Archive for the ‘Paula Gooder’ Category

An unusual body

January 26, 2013

Epiphany 3

1 Corinthians 12

Marian Free

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

In December 2009, in Melbourne, conjoined twins – Trishna and Krishna – were separated in a complex process that took a large team of people thirty-two hours to complete.  You will all remember the details. As the twins were joined at the head, it was a particularly difficult operation. Doctors had studied the brains of both children to identify where the blood vessels and brain material needed to be separated. For months they had practiced on models of the twins until they were sure that they knew exactly what they had to do and how to position the girls at exactly the right angle in order to be able to carry out the operation with sufficient skill to cause the least amount of damage to their brains and to give the twins the best chance at survival.

The surgery required a team of sixteen surgeons including plastic surgeons and neuro-surgeons. Also taking part in the marathon event were anaesthetists, cardiologists, doctors nurses and goodness knows who else. Each member of the team would have been trained over a long period of time to ensure that everyone was proficient and knew exactly what their role was and how to carry it out. The absence of any one member of the team could have jeopardized or delayed the whole operation.

Surgery, particularly complex surgery, is not the only example situation in which individuals have to put their egos aside to work together to achieve a common goal. Fire-fighting, rescue work and the distribution of aid all have the best results when no one person is striving to stand out from the crowd and when each person is carrying out their allotted task to the best of their ability in order to contribute to a successful outcome. The reverse is also true, when teams do not work together or when one individual is seeking their own aggrandisement, the effort is at best ineffective and at worst damaging.

Good team work can save lives. Failure to work as a team can cost lives. Working together can achieve a desired result. Working against each other can be totally unproductive.

There are a variety of ways to talk about working together (or not). We talk about team-work, team building or pulling together. If a team is not working, we use language that refers to the weak link in the chain or to people not pulling their weight. In 1 Corinthians Paul uses the image of body to capture the idea of the interdependence of members of the Christian community. In using the term body, Paul is not being original. The term was used by the Greeks as a symbol of social unity. In fact “body” was the most common expression for unity as was the idea that all people are different and that all members of the body should work together for the greater good.

While it is not original, Paul’s use of the body imagery differs from that of his contemporaries in a number of ways. Firstly, Paul identifies God as the source of both difference and of unity. Second, rather than urging some (usually the less gifted) individuals to subordinate themselves for the sake of the body, Paul argues not only that members of the body should work together in such a way that everyone would benefit, but he makes the extraordinary claim that the weaker members are indispensable and deserve greater honour and respect. Further, when Paul suggests that the Corinthians are one body, he doesn’t mean just any body or the sum total of the community. The body that the Corinthians are called to be is Christ’s body.

Transferred to our time and place, the implications of Paul’s discussion on the body are profound and deserve some serious consideration. For a start, it means that on our own, you and I are not Christ’s body. The body of Christ on earth is expressed best when Christians together exemplify Christ. It means too that we are called collectively and not individually to be the presence of Christ in the world. It means that the community that formed in Christ’s name – the church – has to recognise that each member is dependent on all the other members, and how much Christ’s continuing mission relies on the efforts of the community as a whole and not on our individual efforts. Our part in Christ’s body, our contribution to the continuation of Christ’s mission on earth depends not just on what we ourselves do, but on what the community – with our help – does. What is more, the body of Christ is dependent on our recognition of the value of the contribution of every other member  – not just those whose contribution stands out or is more obvious. “We simply cannot afford for any part of the body to consider themselves unnecessary to the whole[1].” Nor can we allow ourselves to believe that our contribution is more significant than that of anyone else – that we alone make the difference.

In some ways the image of the body is comforting. It is reassuring to know that the continuation of Christ’s mission in the world does not stand or fall according to what I do – or for that matter what you do. At the same time the image is challenging. In order for Christ’s body to be a living reality, we all have to learn to work and grow together, to value, support and encourage each other.

In this individualistic, privatized western world, it is easy to think that it is our personal relationship with God that is all important, that our salvation stands or falls on what we do and how we behave. It is easy to convince ourselves that we can be a Christian without coming to church or that developing our personal spirituality is as important, if not more so than participating in the spiritual growth of the body as a whole. However, the opposite is true. Not only do we need the body, but the body needs us. Whether we are a foot or a heart, an arm or a nose, our contribution is essential to the proper functioning of the body. When we are not functioning, when we are absent or when we are suffering, the body as a whole suffers. Equally, whether we are a brain or a toe, a hip or an eye we will be unable to function properly if we are not connected to and working with the remainder of the body.

Our life in Christ is just that – in Christ – and therefore in the body of Christ – the gathered community of believers. One of the challenges for the twenty first century church is to recover a sense of our interdependence, to learn to recognise and value our place in the whole, to celebrate each other no matter how great or small, how visible or invisible their contribution and to understand that without us (or for that matter without any one of us) the gathered community is in some way diminished and impoverished. Unlike a surgical team, or a rescue crew, our commitment to the body doesn’t end when the job is done. Being part of the body is our life, our Christian responsibility and God’s gift to us.

 

Week after week we affirm “We are the body of Christ.” Let us do all that we can to ensure that that is in fact our lived reality.

[1] Gooder, Paula. Everyday God: The Spirit of the Ordinary.Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012, 113.

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How will they hear?

July 7, 2012

Pentecost 6

Mark 6:1-13

Marian Free

In the name of God whose word informs and enlightens our faith. Amen.

 

In his charge to Synod, the Archbishop spoke with passion about the Bible – the contradictions contained within it and the importance of studying it. (anglicanbrisbane.org.au) The reason that he spoke so strongly is that the Natural Church Development tool that is being used by many of the Parishes in the Diocese has revealed that one of the weaknesses in our Parish life is passionate spirituality – our reading and understanding of the Bible. We all know what we believe and some of us are able to articulate it to others, but when it comes to explaining the central texts of our faith we are on less certain ground.

There are at least two barriers to becoming more familiar with the Bible. One is that academic study of the Bible can be quite challenging, if not confronting. For many, it is a discipline that is demanding and difficult. A second barrier is that of time – in particular the lack of it. In past centuries, the services of Morning and Evening Prayer were designed to provide an opportunity for the Bible to be explained and expounded. Longer passages of the Bible were read during these services and it was expected that the sermon would be up to half an hour in length. In a less pressured world, in which there were fewer forms of entertainment, there was more leisure to spend time in church. Many people attended both Morning and Evening Prayer or Communion and Evening Prayer which provided a larger diet of Bible reading than is possible in the Eucharist alone. Longer readings and longer sermons on Sunday mornings might solve the problem, but would destroy the balance of Word and Sacrament which is central to the Eucharist and perhaps lead to fewer people attending church.

Not only do we have less time to spend expounding the Bible, it is also true that not all members of the clergy have had the confidence or courage to share the latest scholarship with their congregations. What this means is that few lay people have been given the opportunity to keep up with the research of the last 100 years and many are shocked and surprised when informed that scholars have made discoveries that change the way in which familiar stories have been previously taught and understood.

As you know, the Bible study group in this Parish has been studying the gospel of Luke using a commentary written by Brendan Byrne. Over the course of the study, I have become acutely aware of how complex much of Jesus’ teaching is and how difficult it is to understand unless one has the tools with which to interpret it. I think for example of the story of the dishonest steward who is praised by Jesus for acting in a way which will secure his future. At first glance it appears that Jesus is saying that God approves of dishonesty! Then there is the story of the widow who wears down the unjust judge through her persistence. Does this mean that God is like the unjust judge and will not act unless we wear him down with a constant repetition of our requests?

There is a lot more to the New Testament than the wonderful stories and adventures that we learn at Sunday School. Our understanding of our faith is enhanced and our appreciation of our texts is enriched if we take some time to grapple with and to try to understand what the more difficult passages really mean. For example, the story of the dishonest steward is, of course, not a story about God’s approving dishonesty but rather it is Jesus’ challenge to all of us that we make sure that we live our lives in such a way that we will be welcomed into heaven – that, like the dishonest steward, we make provision for our future salvation. The story of the widow and the judge is not about our wearing God down through endless prayer. Rather a reminder that God is not like the unjust judge and will hear our prayer. This means we should not allow ourselves to feel disheartened when times are difficult, but that we should remain confident that God will hear us. In both stories, Jesus is using unsavoury characters to shock us into paying attention to what he is saying.

During my week away I was able to read a book written by a friend of ours – Paula Gooder . In it she explores a wide variety of methods that are used by scholars to study the New Testament. What makes this book easy to read is that it is aimed at those who are new to biblical studies. Not only is each explanation brief but each is followed by an example of how the particular technique is used to interpret a passage of the bible. This means is that the reader not only learns all kinds of interesting things about the New Testament, but is also able to apply what they have learnt.

Today’s gospel consists of two discrete stories both of which contain puzzles for the modern reader. In the first section, Jesus is welcomed by the people of his hometown, but shortly afterwards they are scandalized by him. Why their change in attitude? Secondly, Jesus is identified as the son of Mary. This is quite unusual in first century Palestine – a person would usually be identified by their father’s name. The first puzzle is solved if we understand that the people attribute Jesus’ ability to work miracles not to God, but to some other – possibly demonic-force and so they treat him with suspicion. The second puzzle – that of his name may be a derogatory inference to the fact that his father is unknown. Put together these two explanations help us to make sense of why Jesus was rejected by his hometown.

The second story in today’s gospel relates the sending out of the twelve disciples. In itself, the account is reasonably straightforward unless we are familiar with the ways in which Matthew and Luke record the same account. Not only is Mark’s account briefer, but Matthew and Luke change at least three significant details. Whereas Mark’s Jesus sends the disciples two by two, Matthew and Luke send them out all together, Mark says the disciples may take a staff, Matthew and Luke expressly forbid the taking of a staff and finally, Matthew and Luke enlarge the disciple’s task by adding the healing of the sick to Jesus’ command to cast out unclean spirits. Among other things, these differences have led scholars to believe that Mark was written first and that Luke and Matthew used Mark to write their accounts but added to it details that were known to them.

Our scriptures provide us with an exciting and fascinating glimpse into the life and teaching of our Saviour, they give us insights as to how we should live as followers of Christ and they open doors into the way that Jesus was seen and understood by his contemporaries and those who followed after. Passages that at first seem difficult to understand are often easily explained and others that seem harsh and uncompromising are sometimes a means to shock us into action.How will we know what they mean if we don’t make time to read and understand them? We live in a world that is increasingly divorced from the church and from the teachings of Jesus.

If we don’t know and tell our story who will?

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