we are so focussed on the end of the story, that we overlook the beginning. According to the parable, the father loves his younger son enough to let him go. He understands that love that holds on to the other is not love but control and that nothing will be achieved by forcing his son to remain at home. If the younger son conforms but is seething with resentment, nothing is gained. According to the story (and we must remember that it is just a story), there are no strings attached to the son’s freedom, no instructions as to what he should do, where he should go or how he should spend his money. When the son returns, there are no questions, no recriminations – just joy that the one who is loved has returned. The father’s love is freely given – no questions, no expectations, and no conditions.

A fresh tells us something about God’s love for us. As is the father’s love for his child, God’s love for us is non-coercive and non-demanding. This was something that the younger son innately understood – he was not afraid to ask for his inheritance, not so anxious about his father’s reaction that he could not return home and not so ashamed that he held back when his father reached out to embrace him. What a contrast with the older brother who, in the story, appears not to have understood how much he is loved, that everything that was his father’s was his already. Instead of trusting his father’s love for him, he seems to have spent his life seeking approval. It is no wonder that he cannot be generous towards his brother, he has not had the confidence to be generous to himself.

If we turn this parable on its head, we will see that it has as much to tell us about accepting love, as it does about being loved. God, who is love, cannot help but love us. It is we, whose ideas about God are often misinformed or misguided, who think that we have to earn God’s love and who in turn begrudge the fact that God freely gives God’s love to all people – both the bad and the good – who have to re-frame the way that we see God and God’s love not just for some, but for all.

God’s boundless, unconditional, and unquestioning love is poured out on all God’s creation. When we claim that love for ourselves we cannot refuse it to others.

All we have to do is say: “yes – I know that I am loved.”

Tags:domestic violence, Love, Prodigal Son
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God loves you and that’s all. you need to know

March 19, 2022

Lent 3 – 2022
Luke 13:1-9
Marian Free

In the name of God who has no favourites. Amen.

Last year, a number of Social Media platforms made the decision to allow users to choose whether or not to publicise the number of ‘likes’ that their post received. Prior to that action there had been a significant public outcry about the competitive nature of social media and the mental health problems that ensued. It seems that some users were not only comparing the number of followers that they had against other users, but that they were also competing with others as the number of people who ‘liked’ their posts. In some cases, this was leading to extreme behaviours in order to increase the number of people who viewed the posts – riding on the roofs of moving trains or taking photographs in other very dangerous situations or expressing controversial opinions whether they believed in them or not. In other instances, the competitive aspect of the media was leading some people to feel undervalued if their posts did not receive as much attention as those of their friends. If a person’s posts included ‘selfies’, the result of receiving less attention than others led to a poor body image and to the reduction a person’s self-confidence -sometimes to the point that a person experienced depression or worse, led to suicide.

It is easy to blame social media for this situation, but really social media has simply exaggerated and brought to the fore a behaviour that is integral to human nature. Competition between individuals, groups and nations is not new and, as the current situation in Ukraine illustrates, it can have catastrophic effects. Indeed, in the natural environment competition is essential to the survival of the species – male -male competition ensures that the stronger/smarter males mate with more females which in turn assures the continuation of the species.

Contrary to our ideals, the natural world is not benign and we – often to our detriment – are part of that world.

In today’s rather gory and obscure gospel, Jesus confronts this competitive way of thinking and living – particularly the sort of competition that vies for God’s attention and affection or which assumes that God plays favourites with those who behave in particular ways. It is difficult to say why Luke breaks into his gospel with this conversation between Jesus and ‘those present’. There is nothing to suggest that those who report the actions of Pilate are engaging in a game of ‘one-upmanship’, but Jesus’ response makes it clear that he thinks that they are telling him the story about the blood being mixed with sacrifices in order to reassure themselves that they will not suffer the same fate. They assume that the Galileans must have done something truly awful for God to punish them in this way.

Jesus’ answer makes it clear that God had nothing to do with the fate of the Galileans. He is clear that God does not measure us against one another. God doesn’t favour the ‘good’ over the ‘bad’. God does not have a scale against which to determine who is more (or less) deserving of reward (or punishment). In fact, Jesus knows that God has no expectation that any flawed human being will achieve perfection.

This apparent interruption to the flow of Luke’s account provides an important message for ourselves on this third Sunday of Lent. For in two thousand years little has changed. We are no different from those in Jesus’ audience. Like them, we (at least on occasion) fall into the practice of comparing ourselves with others, reassuring ourselves that however bad we are ‘at least we are not as bad as them’.

Jesus wants his listeners to come to their own conclusion, so he asks: ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans?’ or that those on whom the tower fell, ‘were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?’ Speaking to everyone who is present, Jesus continues: ‘Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’ In other words, Jesus makes clear (as he does elsewhere) that when it comes to sin, we are equals, no one is more (or less) deserving than anyone else. God does not care whether our sins are great or small, heinous or careless, what does matter is that we recognise that we are all sinners, and that we all fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). In other words, instead of comparing ourselves (favourably) against others, Jesus encourages us to be honest about our own faults and determine to turn (repent) from the ways of the world and our self-absorption and to trust in God’s love and care for everyone.

The apparently unrelated parable of the fig tree illustrates just this point. Worldly, competitive values (represented by the landowner) dictate that results – productivity, justifying one’s existence, being better than those around you – are more important than relationships. Kingdom, non-competitive values (represented by the gardener) teach us that – nurture, patience, understanding individual capabilities and needs – are of more importance than individualism and competition.

God knows and loves each one of us – just as we are – and, when we don’t live up to our potential, God patiently and lovingly gives us a little more care – hoping, believing that we will (however good or bad we may be) come good in the end.

We are all (sinner and saint) equal in the eyes of God, equally valued, equally treasured and God will (as God already has) do everything to ensure that we enter God’s kingdom.

It is not God who excludes us, but we through our mistaken belief that God has standards that we fail to meet, who exclude ourselves.

How long will it take for us to trust in God’s love for us? How long before we understand that we are already laid bare and cannot hide our true selves from God? How long before instead of living in fear of judgement, we live in joyful anticipation of Jesus’ coming again?

God loves you and that is all that you need to know and if you know that, you will accept that God loves everyone.

Tags:competition, God's love for all, sacrifices mixed with human blood, Towerr, Trust
Posted in Lent, Luke's gospel | 1 Comment »

FOCUS!

March 12, 2022

Lent 2 – 2022
Luke 13:31-35 (Genesis 15:1-12,17-18)
Marian Free

Loving God, may we so keep our eyes on you that we will not be led from our path no matter the circumstance in which we find ourselves. Amen.

Foxes, chickens, Herod, Jerusalem, threat, lament, warning and determination, references to time and Pharisees worried about Jesus’ fate. There are so many threads in the few verses that make up today’s gospel that it is difficult to know which, if any, of these is useful for our Lenten observance or even if they hold together. On this occasion, the immediate context of our passage doesn’t help us to determine its meaning. Immediately prior to these verses Jesus who, on his way to Jerusalem has been going through villages and towns teaching, responds to a question as to who will be saved. Jesus answers by issuing a warning to the effect that now is the time to accept God’s invitation to enter the kingdom before it is too late, before others – the gentiles – have taken all available places and the door is shut.

Following the Pharisees’ warning and Jesus’ response is an account of Jesus’ observing people at a banquet and his comment that it is better to take a lower place at the table and be invited to move up than to take a place of honour and be demoted. Both reflections conclude with a reminder that kingdom values reverse those of the world: “the first will be last and the last will be first” (13:30) or “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humbled themselves will be exalted” (14:11). These reflections are indeed useful for those of us who are examining our lives this Lent, but they provide little insight into today’s gospel.

Perhaps a more useful starting place for our understanding of today’s passage is to go back to the moment that Jesus left the relative safety of Galilee and began his journey to Jerusalem. In 9:51 (53) Luke tells us that Jesus ‘set his face towards Jerusalem’. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this is strong language. Jesus’ experience so far has told him that his message and his presence is not welcome among those in positions of leadership in the church. What is more the fate of John the Baptist is evidence that the powers representing Rome will, at the very least, view him with suspicion if not fear (something that the warning of the Pharisees in today’s reaffirms). Jesus is not going to Jerusalem because he is seeking glory or even because wants to see the great city. He has set his face to Jerusalem because he knows that this is where he will face his destiny.

The (unexpected?) warning from the Pharisees provides an occasion for Jesus to reflect on his mission. His response to Herod (“tell that fox”) indicates that nothing – not even the threat of death will deter him or cause him to turn from the path that has been set before him. There is work to be done and he will continue to fulfill his purpose: ‘today and tomorrow and on the third day I finish’. It is easy to see a reference to Easter here, but in colloquial terms ‘today and tomorrow’ relate to what Jesus is doing now and ‘the third day’ means ‘in due course’. Jesus’ listeners (who do not have our benefit of hindsight) will have heard this as an indication of Jesus’ resolve, his determination to complete the task set before him whatever the obstacles. The threat of death is no obstacle. Jesus will not be distracted or deterred. He has a task to fulfill and he will not turn aside until it is completed. “Today and tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way.” (He must stay where he is until he has done all that he is meant to do, but then he must continue to Jerusalem no matter the personal cost.)

In this way Jesus is nothing like his forbear Abraham who, despite being chosen by God and having received God’s promises, needs constant reassurance. Abraham is not willing to face danger and he often takes the easy way out – making up his own mind about the best way forward rather than trusting in God’s purpose for him. He is easily distracted by his desire for an heir and his anxiety that the kingdoms through which he passes will not allow his party to pass through in safety.

Jesus has no such concerns. Whatever the situation, whatever possible obstacles lie ahead, he is utterly focused on God’s will for him. Jesus’ resolve, his commitment, determination and single-mindedness are what stand out in today’s gospel and are what provide an example, an incentive for our own practice this Lent and for our Christian vocation as a whole.

In comparison to Jesus, how do we stack up? In the light of Jesus’ determination to see his mission to its end, we should ourselves how much we are concerned for our own safety, our own comfort, our own goals for our future? How often do we let our own timidity, or our lack of confidence prevent us from placing our trust completely in God? How often and how easily are we distracted from our primary goal of being a disciple of Christ How many of our resolutions have faltered because we did not have strength to follow through?? Indeed how many times have we been sidetracked from the task we set ourselves for this Lent?

I leave you with two prayers from A Prayer Book for Australia, that you might like to pray daily this Lent and which might help to strengthen your resolve to be better disciples of Christ.

Christ, whose insistent call
disturbs our settled lives:
give us discernment to hear your word,
grace to relinquish our tasks,
and courage to follow empty-handed
wherever you may lead. (210)

Loving God,
give us wisdom and understanding
in discerning your will for our lives.
Teach us in all things
to seek first your honour and glory.
May we perceive what is right,
have courage to pursue it
and grace to accomplish it,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. (213, adapted).

May we have grace to relinquish all that stands between God’s will and ourselves and our selfish desires and may we have the courage to pursue whatever it is that God might ask of us.

Tags:Determination, foxes and chickens, resolve, threat, Trust
Posted in Lent, Luke's gospel | 1 Comment »

Wholly whole, holy whole

March 5, 2022

Lent 1 – 2022a
Luke 4:1-13
Marian Free

In the name of God in whose image we are made and in whose eyes we are beloved. Amen.

Just when you think that a section of scripture has nothing more to reveal, the Holy Spirit opens your eyes to new insights. So it was as I prepared once again to find some words to say about Jesus’ time in the wilderness and about his battle with the devil.

In the course of my reading around the subject, it occurred to me that the heart of the account of Jesus’s temptations is less an example of the strength and more an exploration of the Incarnation – what it means for Jesus to be both fully divine and fully human. That Jesus is both human and divine is hinted at in the verse immediately prior to this account. Unlike Matthew, who begins his gospel with Jesus’ genealogy, Luke places it after his baptism and before his temptation. Further, whereas Matthew goes back to Abraham – the father of the Israelites, Luke takes Jesus’ origins all the way back to God. In 3:38 we read: “son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God”. In other words, Luke is making it quite clear that Jesus is the offspring of the first human and of God.

As such, the account of Jesus in the wilderness is as much a lesson on the nature of Jesus as it is about temptation. If we avoid the temptation to see that Jesus’ encounter with the devil is only about temptation, we can allow ourselves to consider what it is about Jesus’ nature that informs our understanding of human nature. That is if, as we believe, Jesus was fully human, filled with the Holy Spirit what can we do in the power of the Holy Spirit – with which we have all been gifted at our baptism? Instead of talking about will power, about resisting temptation what if we,Iike Jesus were willing and able to dig deeply into the divine power that dwells within us. If, rather than trying to ‘be strong’ in the face of temptation we were to rely on a deep knowledge of scripture that was informed by a deep trust in and an intimate relationship with God? What if, instead of trying to face the world alone, we faced the world and all its attendant difficulties in the power of our godly nature.

As Athanasius tells us: “Jesus became human that we might become gods.” Jesus’ Incarnation is intended to reveal to us our true selves – bearers of the divine in human flesh. What distinguishes Jesus from us is that in Jesus the divine and the human are fully integrated. His human nature did not make him less divine and his divine nature did not make him less human. One aspect of his nature does not negate or overshadow the other and neither does one despise and distrust the other, but both – human and divine -are integral to Jesus’ wholeness/holiness. Jesus the human was really hungry and after 40 days without food or company was probably weak and vulnerable, if not a tad grumpy. Jesus did not abandon or suppress his humanity in the desert. He accepted the frailty associated with being human but he didn’t allow that frailty to overwhelm him or to disappoint him. He holds his dual nature together in a way that many of us do not.

Jesus’ response to the devil is one of confidence and strength. He has not rejected and nor does he despise his physical needs or his earthly desires. He feels no shame at being hungry enough to want to make bread from stones. He is not weighed down by guilt at the thought that he has considered taking a short cut to glory. He is does not want to hide the fact that for a moment he wanted to test God’s love for him. And because he has not created a division between the two aspects of his being he can draw on the spiritual at the same time as he is recognising and accepting the human.

Jesus’ victory, if we can call it that, in the desert is not the final word. It is not as if having overcome these temptations he has subdued his human nature once and for all allowing his divine nature to be the face that the world sees. Luke makes it clear that Jesus’ humanity has not been “overcome” or “abandoned”. Not only does he not have the last word but the devil has only : “left him till an opportune time.” It is not over. Jesus is still human and there will be times when that is more obvious than at others (when he overturns the tables in the temple, when he gets tired or exasperated, when he weeps at the tomb of Lazarus, when he relaxes and allows Mary to wipe his feet with her hair). Jesus will agonize in the garden and cry out in despair from the cross. His humanity is evident until the very end.

Our problem is that we have difficulty acknowledging the divinity that is our birth right and, if we do, we waste a. great deal of time trying to separate the two parts of ourselves – suppressing and rejecting the human while not really believing in the divine. We tend to idealise the spiritual and demonize the physical to the extent that we simply cannot accept that both are equally a part of us, that both reveal something about our God-given nature. Temptation, we believe, is something that happens to our unholy human selves and therefore it is our unholy selves that we enlist to resist and fight temptation. We try to subdue what comes naturally and when we fail we further demonise our human nature thereby driving an even bigger wedge between our two natures. In rejecting one part of who we are, we unwittingly reject both.

What Jesus demonstrates both in his encounter with the devil and in his life as a whole is that our divine nature does not have to be split off from our human nature. We don’t have to reject our fleshly, messy humanness in order to be spiritual, holy or divine. We don’t have to change ourselves or mold ourselves the sort of ideal person we have convinced ourselves that God wants or expects us to be. There is no need to sever or, at the very least bury those parts of ourselves that we are afraid that God will find unacceptable for when we do we demonstrate that we despise and reject what God has created, we reveal our lack of faith in God’s boundless love for us and we make it impossible for us to be fully integrated human beings created in the image of God.

In Jesus, God became one of us, demonstrating once and for all, that God does not despise human nature, reject its frailties or feel the need to suppress its physical, emotional and psychological desires and that being human does not make one any less godly. In Jesus, God shows us how the holy and “unholy” can be one as indeed they were intended to be. Through Jesus God challenges us to connect with the ground of our being, the source of life and love and to become wholly whole, holy whole.

This Lent, can we do this – free ourselves from fear, accept who we are and allow the divine within us to make us whole and holy?

Tags:divinity, Humanity, Incarnation, integration, split personality, temptation, wholeness
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Jesus and snakes

March 13, 2021

Lent 4 – 2021

John 3:14-21

Marian Free

In the name of God who gives us victory over death. Amen.

I am one of those people for whom vaccines of some sort have always been a part of my life. Apparently, I received a polio vaccine before I was six weeks old so that my mother could accompany my father to Nigeria and not face the trip alone with a newborn baby. I can still remember lining up at the City Hall to receive a free jab for something or other and the nurses who came to the school to inoculate us against something else – probably tetanus. In retrospect, my generation had a lot of needles. Still, unlike my children, I was not vaccinated against measles, chicken pox and rubella so I caught the first two though not the third. The parents of my generation had their own system of immunisation. If someone in the neighbourhood had measles, instead of being kept away we were encouraged to visit – the idea being that it was much better have these illnesses when we were young and to develop an immunity to them than to risk having them when we were adults when the disease might make us seriously unwell.

At last, the vaccine for COVID is being rolled out. President Biden has claimed that most Americans will have received their shots by Independence Day. In the UK my friends and family have all had at least one shot and even if the roll out is slower than anticipated, Australians are receiving their first does of the vaccine.

Vaccination is counter intuitive. In order to be protected against disease, we are injected with that very disease. It all began smallpox. Smallpox was incredibly infectious and out of every ten people infected with the disease three people died. Those who survived were often badly scarred. In 1796 Dr Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had had cowpox did not subsequently become ill when exposed to smallpox. He experimented by taking a sample from a cow pox sore and inoculating it into the arm of the son of his gardener – James Phipps. After some time, he exposed James (on several occasions) to the smallpox virus, but James did not get ill with the disease. Dr Jenner’s methods might appal us today and they certainly would not pass the medical ethics test, but his discovery has helped us to almost eradicate polio, smallpox, measles, mumps and chicken pox. Diseases that used to strike fear into the hearts of parents are, so long as we are vigilant, a thing of the past.

We have become much more sophisticated and more ethical than Dr Jenner. When it comes to COVID for example, we are not actually injected with the virus but, as I understand it, we are inoculated with components of the virus which enable our body to recognise it and to fight it[1]. When it comes to fighting disease then, very often like cures like, the virus in effect fights against itself.

Today’s readings are complex, and sadly we don’t have time to explore why God sends snakes, or why, instead of providing the cure, God didn’t simply stop the snakes. Whatever lay behind God’s actions, the idea of the image of a snake being the cure for a snake bite is almost contemporary. It resonates with the modern science of a virus being used to cure a virus. Just as the snakes did not disappear, but that looking at the snake stopped people dying, so, while the virus will not disappear, we, once vaccinated, should not die from it.

So much for the snakes in the desert – but what about Jesus? As part of his discussion with Nicodemus, Jesus compares himself to the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses. “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” he says. It is a difficult image to grasp. In what way do Jesus’ contemporaries resemble the Israelites in the desert, and how does Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross bear any similarity to a bronze serpent on a pole? Jesus and a serpent have nothing in common.

To understand Jesus’ imagery, we have to first of all understand that according to the author of John’s gospel, it is on the cross that Jesus’ victory over death occurs. The cross is the key to eternal life, to Jesus’ being recognised and to Jesus’ drawing all people to himself. (3:14, 8:28 and 12:32). In the fourth gospel the cross does not represent defeat, but triumph. It is Jesus’ willingness to die that allows him to conquer death. The resurrection is important, but there can be no resurrection, no life after death, unless Jesus dies – really dies. Jesus experiences death in order to overcome death. Jesus’ death is the cure for our death, just as the bronze serpent was the cure for the Israelite’s snake bite. Jesus’ death not only inoculates him against death, but his victory over death inoculates each one of us against eternal death.

Jesus has been lifted up. He was displayed on the cross – so that all could see him and seeing him, believe and believing, have eternal life. Death has not been entirely vanquished, but it no longer has dominion over us, it is no longer something to be feared because we know that death is not the end of the story.

Jesus has been lifted up – just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness – to show us that death will not have the last word. Jesus has conquered death and so long as we hold his death before us, we can be sure that we will share in his victory over death.

[1] For an explanation go to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/how-they-work.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fvaccines%2Fabout-vaccines%2Fhow-they-work.html

Tags:cure, Jesus' lifted up, like cures like, snakes, vaccination, virus
Posted in John's Gospel, Lent | Comments Off on Jesus and snakes

Angry enough to do something?

March 6, 2021

Lent 3 – 2021

John 2:13-22

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Amen.

On Friday I attended the UN Women’s International Women’s Day lunch. It was an inspiring, if somewhat gruelling experience – especially in the light of recent events. Australian of the Year, Grace Tame was the key speaker. I imagine by now that most of you know at least the outline of her story. Grace is a powerful and direct speaker, and she doesn’t spare her audience the intimate details of her ordeal. Sadly, her story is not unique, but even if you have heard other stories of abuse, you cannot help but be shocked and brought to tears as she recounts the way in which a much older man, a teacher in a position of trust, targeted her at her most vulnerable and manipulated her to the point where she felt utterly unable to refuse his sexual advances. How, in this day and age, could this man’s behaviour – in his office, on school grounds – go unnoticed? Why, in a world sensitised to child sex abuse, did no one notice or think to question what was going on?

Equally shocking and revelatory was the speech by Dr Kirstin Ferguson who, at the beginning of her presentation provided a dramatic, visual illustration of the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace. Before she began, Dr Ferguson asked those in attendance (men and women) to stand if they had ever experienced sexual harassment at work. At least two thirds of the room rose to their feet – two thirds of a room filled with professional people. Dr Ferguson went on to tell us that 1,600 hundred women a week, experience some sort of sexual harassment at work.

Listening to the two women was a salutary and sobering experience.

What does it say about our society that a fifteen-year-old girl can be raped every day at school – in the office of a 58-year-old teacher? Who are we that one woman dies every week at the hands of someone who professes to love her? How is it that our aged care system is so broken that vulnerable older people are over-medicated, mistreated and badly fed? Why is that we cannot assume that our workplaces and schools are safe and nurturing environments? Why can’t we keep our children safe from abuse?

Something at the very heart of human nature is broken. Countless Royal Commissions and changes to legislation have been powerless to bring about the institutional change that is required so that all people can live and work with dignity. More importantly, no amount of legislation has been able to bring about the personal transformation that is required to build a society in which all the vulnerable are protected and nurtured – not abused or exploited.

In today’s gospel Jesus is angry, very angry. He is angry that the Temple (or at least its forecourt) has been turned into a marketplace. He is angry because he can see the way in which Temple practices exploit the poor, take advantage of the vulnerable and exclude those who cannot take part in the Jewish rituals.

This event is the most explicit description of Jesus’ anger. It is the moment at which all his frustration and rage reaches boiling point – resulting in his fashioning a whip so that he can drive traders and animals from the Temple and overthrowing tables covered with money. It is the most explicit expression of Jesus’ anger, but it is not the only time that he gets angry.

We know that Jesus got angry at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, at the indifference of the rich towards the poor and at the apathy of the comfortable towards those who were suffering. Jesus got angry when he saw the religious leaders put the law before compassion while congratulating themselves on their own state of righteousness. Jesus got angry at the complacency, self-satisfaction and judgementalism of those who thought themselves better than sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus got angry with those who put burdens on the shoulders of others and who created barriers which prevented them from seeing how much God loved them. Jesus got angry at the failure of the disciples to understand, at their desire for power and at their belief that they should be rewarded for joining his cause.

Most importantly, Jesus got angry because the religious institution of his day was broken. Despite John’s call to repentance nothing had changed. Jesus’ contemporaries still believed that the outward practices of sacrifice and ritual were sufficient. Jesus could see that what was really needed was a change of heart, repentance and personal transformation – all of which are much more difficult to achieve than simply presenting a semblance of goodness, observing rituals or consoling oneself with the knowledge that at least one is not as bad as the next person.

Jesus got angry at injustice and suffering, at pretention and arrogance, at self-serving behaviour and at the refusal to take responsibility for one’s behaviour. Jesus got angry at indifference and inaction.

Jesus saw a broken world. His grief and angry at what he saw spurred him into action.

We live in a broken and damaged world, but do we get angry? Do we get angry enough about the exploitation of the poor, the disenfranchised or the refugee? Do we voice our anger loudly enough with regard to people trafficking and slavery? Do we speak out loudly enough against violence towards women or the abuse of children? Do we protest strongly enough about the neglect and abuse of the elderly or the destruction of indigenous sacred sites? Do we rage against injustice, corporate greed and the destruction of the planet? Do we rail against indifference and carelessness? Do we care enough to do something about what we see?

Our world is broken and needs from each of us a change of heart. When will we be angry enough to take action?

In the name of God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Amen.

Equally shocking and revelatory was the speech by Dr Kirstin Ferguson who, at the beginning of her presentation provided a dramatic, visual illustration of the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace. Before she began, Dr Ferguson asked those in attendance (men and women) to stand if they had ever experienced sexual harassment at work. At least two thirds of the room rose to their feet – two thirds of a room filled with professionals. Dr Ferguson went on to tell us that 1,600 hundred women a week, experience some sort of sexual harassment at work.

Listening to the two women was a salutary and sobering experience.

Tags:anger, brokenness, exclusion, injustice, Jesus in the Temple, neglect, oppression, overturning tables, sexual abuse
Posted in John's Gospel, Lent | Comments Off on Angry enough to do something?

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