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Be prepared – Advent 1

November 29, 2025

Advent 1 – 2026

Matthew 24:26-44

Marian Free

In the name of God who always is, Christ who came and who is to come, and the Holy Spirit who enlivens and encourages. Amen.

Advent is one of my favourite times of the year.  Though I have never been particularly efficient at opening Advent Calendars, the sense of anticipation that such calendars engender remains with me to this day.  Calendar or not, every day of Advent brings me closer to the great mystery of the Incarnation – the coming of Emmanuel, God with us. 

Sadly, I have long since given up my habit of separating Advent and Christmas, of keeping the two seasons distinct in my practice and in my mind. The commercial world which fills our stores with Christmas decorations and gifts from September, and which removes all signs of Christmas on Boxing Day makes putting up a tree on Christmas Eve and waiting till January 6 to take it down feel a little bit hollow. Even singing carols on the first Sunday after Christmas can seem somewhat strange when you know that the rest of the world is already preparing for Easter!

Many years ago, I made the decision to stop resisting the tide of change. I no longer try to hold on to traditions that are meaningless to the rest of the world. Nor do I get frustrated that an increasingly secular world has no idea about what Christmas means and that the commercial world has capitalized on the Twelve Days of Christmas by putting them before and not after Christmas. The world may change but nothing can diminish my sense of anticipation and joy as Advent approaches, and I enter once again into the sense of wonder at the birth of Jesus, the mystery of God’s vulnerability and the astounding reality of God’s becoming one of us. 

Given that Christmas celebrates God’s quiet and gentle entry into the world it seems odd that our church year begins and ends with gospel readings that appear to be a series of threats – threats of destructive forces, lawlessness, and. persecution, threats of judgement, of the impending end of the world, and threats that God will catch us unprepared as a thief during the night. We are warned, as we are today, to “keep awake” so that we can catch the thief and not be surprised. These are hardly messages that are designed to fill us with joy and excitement, but rather with terror. They seem designed to keep us on our toes, with one eye watching our back and the other scanning the horizon for danger. The message seems to be: “Be afraid, be very afraid.” Be afraid if not of judgement, but of those terrible events which will precede Jesus’ coming again.

During Advent, these messages are thankfully paired with messages of hope and renewal from the prophets, such as that from Isaiah this morning. God’s coming is associated with putting things straight. This can look like judgement and terror especially to those who resist or deny God, but the prophets assure us that God’s coming is primarily to put the world to right, to bring peace where there is no peace, to make the desert bloom, to give sight to blind, healing to the sick and release to the prisoner and to draw all people to walk in the light of the Lord. In other words, God’s coming will restore the world to that which God intended from the beginning.

What then do we make of the dire warnings that begin at the start of this chapter and which, to be honest, populate the pages of the prophets? 

Themes of destruction and restoration usually arise at times when the nation of Israel is feeling particularly vulnerable and oppressed, or when the people have wandered so far from the faith that it seems that the only possible solution is to begin with a clean slate. This was almost certainly how many people in Palestine at the time of Jesus. It must have seemed that the only way Israel could be restored would be by a dramatic intervention of God who would destroy the forces of Rome, purify Temple practices and bring about healing and peace.  

In reality, as we know, this was not how God responded. 

Today’s gospel is part of Jesus’ response to a question about the signs that will indicate that the end is near. Jesus uses language familiar to the disciples to insist that it is impossible to read the signs. Turmoil in the world is not a sign that God is near, but sign that humanity is flawed and that we live on a fragile planet. Jesus warns that those who want signs are looking for the wrong thing, are asking the wrong question. That they have to ask already indicates their failure to understand. Certainly, they want to be ready, but on their terms. By asking for signs, they reveal that they want to be able to spread out their preparations, they want to be in control. After all this time with Jesus, they have failed to understand that discipleship means giving their lives completely to God, submitting entirely to God’s will and absolutely trusting God with their future. In other words, ceding all control to God.

Scenes of chaos and destruction, images of thieves who catch a home-owner unprepared are a reminder that planning such as the disciples envisage is impossible. No one can go without sleep forever. 

The only plan is to be ready NOW – to admit that our future is in God’s hands, to surrender our lives to God in the present, to trust that whatever life throws at us, God will be with us; and to know in our hearts that if God/Jesus were suddenly to come among us we would not need to be afraid because our hearts would already be God’s, we would already be confident of God’s unconditional love and we would not hide in fear but welcome God with open arms. 

Being ready, being watchful is not the same as being afraid. Being prepared doesn’t mean planning, it means being ready now – knowing that we already beloved, just as we are. It means waiting and watching with quiet anticipation for that time when God will come and when all things including ourselves will be gathered into God’s kingdom.

God has given Godself to us. This Advent let us make sure. That we have given ourselves to God.

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Following a star – taking risks

January 4, 2025

Epiphany – 2025

Matthew 2:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God, tantalisingly mysterious, and always out of reach. Amen.

“If the wise men gave Jesus gold, why was he poor?” This was a question that my great nephew posed recently. My sister deferred to me for an answer. I confess that I was stumped. In over 50 years of teaching Sunday School and Religious Education and over 30 years of preaching, no one has ever wondered (aloud) what happened to the gifts of the magi. Scholars have pondered over the number of the magi (we know there were three gifts, but not how many magi there were) and have speculated on their role in Matthew’s story. Song writers have given meaning to the gifts and names to three magi, but to date I do not recall anyone wondering what happened to the gifts.  

The magi are exotic and unfamiliar.  They appear only in the account of the birth of Jesus but are never mentioned again.  There are tantalisingly few details to the story. We know almost nothing about these three strangers, where they came from, whether they knew each other before their journey, or why they noticed the star (when no one else appeared to see it). We are not told how they got to Jerusalem, and then to Bethlehem.  Did they travel by foot, by donkey or by camel?  Not knowing from where they came, we do not know whether or where they stopped on the way. We assume they were well off because they have treasure chests, but we have no idea how well off. If they were wealthy, did they arrive with a retinue of servants and if so, were there places in ancient that could accommodate large numbers of important guests?

The magi capture our imagination simply because they are mysterious. They have access to secret knowledge, they not only notice, but they understand the meaning of a new star in the sky, and they are in possession of treasure chests of rare and wonderous gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh. They appear out of nowhere and then disappear out of view. 

It is only Matthew who mentions the magi and the star, and he tells us only what he wants us to know.  We want to know so much more. Instead of trying to understand Matthew’s purpose in including the magi in the story, we are tempted to focus on the details – the missing details. In art and song, theology and story we have named three of the magi – Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar – have given them countries of origin – Arabia, Persia and India and have built legends around them. Matthew’s expression “magi” (Gk magous), meaning wise man or magician can make us uncomfortable. So based on Old Testament texts like those we’ve read this morning, we are tempted to call them kings. Alternatively, we try to give definition to the notion of “wise men” – suggesting that they were astrologers, philosophers, students of the mysterious, or the intellectuals and scientists of their times. 

The truth is that we do not know any more than Matthew chooses to tell us and Matthew tells us only what he wants us to know. Matthew did not envisage that his magi would delight his readers to the point that they would build myths around them. Matthew’s intention was that the magi, and their visit to the Christ child would (rather like the star) point us to the deeper meaning of their presence in the story. If we focus on why the magi are part of the story, we will see that that they play a number of roles, roles that both inform and challenge our faith.

In no particular order: 

  1. The magi study the scriptures and pay attention to the changes in the world around them. They discern that a change in the heavens suggests that the divine is at work in the world.
  2. The magi are open to God’s action in the world and do not limit their understanding of God to a narrow, formulaic, static vision of the divine. They see the possibility that God might be known in ways they have not yet experienced or thought of. 
  3. The magi have the courage to step out of their comfort zone, to take risks of faith, to follow a sign even though they do not know where it will lead.
  4. The magi pay attention to the voice of the divine communicating through a dream. 
  5. The magi contribute to Matthew’s desire to demonstrate that Jesus is the fulfilment of prophecy; “so it has been written by the prophet” he claims of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.
  6. The magi introduce Matthew’s intention to defend the inclusion of the Gentiles in the emerging church. (Even though he will have Jesus say to the disciples: “Go only to the lost sheep of Israel.”) In this, the most Jewish of the gospels, Matthew begins and ends with those outside the fold. Here at the beginning, these non-Jewish magi seek Jesus out and pay homage to him. As the gospel concludes Jesus will send the disciples out into every nation.
  7. The magi identify Jesus as the “King of the Jews”, the title which will be given to him by Pilate on the cross. At the same time, their presence sets the scene for conflict. Another king in Palestine, however legitimate, will create divided loyalties, something that cannot be tolerated in Caesar’s Empire.
  8. The magi give to Jesus gifts that are precious and rare (and which may have the deeper meaning that have since been attributed to them.)

Our fascination with these mysterious and wondrous characters is intended to encourage us to delve deeper – not to be distracted by creating legends – filling in the gaps with names, professions and countries. Our task is  to ask ourselves what purpose they serve in Matthew’s account, what they have to tell us today, and how might they challenge our own faith lives.

Do we continually study our scripture so that we might see what we have not yet seen? Have we allowed our image of God to become calcified, limited and unchanging? Has our faith become limited by creed and dogma? Can we allow ourselves to believe that just as the ancient faith of the Israelites expanded to include Gentiles, that God might yet have something new in store for us? Are we willing to take steps into the unknown, confident that God will lead us? When we see Jesus are we overwhelmed with joy?

If we answer “no” to any of those questions perhaps it is time to seek out the star and follow wherever it is that God is leading us.

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Sheep or goat?

November 25, 2023

Pentecost 26 – 2023

Matthew 25:31-46

Marian Free

 

In the name of God to whom we must one day give an account. Amen.

I am of English heritage and, having grown up in Australia, when I think of  I envisage white (off white) balls of wool with short legs, so I was surprised when on a visit to Israel I saw a Bedouin shepherd leading what I thought was a flock of goats – brown, long ‘hair’, long legs. It turns out that they were in fact sheep – hence shepherd! I have since learnt that there are a number of breeds of sheep that the ignorant (me) mistake for goats. Knowing this adds a whole different layer of meaning to the parable of the sheep and the goats. Most of us approach parable with a visual image of sheep and goats that are easily distinguishable, but this is Palestine where, as I have observed, the sheep look very much like goats (and vice versa). In other words, the externals do not give a clear clue to the nature of the creature.

 

In this parable, all the nations are gathered before the Son of Man who, with a discerning eye, separates them into two groups as a shepherd would separate the sheep from the goats. It is clear from the responses to the judge that, until the shepherd makes the distinction, those gathered do not know into which group they will be placed. The ‘sheep’ do not believe that they have done anything out of the ordinary and the ‘goats’ do not believe that they have omitted to do anything that they could/should have done.

 

It is easy to read this parable with a certain amount of complacency, to be confident that our faith, our behaviour, our ‘goodness’ is a guarantee that we will find ourselves among the sheep. After all, we profess a belief in Jesus, we have done good works throughout our lives, and we have not broken the Ten Commandments. We believe ourselves to be ‘good’ in the sense that we are not bad. We obey the law of the land, we care for our families, we support our church and other community groups and try not to cause harm to others. The problem is (as the parable makes clear) we are no different from the majority of the communities in which we find ourselves – our faith alone does not distinguish us, on the surface we are like any other ‘good’ person, just as likely to be surprised to find ourselves among the goats as those in the parable.

 

If it is not our outward behaviour, what is it that would distinguish us as sheep? If faith in Jesus is not a ‘get out of jail free card’ what is?

 

In the parable what distinguishes the sheep from the goats is they way in which they have treated the hungry, the thirsty, the stronger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. In first century, where a culture of hospitality ruled and in which communities were sufficiently small that one might know one’s neighbour and the conditions under which they lived, it was relatively easy to identify the hungry, thirsty and sick. In a world in which there was no social welfare and in which prisons were hell holes and prisoners were totally reliant on family and friends it was evident who did and who did not need help.

 

In a more complex in a world in which our cities house more people than we could know in several lifetimes, in which prisons provide for at least the basic needs, in which social welfare supports the most vulnerable and in which there is a public health system, the ways

in which we can feed the hungry, heal the sick and visit the prisoner are less obvious. We can pay our taxes so that the state can support the poor and we can give to charities that assist those who fall through the cracks, but face-to-face help is increasingly difficult to give.

 

In this country and in this day and age, I suggest that it is attitude that differentiates the sheep from the goats. The sheep are those who don’t ask how someone got to be poor, an addict or a prisoner, but who see the person (the Christ) in the face of the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned. The sheep are those who give to the deserving and the undeserving alike and who make an effort to understand the forces – external or self-inflicted – that have led to their current situation. The sheep are those who live according to the example that Jesus set and the sheep are those who see the face of Jesus in the face of every person in need.

 

It’s not just what we do, but what we think. It is not just what we don’t do (keeping the law), but what we do do – standing for justice, caring for the more vulnerable – that matters. The Son of Man will judge us according to the state of our heart, the depth of our compassion and the level of our understanding of how people end up where they are, and what drives them to do what they do.

 

Over the past two weeks, I have challenged traditional interpretations of two of Matthew’s parables that are associated with the return of Jesus. In particular I have wondered whether Jesus is to be associated with the bridegroom who locks people out of the wedding, and whether the third slave – labelled lazy and wicked because he buries his talent – is actually the one who most models Jesus’ behaviour. If that has led you to think that we can relax and that there will no judgement, then I am about to disappoint you.

 

I may not think that the door will be locked against the foolish or that the cautious will be cast into outer darkness, but I do believe that there will come a time when we will have to stand before God and answer for our lives – for what we have done and what we have not done for others and, just importantly for what we have thought and how we have justified our lack of action.

 

We may not be thrown into outer darkness, but when we stand before the throne, we will see ourselves as God sees us and that may be punishment enough!

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Talents an investment, or exploitation – is the third slave the one most like Jesus?

November 18, 2023

Pentecost 25 – 2023

Matthew 25:14-30

Marian Free

In the name of God to whom we must one day give an account of our lives. Amen.

When you think of God what images come to mind?  Are you drawn to images of a vengeful, harsh, and unforgiving God, or are the first images that come to you of a baby in a manger or a broken body on a cross? Do you subscribe to a God who condemns the foolish and the timid to an eternity of hellfire or to a God, who on the cross forgives someone who will never be able to make redress for his crimes?

These are important questions when it comes to reading the parables of Matthew 25 – the ten virgins and the landowner who entrusted slaves with his (not insignificant) property. Also, at issue in the interpretation of these two passages is how we try to make sense of parables. If we fall into the trap of making them into allegories, we are faced with the task of trying to work out who the various characters in the stories stand for. That is, who do the foolish virgins represent? Who is the slave who buries money? And perhaps most significantly who is the extremely wealthy man who chooses to entrust over 14 million dollars to three of his slaves –   and why would he do that? And why would the landowner distinguish between the slaves, giving one 5 talents, another two and third only one?

There are other questions. Does the parable of the virgins really condone the selfish behaviour of the wise virgins? If the bridegroom represents Jesus, does the one who forgave a criminal from the cross really lock people out forever? And most disturbingly of all is the temptation to associate the landowner with God. If Jesus means us to understand the landowner as God that would mean that Jesus is comparing God: “to a harsh man, who reaps where he does not sow, and gathers where he does not scatter seed” (which is the accusation that the third slave makes and which the master affirms in his reply.) 

Is God then an exploitative businessman, determined to make a profit at whatever the cost to others?

Trying to come up with a literal interpretation of a parable rarely works, because the intention of a parable is not so much to make sense, as to raise questions and to force us to think differently. 

A traditional interpretation of the parable (which relies on a conflation of both Matthew’s and Luke’s retelling) is that the landowner is God, and that we are the slaves who have been given talents (abilities) to use until Jesus’ return. The expectation is that we will put our talents to good use – so that they increase in value or make a contribution to society or to the church.  If we don’t use them, we can expect to be “justly” punished by a demanding and unforgiving God.

There are a number of problems with this version. One is the assumption that the landowner is God, the second is that “talents” refers to gifts and abilities, when in fact it refers to cold, hard cash (and lots of it) and a third is that the last slave deserved his condemnation because he didn’t make the best use of his money. Finally, this interpretation contradicts what Jesus says and how Jesus behaves. Jesus consistently eats with tax- collectors and prostitutes and he informs the self-righteous that sinners will enter the kingdom of heaven before them. Jesus condemns the rich who do not share their riches and applauds the widow who gives her last penny. Throughout his ministry, Jesus lives out the unconditional love of God and on the cross, demonstrates the extent of that love, even for the undeserving. Never, in the course of his ministry does Jesus take advantage of others or use them for his personal gain.

So, I want to put it to you that there is another way to view the parable, a way that gives back to the parable its intention to confront, to shock and to challenge. 

In the first century, a vast number of the population lived on or below the poverty line and that included people with a trade like Paul. The wealthy 1% of the population had made or increased their wealth at the expense of others. Our landowner (and remember he is fictitious). would almost certainly have been given land – land that belonged to others – in recognition of his military service. Instead of using the land to grow staples like wheat that would have fed the local citizens, he would have planted grapes or another crop that he could sell and make a profit. This would leave the population not only impoverished, but also hungry.  This landowner has done sufficiently well that he has something like $14m lying around to invest. 

He entrusts the money to three of his slaves, who in their turn, are free to take some of the profits for themselves – possibly by lending it to the less fortunate and charging exorbitant interest.

What if, in this scenario, the third slave was not in fact lazy or wicked, but rather the only one of the three who had the courage to resist the corruption and greed that had allowed the landowner to amass such a vast amount of wealth? What if, the third slave was making a stand by refusing to be a party to the landowner’s exploitative, oppressive, grasping desire to enrich himself? What if the third slave, the one who risks his own life so that others might live, is the one whose behaviour we are to model, the one whose behaviour is most like that of Jesus? –  who, need I remind you, was himself cast into the outer darkness because he dared to confront the self-seeking, corrupt officials of his own time.

Now, that really does overturn our past ways of thinking. 

What if, in the time between now and Jesus’ return, we were to challenge the unjust systems that benefit the rich at the expense of the poor and which allow 46 million people to live below the poverty line? What if, in the time between now and Jesus’ return, we were to confront the forces that lead to war, persecution, and human rights violations that have led to 108.4 million people being displaced. What if, in the time between now and Jesus’ return, we were to tackle the issue of homelessness and the housing crisis in our own backyard?

What if we, like the third slave, were to resist the temptation to conform, and instead stood against injustice and oppression?

If, just if,  we, and all God’s people, would indeed see what the kingdom of heaven will be like. (Mt. 25:1) 

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The foolish virgins – is it really about oil?

November 11, 2023

Pentecost 24 – 2023

Matthew 25:1-13

Marian Free

In the name of God to whom we must one day answer. Amen.

It is important to remember that the intention of parables to tease, to disturb, to unsettle, to make us see things differently or to give us new insights. They are not, as I have said many times, meant to be dissected, turned into allegories, or forced to make absolute sense. If we worry too much about detail – won’t it be just as difficult to separate the wheat from the weeds when they are full grown – we are bound to miss the central point – in this case that good and bad exist together, in the world and in each of us.

Today’s parable is no exception. The parable of the locked-out virgins is both disturbing and confusing. It is only natural for us to try to make sense of it – especially as we are given only the bare outline. There is no context and some elements that might help us to make sense of the story are missing. (Because it is not a story.) We are not helped by the fact that the translators translate “parthenos” as “bridesmaids” which immediately gives us a mental picture of a modern day bridesmaid and means that we impose something of our twenty first century idea of weddings on to the scenario.

The Greek word “parthenos” is much better translated “virgins”. Whatever their role, these are young women who are not old enough to be married, and who, in the first century were under the protection of their father. So, the first odd thing to notice is that these young (and presumably vulnerable) girls, were being left alone at night and that apparently so little thought was given to their safety that the bridegroom could delay his return. The parable begins “ten virgins went out to meet the bridegroom.” This implies that he was already on his way. Why did the virgins go out if he wasn’t in fact coming? What delayed him? We are not told. 

Why are the five “foolish” girls told to go the dealers? We know it is midnight and, as other parables affirm, all decent people will have gone to bed, they certainly won’t be touting their wares in the market. If the bridegroom has arrived there is reason why the girls who did bring oil could not share it. Between them they only need enough oil to light the way in – there will be light enough inside. 

We are not even told that the role of the girls was to light the bridegroom’s way. Whatever it was that caused him to be delayed, he and his party would have known it was dark and would have made provision for light.

As I have said, it is not the intention of a parable to make perfect sense. There are no easy answers to the questions that I have raised. Even trying to understand the cultural context doesn’t help. We know very little about first century marriage practices and would only be guessing as to what might happen in rural Palestine.

So, what is the point that the parable is making? What is the lesson that we are meant to take away? What is it that we are to learn from the “foolish” girls’ behaviour – for surely it is in their exclusion from the party – the shut door, the lack of recognition – that the message lies. 

A clue to the parable’s meaning is found in its context within the gospel. At the beginning of the previous chapter the disciples ask Jesus: “What will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” The remainder of chapter 24 and most of chapter 25 deal with the question of Jesus’ return – and how the community are to behave in the in-between time. There is an emphasis in these chapters on the fact that no one (not even Jesus) knows exactly when the coming of the Son of Man will be and that, for this reason, it is incumbent on believers to maintain a state of wakefulness so that they are not unprepared. 

In this parable all the girls fell asleep. What did the five foolish girls do, or not do, that led to their exclusion from the party? 

I’d like to hazard a guess. It seems that the “foolish” girls, thought that having light was more important than being around to greet the groom (which, we are told at the start was their one role in this wedding celebration). Further, they apparently had little confidence in the bridegroom’s affection for them (after all they are his guests, if not his family). They seem to have believed that their presence at the party was dependent on their having enough oil. Instead of relying on their relationship with the groom (and presumably with all the other guests), they were determined to be self-sufficient – disappearing into the night, just as he was arriving. 

It is tempting to focus on the closed door and the harsh words of the groom, but the focus should be on the five girls who weren’t there to greet him, who were paying more attention to themselves and their lack of oil rather than on his joy, the girls who wanted to prove that they were self-sufficient rather than rely on the groom’s generosity, the girls who thought that only if they got everything right would they be accepted.  The door may be shut, but perhaps they locked themselves out.

The gospels constantly remind us that we are loved unconditionally and that the tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom first. Being ready (awake) is not about how much oil we do or do not have, but upon our accepting that we are loved just as we are – with all our imperfections. 

In 2023, it is almost impossible to feel any sense of urgency about Jesus’ return, but from the five foolish girls we can learn that, with or without oil we are loved, that the door is open if we have courage to go in  (however unprepared we feel) and that allowing ourselves to trust in God’s goodness is the best preparation we  can make for Jesus’ coming again. 

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Give to Caesar

October 21, 2023

Pentecost 21 – 2023
Matthew 22:15-33
Marian Free

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

In 2008 a movie, Frost/Nixon, recreated the famous 1977 interview during which aspiring talk show host Peter Frost was able to squeeze from President Nixon a confession that he had engaged in unethical behaviour. Nixon even said: “When the President does it, it’s not illegal.” At that point the President’s minders interrupted the interview, but by then Frost had the upper hand. He progressively pursued his line of questioning and managed to extract a confession that the President had engaged in a cover up. At the conclusion of the interview President Nixon said: “Sometimes you say things that are really in your heart, when you are thinking in advance then you say things that are a terror to the audience. I let down my friends. I let down the country, I let down our system of government all the dreams of those young people that ought to get into government but who will think it’s all too corrupt and the rest. And I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life .”

This interview was the making of Frost’s career. A skilled interviewer – Michael Parkinson, Andrew Dent – is able, by lulling the guest into a (false?) sense of security or as in the case of Frost/Nixon through careful background research and dogged questioning, to get the interviewee to reveal something they might otherwise have preferred to have kept to themselves.

Something like this is going on in today’s gospel.

The inclusion of the three previous parables (tenants in the vineyard, the wedding banquet) breaks the flow and makes it difficult to see that our gospel narrative (as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago) is part of a report of the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day. This is not as simple as it first appears. Judaism, then as now, was not a monolithic religion. Just as today the major world religions are divided into numerous sects so too the Judaism of the first century. The New Testament mentions a number of these groups – the Sadducees who governed the Temple, the Pharisees who, believing the Temple to be corrupt, relied instead on their interpretation of the law, the Zealots, who actively resisted Rome, and the Herodians about whom we know little, but whose name suggests that they supported Rome. Normally these different groups would be in conflict with other, but in the face of a common threat – Jesus – they appear to have joined forces. In this section of the gospel, each group tries in turn tries to trap Jesus in order to embarrass him in front of the crowds or to expose his subversive views so that Rome might be compelled to take action against him.

First of all the Chief Priests and elders ask Jesus a question about authority. What/who gave him the authority to teach, to heal and to chase the money changers from the Temple? Jesus turns the question back to them – “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” The Chief Priests are unable to answer.

Next it is turn of the Pharisees, who instead of confronting Jesus themselves send their disciples and the Herodians. Given that a direct approach has failed, Jesus’ opponents use flattery as a means to soften him up, to put him off his guard and hopefully to trick him into saying something that he might later regret – something that will either give the Romans an excuse to arrest him or that will diminish his influence over the people.

“Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?” they ask. Jesus is aware of their strategy. If he says, “yes” they can question his loyalty to God. If he says, “no” he will be seen to be undermining the authority of the Empire. Jesus’ antagonists believe that they have placed him in an impossible position. But this is Jesus whose response is both strategic and theologically sound. By asking for a coin – a denarius – he is able to illustrate his point. The coin was minted by the Empire and bears the emperor’s image. No matter what people might think of the foreign occupation, the coin makes it clear that Palestine is – at present – part of a greater whole. Like it or not, citizens are bound up with the economic system of the Empire. Without the coin they cannot engage in commerce or in day-to-day transactions. Their existence is integrally related to that of the Empire. “Give to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s,” Jesus says. He deftly avoids making a definitive answer or taking sides – things are never as simple as they seem.

Then Jesus deals with the unspoken question – does “loyalty” to the Empire diminish loyalty to God? Of course not. Paying taxes to Caesar is a consequence of the current state of the world, a world over which God has ultimate control.

Jesus’ response (as the Greek has it) – “the of God to God” – is deliberately vague. Presumably, as God is the creator of all things, then all things are “of God” – even Caesar . We do not have t worry. about the detail. Focusing on minor details, such as the payment of taxes can be a distraction, an excuse not to engage with the overarching reality that ultimately all things are God’s and trying to separate out, to exclude things from God’s oversight becomes (as it was for Jesus’ interrogators) a means of not acknowledging God’s ultimate lordship. To whom we do or not do pay taxes in the present, is of little significance in the light of God’s all-embracing love and power that has existed from before time and will continue beyond time.

For those of us reading these words centuries later, the message is this: Instead of worrying about minutiae, we are asked simply to place ourselves in the hands of the living God, to trust God with our present and our future and to allow the small irritations (like paying taxes) to work themselves out. After all, all things are of God, and we are to give God the things that are God’s – including our very selves.

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An undressed guest – an act of resistance?

October 14, 2023

Pentecost 20 – 2023
Matthew 22:1-14
Marian Free

In the name of God who gave us life, Jesus who challenged cultural norms and the Spirit who gives us courage to stand for what is right. Amen.

I have just finished reading the novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. The novel is an account of a number of children whose lives intersect during and after the Second World War. One sub-plot concerns a ‘school’ that trains (increasingly) young boys to join Hitler’s war. It is, as you can imagine a particularly brutal place. The boys are selected according to their Aryan appearance and physical or mental abilities. They are expected to do everything they are asked without question – even when it involves jumping from a great height into the arms of the boys below or beating a fellow student with a rubber hose because he is deemed to be the weakest in the group.

Frederick does not really belong – he is physically small and needs glasses. It appears that his presence at the school has nothing to do with him and everything to do with his father’s position. He is resigned to having no control over his life and we learn that he was only accepted into the school because his mother helped him to learn the eye chart by heart. Frederick has an air of resignation, he does everything required of him and bears, without complaint, the beating he receives for being singled out as the slowest boy in the group.

One winter’s night, all the boys in Frederick’s year group are taken from their beds and made to stand in the courtyard. Snow lies on the ground and the boys are freezing. While they wait, wondering why they are there, an emaciated and ragged prisoner is paraded before them. After the prisoner’s crimes are listed, the boys are a given a bucket of water in turn and ordered to throw it on the prisoner. For fear of the consequences everyone complies. Everyone that is, except Frederick. When it comes to his turn, Frederick empties the bucket on to the ground. He is given another bucket – which he empties and another. “I will not,” he says.

Several nights later his bunk mate, Werner, notices that Frederick is not in his bed. When Werner goes to the infirmary in search of his friend he is confronted by bloodied sheets, but no Frederick. Years later Werner discovers that Frederick had been beaten so badly by his fellow students that he had suffered brain damage and was confined to a wheelchair. The compliant child discovered that there was a point beyond which he would not go. His non-compliance had the most awful consequences.

Resistance is costly as the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize can attest. Narges Mohammidi is an Iranian activist who is serving 30 years in prison as a consequence of her struggle for human rights (democracy, freedom, and equality) in Iran. Not only has she been imprisoned but she is not allowed any contact with her husband or children. Narges is only one of thousands who resist oppression, cruelty and injustice and who pay a terrible price for struggling for justice.

Today’s parable about a king who prepares a wedding banquet, guests who not only offend the king but who offer poor excuses or worse, beat and kill the slaves, a king who retaliates by killing the offenders and razing their city and inviting others (good and bad) to the banquet, and who finally tosses a hapless guest into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is a bloodthirsty, vengeful story worthy of Game of Thrones and tells us nothing of God’s love, goodness, and mercy.

Taken at face value, this parable is notoriously difficult to understand, especially the addition about the guest without a garment. While it is possible to bring some cultural factors into play in our interpretation – refusing a king’s invitation being an attack on the honour of the king and the king’s vengeance a means of restoring that honour – we are still left with a capricious and violent king whose reaction to being slighted appears excessive – both in terms of the reaction to the original guests and the response to the underdressed late comer. It leaves us wondering what the parablecould possibly tell us about the kingdom of God.

Many of us grow up missing the detail of the aggression of the insulted king, but very aware of the ‘rudeness’ of the guest without the appropriate clothes. You, like me might have memories of Sunday School lessons in which a teacher told us with some authority that there was a custom of a host providing wedding dress for the guests. We were led to believe the king (God) was absolutely justified in treating the ‘ungrateful’ guest in the way that he did. The takeaway from the parable was that we should be – be grateful or else!

There are many scholarly attempts to come to terms with this parable, but I was particularly taken with Debie Thomas’ reflection . She questions her/my Sunday School lessons and the attitude that it fosters – the arrogance that believes that the unclothed (not us) deserve a shocking and vicious consequence for their ingratitude. She asks: “do we really believe in a God as petty, vengeful, hotheaded, and thin-skinned as the king in this parable?” (and what does it say of us if we do??)

Debie wonders: “Here’s one possibility: What if the “God” figure in the parable is the one guest who refuses to accept the terms of the tyrannical king? The one guest who decides not to “wear the robe” of forced celebration and coerced hilarity, the one guest whose silent resistance leaves the king himself “speechless,” and brings the whole sham feast to a thundering halt? The one brave guest who decides he’d rather be “bound hand and foot,” and cast into the outer darkness of Gethsemane, Calvary, the cross, and the grave, than accept the authority of a violent, loveless sovereign?”

This is an interpretation that I can live with, one that honours the parable’s intention to shock us out of our complacency into a new and radical way of thinking. The depiction of the heedless, selfish guests, the affronted king and the excessive response becomes a description of the world as it is, and the underdressed guest is the one who resists aggression and who pays the ultimate price for his resistance.

What is our image of God and what price are we prepared to pay in our resistance to a violent and divided world?

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Choosing to challenge God – the question about authority

September 29, 2023

Pentecost 18 – 2023
Matthew 21:23-32
Marian Free
In the name of God, source of all being, word of life, Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today’s gospel belongs with a series of controversy stories that are found in all three Synoptic gospels. In these, various religious leaders approach Jesus and ask a question – about authority, about taxes, and about the resurrection. There are three groups of protagonists, but their goal is the same. They want to trap Jesus, to discredit him in front of his followers and at the same time to demonstrate their own wisdom and wit and to regain their authority over the people.

First century Judaism not a monolithic faith. Like most religions what we call Judaism, was and is, made up of a number of sub-groups who while holding the same belief in one God, expressed that belief in different ways and with different practices. The Pharisees, believing that Temple worship was corrupt, sought to find salvation through a deeper understanding of the law – they believed in the resurrection. On the other hand, the Sadducees, the religious elite, were responsible for the maintenance of the Temple. They did not believe in the resurrection. Another group, the Essenes, were so disenchanted with the Temple, that they had withdrawn to caves in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. Though representatives of the various groups generally kept to themselves, faced with a common threat – Jesus and his teaching – they were more than happy to join forces (as the controversy stories demonstrate).

It must be said that, at this point, Jesus has done nothing to endear himself to the leaders of the church. He is now in Jerusalem having entered the city in a most provocative manner, cheered on by crowds who welcomed him as the son of David. Then, instead of trying to be inconspicuous, Jesus has visited the Temple, where he became so enraged that he overturned tables and drove the traders from the Temple precincts. These are hardly the actions of a man who wants to remain under the radar.

This morning’s gospel finds him back in the Temple – where he will spend every day before his arrest. It is little wonder that the church leaders want to reassert their authority in this, their space and to regain for themselves the attention of the crowds.

So begins a contest of wills. First of all, the chief priests and the elders approach him with the question of authority. Then the Pharisees send their disciples, along with the Herodians to ask Jesus whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not (surely not, they think he will say). Finally, the Sadducees arrive with a question about the resurrection: if a woman is widowed six times and if each time, she marries her husband’s brother whose wife will she be in the resurrection?
As we will see, Jesus is not only able to rise to the occasion, but his responses to the questions, rather than reveal his ignorance, expose the weaknesses of his opponents. Worse, for them, Jesus tells a parable (not this one) which the chief priests and Pharisees, rightly or wrongly believe is aimed at them.

Matthew presents the controversies in the same order as that found in Mark’s gospel, but he adds more parables to illustrate the point – including that of the two sons included in today’s gospel.

The first question relates to Jesus’ action in the Temple. “By what authority are you doing these things?” the chief priests and elders ask him. What, they want to know, gives Jesus permission to challenge years of practice and to drive people from the Temple when they are legitimately going about their business. It is in the Temple in particular that the religious leaders exercise authority. By taking it on himself to drive out the money changers, Jesus is directly challenging their authority and they, the chief priests and elders, are quite within their rights to confront him – who gives him authority to do what he has done?

Jesus will not be drawn in by their attempt to ensnare him. First, they must answer his question – a question, which as we can see, puts them in a double bind. Did the baptism of John come from God? If they say one thing, they will put the crowd offside (the exact opposite of what they are trying to do). If they say the other, they will be revealing their failure to accept that God was at work in John. The issue is further complicated by the fact they have to some extent supported John’s ministry – some of the Pharisees and Sadducees went out to the Jordan to be baptised (3:7) and if they say that John’s baptism was of God, they have to accept that Jesus’ authority comes from God (John, being the forerunner of Jesus).

Having stumped his questioners, Jesus presses home his advantage with the parable about the two sons, and then another about the tenants in the vineyard. In this first parable, Jesus’ point is that it is not the smug and self-righteous (those who question him) who will enter the kingdom first, but the tax collectors and prostitutes (those who are all too aware of their sinfulness).

As we will see over the next few weeks, Jesus simply cannot be second-guessed. Jesus, knowing the mind of God will surprise, disturb, and challenge those who question him, those who think that they know all there is to know about God and God’s purposes in the world. It is those who know their shortcomings who, unsure of themselves, will be open and responsive to what Jesus has to say and to what Jesus will reveal.

Who are we – those who are sure they know all that needs to be known and are caught off guard when God does something unexpected, or are we among those who knowing our own weaknesses understand that we do not and cannot know God and are happily surprised when God behaves in ways that we had not anticipated?

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Enough is enough – labourers in the vineyard

September 23, 2023

Pentecost 17 – 2023
Matthew 20:1-16
Marian Free

In the name of God who gives us all that we need. Amen.

Each received a days’ wage, and yet some grumbled against the householder.

It is not often that one of the Sunday readings provides something of a commentary on another, but such is the case this morning – a reflection on what is going on in the Exodus, resonates with the parable that Jesus’ relates in Matthew’s gospel. In both accounts there is a lot of grumbling going on and though the situations are vastly different in time and context, it is clear that in every age, the people of God find it impossible to trust God and to believe in or accept God’s generosity.

Meg Jenista’s commentary on Exodus 16 this week touched a chord for me . She writes: “The waters of the Red Sea have barely even crashed back together. The victory song has barely even faded off Miriam’s lips. The Israelites have barely even finished filling their canteens at an oasis with twelve springs and 70 palm branches.

“But out in that desert, the people of God melt into a collective toddler tantrum – I mean it really does help if you can imagine them sinking onto the sand like overtired two year olds, flailing and wailing pitifully. “If only we had died in Egypt. Everything was so great in Egypt and God is so mean to bring us here. Moses is so dumb! And now we’re going to die of hunger. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to us.””

Only weeks before, the same people were bent low under the iron fist of Pharoah, making bricks (without the straw needed to bind them), forced to meet impossible deadlines, and impelled to kill any male child born to them. Now, having been miraculously rescued by God (who sent plagues to terrorize the Egyptians) and brought through the Red Sea by the parting of the waters they are safely on their way to the Promised Land. But is this enough for them? – no it is not! These former slaves want more. God might have brought them out of Egypt, but despite everything they have witnessed and experienced, they are unable to trust that God will take care of them in the desert and bring them safely to their destination. (At least in Egypt – awful as it was – they knew where they stood.)

Jenista goes on to point out that, instead of chiding them for their ingratitude, God provides food manna and quail –with a proviso – they are only to gather as much as they need for one day, except on the Sabbath when they are to gather two days’ worth. You would think that when they see what God has provided, they would trust God to continue to provide? But, no! What if there is none tomorrow? So, they gather more than they need, only to discover that it does not last and there is more each day. It seems that whatever God does for them is not sufficient. They have been slaves too long to feel truly secure. They cannot let go of the fear that there will not be enough food for tomorrow. They are still in the grip of a world-view that says that leaders are oppressors who cannot be trusted. They cannot let go of the belief that they have to look out themselves, because no one else will look out for them and they cannot accept that they are of value to anyone just as they are (as opposed to what they can be used for).

These are beliefs and fears that cannot be unlearned in a generation, and they are the sort of fears and beliefs that seem to lie behind the grumbling in today’s parable.
As is the case with all the parables, it is not our task to make sense of the details – like why the householder went into the marketplace on five successive occasions – surely he knew early in the morning just how many workers he needed for the day! What is important to note is that each time he went to the marketplace he saw labourers waiting to be hired, and he hired them. Nor is it up to us to wonder why – at nine, noon, three and five – there were more labourers waiting to be hired – surely they were there at dawn! The salient point is that a householder who needs help with a vineyard, hires people at different points during the day. With the first he has a “contract” – he and they agree that he will pay them the usual daily wage. With the remainder, he simply says: “I will pay you whatever is right.”

We all know the story, those who worked only an hour are paid for a full day’s work, and those who worked for the entire day are paid what they agreed to – the usual daily wage. Our outrage matches that of those who have worked all day. “It’s not fair!” we think to ourselves. Those who worked longer should get more (no matter what they agreed to). We don’t stop to think, that those who worked for one hour, three hours, six hours or nine hours also have families who need to be fed, nor do we consider that those who worked for a day will have enough to meet their commitments at least for a time. Our idea of equity is that some get more than others. The householder’s idea of equity is that everyone gets enough.

Despite ourselves, our lives are governed by a need to prove ourselves, a desire to be recognised, an anxiety that we will not have enough (or that what we have will be taken away). In order to feel secure and to feel valued we, like the Israelites in the desert expect God to do, to give us more than enough and, like those who have worked all day, we want to be marked out as special, more deserving.

It would be so much better if we trusted God to give us what we need, and to be content with the knowledge that God wants everyone to have enough.

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Forgiven and free

September 16, 2023

Pentecost 16 – 2023
Matthew 18:21-35
Marian Free

In the name of God who has overlooked all our sins and who wants only what is best for us. Amen.

Forgiveness is perhaps the most misunderstood of Christian teaching. This is a consequence of a number of things: we turn it into an instruction – You must forgive (or else), we fail to understand that ultimately forgiveness is something that God does, and finally, we forget that there is no sliding scale when it comes to being perfect which means that as none of us is perfect, all of us need forgiveness.

A lifetime’s experience tells me that turning forgiveness into a commandment is not helpful. This approach fails to capture the nuances of forgiveness – for example, forgiveness does not mean overlooking sin, it doesn’t mean condoning bad behaviour or that there are no consequences for causing hurt, breaking the law or doing the wrong thing. On the other side of this equation, forgiveness may mean stepping into another’s shoes and trying to understand what drives them to act the way they do. It may mean giving the other the resources – education, housing, employment – so that they can address those things that lie beneath the outward expression of confusion or pain . Turning forgiveness into a commandment not only ignores the subtleties of forgiveness, but creates a situation in which a person who has been deeply hurt and traumatised, is further traumatised by feelings of inadequacy and guilt when they cannot find a way to forgive and have to hand the situation over to God.

Forgiveness, like most of the things that God asks of us, is ultimately for our benefit – not God’s. God knows that our lives will be fuller and richer if we are able to let go past wrongs and hurts, rather than harbouring resentments which only serve to make us bitter and unhappy and do nothing to restore a damaged relationship. In fact, more often than not, the one who has caused offense is not affected at all as a consequence of our failure to forgive – we are only hurting ourselves. As Anne Lamont said in her memoir Traveling Mercies: withholding forgiveness is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die .

That said, there are some things that are almost impossible to forgive. Torture and sexual abuse for example, leave scars that are so deep and so painful that it may take years of recovery before the victim is able to move forward, let alone heal. In such cases the wounded may only have the strength to hand forgiveness over to God. Corrie ten Boom, an internee of some of the Nazi’s worst labour camps, spent a lifetime after the war preaching forgiveness. She tells the story of an evening when, after she had delivered her message, she was approached by a man whom she instantly recognised as a guard who had treated her beloved sister particularly badly. The man said to her, I know that God has forgiven me, but I would like to hear that you have too. In that moment Corrie froze. She simply could not reach out her hand to take his. All that she had said, all that she genuinely believed could not at that moment be put into action. In that moment the pain and hurt of her experience was still too raw. Corrie could only pray and as she prayed, she felt her arm move and her hand take that of her sister’s tormenter. In that moment it was God, not she who extended forgiveness .

In order to truly forgive, many of us need to be reminded of our own need for forgiveness, and to feel the sense of awe that we, who are so far from the glory of God have been forgiven and set free. It is this aspect of forgiveness that today’s parable addresses. A slave owes a king ten thousand talents – an amount of money few of us could imagine – well over one billion US dollars! Remember this is a parable – Jesus is not suggesting that the king or the slave would have that much money, but rather that the debt is beyond anyone’s ability to pay and that the forgiveness of such a debt is unbelievable! Certainly, the reaction of the slave indicates that he can’t believe it to be true. Instead of extending the king’s act of generosity of a fellow slave, he demands the repayment of the paltry amount of $430. (Of course, it is equally possible that the first slave felt he had earned/deserved forgiveness of the debt.) Either way, he appears not to have appreciated the enormity of the king’s generosity, it has taught him nothing about the nature of the king and has apparently left him fearful and insecure.

There are many among us who are like the first slave. We either think that we are so good, that we have done nothing that needs God’s forgiveness or that what we have done is so bad that God couldn’t possibly forgive us. The parable says otherwise. We are all in need of forgiveness and God is capable of forgiving the most outrageous of debts. When we truly understand that we (with all our imperfections) have been forgiven, we understand that others – more and less imperfect than ourselves, will also have been forgiven.

Forgiveness is a gift not a demand.
It is something God does – especially when we cannot do it ourselves.
We who are forgiven and free, cannot help but extend forgiveness to others.

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