Archive for the ‘Parables’ Category

Seeing Lazarus

September 27, 2025

Pentecost 16 – 2025

Luke 16:19-31

Marian Free

In the name of God whose preference is for the poor, the widowed and the orphaned. Amen.

During the week I learnt a new expression which was coined to describe Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray, Love[1]. The expression “Priv Lit” or “Privileged Literature” was introduced in 2010 by writers Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown in an article titled Eat, Pray, Spend. I came across the expression in a comment on Gilbert’s latest offering All the Way to the River in which (as I understand it) Gilbert describes the wild ride she and her lover go on when the latter is diagnosed with cancer.  The expression ‘Priv Lit’ refers to: “literature or media whose expressed goal is one of spiritual, existential, or philosophical enlightenment contingent upon women’s hard work, commitment, and patience, but whose actual barriers to entry are primarily financial”.

Authors of these sorts of biographical narratives use their own life experiences as a model for others, assuming that these can be universalised and forgetting that they write from a position of wealth and privilege that few others can aspire to.

While this term was first applied to Gilbert, it could just as well refer to a number of other authors who are so focussed on their own issues (and resulting solutions) that they are blind to the very real problems faced by women (children and men) all over the world – including in their own country of the United States. Self-actualisation, dealing with grief through travel, or restoring a villa in Italy pale into insignificance in comparison with the hour-by-hour struggles of homelessness, starvation, injury and loss experienced right now by millions in Gaza, the Sudan and elsewhere. These (usually expensive) “solutions” to pain and grief are meaningless to the millions struggling to survive in many of first world countries who cannot afford homes or, who if they have homes have to decide between keeping the lights on and feeding their children.

In today’s parable the unnamed rich man could (like the authors above) be described as tone-deaf and blind. Lazarus, the only person named in parable, lies at the gate of the rich man. It is inconceivable that the rich man doesn’t know that he is there, or that Lazarus is hungry, dependent and covered in sores that are licked by dogs. Not only would the rich man have to pass Lazarus every time he left the house, but Lazarus would also have been visible from within the house. The architecture of the time was such that even the homes of the wealthy were built directly on the street, and those going past would have been able to see inside to the courtyard. Lazarus would have been able to at least glimpse the goings-on inside the home and maybe the obvious signs of wealth.  All the daily to-ing and fro-ing, including the delivery of food, would have to have passed by him[2].

There was nothing in the way of social services in the first century Mediterranean. Those without families, those unable to work, the widowed and orphaned were often forced to beg.  Jewish law made up for this lack by building into it an obligation to provide for the poor, the widowed and the orphaned not, as AI helpfully summarises, “as an optional act of charity, but as a fundamental expression of the righteousness and justice of God”. This is perhaps most clearly expressed in Deuteronomy 15:7, 11 – “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbour.” “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.’”[3]

The rich man in the parable was a Jew; he knew the law; as we learn when he appeals to Father Abraham after his death. In life though, the rich man appears to have no self-awareness, no understanding that his wealth is a privilege not a right, and no concept of the obligations his position and his faith entails. He is either so self-absorbed, or so self-righteous or perhaps so disgusted by Lazarus’ condition that he looks right past or right through him. 

We live in a time in which the problems facing the world seem insurmountable. Many of us find ourselves frozen in indecision because any contribution we can make to the solution is but a drop in the ocean. On our own we cannot impact the systemic abuses that lead to entrenched poverty, we cannot end the wars in the Ukraine, in Gaza, in the Sudan and elsewhere, and we can’t, as individuals, stop climate change. We can, however, examine our own lives and try to understand how our attitudes, our lifestyles and even our political allegiances impact the poorest of the poor. We can try to understand how systems we unwittingly support further entrench poverty and inequity. We can recognise and be thankful for the advantages that we do have and acknowledge that throughout the world and in our own nation there are those who, through no fault of their own live in situations of dire poverty, unable to properly house and feed themselves or their families let alone manage to fund health. 

If nothing else this parable urges us not turn away, but to keep our eyes firmly focussed on the state of the world around us, to try to comprehend (and change) the systems that trap people in poverty and to do all in our power to ensure that all people have adequate access to food and shelter, health care and education.  


Like the rich man (and his brothers) we already know what to do – it is all there in our scriptures.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

                                    and what does the LORD require of you

                  but to do justice, and to love kindness,

                                    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Today is the day to open our eyes and ears to the cries of the poor, the oppressed and the overlooked.

This poem could be our daily prayer:

If it should be, loving Father of all,

that, all unknown to us,

our eating causes others to starve, 

our plenty springs from other’s poverty,

or our choice feeds off other’s denial,

then, Lord,

forgive us,

enlighten us,

and strengthen us to work for fairer trade

and just reward. Amen. (Donald Hilton, Blessed be the Table)[4]

[1] Gilbert’s journey of self discovery was actually subsidized by her publisher.

[2] Many scholars assert that Luke was written for an audience that was well-off and urban dwelling. The inclusion of this parable, not found elsewhere, seems to support this view.

[3] Or this from Amos 6:4f  Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory,

                                    and lounge on their couches,

                  and eat lambs from the flock,

                                    and calves from the stall; 

                  who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,

                                    and like David improvise on instruments of music; 

                  who drink wine from bowls,

                                    and anoint themselves with the finest oils,

                                    but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! 

[4] Quoted by Chelsea Harmon, Working Preacher, September 25, 2022.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Luke's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on Seeing Lazarus

A son who brings shame and dishonour and a father who couldn’t care less

March 29, 2025

Lent 4 – 2025

Luke 15:11-32

Marian Free

In the name of God who, on our part endures humiliation and shame in order to show love to and to welcome home the worst of us. Amen.

(You might like to watch the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane’s one minute reflection on today’s gospel.)

There are two parables (only found in Luke) that have become part of common parlance.  These are known as the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son. Unfortunately, our over familiarisation with these parables (and with parables in general) is that they have lost their capacity to shock, to pull us up short. In the first instance, Jesus’ parable about the Samaritan is not a call to do good works, but a critique of those – good Christians all– who think that in some way superior to those whom they consider as somehow lesser than themselves. In the second instance, Jesus is challenging the view of those who thought that Jesus should only eat with/associate with those who kept the law and those who observed the niceties of social expectations (Luke 15:1).

In the case of the Prodigal son, as the name suggests, the focus tends to be on the son. When we read the parable, we put ourselves in the place of the son and feel immense gratitude that God overlooks our faults when and if we repent. What we fail to see, is what the parable tells us about the Father – by implication what it tells us about God and Jesus. In fact, scholars today call the parable the forgiving father, because that more accurately represents Jesus’ meaning.

The focus in this parable is not the repentance (if it was repentance) of the son, but on the father, who, ignoring ridicule and having no regard to his position in society, not only indulges the son, but who watches day and night for the son’s return and who runs to greet him on the road. In this parable, Jesus turns the honour/shame culture of the Middle East on its head. 

At that time (and in some places today) the concept of honour/shame was central to all relationships in the Middle East. There were complex protocols governing all human behaviour because honour was a finite resource and if you wanted to increase your own honour you could only do it at the expense of someone else’s honour. In an interaction between people of differing status, there were quite specific codes to follow so that each person, whether of higher or lower status, was not in danger of threatening the honour of the other.  

A loss of honour was equally the loss of respect and status in the community. This is the reason why Herod felt that he had to honour the request of his step daughter to behead John the Baptist. To have failed to do so would have meant that he would have lost face (respect, status) before his guests.  If a person lost their honour, it was lost for good. Had Herod not fulfilled his promise, he might have been able to maintain his power by force, but not through his status in the community. (He would have become an object of ridicule, someone who could not be expected to keep his word.)

In a collective (not individualistic) society, honour was collective. A man’s honour was dependent on the behaviour of his family – so much so that homes were often open to the street to demonstrate that the head of the household had nothing to fear. In this case the actions of the son reflect badly on and diminish the father’s honour.

This is what makes Jesus’ parable of the forgiving father all the more surprising, even shocking to his audience. From beginning to end the story is about a father whose honour is challenged and diminished and about a father who doesn’t care less about honour, his dignity or the regard in which he is held by his neighbours.  He cares only for the well-being of the son.

According to the parable the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance. Not only is this son greedy, selfish and impatient he is, by asking for his inheritance, implying that wished his father dead. Jesus’ audience would have understood that the son’s request was in clear violation of the fourth commandment to honour your father and mother. Further, anyone dependent on making a living from the land would be well aware of the financial burden that paying out the son would put on the father (and the remaining brother). The son has brought shame on the family, possibly impoverished the family and has thought only of himself and his short-term pleasure.

You might say, “yes, but he did come to his senses’. But did he? Was he really repentant or was he still putting his own needs first. Peter Hawkins (among others) observes that there is something quite calculating in the son’s thought process[1]. His speech is even rehearsed: “I will say to him.” There is no mention in the account that he is sorry, only that returning home would be a solution to his state of starvation. 

If anyone has/had any doubt that God was not a God of judgement and condemnation, but a God of compassion and second chances, this parable (and the two that precede it) puts paid to any questions on that score.

The father (probably representing God) has asked nothing of the son but has freely given him what he wanted, released him from all responsibility and let him go. Then, day after day, it appears, he has kept a lookout for this lost boy – forgoing pride and any sense of social respectability (the son has made it clear that he doesn’t want to be part of the family and has brought dishonour on his family name). 

Finally, the father sees the son and, without thought for his personal dignity and paying no regard to the diminished esteem in which he will be held by his neighbours, he runs (runs not walks) to take his son in his arms before son has any opportunity to give his well-thought out and well-rehearsed speech. If that were not enough to indicate to his neighbours his lack of self-respect, he then calls for the best robe, a ring for the finger, sandals for his feet AND a feast with the fatted calf, any one of which would be shocking and incomprehensible to his community.  A member of the family who had brought them into such disrepute and brought such shame upon them, should at the very least be shunned if not severely punished.

By turning upside down the social conventions of the time, Jesus wants his audience to let go of an idea that God only welcomes those self-righteous people who keep the law and set themselves apart from the sinner and tax-collector. Just the opposite, God’s primary concern is for the sheep who has wandered from the fold, the coin that has found its way into a hidden corner, and the son or daughter who has cut themselves off from God’s love. 

God of the lost, giver of second chances – is not a God who wants to condemn and exclude, but a God whose open embrace welcomes all who would turn to him – without question, without recrimination and certainly without judgement.

[1] Christian Century. Sunday’s Coming. 25/3/25

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Lent, Luke's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on A son who brings shame and dishonour and a father who couldn’t care less

Whose kingdom is it anyway? Mustard seeds and seeds growing secretly.

June 15, 2024

Pentecost 4 -2024

Mark 4:26-34 (some thoughts)

Marian Free

 

In the name of God whose creative energy brings all things into being. Amen.

‘Patience is a virtue’ the saying goes. Yet as parents and educators many of us are impatient. We have a tendency (fuelled by parenting books) to expect children to reach certain ‘milestones’ at particular times and worry (about them and/or our parenting) if they do not. Such a scenario makes no allowances for different temperaments or different interests, let alone differing times of maturity. Yet I can think of a number of children who at school were considered to be under-achievers and who went on to pursue higher degrees and/or challenging careers. When the time was right or when their interest was peaked, these children found the drive to grow and to achieve, a drive which no amount of coercion or threat could have achieved. Nothing good is gained by pushing a child who is not ready developmentally or emotionally. Excessive worrying will only lead to self doubt and low self esteem n the part of the child. There are times when we have to sit back and let things take their course.

It is not just children who need the right time and conditions to flourish. Nature is filled with examples of fauna and flora that will not reproduce unless the environment is right (for themselves and their offspring). An example is the desert spadefoot toad that is native to the Australian desert. These creatures have adapted to an arid environment by burrowing underground to escape the heat which would dry them out and kill them. When the drought breaks, they emerge to engage in a frenzied period of breeding. In order to take advantage to the short-lived pools of water, the tadpoles of this species develop remarkably quickly. If the conditions are not right the toads will patiently wait until they are.

Some plants and animals will wait for the rain before they reproduce or germinate, others, like the banksia, will only release their seeds in the fierce heat of a bushfire. Nothing we can do will make them germinate or reproduce if the situation is not conducive to flourishing.

Many of us find it hard to be patient, we want to see results – results that affirm we are doing/have done the right thing – prepared our children for school, given the radish seeds just the right amount of water, fed our pets the food that will keep them healthy, provided advice that eases someone’s burden.

The problem is that the world does not work that way. Our actions, however well meaning, will not speed up a process that needs a time.

I wonder if impatience is at the heart of today’s parables. I wonder if the disciples (or the hearers of Mark’ gospel) are chaffing at the bit to see the results of Jesus’ mission or their teaching. I wonder if they are impatient to see change in the world as evidence that the way that they are going about things is the right way to go.

Why else would Jesus urge patience? Why else would he tell parables about a kingdom that has small beginnings and grows in secret?

Behind both these parables is a reminder that the kingdom of God is in God’s hands and the kingdom will come in God’s time (not ours). We cannot force the kingdom, nor can we bring about GOD’S kingdom (not our kingdom), the kingdom of HEAVEN (not the kingdom here on earth) by our own efforts. Jesus’ language says it all – the kingdom of heaven doesn’t need our help. We cannot force its growth or bring it into existence by our own efforts. We have to place our trust in God, to remember that God is always working and that God who made the universe from nothing can certainly bring about the kingdom from the smallest beginning, even if we cannot see the growth.

In a world of declining congregations, we tend to take too much on ourselves, as if the existence of God, or the coming of the kingdom were down to us.

The message of the parables is that we must exercise patience and await with eager expectation to see what God has in store for us next and leave the kingdom in God’s capable hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Mark's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on Whose kingdom is it anyway? Mustard seeds and seeds growing secretly.

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?

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 »

Persistence or trust?

October 15, 2022

Pentecost 19 – 2022
Luke 18:1-14
Marian Free

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

Allow me to read the first parable again.

And he said a parable to them. Concerning their necessity always to pray and not to become discouraged, saying,
“Some judge was in some city; God was he not fearing, and people was he not respecting. And a widow was in that city. And she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Avenge/grant me justice against my adversary.’
“And not did he wish at that time. But after these things he said to himself, ‘if even God I do not fear no people do I respect, yet on account of the trouble this widow causes, I will avenge her, so that not into the end, coming, she will give me a black eye.’”
And said the Lord, “Hear what the unjust judge says. And will not God make vengeance to his elect, those who cry to him day and night, and will he be patient upon them? I say to you that he will avenge them swiftly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, then will he find faith upon the earth?

Now I imagine that translation might have taken you aback. It is awkward because it is a literal translation, and it is confronting because it forces us to see the parable in a different light. It is however a more translation and as such helps to give us a clearer sense of the parable’s meaning.

Collectively, we have a tendency to be complacent, if not lazy, when it comes to matters of faith. For example, when it comes to the bible, if or when we read it, we presume to know and understand it. Very often, we see what we expect to see rather than approaching the text afresh and asking questions and exploring it more deeply to see what else it might reveal. Familiarity does not so much breed contempt as it encourages complacency. It is easy to assume that what we have been told – at Sunday School or in a sermon – remains true for all time. This is especially true of the parables. We know the parables so well, they. Have been explained to us so often, that we can sum them up in a single phrase. The prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the barn builder and the persistent widow all bring up images not only of the parable, but of the meaning of the parable.

It is comforting and reassuring to have at our disposal stories that encapsulate what it is to be a neighbour, that illustrate how much God loves us or show the foolishness of storing up one’s wealth. Every now and again though it doesn’t hurt to be challenged, to have our traditional interpretations thrown into question or to see a saying or a parable in a new light because nothing is set in stone no one alive today was present to hear Jesus teach and even our gospel writers are the second or third generation of followers.

Before our gospels were written in their current form, Jesus’ teachings were conveyed orally. Over time different leaders will have given them different emphases depending on the needs of their audiences. When the gospel writers finally gathered Jesus’ sayings into a form of biography, they made decisions about the order in which they would present Jesus’ teaching and life. In the process they also included their own editorial comments – creating a narrative and sometimes interpreting Jesus’ words for the readers. The story didn’t end there. During the course of history, the bible was translated – first into Latin and then into the common language of the people. Translation led to another layer of interpretation. No matter how dispassionate they tried to be, each translator came to the scripture with a pre-existing bias which imposed itself on the text.

Few of us are aware of such biases and of what we bring to the text.

The literal translation of today’s parable of the widow and the judge is a good illustration of the problem. Even though the word εδικεω (edikeo) means to avenge, our translators have chosen (for whatever reason) to translate it as justice. Vengeance is a strong and uncomfortable word, and it certainly doesn’t fit with our received learning that the widow has no agency, that she needs someone to take her side. Yet there is no suggestion in the parable that our widow is powerless OR that she is meek and vulnerable. Indeed, she is arguing her case before the judge, without anyone to support her. She wants revenge and she will get it by wearing the judge down. When the judge finally gives in, it is less because of the widow’s persistence and more because he is afraid that she will resort to violence if he doesn’t give her what she wants.

This is a much more likely scenario than the one we usually associate with this parable. Jesus’ parables are intended to shock us, to challenge our conventional way of thinking. If we domesticate them (have the widow seek justice not mercy) we take away their sting – the point that Jesus is making to force us to re-think the way we see the world. Luke’s addition to the parable does just that. The parable proper is the story of the widow and the judge (verses 2 through 5). By adding an introduction and conclusion, Luke uses Jesus’ parable for a specific different purpose. Luke’s introduction and conclusion – Jesus told them a parable about the need to: “pray always and do not lose heart” and concludes that God will give justice to those who: “cry to him day and night” suggest that he uses it to encourage Jesus’ followers to pray – even when the circumstances seem to mitigate against prayer. (Luke’s additions and the translators’ preference for justice rather than vengeance contribute to a picture of a widow who is vulnerable and praiseworthy.)

But, as Amy-Jill Levine points out – in this parable neither the judge, nor the widow are ‘moral exemplars’. The widow seeks vengeance and will not stop until she is satisfied, and the judge allows himself to be corrupted or at least compromised – by giving in to the widow, even though he presumably did not think she had just cause.

The point is precisely that God is not like the judge, and we are not to be like the widow. God does not need to be worn down by our consistent pressing and cannot be forced into acting against God’s nature. We are not to be like the widow – taking things into our own hands, battering God into submission, or trying to bend God to our will. God can be trusted and God will grant justice to God’s elect. Our task is not to persist, but to trust, to believe that it is in God’s nature to bring about justice and that God will hear the cries of the broken-hearted and oppressed.

“Vengeance is mine” says the Lord in Deuteronomy (32:35)
If there is vengeance to be taken, God will take it. So we can leave it to God.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Luke's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on Persistence or trust?

Weed or towering cedar? The Kingdom of God.

June 12, 2021

Pentecost 3 – 2021

Mark 4:26-34 (some thoughts)

Marian Free

May I speak in the name of God who created us, Jesus who redeemed us and the Spirit who enlivens us. Amen.

A key theme of the Hebrew Bible is the Kingdom of Israel. From the time Saul is appointed as the first king, the historical books are concerned with the rule of the various kings, their victories (or losses) in battle, the size of their kingdoms, their wealth and, of course, their relationship with God. Never was the kingdom so powerful, grand and wealthy as in the time of Solomon who had “dominion over all the region west of the Euphrates from Tiphsah to Gaza, over all the kings west of the Euphrates; and he had peace on all sides”. Not only was his kingdom extensive, but his wealth was legendary. Just imagine: “Solomon’s provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks and fatted fowl. Solomon also had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.” Under his rule Judah and Israel lived in safety – under their vines and fig trees.

Solomon’s wealth and power were displayed in the houses that he built for himself and for his wife which were made of the finest stone and timber and lined with gold and precious stones. Likewise, Solomon’s Temple was extraordinary – filled with vessels of gold and silver and bronze, adorned with carved timber and furnished with the finest of cloth. So rich was Solomon and so secure his kingdom that it was said that: “The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedars as numerous as the sycamores of the Shephelah.” He had seven hundred princesses as wives and three hundred concubines!!! (See the first few chapters of 1 Kings for details.) Even allowing for exaggeration, the description of Solomon’s power and wealth gives some idea of the the sort of kingdom that Jesus’ contemporaries might have been expecting God to restore.

To them, the comparison of the kingdom to a mustard seed would have been utterly surprising, shocking and even offensive. Not only that, Jesus is using imagery that would have been confusing. When the Hebrew Bible wanted to use plants to symbolise powerful kingdoms, the writers chose plants that were equally powerful and majestic – the mighty cedar tree or the cosmic tree that represented the Babylonian Empire.  (“it was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of the earth. … Under it the wild beasts found shade, in its branches the birds of the air nested; all men ate of it”; Dan 4:8-9), Or the vision of Ezekiel in which the restoration of the people of Israel after the Babylonian captivity is imaged as a shoot plucked from the crest of a cedar (Babylon) and planted on mountain heights, where it becomes a majestic cedar and “birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it.”( (Dennis Hamm SJ. http://www.liturgyslj, 13/6/2021).

Not only does Jesus chose something as pedestrian as a mustard seed with which to compare the kingdom – he mixes his metaphors. Even though mustard is a short, scrubby plant and small, Jesus still envisages birds making nests in its shade. He inverts and subverts the Old Testament imagery of the mighty cedar. As he describes it, the kingdom of God is not majestic and powerful. It will not come with force and overwhelm all that is before it. Instead, the kingdom will come subtly and quietly – like the seed whose growth cannot be observed until the first shoots push themselves above the ground. What is more the kingdom of God will not tower over or overshadow those beneath it, but will still spread out and provide shelter and shade for those who seek it.

The kingdom of God does not consist of mighty armies or lavish palaces. Its king does not enforce submission, but rather encourages loyalty through love. Its leader does not impose his will, but instead models servant leadership.

We are gravely mistaken if, like Jesus’ contemporaries, we are expecting God to break in to our world with power and might ready to bend the whole world to God’s will or (worse) to establish us as God’s representatives on earth. Jesus’ life and ministry illustrate the sort of kingdom about which he speaks. It will (it has) enter(ed) our world unexpectedly and quietly and has disrupted our preconceptions and our expectations. In fact, it was for the majority of people, completely unrecognisable.

In the Lord’s Prayer we pray for God’s kingdom to come. Let’s be sure that we are not looking for it in the wrong places.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Mark's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on Weed or towering cedar? The Kingdom of God.

The seduction of the kingdom

July 25, 2020

Pentecost 8 – 2020

Matthew 13:44-58

Marian Free

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

There is something seductive about religious experience. Being filled with the Holy Spirit or feeling as though one is in the presence of God is such an amazing feeling that many people try to recreate it. In the process they forget that God is not at our disposal to be summoned at will. The same is true of preaching. My own experience is that there are times when I speak with such passion that I can feel the impact my words are having. While it is tempting to make this a regular habit, I am aware that it would take me down the track of insincerity. I would become more concerned about the effect of what I was saying rather than the content. I would be relying on my own ability to move people rather than on the Holy Spirit. This tendency to self-congratulation can, I think, be seen in some evangelists who almost certainly begin with good intentions, but who become convinced of their own power to move people and end up build empires that are really about themselves not God.

Over the last two weeks we have been exploring the interpretation of parables. I have suggested that the purpose of parables is not – as the biblical interpretations suggest – clear and accessible. Parables are, we believe, intended to jolt us into a new and different way of thinking. I suggested that a good example of this is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus’ listeners (ordinary Jews) would have been expecting that the third person along the road would have been one of them. First, the Priest, then the Levite – the next one would surely be a person to whom they could relate. Imagine the listener’s surprise when the third character on the road is not one of them but a despised Samaritan. It is he, the enemy, who stops to help the injured Jew. This is the sting in the tail, the unexpected twist that forces the audience to reconsider their long-held prejudices and challenges their accepted ideas as to who does or does not belong in the kingdom of heaven.

Today’s parables are no less shocking, in particular the one about the field. Again, because the parable is so familiar and because we are so used to hearing it in the context of the parable of the pearl, we hear it in the positive sense of giving up everything for the sake of the kingdom. In so doing, we miss the blatant immorality of the parable and give no thought to the possibility that the one buying the field is enriching himself – potentially at the expense of another. Selling everything in order to achieve the kingdom might seem to be a noble action but even in today’s society, buying property without disclosing information regarding its true worth would be regarded as devious and self-seeking. 

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matt 13:44).

In the ancient world burying treasure or items of value was a common practice – especially in the context of war and exile. It was not unusual for the person who hid the treasure to forget where they hid it, to die without sharing its location or to be in a position from which they never returned home. Ownership of found treasure was a matter for discussion among the rabbis which suggests that it was not an unusual circumstance.

In the case of the parable, it is clear that the treasure does not rightfully belong to the finder and that the finder buys the field with the intention to deceive – why else would he hide the treasure having found it? As Crossan points out: “If the treasure belongs to the finder, then buying the land is unnecessary. But if the treasure does not belong to the finder, buying the land is unjust.” This is not the only issue that the parable raises. In order to purchase the field, the finders sells all that he has an action that potentially leaves him impoverished. He may have the treasure but in all likelihood,  he cannot use it[1]. What then does the treasure have to do with the kingdom?

Scholars like Crossan and Scott believe that the key word in the parable is “joy”. They suggest that there is a lawlessness to joy, to the kingdom, something that disrupts the normal flow of events, a force which is freely given and distributed, but which cannot then be constrained or refrained. (Think of the sower who throws the seed with wild abandon – heedless as to where it might land and how it might – or might not – grow.) No thought is given to the recipient of the treasure. There is no test of character, no limits placed on the use of the gift. The seed is thrown, the treasure brought to our attention, whether the recipient deserves it or not.  It is, they suggest, the very “lawlessness”, the unexpected nature of the treasure-finding that means that it has the capacity to both bring joy and to corrupt.

Here is the sting. The idea that the kingdom has the power to corrupt pulls us up short. If it is the kingdom of God, how can it be anything but pure and moral and yet the examples with which I began indicate that that it is possible for the weak to be seduced by the gifts and the power of the Spirit and to use them for their own ends rather than for the advancement of the kingdom. 

The parable may tell us about giving up everything to achieve the kingdom, but this seems too self-evident. It is more likely that Jesus tells it to shock his listeners out of their complacency, to challenge their beliefs that God’s gifts are given only to the deserving, to undermine their desire to see only the positive aspects of God’s gifts and most importantly, to warn us against relying on our own egos rather than being totally dependent on the presence of God with us.

The kingdom of God is like treasure – once it is given, God does not demand it back. Be careful how you use it. 

[1] We have to remember that this is not a true story. There are a lot of unanswered questions – if the man does not own the field, what is he doing digging in it? If he is there legitimately as a day-labourer or a slave, what can he possibly have to sell?  

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Matthew, Parables | Comments Off on The seduction of the kingdom

Leaving it up to God

July 18, 2020

Pentecost 7 – 2020

Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Marian Free

In the name of God who sends rain on the just and the unjust and causes the sun to shine on both the evil and the good. Amen.

The events of recent times – Covid 19 and “Black Lives Matter” – have brought out both the best and the worst in human nature and have revealed deep divisions in our society and more particularly in that of the United States. To give one example, the legislated wearing of face masks seems to have touched a deep chord in the people who are objecting to the ruling. In Florida, an enquiry into the legislation heard the most extraordinary, and emotive reasons as to why the wearing of masks was, among other things, satanic. Passions are running so high on this subject that in the United States people have been spat on, a man has been charged with making terrorist threats and woman who was asked to wear a mask in a store began throwing her groceries everywhere. In Gosford in Australia, friends of mine were rudely told to remove their face masks by a young passer-by. These reactions, though unpleasant, pale into insignificance compared with the young bus driver in France who was hauled from his bus and kicked to death simply for asking four passengers to comply with the requirement to wear masks.

The pandemic has exposed vastly different attitudes to authority, competing interests with regard to health and to the economy and opposing views about the nature of freedom. At the extremes of some of these positions are people who are so convinced that they alone are right, so threatened by change, so worried about the impact on their personal freedom that they are taking matters into their own hands with, as we have seen, tragic results. 

In these difficult times, differences and divisions between different elements of society are highlighted and exaggerated leading to parochialism and partisanship. People are divided into them and us with “them” being everyone who holds a different view or behaves differently from ourselves. 

Parables such as the one I have just read play right into this tendency to divide society into those who agree with us and those who do not, those who hold our faith and those who don’t, those who are rigid adherents of the law and those who are not. The way that this parable is usually understood  – thanks to Matthew’s addition of an interpretation – can lead to self-satisfaction on the one hand and condemnation of the other on the other hand. If we are wheat (which of course we are!) then those who are different from ourselves must be weeds and by definition must be destined for destruction.

However, as Rosemary reminded us last week, Jesus’ parables are primarily about the Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven). They are not about us. 

I have said on many occasions that parables are not neat and self-explanatory (as Matthew’s interpretations suggest). Jesus doesn’t tell parables to affirm the way we see the world but rather to challenge our preconceptions, to shake us up and to move us to a new way of thinking. In other words, rather than confirm our world view, Jesus tries to help us to view the world from another, completely different perspective – that of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Take today’s parable for example – the sower is not, as might be expected, a poor share farmer, a day-laborer or a slave but a householder. We learn that the sower owns both land and slaves. Jesus’ audience would have pricked up their ears. Why, they would have thought, didn’t the householder delegate the task of sowing to his slaves? This is not the only aspect of the story that would have jarred with common practice or experience. Jesus listeners might have wondered why an enemy would plant darnel – a weed so commonplace that it would most likely have sprung up by itself and why would the householder instruct the slaves to leave it to grow when good agricultural practice would have been to weed the crop? You certainly wouldn’t allow these weeds to grow – the seeds of darnel are poisonous. Harvesting the plants together would have risked mixing the two thereby making the wheat worthless.

What to us, who are so far removed from first century Palestine, seems like a possible scenario, would, to Jesus’ listeners, have been a reversal of normal practice – slaves plant the seeds and crops are weeded as necessary. In the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus suggests, the good and bad exist together – separated only at the harvest.

Left to stand alone the parable exemplifies the complexity of human existence and the fact that Christians and non-Christians alike comprise the good and the bad, the saintly and the unsaintly, those with open and receptive hearts and those who are narrow and mean-spirited. Discerning who belongs in which camp can be as difficult as determining which is wheat and which is weed. As individuals and as community, we represent the breadth and depth of human experience and of human behaviour – the best and the worst together. 

The point of the parable seems to be this – that the world and its people are full of complexities, and it is not up to us to make distinctions based on our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad. Only God can truly discern the purposes of our heart. Only God can recognize what has made us who and what we are. Only God is in a position to determine who is good and who is not. Judgement will happen in its own time and without our intervention. 

If the wheat and the tares are left to grow together, if the good and the bad in ourselves and others are part of the reality of our existence and if rooting out the bad has the potential to damage the good, then perhaps the lesson is that we should be more gentle with ourselves and more understanding and compassionate of others.

Above all, in today’s turbulent times, perhaps we should humbly mind our own business and leave to God the matter of judgement. 

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Matthew, Parables | Comments Off on Leaving it up to God

How does your garden grow?

June 13, 2015

Pentecost 3 – 2015

Mark 4:26-34

Marian Free

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

For at least the last forty-five years I have been involved in discussions about the future of the church. In particular, I have observed and been party to a lot of navel gazing in relation to declining attendance on Sundays and a variety of suggestions as to how we might halt that decline. Numerous reasons have been offered for this parlous state of affairs – women returning to the workforce, television, Sunday sport and Sunday trading – to mention a just a few. The liturgy has also been blamed for a downturn in attendance. In particular, there are those who express a concern that our form of worship doesn’t appeal to young people. As a consequence there have been a variety of attempts to address this problem, ranging from Folk Masses in the 60’s to Twitter Masses in the last decade.

Focus on the liturgy has not been the only response to this perceived crisis in the life of the church. Programme after programme has been rolled out, each with a degree of optimism that suggests that this time we have the right formula and one that will bring people back to the church. Sadly, over time, these programmes fall into disuse and distant memory as they fail to live up to their promise. Church attendance remains at best static and worse continues to decline.

The cynic in me wonders whether our concern with church attendance has more to do with maintaining the institution of the church than it does with spreading the gospel message, more to do with us and less to do with God. At the very least it implies that without our help God will simply fade into insignificance, that without the church there will be no God!

A perusal of the Gospels reveals that, unlike us, Jesus was not concerned with the religious practice of the people – how often they went to the Temple, or whether or not they attended the synagogue on a regular basis. Jesus seems to be more concerned that the crowds understand the liberating power of the gospel. The Gospels record that Jesus set people free from their diseases and infirmities; he released them from the power of evil spirits and he liberated them from a false understanding of the scriptures and from the misleading teaching of the leaders of the church. Above all, Jesus was concerned that the people fully understood the nature of the Kingdom of God (or heaven).

Jesus himself proclaimed that the Kingdom of God had come near (Mark 1:15) and when Jesus sent out the disciples, he gave them authority over unclean spirits. The disciples proclaimed repentance, cast out demons and anointed and cured the sick (Mk 6:6-13). They did not concern themselves with filling church (synagogue) pews.

Jesus’ primary concern was the Kingdom of God and most of the parables relate to this theme. These parables begin: “The Kingdom of God is like – a sower, a seed, a woman, a shepherd ..”. From all of these images, his listeners were able to build a picture of the kingdom of God in which the lost are sought and found, growth is secret and more abundant than expected, weeds will grow together with the wheat, debts are forgiven and the first will be last. Moreover, the kingdom will be worth more than everything that we own and we will give all that we have to possess it.

The parables do not say or even imply that the Kingdom of God will consist of full churches or of dioceses that are financially secure. The signs of the Kingdom are much more subtle and unexpected. More than that the Kingdom, according to Jesus, is not ours to build, but always God’s. It is the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of the church and of church-goers. We seem to have convinced ourselves that the Kingdom is entirely dependent on the existence of the church and lost sight of whose Kingdom it is and that we expend far too much time concerned with the survival of the institution of the church and far too little time announcing the kingdom of God as an alternative to the kingdom of this world.

This morning’s parables are particularly challenging in a climate that is focused on church growth. The first, the parable of the sower, is a stark reminder that the growth of the Kingdom is entirely determined by God and not by human effort (‘the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how’). The second, the parable of the mustard seed, confronts us with the idea that to an untrained eye the Kingdom might look like an insignificant herb or weed – nothing like the images that “Kingdom” usually calls to mind. In other words, whatever the Kingdom is, it will not be as we expect.

In the light of these parables, perhaps it is time that we, the church, stopped looking inwards, trying to tweak what we do on a Sunday morning so that it becomes more attractive to more people; time that we moved out from our beautiful buildings into the communities around us; time that, instead of trying to persuade people to come to us that, we found ways to set people free from the chains of individualism, consumerism, ambition, from oppression, injustice and violence.

Above all it is time to take a deep breath and to remember that it is God (not us) who will cause the Kingdom of God to grow and that in ways that we may not see or understand. It is time to recall that the Kingdom that will be unlike any other Kingdom that has preceded it. If we cannot imagine it, we certainly cannot build it. In other words, perhaps it is time to relax, to stop struggling for survival; to let go and let God and then to watch in amazement to see what God will do and then to go wherever God may take us.

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in Mark's gospel, Parables | Comments Off on How does your garden grow?