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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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Sowing seeds, heedless of where they will fall

July 15, 2023

Pentecost 7 – 2023 (Thoughts)
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Marian Free

In the name of God who brought all things from nothing. Amen.

A fear that has accompanied (but not dominated) me for most of my faith life is that the church is going to die. It is going to die because we (the churchgoers) do not do enough. To be explicit: apparently we don’t make worship attractive enough, we don’t sing the right hymns, we don’t offer morning tea, we don’t have enough entry points (craft groups, sports associations etc), or we don’t have a drum kit – the list is endless. From my mid-teens on, I have been party to discussions as to what has caused people to leave the church in droves and what it is that we who remain can do to make the church grow.

People of my generation and upwards are worried about church growth (or lack of it) in part because we have come from a place of complacency and privilege, a place in which church was a part of the social fabric of people’s lives. In the 1950’s and 60’s e7uuen those who were not regular attenders had some sort of connection to the church. They were baptised, married, and buried from a church. They were members of the Guild, took part in working bees, made cakes or cooked sausages for fetes and they sent their children to Sunday School. The wider community upheld a belief in the sacredness of Sundays which meant that there was no competition for people’s time on a Sunday morning.

A lot has changed and, tempted as I am to rehearse all those changes, I will leave it to you to revise all the arguments that have been made on the subject during the last 50 years.

Whatever the reason, we cannot argue with the fact that once full churches are sadly depleted. Churches have been closed, some can only afford part-time priests and some parishes have no priest at all but have combined with a neighbouring parish for priestly oversight.

As our numbers have declined, so our obsession with the situation has grown. Yet, for all our navel gazing and problem solving nothing has substantially changed. If anything, the situation has got worse and, with fewer people in our churches, there are fewer people to address the problem – at least if there is a problem.

By that I mean, that what to us is an issue, might not be an issue at all, that our worry might be misplaced and that our time could be better spent. I say this because it occurs to me that our collective response to decreasing congregations says a great deal about us and what it says is not good. Indeed, our anxiety about the state of the church reveals a deep-seated anxiety that without structures and institutions, God’s ability to act in the lives of those around us is impeded and that without churches to proclaim the gospel there will be no way for people to encounter the living God.

In other words, our fixation with the survival of the church exposes a belief that we feel that we are responsible for God’s presence in the world that we have come to think that without us (without the Church), God will somehow sink into oblivion. How could we be so arrogant, so self-assured, to have convinced ourselves that God’s survival depends on us! What an extraordinary idea! Over the centuries we have come to believe that the Church represents God’s presence in the world and therefore, without the Church God’s efficacy will be severely hampered. Somehow, we have come to the conclusion that God needs our help to exist, that God relies on us to such an extent that our keeping the Church alive (in its present state) is an absolute imperative?

I believe that the parable of the Sower speaks to this situation, relieves us of our sense of responsibility and helps to place things in perspective. Often, when we read the parable (and its explanation) we focus on the fate of the seed and worry about the way in which the word is received according to where the seed falls. However, if we focus on the Sower (whom we take to be God), we can see that the parable asks us to place our trust where it belongs – in God and not in ourselves. In the parable the Sower tosses the precious seed with wild abandon heedless of where it will fall. This Sower is not concerned where the seed will land or whether or not it will take root. The Sower is not troubled by such things as permanency, nor is the Sower trying to build something that will last for millennia. The Sower is simply anxious to spread the seed as widely and generously and possible – confident that what does take root will bear fruit.

In all this the Sower does not ask for help – in the sowing, the nurturing or the harvesting. The Sower does not seem to be concerned about locking in a fixed and unchanging future, but rather is confident that something will happen and relaxed as to how it will happen.

I wonder what would happen if we were able to let go of the burden of maintaining our churches – physical and otherwise – open ourselves to God’s careless abandon, and to see in what new ways God is being revealed in the world today.

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Giving cups of water. Who is in and who is out?

July 1, 2023

Pentecost 5 – 2023
Matthew 10:40-42
Marian Free

In the name of God, who reveals Godself to us in many and varied ways. Amen.

If I am honest, I would have to say that these verses from Matthew have always troubled me, partly because I am not entirely sure what the author is getting at and partly because Matthew’s retelling of this saying is so different from the accounts in Mark and Luke.

There are only three verses in today’s gospel, but they are quite complex. What does it mean for example when it says: “whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous?” The implication seems to be that the person doing the welcoming is themselves righteous and even that the one welcoming a prophet, does so at least on behalf of a prophet. If this is the case, Matthew is drawing a line that we do not find in Luke or Mark.

Matthew records these sayings in the context of Jesus’ sending the disciples out into a hostile world in which they risk being handed over to both the religious and civil authorities and in which families will be divided, “brother will (even) handover brother to death.” Jesus has warned the disciples that he has come not to bring peace but a sword and that whoever loves father or mother more than they love him, is not worthy of him.

It seems that in this context Matthew is using these sayings of Jesus to encourage believers to look inward – to protect and support their own. If the world is not a safe place, the believing community will have to pull up the drawbridge to protect themselves and at the same time they will have to ensure that they take care of each other. Certainly, in Matthew’s gospel the expression: “little ones”, used in connection with giving a cup of water, is a Matthean term for members of the community.

Understood in this way, Matthew’s language is inward looking not outward looking.

I don’t have to tell you that the authors of the Synoptic gospels tell the Jesus’ story very differently. Depending on their particular agenda, they arrange the material in a particular way and place their emphases in different places so as to give Jesus’ sayings a nuance that is relevant to their purpose. As I have studied and preached on Matthew over more than two decades, it has seemed to me that the author of Matthew presents the gospel as more exclusive – more inclined to define those who are “in” and those who are “out.”

Of course, we don’t know exactly when Jesus said what or where he was when he said it, but the sayings recorded by Matthew in this setting include two that are unique to him and two that occur in some form in Mark and Luke. Both Luke and Mark have the saying about receiving a disciple and Mark also has the saying about someone giving a cup of water. According to Mark (Chapter 9) the disciples have been arguing about who is the greatest. In response Jesus takes a child and says: “Whoever receives one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever receives me receives not me but the one who sent me” (9:36). Immediately following this, the disciple John complains to Jesus that he saw someone (not a disciple) casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus replies that anyone who is not against them is for them and “whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.”

Mark’s memory or intention is to give the impression of an open community in which whoever acts in a Christ-like way cannot by definition, be against the community of faith, but rather is sympathetic. towards them and as such is entitled to be rewarded. Mark’s context for the sayings is one of chiding – not encouraging – the disciples.

In Luke (Chapter 9), the saying is reported in much the same way as in Mark – that is the first saying is Jesus’ response to an argument as to who is the greatest. Again, Jesus takes a child and says to the disciples: “Whoever welcomes this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.” Again, the complaint about someone casting out demons follows, to which Jesus says: “Whoever is not against you is for you.”
Matthew does include the saying about receiving a child (18:1), but he leaves out the story about the non-disciple casting out demons thus forgoing an opportunity to demonstrate Jesus’ inclusivity, Jesus’ understanding that those who were not signed up members of the community were to be valued, not ostracised, and that those who were sympathetic to the movement were to be treated as if they were members. In other words, Mark and Luke seem to avoid the hard and fast boundaries that are beginning to appear in Matthew’s gospel.

That, I know is a lot to take in, especially when, unlike me, you cannot place the texts side by side. What is important to note is that the gospel writers are quite liberal in the way in which they use Jesus’ sayings, both in the actual wording and in the context in which they place them.

The choice of gospel today and the parallel texts in Mark and Luke provide a good example of the need to see scripture as a whole, rather than focusing solely on one passage. Our scriptures – the Old and New Testaments – were written at different times in history and for entirely different purposes. A close reading will throw up contradictions, multiple versions of one event and differing interpretations of the same. The Bible also contains a variety of forms of expression – history, prophecy, poetry, letters – which need to be read and understood in ways appropriate to their form.

None of this is intended to undermine the value of individual accounts, nor does it give us permission to neglect or dismiss those things that do not fit our idea of what the scriptures say. Studying scripture enables us to understand why differences exist, the contexts in which the differences arose and what they might have meant to those who first heard them. When we study the gospels, we are better able to understand the experience and the needs of the believing communities in the latter years of the first century and to allow that understanding to inform and shape our own practice and ministry.

When we compare the ways in which the Synoptic gospels have recorded the sayings that we heard from Matthew today, we might conclude that they first occurred in a missional context, in which Jesus is telling the disciples, that those who respond positively to them are already on their way to receiving Jesus, and that those who support them (be it simply with a cup of water) will be rewarded – even if they are not card-carrying believers.

Are these words that we need to hear and does it help us to be less anxious that people are not coming to church, and more willing to affirm and encourage the good will that they show and the good that they do?

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God is not ours to control

June 24, 2023

Pentecost 4 – 2023
Matthew 10:24-39
Marian Free

In the name of God whose ways are not our ways, whose timing is not our timing. Amen.

How you might wonder does a preacher know what to preach – especially when confronted by such diverse and complex readings as we have before us this morning? It is difficult to pass over the pettiness of Sarah and of Abraham’s willingness to collude with her mean spiritednesses. How can one possibly declare (as we did) that this is the word of God? Paul’ letter to the Romans is rich and complex but again, for the sake of time, this too has to be passed over. My habit, as is the Anglican tradition, has been to focus on the gospel, but today’s gospel – as last week’s – consists of several parts. To give the passage the attention it deserves would warrant longer than we have. So to answer my question – in the first instance I read the set texts (hoping that some idea or theme will leap out). Second, I read what other people have to say – what have they made of these diverse readings? If this fails to produce inspiration I will repeat the process until an idea begins to form. Throughout the process I place myself in God’s hands through prayer and reflection, trusting that the Holy Spirit will and does guide me.

Sometimes I am as surprised as you might be as to where I land.

This week for instance, I was convinced that the gospel provided good material for a sermon on persecution – what it is, and why some who claim to be persecuted are not. A re-reading, however, convinced me that, just as this week’s gospel concluded that begin last week, so the theme of prayer could be addressed through Jesus words to his listeners. (That is to say I saw the gospel in a new light – a light I trust given through the Spirit).

Last week I wondered whether we thought that God had a magic wand with which (if we prayed hard enough, or in the right way) God could answer our prayers. Today’s gospel makes it clear that this is not how God acts. In fact, today’s gospel is shocking and confronting to any of us who have a simplistic, naïve faith. If we believe in a God who is benign at best and a frustrated parent at worst, then Jesus’ words today fill us with disquiet – “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father,and a daughter against her mother.” These words (and indeed those that precede them don’t conform to a picture of a Jesus who is warm, loving and protective. This angry, challenging Jesus makes us want to look the other way, to disassociate ourselves (surely he can’t mean what he is saying!)

Throughout history we have simplified and domesticated our faith. We have smoothed off the rough edges, seen conformity to the norms of society as an indication of our goodness and our moral standing. We associate ‘rocking the boat’ with non-conformist radicals, nothing to do with good upstanding Christian citizens.

We are ill-equipped to hear what Jesus is saying. But Jesus is saying something really important. His confronting language serves as a corrective to all of us who think that we know what God should do and how God should do it. Jesus reminds us that God is not ours to control (through prayer or any other means). He defies our desire that he will bring peace, restore order or conform to our expectations that faith is not costly or that as a consequence of his coming all differences between us will be dissolved. He makes it clear that he cannot change the world without first changing us.

Contrary to what we want to believe, Jesus warns us that faith can be, and often is divisive – because it calls us to stand for justice, to love the unlovable, to welcome the rejected. Our faith might bring us comfort- but Jesus warns that it is just as likely to make us uncomfortable. While he wants to shake us out of our complacency, to remind us that no amount of prayer will force God’s hand, Jesus is also keen to reassure us. We need not be afraid. Even if strife is raging around us and our prayers seem to fall on deaf ears. God knows each one of us – down to the hairs on our head and, even in the midst of our troubles God is with us, supporting and sustaining us.

In the final analysis instead of expecting God to do what we want, we have to trust God. We do not try to bend God to our will or, expect God to do what we think God should do. Through prayer we place ourselves in God’s hands, seek God’s will and rely on God’s strength to face the chaos in which we find ourselves.

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Prayer changes us

June 17, 2023

Pentecost 3 – 2023
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Marian Free

In the name of God whose faith in us is beyond our imagining. Amen.

How and for what do you pray? What do you expect from your prayers? Are you sometimes completely overwhelmed by the needs of the world? Do you sometimes feel that you are inadequate for the task – that even if you did pray hard enough there would not be enough people who cared enough to alleviate suffering? Do you worry that no matter how much you pray some situations simply remain the same? Do you wonder why God does not appear to act?

At the moment many of our prayers are focussed on the peoples of the Ukraine and Sudan, but there are conflicts all over the world that equally deserve our attention and our prayers. When I wonder did you or your church community last pray for the Khmer, the people of Syria or of the Congo or the countless other places still at war? We are rightly focussed on refugees who have fled recent conflicts and especially those who risk drowning at sea, but that means we tend to forget that there are thousands who have lived in refugee camps their entire lives or that in Palestine there are generations of families who have lived in camps. It is the same situation with victims of natural disasters – we simply cannot pray for everyone impacted by fire, flood, cyclone, and our memories tend to focus on more recent events. In 2020, COVID took our attention away from those who had lost everything in the bush fires of January that year and the floods in Northern NSW and elsewhere are, to many of us a distant memory – and yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of people (in this nation alone) who are still trying to rebuild homes and lives.

At the moment those who are impacted by the increased cost of living, rising interest rates and the rental crisis are front and centre in the minds of many of us and yet we are limited in what we can actually do. Our contribution to a Parish Pantry or other charities will not alleviate the pain for one family even for one day, and few of us can afford to purchase accommodation that could be made available for the homeless.

In the face of such mind-numbing issues, it is tempting to wish that God would wave a magic wand, end wars and alleviate poverty and suffering in the world. Yet if that were how God solved problems there would be no need to pray. God would already have responded. Why, in the face of so much anguish does God appear to stand idly by? The answer of course is complex, but God’s apparent inaction reflects God’s faith in us and God’s longing for us to be a part of the solution.

That this is how God responds is reflected in this morning’s gospel, especially in verses 36-38: ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”’

First century Palestine had been under Roman occupation for decades. Land that once fed generations of families had been taken by the occupiers and given as a reward to Caesar’s soldiers. Everything was taxed – the roads, the crops, the right to fish. The church authorities were either Roman appointments or were people who had cow towed to the Romans. As a consequence, the vast majority of the population felt harassed, oppressed and utterly powerless to effect change.

Faced with the suffering and helplessness of the people, Jesus seems to be overwhelmed. You can almost hear him sigh with despair as he observes that they are like sheep without a shepherd. He is filled with compassion. The Greek word “splagnizothai” (compassion) refers to an emotion felt deep within one’s belly, with one’s whole self. In other words, Jesus’ inner being was overwhelmed with concern – but, like God, Jesus doesn’t wave a magic wand. Indeed, he doesn’t even enlist God’s assistance. Instead, what Jesus does is to pray that there might be enough will in enough people to bring about change.

The need is clear, the solution is not to miraculously make it go away but to send people to fill the need – people of compassion – to heal, to console, to challenge unjust structures, to work for peace.

Seen another way, Jesus prays not for the world to change, but for us to change. As long as there are greedy, selfish, power-hungry people in the world there will be wars, injustice, and inequity. As long as people put themselves first we will continue to rape the planet, change the weather patterns, and induce climate change. As long we continue to believe that it is someone else’s (God’s) problem nothing will change.

Mother Teresa said: “I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.

In the end, prayer should change us. It should open us to the ways in which we contribute to the ills of the world; reveal to us our selfishness and lack of action; and open us to the Spirit of God working within us.

We are called to be God’s co-conspirators in changing the world for the better.
We are the labourers for whom Jesus prays. Only when we change can we begin to change the world.

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