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See what large stones! Trusting in the temple or trusting in God.

November 16, 2024

Pentecost 26 – 2024

Mark. 13:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of God in whom we trust. Amen.

One only has to read/watch the news to see the catastrophic state of the world: the unimaginable devastation and loss of life from the floods in Valencia and the wars in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere, the disorder and civil unrest in Haiti, the drug-fuelled violence in Mexico, the displacement of people in the Sudan, Burma and elsewhere, the increasing polarisation between people of the same nation and background and between people who confess the same faith, and the exaggerated rhetoric and personal attacks around differing political views and cultural values – even in countries like our own. 

It is difficult at times not to fall into despair. It is tempting to look at the state of the world, to ask “what is going on?”, to wonder what the future might hold and to ponder where God might be in all this upheaval. Are all these disturbances a sign of more to come (as the changes in climate seem to threaten)? Are we witnessing the end of life as we have known it OR is this really the beginning of the end of the world?

It is human nature to want to make sense of calamity[1]. Collectively, we want to give meaning to the death of a child, the destruction of our home, a life-threatening illness – to any unexpected tragedy or calamity. So great is our need to give meaning to something that has no meaning that we fall into the trap of making up trite, often pious explanations for such events. We are anxious find explanations that cover up our feelings of inadequacy, our inability to find the right words to say, or which to help us to avoid facing the trauma of the inexplicable. 

I’m sure that you know what I mean. You may even have used phrases yourself. “God wanted another angel”, “They are in a better place,” “This will make you stronger” and so on. There are any number of such sayings that have entered our vocabulary to be trotted out when we have nothing better to say.  Sadly, by failing to honestly acknowledge someone’s pain, by not facing the trauma head on, we often increase a person’s sense of isolation and grief. Instead of providing comfort, we reveal our own failure to understand and our unwillingness to engage.  When say these things to ourselves, we withhold permission from ourselves to express our heartache, to sit with our grief until such time as the healing process can begin.

Today’s gospel forms the beginning of what is known as the “Little Apocalypse”, the description of things to come. Very often these are taken to be sign of the end – in fact that language implies that that is what Jesus is saying.

I want to suggest that Jesus’ meaning is much broader and much more related to the present (at whatever time in history that present might be). 

Scholars believe that Mark’s gospel was written to and for a community under threat. It written to reassure believers that their experience is not out of the ordinary, that in fact it was to be expected as a consequence of following Jesus. The gospel is a reminder that 

following Jesus is not a protection against the world’s ills. Faith in Jesus is not some or of amulet that will protect believers from harm. Believers will face the same travails and encounter the same losses as anyone who does not believe.

In our reading this morning the disciples look at the Temple which appears to have been built to withstand any threat. It was by all accounts a magnificent structure, built of huge stones, some of which were fifty feet long and eight foot high and thousands of tonnes in weight. To the disciples – Galileans all – the Temple must have seemed indestructible[2]. At the same time, despite all that Jesus has tried to teach them – about his suffering, about their taking up the cross – they still seem to hold the belief that Jesus has come to Jerusalem to confront the Romans, to restore Temple worship by removing the corrupt priests.

It is possible that for most if not all of the disciples are visiting Jerusalem for the first time. As followers of Jesus, they experienced his triumphal entry into the city and now they can sit and admire the Temple – the meeting place between YHWH and God’s people. “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 

Jesus’ response would have been entirely unexpected. instead of joining in their wonder, Jesus announces the destruction of the Temple. “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” The Temple is not as indestructible as they think. Like everything else on earth, it is ephemeral and temporary, subject to destruction and decay.

This is too much for them to comprehend. The disciples need details, they need to make meaning out of what Jesus has said, they want to be able to prepare for such a catastrophic event. So they ask: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” It is then that Jesus begins to tell them of all the things that might happen. These, as I have suggested, are not so much signs of the end as Jesus providing a corrective – don’t look for signs even the angels in heaven do not know the time (13:32). Understand (Jesus seems to be saying) that worldly existence is precarious, humans are susceptible to variations in the weather, human bodies are vulnerable to disease and deterioration, and human nature tends towards competitiveness and selfishness. Peace and prosperity, health and fitness are not a given, but a privilege enjoyed by a few.  There are no simple, trite answers to trauma.

Our faith does not protect us from wars, earthquakes, famines, from hardship, poor health, or frailty. What faith does at its best is determine how we react to setbacks, traumas, and loss. What matters is not so much that we are able to interpret the times, but how we respond to what is going on around us. 

As people of faith, we cannot cut ourselves from the realities of human existence, but we can learn to live in the present, accepting what is rather than looking back to an idealized past or striving for an unrealistic future.[3] As people of faith, we are to learn to  place ourselves, our loved ones and the world in entirely in the hands of God, believing – sometimes against all evidence to the contrary, that all things will work for good. In this way, and this way alone, we will be ready for whatever is to come because we will already have placed our trust in things eternal, things that will last.

 Jesus’ comments about the destruction of the Temple are less about the timing of the end, and more a corrective of the disciples’ belief that Jesus has come to overthrow the leaders of Rome and of the Temple. They are a reminder not to look back to an idealised past or forward to an unrealistic future, but to live fully in the present, with all the good and bad that comes with that and to trust that God is with us through it all. 

[1] When my parent’s home was completely covered by flood waters in 1974, my father wandered round in a daze half-jokingly asking why God had asked him to build an ark!

[2] All that remains today are the Temple steps (see photo)

[3] It is important to note that non- resistance does not equal passive acceptance. If we can change things, if by the way we live and the way we act we can make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others, then we should do so.

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Praise or sarcasm – the widow’s mite

November 9, 2024

Pentecost 25 – 2024

Mark 12:38-44

Marian Free

In the name of God who consistently demands that we care for the alien, the widow and the orphan. Amen.

Recently I had cause to meet someone for lunch in Beenleigh.  Just prior to the shopping centre I made a wrong turn. We found ourselves in what had been a park. Well, it was still a. park, but now every square inch was covered with tents and tarpaulins. People who for whatever reason had nowhere to live had made homes of a sort in this relatively out of the way place. 

I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a parent who has to put their children to bed without a proper meal, to send them to school  without the right school books or who has to tell their children that their home is no longer their home and that they will be living in a tent or in a car or in someone’s garage until they can find another home to rent. The current cost of living crisis and the shortage of accommodation means that more and more people are finding themselves in these sorts of situations – tossing up between paying the power bill and buying nutritious food, having to rely on food banks and the kindness of others, and constantly having to say “no” to one’s children.

In Jesus’ time there was no welfare. The poor were totally reliant on the kindness of others. Women were entirely dependent on their families – their fathers and then their husbands and then their sons.  Widows who did not have sons were particularly vulnerable. The Temple offerings were meant in part to support the widow and the orphan, but Jesus’ attack on the scribes suggests that this was not a current practice.

Our use of scripture is fascinating. Despite the fact that this morning’s gospel begins with Jesus’ attack on the scribes (scribes who ‘devour widow’s houses’). Most preachers (myself included) have tended to use the widow’s actions as an example of sacrificial giving. Many a stewardship sermon has urged congregation members to give until it hurts, using the widow’s willingness to give her last coins as a model for the giving approved by Jesus.

At first glance, Jesus does appear to commend the widow for giving everything (in contrast to the rich whose large gifts represented only a small proportion of their total wealth).  “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” But is this really the point that Jesus is making? Can we really imagine Jesus – the same Jesus who raised the son of the widow of Nain and so saved her from destitution – taking delight in the actions of a widow that will leave her nothing to live on? Could Jesus, raised on the Old Testament insistence that the Israelites care for the widow and the orphan, simply commend the woman from a distance and allow her to return home to die (if indeed she has a home to go to)?

The usual interpretation, tempting as it is to all clergy who would like to encourage parishioners to be more generous, denies the widow of her personhood. She becomes an object lesson rather than a flesh and blood individual. No attention is paid to her life, how long she has been widowed, whether or not her husband had left her with something or nothing, whether or not she ever had sons, where her father and brothers might be, or how she has survived until now. No thought is given to her current state of destitution – her two small coins would only have been able to purchase enough flour to make one or two biscuits. No one asks whether she is giving away the coins, not as a sign of generosity, but as evidence of her complete despair – her willingness to give up and die.

Interpreting the widow’s act as a sacrificial also fails to take into account the immediate and the wider context of the story. Given Jesus’ prior comments about the scribes – who not only do everything they can to draw attention to themselves, but who also use their status and their education to impoverish widows – (charging for legal assistance, taking advantage of a widow’s hospitality, taking money on the promise of a prayer)[1] – it is more likely that Jesus is here continuing his critique of the scribes. You can almost hear his voice dripping with sarcasm – rather than commending the widow, he is condemning the scribes – she is giving all she had to live on. The scribes, whose task it was to interpret the law, appear to have forgotten the law’s instruction to care for the widows. While they give only what they can afford, they treat the widow as if she doesn’t exist.

Rather than be an example of sacrificial giving, the widow serves to expose the self-serving, self-obsessed scribes who think only of the attention that they receive if they wear their long robes and make long prayers. 

The wider context of these verses supports this interpretation. It commences with Jesus’ Cleansing of the Temple (11:15-19) and concludes with Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple (13:1-2). Throughout the section the focus is on the corruption of the Temple worship and on the failure of the leaders of the church.  

In this broader context the widow becomes an illustration of just how far from God’s ideal the church has fallen. That a widow, who has nothing left to live on should feel that she has to continue support the Temple (instead of it supporting her) indicates that the system has become so corrupt that it cannot sink any lower. 

This gives us pause for thought. What does Jesus see when he looks at our society, our care (or lack of care) for the poor, the vulnerable, the homeless? Had Jesus been in the car with me in Beenleigh, would he have commented: “Look how simply they live.” meaning, “how well you and your kind are living”?

What does Jesus see and how is he calling us to respond to the present economic crisis?

[1] Chelsey Harmon points out that the scribes were guilty of taking advantage of widows: 

  • though it was forbidden, many took payment from widows for providing legal assistance;
  • while serving as lawyers, some cheated on the wills or mismanaged the widows’ estates;
  • some scribes were known to take advantage of, and freeload upon, the hospitality offered to them by widows;
  • certain scribes were in the habit of taking payment and promising to make intercessory prayer for widows (i.e., making it a business transaction);
  • and if a widow could not pay, there were known cases where scribes literally took the widow’s home as payment for services rendered,
  • offering to invest their money, then robbing them of it. https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2021-11-01/mark-1238-44-3/

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I once was blind but now I see – the healing of Bartimaeus

October 26, 2024

Pentecost 23 – 2024

Mark 10-46-52

Marian Free

In the name of God who opens the eyes to the truth of God’s being.  Amen.

One of the privileges of ministry has been teaching religious education. Trying to share the faith at age-appropriate levels or finding ways to encourage children to understand that God wants to encourage, not demand; to affirm, not condemn has led to some very deep reflection, to some amazing insights and above all to some magical moments in the classroom.

Children, at least those of eight years old and older, bring to religious education a degree of scepticism. Without fail, someone in the class will ask: but what about the dinosaurs? They, possibly influenced by their parents, want to challenge the creation story – the one at the beginning of Genesis that, if taken literally, suggests that God created the world in seven days. As someone who grew up with a copy of The Evolution of the Species on my bookshelf, I was never fazed by the question. The problem was, how could I explain say that I didn’t think the Genesis story was true without discrediting the Bible as a whole – especially when the students were only in year four (turning nine).

After some thought and much prayer, it occurred to me that Aesop’s Fables might provide the answer. When asked the question I would tell the story of the tortoise and the hare and ask the children if it were true. Students, eager to please, often said: ‘yes’. To which I would respond can animals really talk? ‘No’ they would say. ‘Does it tell us something that is true?’ I’d ask. ‘Yes!” would be the answer. This gave me an opportunity to draw a parallel with the accounts of creation in Genesis. They are not historically accurate, but they do reveal truths – truths about creation, about the human desire to be independent of God and so on.

One of the most rewarding lessons was the occasion on which I could almost see the cogs turning in a young girl’s head and a light bulb coming on as she realised that the Bible didn’t have to be historically accurate to be true. It was truly like watching her eyes open for the first time, as if this was something that had puzzled and now everything had fallen into place. 

Many of us have had such light bulb moments – those occasions when suddenly we see clearly – what we have to do, how to move forward, how to let go of the past. Sometimes those moments are lifechanging and we cannot believe that we had lived without such insights.

What does this have to do with Bartimaeus I hear you ask. Well, in one sense nothing. But it does have a lot to do with Mark’s telling of the Jesus’ story and in particular Jesus’ teaching on discipleship.

Many scholars believe that Mark 8:22 –10:52 form a discrete section in which Jesus teaches the disciples. Here, Jesus is revealing his true self and his mission to the disciples and educating them as to what it means to be disciples. Three times in these chapters Jesus announces that he is to suffer and die and to rise again, twice he reminds his disciples that the greatest among them will have to become their servant, and that they must become like children to enter the kingdom. The disciples are told that they must take up their cross and follow Jesus, that they must lose their life to gain it, and that with mortals it is impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Throughout this section, as Jesus tries to prepare the disciples for what Jerusalem has in store and the disciples consistently reveal their failure to understand, their determination that Jesus should be the type of Messiah that they were expecting. Peter rebukes Jesus when he says he has to suffer, the disciples argue about who is the greatest, and James and John ask to sit at Jesus’ right hand and his left.

Interestingly, the discussion on Jesus’ suffering and what it means to be disciples is framed by accounts of Jesus’ healing a blind man. The stories are very different, which suggest that Mark has deliberately sandwiched Jesus’ announcements between two stories of receiving sight. It is the differences between the healing stories that lead to this conclusion.  

In the first account (Mk 8:22-26) the blind man is brought to Jesus. Jesus takes the man outside the village, puts saliva on the man’s eyes and lays hands on him. When he asks if the man can see, he responds that he can see people but that they look like trees walking. Jesus tries again and this time the man is able to see. Once he is healed, he is sent (and he goes) home.

Bartimaeus does not need to be brought to Jesus. He is sitting begging on the road to Jerusalem.  When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is near, he calls out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Bartimaeus has agency (he does not need to be brought to Jesus). He has insight: he knows that Jesus is the one promised by God – Son of David. He is enthusiastic: he springs up and goes to Jesus. He is healed by Jesus’ word, and he is fully healed. He is told to go but instead he chooses to follow Jesus.

That Mark has chosen to frame Jesus’ journey and his revelations about himself, his mission and discipleship with stories of people coming to sight suggest that the gospel writer is describing for his readers a process of coming to understanding, of gaining insight that leads them to a fuller understanding of Jesus. That the first blind man didn’t see immediately reflects partial knowledge, knowledge that allows one to accept healing, but not to follow.  Bartimaeus is healed, he sees clearly, he leaves everything[1] and follows Jesus. All that Jesus has been trying to teach his disciples, Bartimaeus knows in an instant. His eyes have been opened to the truth and he cannot unsee it.

By framing the section on discipleship with the two different descriptions of healing, Mark illustrates the journey to faith – with all its missteps, setbacks, misunderstandings and finally submission. It is a story for all time. A journey into discipleship through ignorance and self-centredness to yearning, comprehension and finally to complete surrender.  

[1] It might not seem like much, but begging was a source of income, and presumably his home and family were in Jericho.

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The art of not knowing (Mk 10:35-45)

October 20, 2024

Pentecost 22 -2024

Mark 10-35-45

Marian Free

In the name of God whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts. Amen.

The Book of Job can be a difficult read but in summary it is a reflection on the limits of human knowledge and how little we know in comparison with all that there is to know. It provides us with a reminder that in this life there are some things that we will never understand, and it confronts our simplistic, pious ways of explaining away trauma and tragedy. 

Job has had everything stripped away from him, wealth, family and even health. His well-meaning friends have come to visit and, believing that Job’s current state is a consequence of something he has done, proceed to use their misinformed theology to try to get Job to admit to his fault. Job, convinced that he has done nothing to offend God, maintains his innocence. The discussion goes on and on and on and on.  

All this time, God is silently listening and holding God’s tongue. Finally, when God can stand it no more, God interrupts and speaks directly to Job.  

This morning’s reading gives us just a taste of God’s speech (which continues for three whole chapters).  “Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: 

2                “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 

3                Gird up your loins like a man,

                                    I will question you, and you shall declare to me.”

As we read further, we can sense the irony and even the sense of playfulness in God’s words. Take these from chapter 41: “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook,

                                    or press down its tongue with a cord? 

2                Can you put a rope in its nose,

                                    or pierce its jaw with a hook? 

3                Will it make many supplications to you?

                                    Will it speak soft words to you?”

You can almost hear God smiling. God is using exaggeration and sarcasm to make a point – all human knowledge and wisdom is limited, and the mind of God is ultimately beyond our comprehension.

The comparison of how much we think we know with how little we actually understand provides a useful background to today’s gospel (indeed to much of the gospel story). Over and again, Jesus finds himself in the position of correcting the misunderstandings of his opponents, of enquirers and even of his disciples. The Pharisees think they can trick Jesus with questions such as the one about divorce, the rich young man thought (hoped) that rigid adherence to the law was all that was required for salvation and James and John who thought that Jesus was seeking to take control. 

Jesus was so different from what anyone had expected that followers and opponents alike struggled to adjust themselves to reality – even though it was right in front of them. After all that Jesus has said about the last being first, the lowliest being the greatest, In today’s gospel, James and John (believing that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem to usurp the power of the Romans) have approached Jesus and to ask that they be given places of honour – to the right and to the left of Jesus – when he takes the throne. 

Did they not hear what Jesus had just said – that in Jerusalem the Son of Man (Jesus) would be handed over to the chief priests and scribes who would condemn him to death???   Have they not understood anything that Jesus has taught them during his ministry?

Remember these are not just any followers.  James and John are part of Jesus’ inner circle. They are not only among the twelve disciples, they, with Peter are the ones to whom Jesus entrusted the experience of the Transfiguration, they with Peter, will be invited to pray with Jesus in Gethsemane, and yet they don’t get it. No matter what Jesus says, no matter how little he conforms to their idea of a Saviour they simply cannot change their preconception that God would send a triumphant saviour – not a suffering servant.

Jesus confounded and continues to confound all expectations. He was not a king. He was not a warrior. He was not a priest. Jesus did not build an army. He did not take on the might of Rome. He did not restore the historic priesthood. There was no existing model of a Saviour that matched the reality that was Jesus. And because Jesus did not conform his followers, even his inner circle could not grasp what he was really about. However hard Jesus tried to confront the preconceptions of his disciples, they kept trying to impose their presumptions on him, they kept trying to make him fit the mould they had in their heads. 

The problem was and is that Jesus just won’t fit. His life and death defied all previous expectations. Jesus’ birth, his life and his death were the polar opposite of what the people of Israel were looking for. His very existence, instead of being comforting and assuring, instead of. shoring up the hopes of the people, was destabilising and disquieting. 

In his person, Jesus is an illustration of the point made by God’s response to Job. By turning everything. Upside down, Jesus demonstrates in his own person that God cannot be defined or limited as is ultimately beyond our understanding.  

Over and over again the disciples tried to make Jesus fit their expectations, much as Job’s friends tried to get Job to agree to their understanding of his suffering. The problem is that Jesus doesn’t not fit. Jesus unsettles and challenges pre-existing ideas and confronts the limits of our knowledge in the hope that our hearts and minds might be set free from what we think we know and that we might find the courage to enter into the emptiness of unknowing.

The spiritual journey, as the disciples discover time and again, is a process of unlearning and unknowing what we thought we knew so that in the end it is our unknowing not our knowing that will lead us into the heart of God.

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Go, sell all that you have

October 12, 2024

Pentecost 21 – 2024

Mark 10:17-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who cares for the greatest and the least, and who preferences the poor over the rich. Amen.

How much money is too much money? This is a question that greatly troubled someone I once knew. He (I’ll call him Jack) had married into a family that was very comfortable and he had worked in a profession that ensured a good income.  Jack wasn’t Steve Jobs rich, but he was well-off. For reasons that he didn’t ever share, today’s gospel passage caused him particular concern. On more than one occasion he approached me with questions about the passage, especially in relation to the camel and the needle’s eye. He researched articles that softened the definitiveness of Jesus’ teaching. These included descriptions about the types of thread and needle referred to and one that suggested that the needle’s eye was the name of one of the gates into the old city of Jerusalem through which camels could not pass (this latter is not borne out by a google search). Hopefully he resolved the issue to his satisfaction, and his mind was put to rest before he died.

Jack’s unease in relation to his relative wealth is reflective of the uncomfortable relationship that the church and many churchgoers have with money. We read Jesus’ teaching in this and other places and yet we build beautiful, expensive churches and fill them with beautiful, expensive things which then need to be maintained and insured. 

The Vatican, for example, has a vast treasure trove of priceless art and liturgical vessels, and it owns billions of dollars in real estate.  In 2018 The Age reported that it was possible to estimate the wealth of the Catholic Church of Australia at around $30 billion dollars[1]. The Anglican Church would not be too far behind. Of course, many of these assets are schools and hospitals and aged care facilities which provide services for hundreds of thousands of people who are not members of those churches, but much of our wealth is in our churches and their decorations.

It is hard to reconcile this with the Jesus who preferenced the poor and the marginalised and whose own life was one lived without attachment to home, security, or comfort. He famously told a would-be follower: ‘Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’

From the very beginnings of Christianity there have been some who felt that the only way to follow Jesus was to renounce everything – home, family, possessions and to give oneself wholeheartedly to following Jesus but in general most of us retain those things and then try to resolve the tension caused by today’s gospel and other sayings of Jesus.

As Sarah Wilson points out, our discomfort with Jesus’ response to the rich young man and Jesus’ teaching on wealth in general is revealed in the way that we try to manage the story, and the ways we try to wiggle our way out of having to give up all our possessions[2]. She suggests among other things that manage the story by saying that what Jesus was suggesting was peculiar to this young man and a response to his particular need; or we try to convince ourselves that we are not rich (after all there is always someone richer than ourselves). We can take comfort in Jesus’ saying that it is impossible and  only God can do it, or we can take the route that Peter did and point out what we have given up!  

The issue of wealth and what to do with it is made even more complicated by the fact that few of us (including governments and charitable organisations) have a clear enough understanding of the overall picture to ensure that our attempts to create a more equitable world do indeed benefit those whom we try to help. Sadly, charitable attempts to help sometimes leave those “helped” worse off. To give just one example, developing and promoting a rice that produces a greater yield has had the effect of reducing the varieties of rice that are planted in many countries and has therefore reduced the possibility that something will grow even if the conditions are not ideal. In good years the people are better off but in bad years they are now worse off. 

Many of us who are comfortably off, are so by virtue of living in this country. We are not stateless like the Rohingya, we are not facing both famine and war as are the people of Sudan, Ethiopia and Gaza, we are not burdened by corrupt governments that use our resources for their own benefit and we are not without opportunities to study and to work . All of us are relatively privileged compared to millions of others throughout the world.

The story of the rich young man is confronting and challenging.  We can avoid the disquiet it causes by explaining it away or we can sit with the discomfort, forcing ourselves to consider what Jesus might be saying to us. We can ignore Jesus’ response to the young man, or we can allow it to remind us of Jesus’ general attitude to wealth and to ask ourselves what it might mean for us. 

Clearly I have not given up all my possessions as Jesus appears to demand. Instead, I consistently remind myself of this and other teachings and ask a number of questions. These include:  What is my attitude to my possessions, and do I hang on to them at all costs? How can I best use the resources that I have to contribute to a more equitable world? Can I change my lifestyle in a way that might be beneficial to others – especially when I recognise that changes in the climate most adversely affect the poor?  When I vote do I make choices that protect my own interests over the needs of others?

“Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

May we all have the courage to allow Jesus’ uncomfortable questions and teachings to unsettle, to confront and hopefully to change us. May we not find it so hard that we turn away, and may we find comfort in the knowledge that with God nothing is impossible.

[1] https://www.marketplace.org/2023/02/10/how-much-money-does-catholic-church-have/

[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-28-2/commentary-on-mark-1017-31-11

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Jesus and divorce

October 4, 2024

Pentecost 20 – 2024

Mark 10:2-16

Marian Free

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

“Till death us do part.” “What God has joined together let no one separate.” These daunting words from today’s gospel formed a part of the marriage vows until the revision of the Book of Common prayer in 1978, which means that those of my age and older will have made this promise (and heard this threat) at their wedding. Two of my close friends, both of whom found themselves in unhappy (and in one case violent) marriages, felt bound to stay in their marriages because of the  weighty commitment they had made before God.  

The Prayer Book that was approved in 1995 has softened the language somewhat, but the sentiment “as long as we both shall live” remains in the vows and the blessing over the couple retains the words: “What God has joined together let no one separate”. No matter what the circumstances, how unsatisfactory, how violent the marriage, the church, using the language of the gospels, adds an incredible burden to individuals who find themselves in what are impossible circumstances. 

Many of us will remember with some sorrow and regret a time in the church’s recent history when these phrases coupled with Jesus’ apparent prohibition against divorce meant that those whose marriages had ended in divorce were refused remarriage in the church. Some faithful, divorced people felt so ashamed, or so excluded by the church’s attitude that they stopped coming to church altogether. 

We now understand that there are many reasons why marriages end – domestic violence, coercive control, incompatibility, a growing apart, the loss of a child. All are a form of death – the death of trust, the death of a sense of self, the death of companionship, the death of communication. In the church (and in the wider community) we still hope that those who love each other enough to commit to marriage will be able to nurture and sustain that love, but now we also understand that that is not always possible. That marriages end for all kinds of reasons is understood and divorcees can remarry in church if that is their desire.

This still leaves us with Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in today’s gospel and our interpretation that Jesus is condemning both divorce and remarriage.

I suggest that centuries of misinterpretation, ignorance and cultural biases have led to a misrepresentation of what is happening here. Let me make a couple of points. Firstly, it is important to recognise that this is not Jesus’ teaching per se but is his response to a question – a question from the Pharisees that is designed to test him – to make him unpopular with the Romans, or with the Jews. It is even possible that this was a live issue at the time – after all John the Baptist lost his head for challenging the remarriage of Herodias. Secondly there are two parts to the discussion: Jesus’ debate with the Pharisees and Jesus’ response to a question from the disciples.

Jesus is no doubt exercising some caution with his answer, trying not to be too confrontational and toeing the party line. His listeners however would have heard the sting behind his seemingly benign words.  In Jesus’ time and culture, it was possible for a man to divorce a woman on almost any pretext putting her to shame and forcing her to depend on the family of her birth. A woman on the other hand had no such escape, no matter the provocation. Seen in this light, Jesus’ teaching is radical and gives women the security they might not otherwise have had– that is that they could not be summarily dismissed, forced to endure the shame of divorce or find themselves in a financially precarious situation. Jesus is doing what he is doing best – turning the law on its head to protect the vulnerable.

Interestingly, Jesus also makes his response personal. Whereas the Pharisees ask: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus’ response is to turn the question on them: “What did Moses say to you?” This raises the question whether the Pharisees, with their obsession with the law, are the ones who are seeking to justify divorce. Certainly, this makes sense of Jesus’ comment: “Because of your hardness of heart” which could be directed at the Pharisees rather than the audience in general. Jesus reinforces his point by quoting from Genesis, the creation story – as Adam and Eve were once one body, so in marriage they become one flesh (Gen 2:24). It is Jesus adds the interpretation: ‘Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

The question of remarriage is raised by the disciples in a later discussion. This no doubt relates to Jesus’ reference to the law (Deut 24:1-4). The passage to which Jesus directs the Pharisees has more to do with remarriage than divorce and this is important with regard to the church’s teaching on remarriage. What is prohibited in not remarriage in general – otherwise a divorced woman would have no possibility of any sort of life if her husband had divorced her.  What is prohibited is remarriage in its true sense – remarriage to the original wife after she has married someone else.

Given the context of the original discussion and the Old Testament passages that are quoted, it is difficult to imagine that Jesus envisaged his words restricting and even harming generations so far removed from his own.

When we approach the New Testament, we have to remember a) that it is culturally based, b) that many laws have a use-by date and c) that Jesus was a lawbreaker. When Jesus could see that a law caused harm instead of protecting from harm, he was quite happy to break it – think healing on the Sabbath, not washing before meals, eating with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners. Jesus responds to the question about divorce by redefining the law by which the Pharisees sought to live. That there came a time when in turn that “law” became harmful was surely not Jesus’ intention. 

I don’t imagine that for one minute that Jesus expected the church to condemn people to violent or loveless marriages for the sake of maintaining a harmful and outdated “law”, a comment that he offered in response to a question that was designed to trap him.

We do not live in a static world. In the last century women have made gains that could not have been envisaged in the first century. They are no longer dependent on men for social standing or financial support. Science has helped us understand much that Jesus’ contemporaries could not explain except through the supernatural. Psychology and sociology have thrown light on the behaviour of individuals and groups. What Jesus said and taught addressed a particular time and place. Our task is to investigate Jesus’ underlying principles of compassion, inclusion and his desire to act in ways that led to good not harm, so that we can understand what to keep and what to revise rather than slavishly holding “beliefs” that condemn others to lives of exclusion and pain.

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Whoever is not against us is for us

September 28, 2024

Pentecost 19 – 2024

Mark 9:38-50

Marian Free

In the name of God who does not discriminate but welcomes all who share God’s vision for humanity. Amen.

According to Dr Mark Williams, stereotyping and determining who belongs and who does not is part of our evolutionary development[1]. Our original ancestors lived in extended family groups, and it was important for them to easily distinguish between friend from foe and to know whom to welcome and whom to exclude. As a consequence the human brain became hard-wired to use forms of discrimination to simplify interactions. Such hard wiring has its problems, but today’s world is much more complex that it still has its uses. Socialising in the modern world is difficult and the world is so complicated that short cuts to help us to group people according to various criteria (like us/not like us, common values/different values and so on) and. enable us to tell quickly and accurately whether or not someone can be trusted. If a person fits the criteria that our sub-group have used to classify “members and friends”, that person can be offered a welcome without any further investigation. If they do not measure up, other criteria will have to be applied in to decide whether they are friend or foe, whether they are welcomed, shunned or chased away. Being a part of a group, family, tribe gives its members a sense of identity, worth and belonging.  

What is extraordinary about the Jesus’ movement is that Jesus’ disciples have broken out of their traditional family, religious and cultural groups to follow Jesus. As a consequence, they have had to learn a whole new code of relationships – both with each other and with outsiders. We should not be surprised if they are more protective of the boundaries of this group – it has probably cost them a lot to join and being members has replaced the family and friendship ties which they have given up.

The problem, as we have seen over and over again, is that they just don’t get the new norms. Either they have followed Jesus for all wrong reasons – (a belief that he will overthrow Rome, a desire to have reflected glory from the one who can do such amazing miracles or the status that comes with Jesus’ empowering them to share his mission.  OR having followed him for the right reason (Jesus is the anointed sent by God), they are unable to alter their social conditioning such that they really comprehend that that Jesus didn’t come to reinforce the cultural and religious norms of the time, but to challenge and overturn them.

In today’s gospel we have two illustrations of the disciples’ lack of understanding. Jesus and the disciples have been making their way from the Mountain of Transfiguration to Capernaum. During the journey the disciples have been arguing among themselves as to who is the greatest. They are trying to work out the social hierarchy in this new context. (Every other situation in which they find themselves is carefully structured and ordered – from the family to the church to the state. 

What the disciples have yet to grasp is that Jesus has completely reversed these cultural norms. In the kingdom  those who want to save their life will lose it, the last will be first, the greatest will serve the least, and a child (the least valued because they have no legal status) is the one who will most represents Jesus. Status, in the normal way of things, has no place in the Jesus’ movement. 

The second illustration has to do with boundaries. The disciples, still new to the emerging Jesus’ movement, have formed their own ideas as to who is in and who is out, who is allowed to perform exorcisms and who is not. What they don’t yet understand is that in the kingdom there are no boundaries or, if there are, they are fluid and permeable. Those who behave in ways that are consistent with the kingdom – whether they be tax-collectors and prostitutes or whether they be exorcists as in today’s gospel – are counted among those who belong to Jesus’ in-group. Someone who is generous, loving and thoughtful demonstrates the characteristics associated with Jesus, and by virtue of their characters or lifestyle make it clear that they are on side. Someone who exercises the powers of healing, feeding or exorcism, proves that whether or not they are signed up members, they are part of the Jesus’ project. 

As Jesus says to the disciples: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” This is a radical reorientation of conventional wisdom. It denies Jesus’ immediate followers the right to judge, to label or to exclude. It lays open the possibility that anyone at all can be a follower.  It means that the established means of distinguishing people one from another no longer hold, and that God who knows the human hearts decides who, if any, should be excluded.

It is easy with hindsight to be critical of the disciples and their constant failure to grasp Jesus’ message of inclusive love, but before we sit in judgement we should consider how often, we the church, have sat in judgement and have determined who should be granted or denied membership.  In how many ways have we denied the gifting of others because they haven’t publicly aligned with our cause? 

“Whoever is not against us is for us.”  There are many, many people whose values align with ours, whose concern for the welfare of others matches (or exceeds) ours and whose willingness to confront injustice at whatever cost sometimes puts our lukewarm responses to shame. The lesson we can learn from today’s gospel is that discipleship is not a competition. We have no need to prove that we are more holy, have more compassion or are more ready to lay our lives on the line to ensure the wellbeing of others. In the name of Jesus, we can celebrate the contributions of all who work to make the world a better place understanding that whether or not they know it, they are working for the kingdom of God.

[1] Interviewed on All in the Mind. On Radio National.

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Who do people say that I am?

September 14, 2024

Pentecost 17 – 2024

Mark 8:27-38

Marian Free

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

In 1984, during Holy Week, a sculpture by Edwina Sandys was hung below the cross in the Episcopal Cathedral of St John the Divine, in Manhattan. The sculpture was of a woman, arms outstretched as if crucified. Needless to say, the image created a great deal of controversy, theological debate and emotive responses. For one woman though, it was a powerful and healing symbol of the God, who in Christ suffers with us, who suffered with her. Until that moment she had not understood that Christ shared her pain, that Christ was with her in her trauma.

She wrote a poem about her experience of sexual abuse which begins:

O God, 

through the image of a woman

crucified on the cross

I understand at last.

For over half my life

I have been ashamed 

of the scars I bear.

These scars tell an ugly story,

a common story,

about a girl who is the victim

when a man acts out his fantasies.

In the warmth, peace and sunlight of your presence

I was able to uncurl the tightly clenched fists.

For the first time

I felt your suffering presence with me

in that event.

I have known you as a vulnerable baby,

as a brother, and as a father.

Now I know you as a woman.

You were there with me 

as the violated girl

caught in helpless suffering[1].

“I have known you as a vulnerable baby, as a brother and as a father. Now I know you as a woman.” It was only when this woman saw Christ as a woman in agony that she saw herself in Christ. She was finally able to fully comprehend that on the cross. Jesus represented her, that his suffering was her suffering, that he truly understood what it was like to be in her skin and that on the cross he shared her pain and trauma. 

Images of Jesus have an interesting history. There were no portraits or even written descriptions of Jesus the man, but we can be sure that he almost certainly looked much like any other poor person of Middle Eastern origin with dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin tone. In the absence of a tradition of representing the divine the earliest artists turned to images of pagan gods for inspiration. Later a generic image of a bearded Christ with shoulder length dark hair predominated. It was during the Renaissance that artists in Europe began to depict Christ in their own image – a light skinned European. This was in part to represent the human, suffering Jesus and the artist’s identification with him. In the same period images of Jesus with Ethiopian and Indian features emerged. [2]

This image of a light-skinned, European Jesus spread throughout the world thanks to the ease of trade and colonisation and the attendant missionary activity. Unfortunately, this image, the image used to convert the colonised, had the negative effect of reinforcing the presumed superiority of the colonisers and the implied inferiority of the colonised – especially those of a darker skin-tone. During the last century as nations and races broke free of the chains of colonisation, people across the globe began to visualise and to represent Christ as someone with whom they could identify – someone who could identify with them. Today many such images exist, allowing believers to recognise themselves in Christ and to see Christ’s suffering as their suffering no matter what their race, culture, gender, sexuality, occupation or income. Artistic images which depict Christ as poor, or tortured, as a refugee, or a victim of natural disaster speak to those who find themselves in those situations and remind them that Christ shared their anxiety, their pain and their sense of powerlessness.

It is the image of a vulnerable, suffering, dying Christ, that Peter finds so scandalous in this morning’s gospel. Peter didn’t want a Christ to whom he could relate, a Christ who was weak, a Christ who was at the mercy of human powers – a Christ who would suffer and die. 

We don’t know just what Peter expected, but it certainly was not that. Indeed, Peter was so shocked by Jesus’ announcement that he dared to take Jesus aside and to rebuke him. He couldn’t allow that the person whom he had just identified as the Christ, would be so ineffectual, so disinterested in his own fate, and so apparently indifferent to the future of his mission and that of his disciples that he would willingly submit to suffering and death. 

Peter it seems, wanted a Christ who could impress, who could be put on a pedestal, who could stand against the power of Rome and against the leadership of the church. Peter wanted a Christ whom he could trust to protect him, who could exercise influence over the religious and political authorities and who could exert his divine power over his enemies.

Jesus could not meet Peter’s expectations. Having become fully human Jesus was susceptible to hunger, exhaustion and frustration, able to feel joy, compassion and grief. He identified completely with the human race – especially the marginalised, the vulnerable and the oppressed – and this meant that he identified with humanity even to the point of death.

It is because Jesus was born in human likeness and took on human form that we are able to relate to Jesus. In Jesus we recognise someone who knows what it is like to be one of us, to love and to be hurt, to trust and to be betrayed, to live and to die. 

Jesus the Christ is representative of all people, and he suffers with and for all people.  

We who are relatively privileged, free and at peace, need to take care not to colonise Jesus and insist that he is in our image alone. We need to recognise that Christ was sent into the world to save the world and that his face is the face of all people, and that. all people are found in him.

[1] In Prayers and Poems and Songs and Stories. Ecumenical Decade 1988-1998. Churches in Solidarity with Women. Crosswood, N.Y.:  St Vladimir’s Seminary Press. 1988.

[2] https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-how-jesus-came-to-resemble-a-white-european-142130

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Calling people “dogs”. The Syrophoenician woman

September 7, 2024

Pentecost 16 – 2024

Mark 7:24-37

Marian Free

In the name of God in whose eyes nothing and no one is unclean in and of themself. Amen.

Some years ago, I watched a move titled simply Water. It was set in rural India in the 1940s. Set against the social movement of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance it tells a story of a number of widows (aged from about 12) who were forced to live out their lives in an ashram in order to expiate the bad karma which had led to their current situation of destitution. The widows were in effect an impoverished religious order. They rarely left the dilapidated building that was their home and when they did they were clearly identifiable in their plain white saris. A scene that has stayed with me is that of a young, beautiful widow who happened to be walking in the street when another woman brushed up against her. Even though the physical connection was brief and not caused by the widow, the other woman recoiled in horror and disgust and began to abuse widow for causing the contact. In that culture a widow was considered to be unclean and her impurity deemed to be contagious. The offended person was angry with the widow because it was the widow’s responsibility to keep well out of the way of the rest of society so that she didn’t risk sullying anyone else.

In our culture it is difficult to understand the purity laws of another culture – how contact with an otherwise moral and clean person might cause us to feel in some way polluted. We might shudder if we were touched by someone who had not bathed for several days, and we might want to wash ourselves after the encounter, but we would not consider ourselves seriously contaminated and unfit to mix in society until we had undergone some form of purification.

Purity laws abounded in first century Judaism. The Pharisees (and the Essenes) in particular were anxious to avoid impurity and there were rules about bathing to restore purity. The reason that the Jews didn’t enter Pilate’s quarters when they handed Jesus over was that they feared being made unclean before the Passover and therefore unable to celebrate the festival. In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, the Priest and Levite passed by the wounded man because, had he been dead, touching his body would have made them impure and unable to enter the Temple (which was their destination). 

Jesus’ encounter with the woman from Syrophoenicia Jesus takes place immediately after a discussion with the Pharisees and scribes on the subject of purity.[1] The Pharisees and scribes had challenged Jesus because he and his disciples did not observe the purity regulations – washing before eating, cleaning the outside of cooking and eating utensils and so on. Jesus’ response was to challenge the hypocrisy of his opponents who kept the letter of the law but not the Spirit of the law, whose inward nature was not at all impacted by their outward behaviour. Observing the purity laws had failed to purify them. (He on the other hand did not need to keep the laws governing purity as he was pure on the inside.)

After this encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus sought refuge in a house in the region of Tyre. Here, his own relationship with the purity laws was challenged by a desperate woman – a woman who was a source of impurity on three accounts. She was a woman; she was a Gentile, and she was the mother of a child who is possessed by a demon. For all these reasons, according to Jewish law, Jesus should have nothing to do with her. But the woman will do anything for her child. Even though Jesus insinuates that she is no more than a dog, undeserving of his attention, she will not take “no” for an answer. She refused to accept that she and her daughter were not worthy of Jesus’ attention due to their race, their gender and their state of health. She even accepted the description of “dog” and turned the argument around: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table.”  

The woman confronted Jesus’ attitude towards outsiders and thereby his concept of clean and unclean, pure and impure. In so doing she forced Jesus to recognise that he was being that he was being inconsistent. If it was not the “outside” of a thing that makes it clean or unclean, then surely it was not the external identifiers of a person – race, gender, physical or mental health that could determine their state of purity. In his debate with the Pharisees, Jesus claimed that it was not what goes into a person that defiled but what comes out. Taken to its logical conclusion his argument implied that all people should be judged according to their inward nature not their outward characteristics.

This most extraordinary story of a woman, an outsider confronting Jesus and changing Jesus’ mind, makes more sense if we understand the context in which Mark was writing. Mark, and indeed all the gospel writers, were writing to an audience that was primarily Gentile in origin. The evangelists had to answer an unspoken question – How was it that those to whom Jesus was sent did not accept Jesus’ message, and those who were outsiders did?

Placed alongside each other, the debate with the Pharisees about purity laws and Jesus encounter with the Syrophoenician woman provide an answer to that question.  The Pharisees were too rigid to see in the rule-breaking Jesus the one whom God had sent. The Syrophoenician woman dared to claim God’s promise that the Gentiles would be included. 

All that of course is ancient history. We belong to a faith that has little connection with the faith from which it grew. That said, there are at least two lessons for us in today’s gospel. One is that it is not ours to judge others. The second is that God’s embrace can and does include all people regardless of sex, gender, race, religion or any other criteria that we might use to separate and divide.

Beware of calling other people: “dogs” or any other slur – they might just supplant us in the kingdom.

[1] I am grateful to Dr Margaret Wesley for this insight. 

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Another way – Herod vs Jesus

July 20, 2024

Pentecost 9 – 2024

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

Marian Free

In the name of God who shows us another way, a better away. Amen.

There have been times I admit when, exhausted from a day of minding children or simply bored with an inane children’s story, that I have skipped a page that I determined was not essential to the plot. I rarely got away with the omission – it was usually met with: “you missed a page!” For the child each page was integral to the plot and to the pleasure of having the story read to them. 

Most stories have a trajectory and are carefully constructed so as to take the reader along with them. This is why it can be frustrating when the lectionary writers leave out sections of the readings as is the case this morning. The missing verses in this instance are Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5000 and the rationale for omitting them is that for the next five weeks we will be focussing on John’s version of the same event. Wisely, the lectionary writers try to avoid too much repetition, but what that means is that we lose Mark’s voice, when it comes to this story and his voice is important.  

As might be expected, the author of John’s gospel takes a very different approach to the re-telling of this miracle. John uses the feeding of the 5,000 to introduce a very long discourse on the theme of bread. Here, Jesus compares himself to the manna in the wilderness, he claims to be the Bread of Life and he states that those who do not eat his flesh and drink his blood have no life in them. The Jesus of John’s gospel appears to be at least a little confrontational here – “if you don’t do this then this will happen”. Jesus’ language and assertiveness mean that some disciples find his teaching too difficult, and they turn away from him.

Mark’s account of the same event is very different. In Mark’ recounting, the emphasis is placed on Jesus’ compassion; on Jesus as shepherd of a people who are lost and who are looking for someone to lead them. Jesus does teach the crowd, but the content of that teaching is not considered worth reporting.  What is important to Mark is Jesus’ response to the crowds who have sought him out – the very crowds he was trying to escape. Though Jesus is desperately tired (and possibly wanting to grieve the death of John the Baptist and to process what that might mean for him) he doesn’t turn the people away. Jesus knows that he needs silence and solitude, and he has taken his disciples to a desolate place. But when he sees the crowd instead of being frustrated, he sees their need and puts aside his own. He teaches and heals the crowd and then, instead of sending them away as would make sense, he feeds them. Jesus draws on an inner strength which enables him to put his own needs last and the needs of the people first.  

Whereas in John’s gospel Jesus gives the crowds a metaphor – “I am the Bread of Life”, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus gives himself, all that he is.  

By leaving Mark’s version of the story out of our Sunday readings, we are prevented from comparing the two accounts, but the real damage caused by the omission of Mark. verses 35-52, is that it does not give us an opportunity to see the way in which Mark is constructing his gospel and the way in which the positioning of this story is significant for the gospel as a whole.

As we will see over the course of the next five weeks, John places the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in the context of the growing tension between Jesus and the authorities and the discourse which follows highlights the misunderstanding and the. tension. Mark uses the story very differently – to make clear the contradiction between the ways of the world and the way of God (as exemplified by Jesus).

In Mark’s gospel the feeding of the 5,000 follows the gruesome account of Herod’s banquet[1].

As you will remember, last week I concluded that there was no good news in the account of the beheading of John which reminds us that the world can be an ugly place in which brutal events occur, in which those who are innocent suffer and God has no magic wand to make everything right. But by juxtaposing John’s beheading with the feeding of the 5,000 Mark makes it clear that it doesn’t have to be this way. There is another way – a way that is not prideful, self-serving and destructive, but is humble, self-sacrificial and life-giving. 

As Donahue and Harrington point out, Herod’s banquet takes place in a palace. It is a birthday and only those who will enhance Herod’s honour will have been invited. The food is not mentioned but is surely fitting for such an occasion. Jesus’ banquet takes place somewhere desolate, it is not planned, the attendees (ordinary people, who have nothing to offer) have invited themselves, and the food is only that which is available – a paltry two fish and five loaves. Herod’s banquet is overshadowed by Herod’s immoral behaviour, Jesus’ banquet is characterised by his compassion. Jesus responds to the crowd by offering them food, Herod’s response (to the expectation of) his guests is to have John the Baptist beheaded. Herod’s concern was to hold on to his power and to his position at all costs. Jesus was willing to relinquish his own needs to serve the needs of others.

Herod’s hubris, self-centredness and his focus on what he can gain lead to division, brutality, violence. 

Jesus’ humility, his self-effacement and his willingness to put others first create unity, tenderness and peace. 

Herod and Jesus – two different ways. of living and being.

Whose example will we follow? What sort of world do we want to create?

[1] I am grateful to Donahue and Harrington for this insight. Donahue, S.J, John R, and Harrington, Daniel J, S.J. The Gospel of Mark. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2002, 209.

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