Archive for the ‘Matthew’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

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?

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Matthew, Parables | Comments Off on An undressed guest – an act of resistance?

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?

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Choosing to challenge God – the question about authority

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.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Enough is enough – labourers in the vineyard

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.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Forgiven and free

Being human – reponding to Jesus’ announcement that he will soffer

September 2, 2023

Pentecost 14 – 2023
Matthew 16:21-28
Marian Free

In the name of God who sees us as we are and does not turn God’s back on us. Amen.

“Zora’s home, or at least the part that can still be lived in, has shrunk to a third of its original size. The bedrooms have long been abandoned to the wind and the snow, which gets in through the tears in the bin bags, while the bathroom, devoid of water and reeking of blocked drains, is also avoided. The doors to these rooms are kept shut, rolled-up rugs wedged against them to keep out the icy draughts from one side and the stench from the other. Consequently, the narrow entrance hall is now not so much a corridor as a tunnel, which, bristling with Zora’s works of rubble, shrapnel and feathers, channels guest directly from the front door to the living room at the far end of the flat. The kitchen, the favoured room in the spring and the summer, as it is the furthest room from the hills and so least likely to be shelled, has now lost its former status due to the cold. Ice spiders crawl over the inside of the windowpane and icicles hang from the windowsill. Mirsad helps Zora drag the mattress from the kitchen to the living room so that she can sleep near the stove. The kitchen is now used mainly as a place to relieve herself, using a bucket as a chamber pot. Zora disposes of the bucket’s contents outside the building, close to the mounds of uncollected rubbish, on her way to find food or water each morning. The area immediately around the stove, where the mattress, stools and cushions have been arranged, has become the hub of the flat. Almost all activity takes place there: cooking, sitting, eating, talking, making art, washing with a glassful of icy water and a bucket, and sleeping. [..] The flat is drawing in on itself, Zora thinks as she inches closer to the stove each night. It’s being taken over, room by room, by ice, wind and snow. By the outside by the war.”

I have just completed the novel Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris about the siege of Sarajevo. Morris describes in graphic detail what it was to live under siege in bombed out homes, as the European winter closed in and UN food drops were prevented from entering the city.

It is extraordinary to imagine that friends and neighbors could turn against each other so quickly. That they could allow others to endure incredible deprivation seems unbelievable and yet the situation described above is one that many in the Ukraine will face as the war there enters its second winter – a war in which infrastructure including power stations has been destroyed, and food storages destroyed.

I name the Ukraine only because the situation is similar to Sarajevo in many ways, particularly in relation to the cold, but there are countless other situations in which people endure the horrors of war, the anguish of famine, the indignity of being a refugee or asylum seeker, or the long, hard struggle to recover from natural disaster.

As members of the human race, you and I have to face up to the unspeakable horrors we inflict/have inflicted on our fellow human beings, the tragedies on which we turn our backs and the times when we offer too little or inappropriate assistance.

Over the last few weeks, the readings in Morning Prayer have followed the life of King David. As I have read this account one more time, I have had cause to reflect that the Bible has as much (if not more) to say about humanity as it has to say about God. In other words, the Bible holds up a mirror to reveal the worst, as well as the best in us. The Old Testament in particular shows us of what we are capable – murder, adultery, genocide, fratricide, self-centredness, jealousy, craftiness, and deception to name but a few. Our Old Testament heroes are depicted as vengeful, cowardly, covetous, two-faced, and faithless. (Though they can also be brave, faithful, selfless, humble, and repentant ).

In the New Testament our heroes fare only a little better. In the time of Jesus Israel and the neighboring countries are under Roman rule and therefore not at war with each other and there is no throne for which the descendants of David can compete. This means that the flaws of the disciples are therefore of a different order, but their raw humanity is fully on display and they exhibit imperfections shared by us all. They are foolish, fearful, competitive, uncomprehending, disloyal, cowardly, impotent, and self-seeking and there is no attempt by the gospel writers to present them as anything other than what they are.

Today’s gospel is a dramatic illustration of just how uncomprehending and self-important the disciples are. As we heard last Sunday, the disciples have just been entrusted with the true identity of Jesus – “you are the Christ, the son of the Living God.” That they have no idea what this means is revealed by their reaction to Jesus’ announcement that he will suffer and die. On this first occasion Peter goes so far as to rebuke Jesus. (Earning Jesus’ swift and harsh reaction: “Get behind me Satan!” ).

On the next two occasions that Jesus’ announces his future suffering, the disciples’ response exposes not just their incomprehension, but also their arrogance and competitiveness. (Jesus shares with them his deepest fears and they can only think of themselves! ) They argue about who among them is the greatest and the mother of James and John asks Jesus if they can sit at his right hand and his left in the kingdom! Finally, when Jesus’ predictions do come true the disciples abandon him to suffer alone. Fearful of reprisals they hide away until they are truly convinced that Jesus has risen. They can hardly be said to be role models for those who follow after, but what they are is authentic, flawed and blatantly human.

As much as the Bible helps us to understand God, it gives us an insight into ourselves, and forces us to be honest about our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It takes away any tendency to self-importance and, time and again, throws us on the mercy of God. What is extraordinary, and what is made clear. in the very imperfect lives of our forebears in faith, is that through it all, God never turns God’s back on us, but reaches out to us, over and over and over again, hoping against hope that we will learn to trust God more than we trust ourselves and that, empowered by God, we will become the people that we are destined to become.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Being human – reponding to Jesus’ announcement that he will soffer

Jesus – who is he?

August 26, 2023

Pentecost 13 – 2023

Matthew 16:1-20

Marian Free

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

I have often said that the gospel writers were masters of their craft. Each has taken what they know of Jesus’ life and teachings and have woven them together in such a way as to draw people into belief in Jesus as God’s anointed. They do this in the way they structure their material and the methods they use to keep their audiences engaged. The authors tantalise their readers, build tension, create moods, drop hints, and raise questions. They draw the reader into the story forcing them to take sides or to draw their own conclusions. Each gospel writer gradually reveals the nature of Jesus and of Jesus’ purpose in the world and each build to a climax which is followed by a sense of gathering gloom as the story moves towards the crucifixion. Such is the richness and depth of the writing that it seems that there is always something new to learn about their craft and style. 

Take for example the Gospel of Matthew (the most Jewish of the four gospels). In more than one place, the author makes it clear that Jesus feels that his mission is only to the Israelites and that his role is to uphold the Jewish law. For example, it is only in Matthew’s gospel that we have the statement: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.  For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished” (5:17,18) and only in Mathew does Jesus say: Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:5, 6). In this gospel we will not find the blatant openness to Gentiles that is evident in Luke who includes the story of the Samaritan who is the only leper to say, “thank you” and the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Yet, this most Jewish of the gospels begins with the foreign magi worshipping the infant Jesus and concludes with Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. There are other ways in which the author of Matthew makes it clear to his readers that faith in Jesus is open to all people, not least of which is the account of Jesus’ encounter with the Canaanite woman which was our focus last week. Matthew’s readers, secure in their place as the true Israel will have been shocked Not only does Jesus respond to the woman’s demands by having a complete change of mind (the dogs – Gentiles – can have the crumbs, indeed more than the crumbs), but he frames this story between accounts of Jesus’ feeding crowds with small amounts of bread.

It is no accident that Matthew includes two slightly different stories of the feeding of the thousands. You might have wondered why Jesus miraculously feeds 5,000 and shortly thereafter feeds 4,000. The clue is in the baskets. When Jesus feeds the 5,000, the disciples gather 12 baskets full of crumbs. Twelve for the 12 tribes of Israel. After Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman, he feeds 4,000 after which the disciples only gather 7 baskets of crumbs. Seven is the number for wholeness, seven for a ministry to the whole world – Jew and Gentile included. These are clues that completely escape us, but which would have been obvious to Matthew’s first century audience.

Only after Matthew’s gospel records these events does Jesus ask his climactic question: ‘Who do people say that I am?” followed by “who do you say that I am?”  In other words, before Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Matthew has completely reframed what this means. (Something that he will continue to do as he prepares his readers Jesus’ suffering and death). Through the story of the Canaanite woman, the two accounts of the left-over crumbs, Matthew has ensured that the Christ has come not just for the Jewish nation, but for all people.

There is nothing accidental in the way Matthew presents his material!

The Canaanite woman has identified Jesus as Lord, Son of David (a Jewish title), Peter identifies Jesus as Son of the living God – a universal title that could include all.

At the heart of the issues that divide the Anglican Church today is this question – who is Jesus? Is Jesus, as some of us believe the one sent by God to destroy the barriers that divide, to break open God’s love to all who would receive it, or is Jesus the one sent by God to ensure that the law is enforced (and some might say, strengthened)?

It seems to me that Matthew, the gospel writer most tied to the traditions and laws of his Jewish background is clear that Jesus, the Son of the living God, is willing to be challenged, to let go of his preconceptions about who is and who is not included in God’s love, and who himself breaks boundaries by associating with sinners.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Matthew | Comments Off on Jesus – who is he?

Change of mind – Syro-Phoenician woman

August 19, 2023

Pentecost 12 – 2023
Matthew 15:21-28
Marian Free

In the name of God who is always beyond our comprehension. Amen.

I begin this having just read the SMH report (18.8.2023) relating to the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. The Doctrine Commission of that Diocese has produced a report that will be presented to their Synod later this year. The document includes a new doctrinal statement on homosexuality that says that the mere desire for same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will, “an inclination toward evil” and something from which Christians seek to be liberated. It concluded that people who are same-sex attracted but celibate are not “actively and consistently perpetuating sin”, and their desire alone does not demand repentance. However, it is “something to be lamented and from which we seek to be liberated”.

Rob Smith, a member of the Committee stated on The Pastor’s Heart Podcast: “Sinful desires are sinful. It’s not just the doing of sin that’s sinful, the desiring of sin is sinful,” he said. “There are not godly ways of expressing same-sex sexual desire. There’s no opportunity there, there’s no open door … It’s contrary to nature from the get-go.”

I find myself grieving for all who are same-sex attracted, who are being told that something over which they have no control is sinful and deserving of God’s wrath and at the same time I am puzzling how any mere mortal can truly put themselves in the place of God to determine what is good and what is evil, who is in and who is out.

It seems to me that today’s gospel speaks directly to this issue and it demonstrates that even Jesus did not entirely know the mind of God – that is, Jesus was sure that he knew the mind of God until he was humbled by the insistence of the very person whom he judged to be unworthy of his help and “deserving of God’s wrath” (to use the language of the language quote above).

The scenario is one with which we are very familiar. Jesus is a long way from home – in the region of Tyre and Sidon when a woman of that region – a Canaanite, a gentile – comes out and begins shouting that her daughter is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ response is to ignore her, until the disciples, unable to listen to her shouting tell him to send her away. When Jesus does speak, it is not to address the woman’s concern but only to coldly inform her that she is outside his area of concern. She is a gentile, and his role (he is certain) is only to the lost sheep of Israel. Undeterred, the woman falls to the ground and begs him to help her. Jesus remains unmoved: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs.” The woman shrugs off the insult: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs,” she says.

At last Jesus is moved to help, though what changed his mind is not entirely clear. The woman’s faith alone seems unlikely to have forced Jesus to reverse centuries of antipathy towards the gentiles and his lifetime immersion in the Jewish faith and it practices .

What is clear though, is that when the woman approached the group, Jesus was so confident in his understanding of Judaism, so sure that he fully understood his mission (to the lost sheep of Israel), that he could see no reason to give this distraught woman the time of day. Until this conversation, Jesus was absolutely sure that he knew God’s will with regard to the gentiles, that he was knew the difference between right and wrong and who was in and who was out. He was so confident in his point of view that he was completely comfortable with his refusal to show the woman any compassion and he had no hesitation in insulting her to her face. In comparison to his self-righteous assurance, the woman’s anguish and grief was nothing. According to the Jewish law, the gentiles were outside God’s grace and there (or so Jesus thought) they should remain.

And yet now, Jesus makes a 180 degree turn. He lets go of a lifetime of conditioning and prejudice and comes to the realisation that the good news he brings is intended for all not just a few and that just as he has broken boundaries to include sinners, tax-collectors and prostitutes, so he is called to break down the barriers between Jew and Gentile.

What I find extraordinary is that the very person whom Jesus (and the religious system he represents) has deemed as unclean and unworthy to be included in the healing, restorative power of the kingdom is the same person who through her self-belief and perhaps through her recognition of Jesus and his mission, opens his eyes to his narrow-mindedness, his parochialism and his judgementalism and breaks through his self-assurance that he knows God’s will. Through this extraordinary encounter, Jesus becomes aware that God’s all-embracing love is big enough to include all people.

Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman, should be a warning to all of us that we can never presume to speak for God, that we are foolish to think that the norms and attitudes that we have inherited from our forebears in faith are necessarily intended to stand for all time. If Jesus could let go of the beliefs, the biases, and the practices of his time, then we too should be open to the ways in which the Spirit is moving the church of our day.

Jesus saved his harshest words for the self-righteous people of his day, those who wanted to hold on to the past at all costs. Let us not be those people.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Matthew, Syrophoenician Woman | Comments Off on Change of mind – Syro-Phoenician woman

Jumping out of the boat – earning salvation or being ourselves

August 12, 2023

Pentecost 11 – 2023
Matthew 14:22-33
Marian Free

In the name of God who comes to us on stormy waters and gives us reassurance and peace. Amen.

[“Drop thy still dews of quietness till all our strivings cease, take from our soul the strain and stress. and let our ordered lives confess, the beauty of thy peace, the beauty of thy peace.”]

How we read the bible is fascinating. For example, generations of Christians have used today’s gospel as a guide (albeit negative) to discipleship. The disciples are terrified (not by the storm, but by the appearance of Jesus and Peter, even though Jesus has identified himself, put him to the test: “If it is you command me to come to you on the water,” he says. Then, when Jesus commands Peter to “come”, Peter demonstrates how little he trusts him. Having begun well, Peter notices the waves and begins to sink. The lesson, we suppose, is that we are not to be like Peter – Peter the impetuous, Peter the foolish, Peter the doubter. In order to prove that we are good disciples, we will demonstrate that we trust God sufficiently to leave the boat to walk on stormy waters – to take risks confident that God will come to our rescue. Good Christians do not falter like Peter when storms rage all around us, we hold fast to our faith, confident that God is with us.

Too often we fall into the trap of making the scriptures a rule book for Christian behaviour – a guide as to how we should behave, what our response to God should be, what will happen if we do the wrong thing and how we measure up against the standard required to achieve salvation. In other words, our tendency is to read scriptures as if they are all about us, rather than understanding that scripture is a revelation about God. Such an attitude makes us inward looking, focused on what we do for God rather than what God does for us.

If today’s gospel is about discipleship, the implication is that discipleship requires unquestioning faith, courage and fortitude – not fear, doubt and indecision. In the face of the disciple’s terror and Peter’s mistrust, we are left feeling that we have to prove ourselves, that we have to behave in a certain way if we want to earn Jesus’ approval. After all no one wants to earn Jesus’ approbation: “You of little faith.” Yet the disciples are anything but models for Christian living and they certainly don’t provide an example for us to emulate. Rather than being exemplars of faith, they reveal their uncertainty, and their fear. They do not recognise Jesus, they are terrified, and Peter puts Jesus to the test. What they are however is real – their humanity and their imperfections are obvious.

So, perhaps this is not a story about how to be disciples and is not urging us to trust Jesus and leave the safety of the boat. In which case, what is Matthew’s intention and what Matthew’s listeners hear that we do not?

It is important to remember that the first century was an oral culture. Most people could not read, and scrolls were rare and beyond the income of most people. Community stories and stories from the Bible would have been repeated so often that they were committed to memory. Matthew’s community might not have known chapter and verse, but they will have known their scriptures well enough to have recognised allusions to the Old Testament even if they could not tell you exactly where it came from. Such would have been the case with regard to today’s gospel. Hearing that Jesus went to them, walking on the sea, Matthew’s listeners will have heard references to the role of God in creation as depicted in the Book of Job where God “tramples the waves of the sea” (9:8) and challenges Job asking if he ever “went upon the springs of the sea or walked on the recesses of the deep” (Job 38:16). They will have drawn the conclusion that Matthew was making the claim that Jesus and God were one.
That conclusion would have been reinforced when Jesus addresses the terrified disciples saying: “Do not be afraid. I AM.” Matthew’s community will have recognised, “Do not be afraid”, as the first thing a divine messenger says when interacting with a human (Gen 15:1, 26:24 eg). Jesus is more than a messenger he is I AM. The Greek – εγω ειμι – is clumsy, so our English translations read: “It is I”, but the Greek is simply I AM. Jesus is using for himself the name by which God identifies himself to Moses: “I AM.” The disciples affirm that this scene is about the nature of Jesus when they state: “Truly you are Son of God.”

At the heart of today’s gospel is a revelation about the nature Jesus. It is not a guidebook on Christian living, but it does after all have something positive to say about discipleship.

Discipleship, as this account reminds us, is about being ourselves – with all our flaws, our fears, and our doubts. Discipleship is not about striving to do good works, trying to be better people, or struggling to earn God’s approval. Discipleship has nothing to do with earning our salvation and everything to do with accepting that God in Jesus has already wrought our salvation. Discipleship means being in relationship with the living God who, though we did nothing to deserve it, lived with and died for us.

When we understand this, we can see that Peter and the other disciples in the boat were in fact model disciples, not because they were perfect, but because they were perfectly themselves, perfectly willing to have their humanity exposed and perfectly open to the revelation that Jesus was/is God.

We don’t have to jump out of the boat, we don’t have to take risks of faith, we simply have to be ourselves and allow God to do the rest.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Matthew, Trust | 1 Comment »

Good fish and bad fish, black and white thinking

July 29, 2023

Pentecost 9 – 2023
Matthew 13:44-58
Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Pearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

Anya Cook is an American woman living in Florida. In the past twelve months, she was well into a much-wanted pregnancy when her waters broke. She presented to hospital only to be told that under the state’s new abortion law, she could not be offered medical assistance to deliver the baby. She was sent home. The following day, when she was at a hair salon, Anya miscarried in the salon bathroom. As a consequence, she had to undergo life-saving surgery. Another woman, Amanda Zurawksi, was diagnosed with Pre-term, pre-labour rupture of membranes when she was almost 18 weeks pregnant. Like Anya, she was refused an induction – her health was not considered to be seriously at risk until she became septic – only then were the doctors willing to intervene.

These are only two of the stories coming out of the United States since the Supreme Court handed control of abortion laws back to the states . Doctors in states where abortion has been made illegal are in an invidious situation. Abortion is allowed when the life of the mother is in danger. The question is, how imminent must death be and can that be determined within six weeks of falling pregnant – assuming a woman knows she is pregnant? As Dr Lisa Harris (an obstretrics-gynacaelogist and professor at the University of Michigan) puts it: “There are many conditions that people have that when they become pregnant, they’re OK in early pregnancy, but as pregnancy progresses, it puts enormous stress on all of the body’s organ systems – the heart, the lungs, the kidneys. So they may be fine right now – there’s no life-threatening emergency now – but three or four or five months from now, they may have life-threatening consequences.”

Penalties for those conducting abortions range from 4 years imprisonment to 99 years. Specialists are leaving those states where they feel that they cannot fulfill their oath to “do no harm” and it is reported that enrolments to study obstetrics and gynaecology have dropped by 5% nationally and more in states in which abortion is illegal. The health of pregnant women has been seriously compromised.

The awful decisions that doctors are being forced to make and the extraordinary health risks that some women are facing are a consequence of the sort of black and white thinking that says: “all abortions are evil,” and the certainty that many people have that they and their world view are incontrovertibly right.

Many of those who hold rigid views of right and wrong are Christians, who can back up their views with passages from scripture – including the parable which concludes Matthew’s series of parables today. The parable of the net seems to be clear – there are good and bad fish and the bad fish (the evil) will be sorted out and thrown into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It is no wonder that on reading this that there are those who are anxious to be clear as to what is right and what is wrong, so afraid are they of the consequences of being found to be bad.

This parable has always troubled me. In chapter 13, Matthew has gathered into one place the parables he intends to include in the gospel. Here are parables about indiscriminate sowing, about a tolerance for weeds, about a kingdom that grows unseen and that is worth more than anything in the world and finally a parable about fishing. it is only this last that concludes with a commentary that is both judgemental and punitive .

Unfortunately, all too often we take the parable out of context. The parable of the wheat and weeds has already demonstrated that the lines between good and bad are blurred (see last week’s post) and the story of Jacob which has been the focus of our Old Testament readings for several weeks is retold without judgment or a belief in condemnation. Jacob is both deceitful and deceived and yet it is Jacob whom God choses to name “Israel,” and it is Jacob’s sons who become the twelve tribes of Israel.

To refresh your memory – Jacob convinces his brother Esau to give up his birthright for a bowl of lentils then, encouraged by his mother, he deceives his father into giving him the deathbed blessing that belonged to Esau. Jacob flees to his uncle to escape the wrath of his brother. There he himself is deceived when his uncle gives him the older daughter in marriage, when it was the younger with whom he was in love. Finally, Jacob returns home. Miraculously all is forgiven, Esau makes way for Jacob and Jacob becomes Israel – the one from whom a nation was formed that exists even to this day.

The Old Testament is filled with such contradictions – Moses was a murderer, David an adulterer, Job was an avoider and a sulker – and yet they and others are not thrown into a fiery furnace but are used by God and held in high esteem in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Perhaps this is the reason that Jesus is so reluctant to judge, to draw clear lines between good and bad, why he was not afraid to associate with tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners and why he says things like: “Judge not so that you will not be judged”, “first take the log from your own eye”, and “let the one without sin cast the first stone.”

God, it seems, is able to see the good as well as the bad and to hold them in tension (as was demonstrated in the parable of the wheat and the weeds). God sees in us both the good and the bad and loves us regardless. God understands the circumstances in which we might do things that otherwise we might not do (admit that legalising abortion is essential for the health of a mother). God uses that which is good in us yet is not blind to our shortcomings. There will be a reckoning, a time when we are shriven of all that belongs in the kingdom, but until then God will let the wheat grow with the weeds and the good and bad fish will swim together.

Black and white thinking puts us in the place of God. We need to liberate ourselves from such narrow thinking, open ourselves to the possibility that not everything is as it seems, and finally not take judgment into our own hands, but leave it to God who alone sees everything as it really is.

 

I found this image on Facebook it was too perfect not to use, I apologise that I could not identify the source. Please let me know who created it so I can acknowledge them. (I have contacted the person who posted it.)

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Matthew, Parables | 1 Comment »

Not our place to judge

July 22, 2023

Pentecost 8 – 2023
Matthew 13:24-30
Marian Free

In the name of God who loves us as we are. Amen.

Last week the preacher in the parish in which I worship pointed out the number of contrary positions that could be defended with reference to the Bible. Within its pages you can find support for the full inclusion of women in ministry and support for the exclusion of women. From the Bible you can justify both eating meat and an admonition not to eat meat. One can use the Bible to argue that God is a vengeful judge, but equally to demonstrate that God will never execute judgement. People have used the Bible to defend domestic violence and others can point to passages that condemn it. And so the list goes on.

Sadly, the current situation in the world-wide Anglican Church is evidence of the ways in which the Bible can be used to support opposing views and the lengths to which different sides of the debate will go to to protect their stance.

It is possible to say that these contradictions come about because our scriptures were written by humans with human failings – and that would be true. It is equally possible that we hold a faith that is able to hold contradictions in tension, that refuses to be starkly black and white and refuses the sort of dualism that neatly defines good and bad but acknowledges the grey areas that are part and parcel of being human.

Today’s parable goes some way to addressing this situation. A householder sows a field with wheat only to have enemies come in the night and plant weeds in the field. (We are told that the weed is darnel – a plant that is remarkably like wheat, but which is poisonous and which among other things causes hallucinations if eaten.) When the slaves ask if they should pull up the weeds they are astounded that the householder tells them to allow the plants to grow together until harvest – only then he says will the weeds be gathered and burned.

The wheat and the weeds are an illustration of the contradictions of this life. Just as the wheat is almost indistinguishable from the darnel, so too, the difference between good and evil is not always easy to discern. Good intentions can have unintended consequences that lead to harm . Apparently good people can limit the growth of others through criticism and disapproval and most of us contain within us the good and the bad and most of us will spend a lifetime living with the tension.

The good news of this parable is that God can hold the ambiguities and paradoxes of human existence in tension. God does not intend to violently and preemptively reach into our individual and collective lives to destroy all that is bad. God understands that ‘fixing’ one area of our collective and individual lives can cause harm in other areas of our lives. God can see the good that we intend and patiently forgive the harm that we do (to ourselves and others). God recognises that no one is wholly good and that no one is wholly bad and God is prepared to patiently go the distance with us, to support us uncritically as we struggle with the weeds that make up our lives. Finally, it God (not us) who will ensure that that only what is good in us will be gathered into the kingdom.

God our creator is only too aware of our shortcomings. If God can allow the weeds to grow with the wheat perhaps we should learn to be more gentle with ourselves and more forgiving of others. If God can live with the contradictions within and among us, perhaps we should be less willing to define what is right and wrong, good and bad, less sure that we know what exactly it is God wants. If God can withhold judgement until the end, perhaps it is time for us to suspend judgement of others and of ourselves.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Matthew | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »