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Bridging the gap

December 24, 2013

Christmas Eve 2013

John 1:1-14 – a reflection

Marian Free

In the name of God who will stop at nothing to ensure that we reach our full potential. Amen.

“In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.” Have you ever noticed that John’s gospel denies us the Nativity. Not for John the angels, the shepherds or the Magi. John does not mention Mary or Joseph or Bethlehem. Those looking for familiar images or for the Christmas card stories will find none of that sentimentality here. The author of John takes us back to the very beginning – to creation. Whereas Matthew and Luke use genealogies to trace Jesus’ lineage – Matthew to Abraham, Luke all the way back to God. John makes it very clear that Jesus existed before anything else. According to John, Jesus is much more than Luke’s “Son of God”. Before time began – the Word, Jesus, co-existed with God, in fact was God.

Luke and Matthew try to engage us with stories of Jesus’ human beginnings, John is much more interested in connecting us with the mystery of Jesus’ being both God and human. John tells us that in Jesus, God takes on human flesh and becomes fully engaged in human existence. John not only takes us back to the very beginning, but he also grounds us in the present. In the fourth Gospel we come face-to-face with the confronting reality(?) of a God who is fully human and a human who is fully God. Instead of contemplating a baby, we are forced to consider the deeper realities of our faith, to ask ourselves what does it mean? How can Jesus be both fully human and fully divine? Why would God abandon the heavenly realms for the messy, dirty, risky experience of earthly existence?

God enters our existence to bridge the gap, to heal the divide between human and divine, to show once and for all that all creation – including the human species – is infused with the presence of God, and to demonstrate that God is intimately engaged with God’s creation. The Word made flesh is not a dispassionate, detached deity who is uninterested in human affairs, but in the person of Jesus, has fully identified with the human condition – assuring us that nothing is outside of God’s concern, that our daily lives are not so dull that God is not interested in them. The Word made flesh is proof positive that unlike us, God does not make a distinction between the holy and the mundane, the extraordinary and the ordinary. When God in Jesus took on human form, God in effect declared that all creation bears the image of God.

When we revisit the baby, we discover that the child in the cradle is just as confronting and challenging as the Word made flesh. There, vulnerable and dependent lies God himself – totally (and at great risk) entering into the human condition. This is what we discover once more at Christmas time. God’s love for the world was so great that God could not stand aloof, but had to become one with God’s creation, so that creation could achieve its true purpose – to become one with God.

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Uncomfortable people – terrorists or saviours, threat or promise?

December 7, 2013

Advent 2 – 2013

Matthew 3:1-12

Marian Free

 In the name of God who is not always comfortable and benign and whose prophets are sometimes harsh and uncompromising. Amen. 

Over the past two days our airways and our print media have eulogised Nelson Mandela and rightly so. His was an extraordinary life and he belongs with the great men and women of history. That said, not everyone shares that view. When we were in Cape Town a few years ago our tour guide expressed disgust that “that terrorist” was regarded as a hero. In Fact, for most of Mandela’s early political life he was considered a revolutionary and a troublemaker. He was a leader of a banned organisation that incited people to revolt against the government. People in South Africa and abroad were divided in their opinions of him and of his means of achieving his goal. For many, he was a respected figure, working for a just cause, but for those who supported apartheid he was considered a dangerous activist who was determined to bring down a legitimate government.

In his autobiography: A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela takes full responsibility for the decision of the African National Congress to use violence in the struggle against apartheid and when the Government invited the ANC to the negotiating table Mandela refused to lay down arms as a pre-condition for the talks.  He was anything but a comfortable man.

I raise these issues to remind you that it is not always easy to make wise judgements about uncomfortable people – especially when they challenge our complacency, confront our values or threaten the stability of our way of life.  Sometimes it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we understand how easily we are deceived. Hitler – an upholder of law and order – turned out to be a monster. Mandela – a law-breaker – turned out to be a nation’s “greatest son, father of the people.” (Jacob Zuma)

John the Baptist was an uncomfortable and uncompromising person. Despite that people flocked to him from miles around. No doubt he unsettled both the religious and political leaders of his day. Those in authority are suspicious of people who can draw a crowd and nervous about the level of their influence they can exert.

Perhaps this is why the Pharisees and Sadducees ventured into the wilderness to see John and ostensibly to be baptised by him. These unlikely partners in crime would be curious to see what John was doing and teaching. Perhaps they thought they could learn something from him, in particular how they could gain the support of the people. Alternately, they might have been seeking information that they could use in order to discredit him and to regain the deference of the people. Whatever their reasons, it is clear that John saw right through them. He did not believe that they had come to repent or to learn from him. He accused them of shallowness and of duplicity. “You offspring of vipers,” he says. “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

For John, it is not enough that they came out into the desert. Nor is it enough that they sought baptism. He was aware that if the Pharisees and Sadducees were not prepared to radically change their lives their baptism would have achieved nothing. Their feigned respect for John the Baptist was meaningless if they had not responded to his message and allowed their lives to be transformed as a result. John was confident that they could no rely on their heritage or their position, only a change of heart would ensure that they retained the privilege of being children of Abraham.

It is easy to be like the Pharisees and Sadducees and to live our lives on the surface, relying on our respectability and our superficial goodness. We can stand at a distance and admire and respect the John the Baptists of the past and the Nelson Mandelas of our time. However to dive into the depths of our being and to root out all that is ugly is a much more challenging and unwelcome task. Not many of us have the nerve to abandon our comfort zones and to allow ourselves to be radically changed. It takes courage to look deep into our souls and it takes a great deal of moral fibre to go against the flow, to associate with uncomfortable and challenging people and, with them, to stand up and be counted.

We do not honour Nelson Mandela by filling our Facebook pages with quotations and photos or by speaking in hushed and reverent voices about his achievements and his legacy. The best accolade that we can give him is to endeavour from this day on to recognise and to confront injustice; to rid our hearts of all bitterness and resentment; and to pray for the wisdom to discern when a person who makes us uncomfortable is a threat or a promise.

John the Baptist issued both threat and promise. He challenged the establishment and promised the coming of one even greater. He announced the judgement of God and provided a means to escape it. He saw through the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees and honoured the openness of the people and their willingness to change.

If we do not wish to be censured, if we are sure that we are not the offspring of vipers, it is important that we hear John’s accusations, that we examine our motives for what we do and do not do, that we do not seek to protect what we have but to do what is right. Only an openness of heart, a self-critical attitude and a true understanding of the righteousness of God will help us to know right from wrong, good from bad, hero from terrorist. May God give us discernment, clarity of purpose and an openness of heart and mind, so that we might recognise the prophets among us, respond to their challenge and with them prepare for the coming of our God.

[1] Jacob Zuma commenting on Mandela’s death.

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Triumph of good over evil

September 28, 2013

Michael and All Angels – 2013 

Revelation 12:7-12a

Marian Free

In the name of God who reveals to us far more than we can understand and yet is as familiar as a breath. Amen.

The first time I was taken to see a Shakespearean play, my father gave me a synopsis to read so that I would be sure to understand it. Shakespeare’s English and time are sufficiently different from ours that my father thought that I would be lost without some guidance. It is still the case, that for some productions at least, the programme provides an outline of the story so that the attendee does not get lost. It is a shame that some such guidance is not provided for modern readers of the book of Revelation which was written for a time vastly different from our own and in a form and language that many of us find difficult, if not impossible to understand.

From the beginning the book of Revelation was controversial. Until the fourth century many did not even include it among the books of the New Testament. Revelation is a colourful, even lurid description of what will happen at the end of time to those who oppose God and persecute those who believe in Jesus. It can be a difficult book to understand because it is full of symbolism which we no longer use or understand. In parts it reads like a collection of Old Testament quotes simply cobbled together. In other places there are descriptions of heaven and elsewhere there are fantastical stories, like the story of the woman giving birth and the red dragon which has seven heads and ten horns and a tail that can sweep the stars out of the sky.

Some of the symbolism is lost to us, but some can be interpreted. We know for example that numbers are significant in Judaism. Seven is the number of perfection, twelve represents comprehensiveness and four refers to the four corners of the earth. We know too that letters were used as numbers in both Hebrew and Greek – so for example the letters in the name David added up to 14 which is significant for Matthew’s genealogy. This information helps us to determine that 666 (the number of the beast in Revelation) is almost certainly the numerical value of the name Nero – a particularly violent Emperor, who by the time of the writing of Revelation was dead, but was also rumoured to have returned to life. Colours also have some significance for the readers of this type of literature. The four horses of the apocalypse are coloured – red (for war), green (for death), black (for famine) and white (for the crown, the conqueror).

Without a code breaker, Revelation is almost impossible to understand. Without an understanding of its background and purpose, it is easily misinterpreted. It can become to the uninitiated a book of judgment when it is intended as a book of comfort and grace.

As the introduction implies, Revelation is directed at seven churches in Asia Minor. Members of these churches were experiencing some form of persecution or social exclusion and isolation. Having become Christians they could not participate in the worship of idols nor could they be involved in the Emperor cult. This in turn would have excluded them from the social, ritual and business life of their society. If they could not worship idols, they could not belong to the trade guilds and their ability to earn a living would have been severely reduced. Added to that was the fact that after the Jewish war they had lost the protection of the synagogue and the respect that was afforded to the Jews throughout the Empire. They were vulnerable and not recognised by the state as a religion.

What these people needed then was encouragement to keep the faith and an assurance that they would be rewarded for their steadfastness – if not in the present then at least in some future life. They needed to believe too that those who opposed them would get their just desserts. The book was not written as a prediction of cataclysmic events in a distant future. It was written to address a particular situation sometime towards the end of the first century. It cannot be used to interpret our present, but rather as a tool to try to understand an aspect of the past.

Scholars approach the book differently, but one way to read the book is to see it as a drama which consists of seven scenes.[i]. Five of the scenes are bordered by descriptions of heaven and four of the scenes contain a group of seven – there are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven visions and seven bowls. Before the seventh seal and seventh trumpet there are interludes or digressions which introduce a different theme one of which includes the brief account of Michael the archangel, who with his angels, throws Satan, with his angels, out of heaven. The heavenly drama is described in only one verse. If we read on, it appears that any victory over God’s opponents has been won as much by believers on earth as it has by the heavenly hosts and that the battle in heaven is a vivid and dramatic way of describing the actual situation on earth.

Satan is not necessarily a being, but is personalized here to make a point about the battle between good and evil, chaos and order, law and lawlessness. The context tells us that Satan in this account is not the tempter of Genesis but the accuser, the devil’s advocate of the book of Job. We deduce this from verse 10, which suggests that one of the forms of persecution experienced by Christians is that their fellow citizens have been accusing them before Rome (12:10) – possibly informing the authorities of their refusal to take part in the Emperor cult. However, even at the risk of their own lives, the believers have remained firm. In this way the believers themselves have exposed how ineffectual Satan really is. Perhaps more importantly, there is no longer anything for which believers can be accused – they have remained faithful. This means that there is no longer a role for Satan (the accuser) in heaven.

Believers are thus assured that while the present may be filled with difficulty and the threat of persecution, their steadfastness in the face of opposition is essential to the triumph of heaven, the victory of good over evil. How comforting those words must have been then and how much they must mean to the Christians experiencing hostility and violence in places such as Pakistan and Nigeria today. Not only are they assured that their steadfastness will be rewarded, they are also being reminded that their very faithfulness will contribute to the triumph of good in the world.

Our experience, in 21st century Hamilton, is vastly different from those for whom the book of Revelation was written. That said, we still live in a world in which there is a great deal that is outside of our control, in which bad things happen to good people and in which no one can escape grief and suffering. For all its complexities, the Book of Revelation is a reminder that no matter how bleak our situation or our disastrous the outlook for the future, we can believe that God is on our side, that good will triumph over evil and that at the end, God will wipe every tear from our eyes (Rev 21:4).

[i] Fallon provides the following breakdown of the book.

a. Introduction                                                 1:1-3

b. Opening liturgical dialogue                     1:4-8

c. Prophetic commission                              1:9-11

Heaven

Scene 1 Letters to the 7 churches             2:1-3:22

Heaven                                                   4:1-5:14

Scene 2 Six seals are broken                       6:1-7:9

Heaven                                                   7:9-8:6

Scene 3 The sounding of six  trumpets            8:7-11:14

Heaven                                                11:15-12:12

Scene 4 Forces for good and for evil      12:13-14:20

Heaven                                                 15:1-8

Scene 5 The seven bowls                            16:1-18:24

Heaven                                                19:1-10

Scene 6 The final struggle, victory          19:11-20:15

and judgement

Scene 7 The Church of God on earth     21:1-22:5

a. Guarantee of prophecy              22:6-7

b. Concluding liturgical dialogue    22:8-17

c. Conclusion                                                22:18-21

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Free to live

August 24, 2013

Pentecost 13

Luke 13:10-17

Marian Free

In the name of God who sets us free to live. Amen.

In the novel, The Woman Upstairs, by Claire Messud, the Father of one of the characters says: “It is not your position, but your disposition that determines your life.” What he means is, that it is not what life throws at you, but how you respond to your circumstances that makes all the difference. In other words, it is our attitude that makes us better, not bitter. We can’t choose our lives, but we can choose what we make of them. Different people react differently to trauma, grief or incapacity. Some are weighed down by anger, depression and resentment and others are somehow able to rise above their circumstances and not only remain positive, but are able to take lessons from the negative event and to grow from it. It is understandable that people for whom life has been a constant struggle should feel despondent and constrained. Those whose life’s experiences have prevented them  from achieving their full potential sometimes think that they have been short changed, that if only their life had taken a different turn they could have achieved so much more. This, as I have said, is a reasonable reaction, especially if illness, accident or disaster has taken their life in a direction other than they one that they had planned. However, what can happen to such people is that their very negativity exaggerates their situation. Instead of looking at what they can do, they focus on what they can’t do. Instead of looking forward to “what could be”, they spend their time dreaming of what “might have been”. They seem to get stuck, unable to move out of their despair and frustration to make the best of their circumstances however bad they may seem to be. On the other hand their are those whose attitude is just the opposite. In the face of disaster, trauma or adversity, such people exert extraordinary will or simply rely on a positive attitude to surmount their circumstances and to wring out a new, if different, future for themselves. Rather than focusing on the life they might have had, they find a way to make the best of the life they do have. Sometimes, as a result of their struggle, they achieve more, are more creative, more innovative, more driven, than if they had never had to face adversity. The woman in today’s gospel has been bound for eighteen years. When Jesus tells her that she is free from her ailment, he opens up new, unthought of possibilities for life. Healed of her deformity, the woman can now stand up straight. Her world view is no longer confined to the ground beneath her feet. She can once again take in the faces of her family and friends, see the sky, the birds and the trees. Her life is no longer limited by the way that people view her. New vistas of possibility open up, new ways to share in the life of the community around her. She can hold her head up high in her community – both literally and figuratively. It is Jesus’ desire to set us all free – from all the limits that we allow to define and confine us. Jesus challenges us to let go of any events and hurts from the past that we may have allowed to restrict us and sets us free – free to live, free to achieve our full potential, free to make a contribution to the world

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Sharing the Gospel

July 6, 2013

Pentecost 7 – 2013

Luke 10:1-12,17-24

Marian Free 

In the name of God who equips us and sends us into the world to proclaim the gospel. Amen.

Some time ago now, I read a book written by a Jesuit priest, Vincent Donovan. He tells of being sent to a mission in Kenya filled with enthusiasm to share the gospel. When he arrived he discovered that even though the Jesuits had been in the country for 100 years, they had not converted one single person to Christianity. That is not to say that they had had no impact at all. The local people, proud and independent Masai, were very happy to make use of the mission school and to bring the sick and injured to the hospital. It was some time however since any of the missionaries had left the mission station except to drive the ambulance to pick up or deliver a patient. The youthful and enthusiastic Vincent was dismayed. This was not why he had travelled so far. He had come to take Jesus to the people, not wait until they came to him. He asked for and gained permission to go out into the villages to share the gospel.

This was not easy. First, Vincent had to gain the trust of the chief of the village, then he had to arrange a suitable time for the teaching to occur. He discovered that the best time in the day was four in the morning. As the Masai are pastoralists any later would have found them scattered with their herds. Having gained a welcome and made a time to meet, Vincent’s approach was to share with the people the Gospel of Mark. This too was not without its difficulties. Many of the parables in the gospels relate to an agrarian culture – the mustard seed, the sower and the fig tree all relate to agricultural practices. To repeat these parables might well have led to confusion if not outright antagonism among his hearers. The Masai, being pastoralists, might not have understood the references to sowing. Worse, as those who needed pasture for their flocks, they were in conflict with neighbouring cultures who used the land to produce crops not pasture and may not have taken kindly to stories about growing crops.

Vincent navigated all these difficulties – teaching the gospel with sensitivity and respect for the culture of the people. At the end of the time he asked them if they would like to be baptised. If they said: “yes”, he proceeded with baptism. If they said: “no”, he respected their decision and did not press them to change their minds.

Having grown up in a barely post-colonial era, I found this a refreshing account of mission. Unlike many missionaries before him, Vincent demonstrated respect for the local culture and made no attempt to compel his hearers to abandon their culture or to convert. This is a vastly different approach from the missionaries of the 19th century who, sent out from their respective nations, undermined and denigrated local culture sometimes with devastating results. The problem seems to have been an inability to separate faith in Jesus Christ from the culture and mores of the nations from which they had come. Acceptance of the gospel in their minds equalled acceptance of Western culture. There were of course some wonderful missionaries who tried to learn local cultures and languages, who brought medicine and education that improved the lives of those whom they served. Others simply imposed their faith, their will and their culture on those whom they felt were inferior and lacking in morality. They had no regard for the people and no understanding of the cultures they were destroying.

For many then, the idea mission has left a bad taste. The arrogance and presumption of some that western society had reached some sort of pinnacle of moral goodness and knowledge that meant that it was the standard by which others had to be judge leaves those of us who know its weaknesses embarrassed and ashamed.

This creates a dilemma. In the multi-faith, multi-media world of the 21st century, how do we make sense of Jesus’ sending out first of twelve and then of seventy to proclaim the kingdom? What is our responsibility with regard to sharing the gospel today? Do we, you and I believe that it is our duty to ensure that as many people as possible are “saved”? Do we live in a state of terror that those who have not heard the gospel will be eternally damned? I suspect that the answer to both those questions is “no”. If anything, our behaviour tends to reflect a live and let live attitude a belief that while our faith is good enough for us, we do not need to inflict it on others.

Our response to the mistakes of the past should not be to do nothing. We believe, or at least claim to believe that Jesus’ life and teaching are transformative, that Jesus’ death and resurrection have reconciled us to God, that the Holy Spirit inspires and empowers us. This surely is something worth sharing.

In an increasingly secular world, many people are hungry for meaning, searching for something to nurture their soul. Our task is to get alongside people, to listen to the stories, to try to understand their dreams, to recognise their hurts, to help them deal with their modern day demons of loneliness, busyness, stress, to try to bring about healing of minds as well as bodies, to respond with integrity to their questions, to be open to their doubts and equipped to share with them our journey of faith.

“How are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” (Rom 10:14)

It is not our task to impose the gospel on those who do not want to hear or accept it, but unless we take the time to share something that is important to us, how will others know the difference it might make in their lives?

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Staying the course

June 29, 2013

Pentecost 6 – 2013

Luke 9:51-62

Marian Free 

In the name of God who asks nothing less than all that we are and all that we have. Amen.

When reading the gospels it is often important to see the pattern that is developing. Luke, like the other gospel writers, carefully crafts his account of Jesus’ life. Some stories are clustered together for maximum impact, the whole gospel is framed by Jerusalem and Jesus’ travels are recorded in such a way as to point the reader or listeners to certain conclusions.

Today’s gospel sets the scene for Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem. Jesus undertakes this journey with a certain amount of foreboding, he is well aware that entering that city is filled with risk, that his very life is at stake. Luke builds the tension through the way he organises his story and by his use of language. The narrative leading up to this point includes Peter’s recognition of Jesus and Jesus’ prediction of his death and resurrection. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day he will rise” (9:22, 44).

The readers know then that the words “taken up” refer to the crucifixion and understand that Jesus is turning towards Jerusalem even though he knows the likely consequence. They will recognise that Jesus does not take this journey lightly. The language: “He set his face” makes this clear that for Jesus the decision to go to Jerusalem is an act of will, not a whim. Against his inclination to turn back, Jesus none the less resolves to complete his mission, to go to Jerusalem whatever the outcome might be.

Jesus’ courage and determination to finish what he started may well determine his responses to the three would-be disciples – not one of whom seems to recognise or share Jesus’ utmost commitment to the task ahead. The situation now is different from that when Jesus began his mission – when people like Peter and Andrew, left everything without a thought for the future. As Jesus nears the end of his journey and his time on earth, he realises that those who wish to follow him must understand the costs involved before they join him otherwise they will not last the distance.

At first glance, Jesus’ response to the three would-be disciples is harsh and uncompromising – not to mention ungrateful. However, he knows that what lies ahead for him (and for those who follow) will take great courage and fortitude – it is not for the faint-hearted or for those who will waver in the face of difficulty. Those who would be his disciples must “take up their cross, lose their life in order to follow.” (9:23ff). Discipleship is more than a grand adventure, more than healing and miracles and it will not lead to earthly glory or recognition. Following Jesus will require fortitude and commitment, a willingness to cope with difficult circumstances and an acceptance that discipleship might cause a re-alignment of loyalties. Discipleship is something that should only be undertaken if the would-be follower is determined to see it through to the end.

On the way to Jerusalem three different people engage with Jesus. Two say that they will follow him and the third is asked by Jesus to follow. Jesus’ response provides an idea of what he believes discipleship to entail. In the first instance someone offers to follow him wherever he may go. Instead of welcoming the offer Jesus responds that in fact he has nowhere to go. Following him means leaving behind all security, no longer belonging anywhere.

A second person when asked by Jesus to follow him, responds that first he would like to bury his father. Jesus’ reaction is not one of compassion as we might expect, but the rather cold: “Let the dead bury their own dead.” There can be no prevarication, no half-hearted measures. What lies ahead will demand the full attention and commitment of those who follow. They must be prepared to leave behind those things that would hold them back.

Finally, a third person says that he will follow Jesus – after he has said “good-bye” to those at home. Again we are surprised by Jesus’ response. Instead of commending the man, he implies that he implies that he does not have the steadfastness to complete what he begins. The journey of discipleship requires persistence. There is no point starting if one does not intend to finish, if one is always going to be looking back to what one left behind.

While it is true that these definitions of discipleship are contextual, it would not be true to draw the conclusion that they do not apply to us. Being a disciple of Jesus is not something that we can do with only part of us, not something to which we can commit only a portion of ourselves. We are followers of Jesus or we are not. It is not possible to be a partial follower. That being said, it is important to recognise that discipleship has consequences – it means accepting that there may be times when we feel that we do not fit in, that we cannot tie ourselves to the past and that those to whom we belong will be re-defined.

Jesus’ willingness to see the task through to the end led to the cross. Without the cross, there would have been no resurrection. He asks only that as followers we demonstrate the same commitment to the task at hand and the same willingness to follow it through to the end. If at times the cost seems more than we can bear, we need only to look to Jesus to be reminded that if  we stay the course, we will come out the other side richer, stronger and transformed into the likeness of Christ.

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Will God indeed dwell on earth?

June 1, 2013

Pentecost 2 2013

1 Kings 8

Marian Free

 In the name of God who is always with us and yet always just beyond our reach. Amen.

“But will God indeed dwell on earth with us?” These words spoken by Solomon at the dedication of the Temple never cease to amaze me.  The most extravagant Temple has just been completed and as Solomon begins the prayer of dedication, he admits that it will not be a place that will be able to hold God.

When Israel journeyed through the wilderness the Tablets of the Law were kept in an ark, which in turn was kept in the Tent of Meeting. Every time the people broke camp, the Tent would be dismantled and whenever they stopped it would be erected. Even when the Israelites finally settled in the promised land, the Tent remained the place in which they worshipped. It was not until David became King that anyone thought to do anything different.

Having finally settled in Jerusalem, David built himself a magnificent palace. However, it was only when his own home was completed that David realises that while he has furnished himself with somewhere splendid to live, God still (figuratively at least) lives in a tent. He determines to rectify the situation and build a Temple for God.  Initially the prophet Nathan encourages David in that plan, but that same night the prophet is given a message for the King. “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel. Have I ever asked: “why have you not built me a house of cedar?” (2 Samuel 7:7).  God, it appears, does not require a house.

That would seem to be the end of the story, however, according to the Book of Kings, David was prevented from building a Temple not only because God rejected the idea, but also because he was constantly engaged in conflict and not settled enough to carry out a building project. So it was that when Solomon was established as king and the nation was at was peace, Solomon began the process of building the Temple of his father’s dream. Apparently the building was a huge undertaking. Solomon is said to have conscripted 30,000 men to work on the building in shifts of 10,000 a month. On top of that there were 70,000 labourers, 80,0000 stonecutters and 3,3000 supervisors, not to mention the various artisans who carved the timber and cast the bronze.

It is hard to imagine the wealth and extravagance of the building. According to the Book of Kings, both the interior and exterior were overlaid with gold including the floor. The pillars were bronze every surface appears to have been covered in carvings. All the vessels were bronze or gold as were the candlesticks, snuffers, basins and so on.

At last the Temple is complete and the day of dedication arrives. All of Israel is gathered to witness the ark being brought up into the Temple and Solomon begins to address the people: “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I have built an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.”

The King continues by explaining why he has built the Temple and praising God for the covenant that God has made with David to establish David’s house forever. It is then that the King appears to be pulled up short. The God of Israel is unlike any other God, there is no God like him in the heaven above or on earth below. It seems that as Solomon utters those words he is reminded that no Temple, no matter how splendid or lavish it is sufficient to contain God. The God whom he addresses simply cannot be confined by four walls. All the effort and all the expense that has been poured into the Temple will not be able to keep God in one place or to make God answerable to the people.

That said, the exercise of building the Temple has not been a waste of time. God may not be able to be contained, but that does not mean that the Temple has no purpose. Solomon sees that it can provide a place in which the people can strengthen their relationship with and dependence on God. It can be a place in which they address their concerns to God, seek forgiveness or ask for God’s help. Solomon’s prayer turns in this direction as he asks that God’s eyes be “open day and night toward this house” and asks that God will respond to the prayer of the people, hear their cry and forgive them when they ask.

Throughout the ages, those who believe have built places of great beauty in which they can worship God. Whether they be Cathedrals or Parish churches, built by Kings or by the people, they represent  – not an attempt to restrict God – but a desire to demonstrate through the construction of a place of worship, love of, faith in and gratitude towards God. God cannot be contained even by the highest heaven – let alone the grandest structures that we can erect. God cannot be manipulated or cajoled, or bound to us by anything other than God’s love for us. We cannot force God’s hand through strength or weakness.

We can however continue to trust in God’s love and God’s presence with us and reach out in prayer and worship, in penitence and gratitude, in our churches and in our day-to-day lives confident that God will hear and respond. We can continue to offer God our very best – not to ensure that God is obligated to us, but to demonstrate through such offerings our thanksgiving and praise.

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No greater love

April 24, 2013

ANZAC DAY 2013

John 15:9-17

Marian Free

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

While most of us know the story of ANZAC Day, I’m not sure how many of us know the history of its commemoration and the part played by an Anglican and a Queenslander. A day in the midst of war is perhaps an unusual date for remembrance, especially a day on which so many lives were lost and which in military terms was anything but a success.

Interestingly, the history of the commemoration begins in Queensland and it begins as long ago as January 1916 when the then Premier met with the Recruiting Committee –whose primary goal was to encourage young men to enlist. However, the loss of so many men on April 25 – Queenslanders were the first ashore – suggested the importance of setting aside the day for a solemn commemoration. Canon Garland an Anglican priest who spoke strongly in support of this idea, was elected to lead the committee to plan the commemoration.

From the beginning the service was a multi-faith event which was in many ways a requiem for the fallen and Garland enthusiastically supported the day as Australia’s “All Soul’s Day”. Once the day was established in Brisbane, Garland urged all the mayors in other Australian (and New Zealand) cities to follow suit. He also lobbied hard that ANZAC Day become a public holiday in the same way as Good Friday and in 1930 this was enacted throughout the nation.

Garland, an Orangeman, clearly drew on the custom of an annual march, but despite his sectarian background, he was well aware of the divergent Christian, not to mention religious traditions in Australia. Originally, all churches were encouraged to hold their own commemorations before their members joined a public service at the War Memorial. At the public service hymns that were non-Trinitarian were sung and sensitivity towards the multitude of faiths and no faith led Garland to introduce the minute’s silence in which each person could pray, or reflect in their own way.

From the beginning the committee were clear that ANZAC Day was not intended to glorify war. All the chaplains agreed it was to be a day of remembrance and a day to recognise the sin that gave rise to national conflict and the nation’s need to atone for that sin. This is expressed in a sermon given by Rudolf Otto in St John’s Cathedral in 1924 referring to the Cross of Sacrifice in Toowong cemetery:

“The memorial in its noble dignity proclaims, as befits a Christian people, the great sacrifice of Calvary; and unites therefore the sacrifice of those who also laid down their lives for their friends. Its inscription is no less dignified than the memorial itself: Their Name Liveth for Evermore.” On Anzac Day we gather collectively, and plead for them the Sacrifice of Calvary, to which they united themselves by offering their souls and bodies as a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice, after the example of Him who by word and from the pulpit of the Cross taught that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Thus in the House of God, pleading at the Altar of God, we find the most comfort, not the sorrow of those without hope for them that sleep in Him, nor the swamping of our grief in noisy demonstrations; but by emphasizing in mind and thought the reality of that life beyond the veil where they live for evermore, and where some day we, too, shall meet them. Thus again there is no room for anything but a solemn observance of Anzac Day – the All Souls’ Day of Australia – and so we come before God not in the bright vestments of festival and the joyous music of triumph; but with the tokens of Christian penitence and sorrow for the sin of the world which caused the sacrifice of those bright young lives, our dearest and our best.”[1]

[1] I am indebted to and heavily dependent on an article by Dr John Moses. “Anzac Day as Australia’s All Souls’ Day: Canon David John Garland’s Vision for Commemoration of the Fallen”

[A paper given at “Christian Mission in the Public Square”, a conference of the Australian Association for Mission Studies (AAMS) and the Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre of Charles Sturt University, held at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (ACC&C) in Canberra from 2 to 5 October 2008.]

Click to access Moses.pdf

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There is no river

March 28, 2013

Good Friday

 

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

(Eli, Eli, by Judith Wright,

http://reflectionsonlandusetranslationsmorebycew.com/Judith_Wright/Wright_Poems.html)

And all the while he knew there was no river.

One of the things people most struggle with in regard to faith is the fact that God does not intervene. “Why does God let that happen?” people ask in the face of untimely death, natural disaster, war, disease or terror. Where is God when the drunken driver swerves on to the footpath, when the megalomaniac leader tortures and kills any opposition, or when unprincipled greed leads to the sale of addictive drugs and to the violence and murder of drug wars?

Where is God, silent and inactive while the world tears itself apart? Where is God?

The silent, suffering God is nailed to the cross, enduring the agony of watching those whom He created with such confidence destroying themselves and each other.

On the sixth day, God created humankind in God’s own image. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. If the world is less than perfect, it is by and large because we have made it so. Humanity, the “very good” of God’s creation, has chosen a path other than that which was intended by the creator. Given the choice, humankind chose competition with rather than cooperation with God – with disastrous results.

And though God in Christ holds out love and faith, humanity will not take it God’s hand. We would rather be in control of our own destiny and despite the evidence that we are making a very poor job of it, we continue to hold ourselves apart, to believe that the solution lies in our own hands. We continue to turn our back on God, and on all that is good, and in so doing we reduce God’s power to intervene to nothing.

There is no river but the morass we create for ourselves. There is no river but that of our own making. There is no river, but our own self-absorption, our need for power and control and our desire to make decisions for ourselves.  These are the nails that hold Christ to the cross. These are the causes of God’s apparent inaction. These are the wounds which we continue to inflict and which God in Christ continues to bear.

There is no need to drown in the river. If only we would let go of our pride and take the hand that is offered, the love that is proffered and the faith that is ours to claim we would learn that there is no river except that which we ourselves have created.

There is no river, but Christ will hold our pain and sorrow on the cross until at last we let go of ourselves and turn to him.

 

 

Intercessions

 

Suffering God,

open our eyes to the suffering in the world

and to the part we play in causing harm to others.

Give to us the gift of discernment

so that we might be wise in our decision-making

and alert to the broader consequences of our actions.

God who allows us to make our own mistakes.

Guide us into the way of your wisdom.

Holy God,

empower your church to proclaim your gospel and

to confront evil and injustice.

Help her to resist the temptation to conform and

to name greed and selfishness

especially when it destroys the lives of others.

Be especially with your church in the Middle East

and Palestine, that it might give wise counsel on

ways to bring about peace.

God who allows us to make our own mistakes.

Guide us into the way of your wisdom.

God of love,

be with those whose wounds are self-inflicted

because they cannot or will not accept your love

or the love and care of those around them.

Show us how to share your love with those whom we do not understand

and those whom we find to be unloveable.

God who allows us to make our own mistakes.

Guide us into the way of your wisdom.

Wounded God,

heal the bodies, minds and souls of all who turn to you for help and give them confidence and peace.

Endow with compassion and resilience those

whose task it is to heal broken bodies and minds

and be especially with those who work at the cutting edge of accident or disaster.

God who allows us to make our own mistakes.

Guide us into the way of your wisdom.

Dying Christ,

as you gave yourself completely to God,

so may we give ourselves completely to you

that in this life we may know peace and wholeness

and in the life to come may share your kingdom with all who have gone before us.

God who allows us to make our own mistakes.

Guide us into the way of your wisdom.

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Maintaining a sense of awe

January 5, 2013
Maintaining a sense of awe and wonder

Maintaining a sense of awe and wonder

Epiphany 2013

Matthew 2:1-12

 

Marian Free

 

Holy God, open our hearts to the wonder that surrounds us – especially that which reveals your presence. Amen.

I don’t know what your experience was, but I clearly remember the day on which I became aware that science had destroyed my innocence – the day I knew things which changed forever the way in which I looked at the world.  I guess that I was about nine years old. I was lying on my back under a frangipani tree. As I looked up at the clouds I saw – not fluffy, cotton wool creations on which angels might sit, but instead floating masses of water which would not hold even the smallest of celestial beings. In that moment I knew, all the magic of clouds had gone. My new-found knowledge meant that my view of the world had changed forever. It was no longer possible to see the world as I had once seen it.

While I obviously remember that moment with absolute clarity, I can assure you that it did not destroy my joy and wonder in creation, nor did it produce an antipathy for science which, as often as not, points me in the direction of awe and wonder not only in God’s creation, but in those good things made by our hands.

That said, I do feel a sense of regret that the church, which at first protected its members from the Enlightenment, eventually allowed itself to be caught up in a need to be both rational and scientific. Over the years much astronomical work has gone into trying to find an explanation for the star that the Magi followed. Could it the triple conjunction of planets, a combination of just two planets, a Nova or even a comet? Unlike other miracles, astronomical events can be traced with some accuracy. If we knew the exact date of Jesus’ birth or could read back into Matthew’s story the precise time at which the Magi saw the star, we could scientifically work out whether there was an actual astronomical event which caught the attention of our Magi.

Determining the nature of the “star”, finding scientific evidence for the biblical miracles, is to miss the point of the story-telling. It is clear if we read all four gospels, that none of the writers were intent on writing an historically accurate account of Jesus’ birth. If they were all four accounts would be exactly the same. By the time the evangelists were writing, there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life and besides, they had a more important goal in mind. As they saw it, their task was to bring people to faith in Jesus not to write history and certainly not to write history as you and I think of history.

In the setting of the first Christian communities, the stories of Jesus played a number of roles, one of which was that of forming the identity of the emerging community, of reinforcing the idea of who they were. The stories that were repeated were the stories of faith. They recalled Jesus as people had known him, they developed an understanding of Jesus’ place in history and provided tales that were vital for the ongoing life of the church. The writers and their communities were not cross-checking references to make sure they got it right. What they were doing was trying to make sense of, not to record history. (It is only in relatively recent times that there has been a concern with the historicity and reliability of biblical stories. Prior generations accepted them as sacred stories of faith and were not overly concerned with whether or not they corresponded with actual fact.[1])

Which brings us back to the Magi, those mysterious figures who come from who knows where to offer gifts to a child whom they believe – despite his unpromising beginnings – will one day become a king. Their place in Matthew’s gospel and in the future direction of the church is vital for they represent the Gentiles – all the nations other than that of Israel, who by virtue of this birth, will through faith rather than physical descent be able to gain a place in the people of God.

In this way scripture was fulfilled. Throughout the OT there are signs that the God of the Jews could and did use others to fulfill God’s purpose, just as there are indications and even promises that no one would be excluded from God’s embrace. Abraham was promised that he would be the forebear of many nations, significant characters of the OT testament did not belong to the nation of Israel – Ruth was a Moabite, Rahab a Canaanite and Cyrus a Persian. Jonah saved the Gentile people of Nineveh. A queen from Sheba came to visit Solomon and so on. Add to this the references in the Psalms and elsewhere that the Gentiles will stream to Jerusalem. In other words it is easy to defend the notion that the OT expectation was that Judaism would not remain an exclusive group.

The reality of the early Christian community was that the Gentiles were flocking to Jesus while the Jewish people were, by and large holding back. All the gospel writers struggle to come to terms with this situation. Matthew solves the puzzle at the start by having rank outsiders become the first to identify and to worship Jesus.

It would be wonderful if both the shepherds and the magi were historically true, but what is more important is what the stories have to tell us. The shepherds place Jesus among the poor and the outcast. The account of the Magis expands Jesus’ sphere of influence beyond the confines of Israel. In that sense both accounts are true because they both reveal an essential truth about Jesus.

In our search for truth let us not abandon our sense of wonder and expectation. There are times when we may suspend out intellect and allow ourselves to be drawn into a story which in the final analysis is beyond our grasp and certainly beyond our comprehension.

[1] Johnston, Engaging the Word, 7.

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