Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies

March 16, 2024

Lent 5 -2024

John 12:20-30

Marian Free

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

John’s Jesus has a tendency to be obscure. This has a number of advantages. The first is that Jesus’ vagueness opens a conversation in which the author of John’s gospel can expand on a particular theological idea. Take for example Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus tells the woman that, if she had asked, he would have given her “living water”. Of course, the woman’s curiosity is piqued and, taking Jesus literally she asks for the living water so that she would no longer have to come to the well. We know that she has missed the point, but for the purpose of the gospel writer, her misunderstanding provides an opportunity for a discussion about Jesus’ identity. At the end of that conversation, the woman concludes that Jesus is the Christ. A consequence of the discussion, and of the woman’s discernment is that her whole community come to faith.

Another examples of Jesus’ ambiguity can be found in Jesus’ discussions about his departure. In chapter 14 Jesus announces the disciples know the way to where he is going. When Thomas exclaims that they do not know the way, Jesus responds: “I am the way, the truth and the light.” While that has become a much-quoted phrase, it really does nothing to enlighten the disciples as to the direction they must take.  (Note that earlier Jesus has told the disciples that “where he is going they cannot come.” 13:33) The effect of such /contradictory statements is that the reader/listener is forced into a state of suspended animation – caught between one way of thinking and another. Such uncertainty saves them (and us) from the confidence that they (we) understand the mystery of the divine.

Other statements in the gospel force the reader/listener to think, to puzzle through what Jesus says to discern it’s meaning. Take today’s convoluted story for example. It is worth quoting in full.  ‘Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour.”’

Here we see that a relatively simple request from some Greeks leads to a complex series of events and a convoluted response from Jesus. The Greeks tell Philip that they’d like to see Jesus, Philip finds Andrew. They both go and tell Jesus and Jesus launches into an unrelated speech on discipleship. We don’t learn to whom he addresses his monologue or if the Greeks were ever taken to Jesus.

There is obviously more to this account than at first meets the eye. Here it is useful to remember that the gospels, especially the Gospel of John, were written with the reader in mind and with the goal of bringing them to faith. John’s gospel is particularly explicit in this regard (20:30) and, given Jesus’ instructions to the disciples in chapters 14-17, it is clear that one intention of the John’s gospel is to form disciples. It is also helpful if we understand that John’s gospel has a certain circularity or repetitive nature to it so that what we read today almost certainly relates to a theme already introduced. 

All of which sheds some light on what is going on in this morning’s gospel – the obscurity of Jesus’ response makes us pay attention and the reference to death recalls times when Jesus has referred to his own death.  Last Sunday, for example, we looked at the phrase “lifted up” which Jesus uses with reference to his own crucifixion and death. We saw that for the author of John, it was the cross, not the resurrection that was the place of victory, because it was on the cross that Jesus defeated evil and death. Two thousand years later, in the face of all the tragedy and cruelty in the world, it is difficult to continue make the claim that Jesus has defeated evil. Last week I concluded that the fact that there is still evil in world comes down to us and: “our desire to conform to society rather than to confront injustice, our concern to protect our own comfort and security and our refusal to see that our relative comfort comes at the expense of the discomfort of others, and our willingness to make compromises that result in our shoring up the status quo.”

Today’s gospel indirectly supports that conclusion. Using the image of a seed falling into the ground and dying in order to bear fruit, Jesus continues: “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Jesus may not be responding directly to the request of the Greeks, but what he is doing is giving generalised instruction regarding discipleship (to all his listeners). 

Here in Jerusalem Jesus is at the threshold of the final part of his journey. He is aware that death/glory awaits him. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”. In the following chapters, over a final meal, Jesus will prepare the disciples for his death and at the same time give them instructions as to how to continue as a community without him.  As part of this preparation Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, tells them that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, warns that they will be hated and persecuted and that those who kill them will think that they are doing so to worship God.

Discipleship is not some cosy adherence to the ten commandments, gathering for worship on a Sunday, or blending in with the crowd. Jesus makes it clear through teaching and through his own example that discipleship is a costly enterprise, it demands the selflessness to put the needs of others first, the courage to challenge unjust structures, the confidence to speak truth to power and the willingness to pay the ultimate price – giving one’s life so that others might be free to live. 

If evil is to be defeated, and if the world is to be a kinder, more just and more equitable place  something of us must we let die, so that others have a chance to simply live. 

– “Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies” –

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Snakes alive! Jesus’ being lifted up

March 9, 2024

Lent 4 – 2024

John 3:14-21

Marian Free

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

Snakes alive! Today’s gospel is so dense and so filled with complex ideas that it is easy to overlook the almost throw-away line that likens Jesus to a serpent and his crucifixion to a bronze serpent placed on a pole to ward off death. 

The image of a serpent in today’s gospel is disturbing to say the least. Even though our lectionary gives us the OT Testament reference – the plague of snakes and the bronze serpent as the cure, it can be difficult to see the connection between looking at a bronze likeness and living. It is even harder to see any relationship between Jesus and this almost superstitious solution to the poisonous snakes. In the OT account, the bronze snake represents both the cause of death and the cure – (in much the same way that modern day vaccinations use the source of a disease to inoculate us against that disease). In the gospel, John is less concerned with the prevention of death and more interested in the idea that the serpent was “lifted up”.  He contends that just as the serpent was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

“Being lifted up” is a key phrase in John’s gospel. We meet it for the first time here, but we also come across the expression in chapter 8: “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, (28) and again in  Chapter 12 where Jesus tells the crowd: “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”(32).

Chapter 12 v33 makes it clear that, in John, “lifting up” refers to Jesus’ crucifixion – not to the resurrection or ascension. Here, the author adds an aside: “He said this (about being lifted up) to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” In other words, for this gospel writer, Jesus’ being lifted up and his dying are one and the same. Jesus is lifted up on the cross and he dies on the cross. People will see Jesus lifted up, will see  the lengths that Jesus/God will go to for us and will believe. 

In John, the cross takes centre stage. It is on the cross, not through the resurrection, that victory is won. The cross is the sign of victory, not defeat, because it is on the cross that evil is defeated, and the ruler of this world is driven out. By willingly submitting to crucifixion, Jesus demonstrates that evil and death have no power over him – they can do their worst because Jesus is not in thrall to them, he will not avoid or evade them, because power belongs to God.. The cross is the place of victory because Jesus is not a victim, nor is he at the mercy of secular or supernatural powers. He could choose to avoid the cross, but he does not. In the cross is victory, not because Jesus sacrifices himself, or because an angry God demands to be appeased. In the cross is victory, because it is there, in the midst of suffering and death, that God fully identifies with the suffering and pain of the world.

The cross is a sign of Jesus’ victory not in the sense that he wants to draw attention to himself, or that he is making the choice to be a heroic martyr. Jesus chooses the cross in the sense that he doesn’t avoid it, in the sense that he follows the path set before him, even though he knows it leads to torture and death and in the sense that he refuses to be cowed by evil or by the worldly forces that conspire against him. Jesus submits to the cross because he chooses crucifixion and death over self-preservation. He chooses to walk into the lion’s den, to confront evil and to take on the ruler of this world no matter the cost.

John’s gospel depicts Jesus as a man who, from beginning to end is the master of his own destiny. There were many times and many ways that Jesus could have avoided such a gruesome end. He could have succumbed to the temptations in the wilderness and walked his own path not God’s. He could have remained in Galilee and lived out his life as a well-respected teacher and worker of miracles.  He could have kept quiet about the misleading teaching, the corruption, and the injustices that he observed both within the church and in the governing powers. 

Jesus would not save himself if it meant being complicit with the powers that control and subdue the people, he would not take the easy way out and protect his own life when there were truths to be told and he would not make compromises that would in effect be colluding with the powers of this world. 

Even though the cross led to Jesus’ death, the author of John can claim that the cross (not the resurrection) is the place of victory because Jesus did not allow his message to be contained, colonised, sanitised, or moderated. He held to the truth even though to do so was dangerous. He refused to compromise, even when compromise would have been safer.  He defeated evil by refusing to give evil the last word. 

Today, in the face of the horrors that we are witnessing in Gaza, the Ukraine, the Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and countless other places I find myself asking in what way is the cross a sign of victory here and now? How can we claim victory when injustice abounds and whole nations are oppressed, when people continue to live in abject poverty and when there is an inequitable distribution of the world’s resources?  

I suspect that the answer lies with us. The cross was the place of victory, because on the cross, instead of putting himself first, Jesus aligned himself with all the suffering of the world.  That the world continues to promote violence, oppression and injustice, relates in part to our desire to conform to society rather than to confront injustice, our concern to protect our own comfort and security and our refusal to see that our relative comfort comes at the expense of the discomfort of others, and our willingness to make compromises that result in our shoring up the status quo.

The cross is the place of Jesus’ victory, but it can only be the place of victory for all people if we make it so, if we continue Jesus’ self-giving, self-denying confrontation of evil.

Jesus has demonstrated that evil can be defeated, but it will only be truly defeated when it loses its power over us.

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Where is God’s house? Cleansing of the Temple

March 2, 2024

Lent 3 – 2024

John 2:13-22

Marian Free

May we respond to God’s word by loving God with all our hearts and all with our souls and with all our minds. Amen.

There can be nothing more certain than the resistance that is offered when a church is threatened with closure or the resentment that results from the same[1]. Even though members of the congregation may be able to articulate the belief that the church is the people not the building, emotions run strong when their place of worship is threatened with closure. The congregation may be a shadow of its former self, there may be several other churches within easy driving distance, their priest may be overworked and there may be better uses to which the resources might be put, but they will be able to come up with all kinds of reasons as to why the building must be retained. If a church is closed there will be a number of reactions. In the worst-case scenario. the “offended” parties will no longer attend worship anywhere. Some will join a different community, but never really integrate and a few will hold the view that God is not in the building and will fully engage in the life of the community which they find themselves.

Churches (the buildings) become so much more than a place of worship. They hold memories of baptisms, weddings, and funerals, of shared joys and sorrows not to mention memorials in the form of windows and other furnishings. There is the history that the building shares with the community in which it finds itself. Some feel that all this will be lost if the physical building is moved or becomes the property of someone else.

Today’s gospel is about a building. The Temple was the focus of all Jewish worship and ritual. It housed the Holy of Holies which was entered only once a year on the Feast of Atonement and was a visible sign of God’s presence with God’s people[2].

Interestingly, the author of the gospel of John, introduces the Temple at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  According to the Synoptic writers, Jesus goes to Jerusalem only once and that at the end of his ministry.  John has Jesus visit Jerusalem three times and he brings the ‘cleansing of the Temple” forward from Jesus’ last week on earth, making it his first public action. Each gospel includes this event, but there are several differences between John and the other gospel writers apart from the timing. John’s account is longer and includes different OT quotes and a discussion with the Jews about the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple. It is only in John’s gospel that Jesus speaks of the temple of his body. Most significant perhaps is that in John’s version, Jesus fashions a whip out of cords and uses it to drive the traders and moneychangers out of the Temple. This is a very deliberate and quite violent act. Jesus loses his temper, but he is controlled enough to make a weapon.  

We cannot be certain why John moves this event, or why he adds the details that he does, but we can see that by moving it to the beginning of the gospel, he introduces a sense of foreboding that hangs over the gospel as a whole. Jesus has offended the whole religious establishment by his actions and from now on his life will be in danger. At the same time, the author has (at the beginning) alluded to the end of the story – Jesus will die, but three days later he will rise. (Allusions to Jesus’ death and resurrection permeate this gospel). Another theme that occurs here for the first time is the idea that in some way Jesus will replace the Temple and the Jewish festivals.  (“He was speaking of the temple of his body.”)

This latter theme is significant because at the time the gospels are written the Temple – that centre of Jewish faith and practice – had been destroyed. Those who believed in Jesus (and those who did not) had to work out how it was possible to continue to worship God and to practice their faith when there was no longer anywhere to make offering and to gather together to celebrate God’s past actions. – the Passover, the Festival of lights, 

The Pharisees concluded that the way forward lay in the law and so Rabbinic Judaism was born. The Johannine community believed that neither the law nor the Temple were needed to be in a relationship with God. Jesus’ body is the Temple, there is need for anyone or anything to mediate between the believer and God. In other words, this gospel writer eases the grief and addresses the confusion and trauma. of those who are lost without the Temple. He makes it clear that there is no longer any need for a physical Temple and no need for the various rituals that made one right with God.

Given how different John’s account of the cleansing of the Temple is, one wonders if it is possible that Jesus’ anger here reflects the author’s frustration with those who are tied to a building not a living faith; with those who are looking back with longing rather than forward to God’s future; or with those who continue to believe that God is found only in one place.

We will never know why John changed the story, but we can still allow the story to challenge us. 

Are we so attached to our church building that we cannot imagine practicing our faith anywhere else? Are we guilty of looking back to a past that is no more, or are we waiting expectantly to see what God will do next? Do we place our confidence in places and rituals or in a relationship with the living God? 

Is there anything about our practice of the faith that would drive Jesus to distraction?

[1] That said, when I was a Parish priest I oversaw the closure of a church, which was managed with grace.

[2] Synagogues were places of meeting, teaching, and discussion – worship and ritual happened in the Temple.

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Let God be God (first prediction of suffering)

February 27, 2024

Lent 2 – 2024

Mark 8:31-38

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who unsettles and confuses us.  Amen.

 

Poor Peter! Only moments before today’s scenario, Peter has identified Jesus as the Christ and now Jesus is accusing him of being Satan! Harsh words indeed.

 The problem is that Peter has a preconceived idea of what the Christ should be and whatever that idea is, it doesn’t involve God’s chosen suffering and dying at the hands of the religious leaders. It is easy to judge Peter – how could he not know what was to happen to Jesus? We forget that there is much that is hidden from our 21st century eyes and we don’t realise that our vision is clouded because we know the end of the story. We know that Jesus rose from the dead and we know that the resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit led to the spreading of the gospel.

It is obvious to us that Jesus should suffer and die, because that is what did happen. But imagine what it was like for the first disciples. They lived under oppressive Roman rule, their lives were governed by taxes on everything from the roads, to fishing, to their catch of fish. The might of Rome was impossible to resist. Indeed, those who resisted were put to death by crucifixion. Thousands of Galileans has been crucified for insurrection – their crosses lining the roads so that everyone might learn what it meant to take on the Empire. That is the political climate in which the disciples lived, but there was also the culture of faith in which they were raised. They may not have been regular attendees at the synagogue, but they would certainly have absorbed the teachings, customs and expectations of Judaism. Based on the OT and on the traditions that had built up over time, they would have shared with their fellow-believers a hope that God would send a Saviour figure.

 Unfortunately, we cannot be 100% sure just what made up those expectations were. The only writings that are contemporaneous with the life of Jesus are the Dead Sea Scrolls which represent a small fraction of. the Jewish population. Our ideas about are clouded by  NT interpretations which were designed to make sense of the events of Jesus’ life – that is, they were written in hindsight on the basis of their conviction that Jesus was “the one” sent by God. A reading of the OT and of the intertestamental literature reveals that there was not one, but a number of different expectations. What they have in common is a conviction that God would send someone to save Israel (from their sins or from the Romans.) The central figure of those expectations was variously a King, a warrior, or a priest.

What no one seems to have expected was a humble, travelling teacher from Galilee – certainly not someone born in obscurity, who critiqued the religion and who allowed himself to be arrested and to die. After all what good is a defeated, dead Messiah?

It is easy to sympathize with Peter. Peter has just identified Jesus as the Christ (Messiah) – and Jesus’ response has indicated that Peter is right. Yet barely has this interaction concluded when Jesus announces that “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Peter must have been shaken to his core. Nothing in his past experience or his faith journey has prepared for a suffering Christ, let alone a Christ who dies (without achieving the defeat of Rome, or the restoration of the faith of Israel.)

 What Jesus has said would have made no sense to Peter or to the other disciples. Why would God send the Christ only to have him suffer and die? Of what value would that have been for those who have waited for generations for God to send someone to save them? Of course, we can see that Jesus announces his death in connection with his resurrection, but the notion of someone rising from the dead would have been well beyond Peter’s imagining as would the thought that one person’s dying and rising would make a difference on a grand scale.

 Unlike us, Peter has no idea where the story might end. So, flush with his newfound confidence that he has recognised Jesus as the Christ, Peter no doubt felt emboldened to take Jesus aside and rebuke him.After all what Jesus has said makes no sense at all. Jesus must be mistaken, Peter knew the expected trajectory of a triumphant Saviour and Jesus’ death was not part of it!

Peter’s problem, and ours, is that we think we know what God wants and how God will respond which is why Jesus didn’t measure up to the expectations of people – because they were human expectations not God’s plan. Jesus was not believed because his ideas were too radical, because he refused to judge ‘sinners’ but was happy to critique the self-righteous, and because he had no formal authority in the church structure.

 If we do not want to make Peter’s mistake, if we don’t want to be on the side of Satan rather than on the side of God, we must free ourselves of all our preconceptions, let go of all our expectations, open our minds to the unknown and, above all, we must let God be God (not our version of God).  

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40 days in the wilderness with Mark

February 17, 2024

Lent 1 – 2024

Mark 1:9-15

Marian Free

In the name of God whose love is our beginning and our end. Amen.

I wonder, if we only had Mark’s account of Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness would our practice of Lent any different? Mark simply tells us: “The Spirit immediately drove him out (literally cast him out) into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”  There is no mention here of fasting, no reference to Jesus being famished and no elaboration of the temptations. It is Matthew and Luke who fill out the story with details of three specific temptations and of Jesus being hungry.  Interestingly – in their accounts there is no record of wild animals and no reference to the angels ministering to Jesus.

We know from the gospels that fasting was a spiritual practice among the Pharisees in the time of Jesus, but in Mark’s gospel there is no evidence that Jesus himself fasts. In fact, Jesus is asked why his disciples do notfast when the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees fast (Mark 2:18). Jesus may or may not have fasted.

The earliest Christians did fast. Possibly following the tradition of the Pharisees, the first believers fasted on a weekly basis though – as the first century document the Didache makes clear – they were to distinguish themselves from the hypocrites – presumably the Pharisees. In that document, we read that the community should not fast on the days that the hypocrites fast (the second and fifth days of the week,) but on the fourth day and on the day of preparation (Friday). That fasting was an accepted spiritual discipline among Christians by the second century is recorded in a letter written by Irenaeus bemoaning the fact that there was no common practice and that the discipline varied from one day of fasting to as many as 40 days.

Fasting for the forty days before Easter can be traced to the Council of Nicea in 325 CE which formalised the custom – possibly as a way to prepare for baptism. It took much longer for there to be a common practice throughout Christendom. Some places allowed the Lenten fast to be broken on Sundays, others not. Some only fasted from Monday to Friday, meaning that the 40 day fast took place over 8 weeks. In general, meat, fish and dairy were forbidden, as was consuming food before 3pm. During the reign of Pope Gregory the Great, the season of Lent was regularised. It was to begin 46 days before Lent, with a ceremony of ash. Sundays were excluded. During the 9th century the strictures were relaxed somewhat and by the 1800’s the emphasis on one meal a day was relaxed. Traditions and practices continue to evolve, but we maintain the practice established in the seventh century – Ash Wednesday to Easter Day, excluding Sundays.

To return to where I began, if we only had Mark’s gospel I wonder if it would make a difference to our Lenten observance?

It seems to me that there are four parts to Jesus’ experience as reported by Mark. First, we are told that Jesus was cast out, or thrown out into the wilderness. In other words, Jesus allowed himself to be tossed about by the Spirit. He didn’t fight the Spirit’s leading, no matter how uncomfortable it made him, or how unpleasant it seemed. Second, in the wilderness Jesus was tempted by Satan. Mark doesn’t elaborate on this point, but his gospel depicts a power play between Satan and God. Jesus now (and throughout his ministry) resists the temptation to rely on anything and anyone but God. 

Third, and this is perhaps the most difficult to make sense of – Jesus was with the wild animals. There is no suggestion that Jesus is in any kind of danger here so perhaps Mark means us to understand that in the wilderness Jesus identified himself wholly with all of God’s creation – the creation with whom God has made a covenant (as the reading from Genesis tells us (Gen 9:8-10)).[1]

Finally, Mark tells us that Jesus was ministered to by the angels. Out there in wilderness Jesus allowed God’s representatives to care for him. He didn’t need to assert his independence and he didn’t need to prove how strong-willed he was because he knew that God would take care of everything. 

What might this reading of Mark mean for us and for our observance of the 40 days before Easter?

In the first instance, we might allow Mark’s account re-frame the way that we see the season. Instead of seeing Lent as a time of penance and self-sacrifice, we might grasp opportunity to allow ourselves to be led by (tossed about by) the Spirit – as terrifying as that might be. 

In a world which places a premium on independence and self-reliance, we could learn to serve not ourselves (Satan), but God.  

In a world in which we have used the earth for our benefit and for which we are now paying the price, we might take a page out of Jesus’ experience in the wilderness and understand that we are part of, not apart from all creation, that working with and not against creation will be better for us and lead to the healing of the world.  

And finally, and for some of us the most difficult, we might use these 40 days to truly allow ourselves to trust in God’s unbounding love for us, accept that we are worthy of that love and in so doing permit the angels themselves to care for us. 

Mark’s account of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness frees us to let go of any striving to be good, encourages us to abandon our attempts to punish ourselves for our shortcomings and allows us to stop using self-denial to prove how strong or how disciplined we are. It enables us to understand that Lent is less about what we do for God, and more about what we let God do to and with us. 

Our Lenten observances are based on the scriptures and moulded by centuries of tradition – that doesn’t prevent us from looking at it anew and seeing what Mark has to teach us. 

This Lent – Are we willing for the Spirit to toss us about? Can we let go our need to rely on ourselves? Do we understand that we are integrally related with all creation? And, can we accept that we are entirely worthy of God’s love?

[1] This is the suggestion of Dr Margaret Wesley who draws on today’s reading from Genesis to the effect that God has made a covenant with all creation.

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Transfiguration- changing of the guard

February 10, 2024

Transfiguration – 2024

Mark 9:2-9

Marian Free

In the name of God who leads us into a future that is as yet unknown. Amen.

Most of us associate the expression “changing of the guard” with the ceremony surrounding the moment when soldiers who have been guarding a significant government building or boundary for a period of time are replaced by those who are rostered on for the next period of time. In England the tradition goes back to the time of Henry VII and the idea was to show both military discipline and ceremony.  In England the guards are those who protect Buckingham Palace, but the practice is not unique to the UK. The border guards along the Indian Pakistani frontier also have quite an elaborate ritual when one group of soldiers replaces another, and no doubt other cultures have ceremonies of their own.

 

The phrase “changing of the guard” has entered our vocabulary. We use it refer to the time when a leader, a political party or other group or person of influence hands over their position to another person or group. In common parlance, “changing of the guard” is often associated with a change (sometimes subtle and often difficult) in style and policy.

 

It had never occurred to me that one way of looking at the Transfiguration was to see it as God’s way of making clear to the disciples that in Jesus there was to be a ‘changing of the guard.’ After Jesus was transfigured, Elijah and Moses appeared and spoke with him. Peter was terrified! Both Elijah and Moses were heroes of the Jewish faith. More than that, there was a widespread belief that Elijah would return before the end and among the community of Qumran there was also an expectation that Moses would return at the end of time. It is entirely possible that Peter thought that the presence of Elijah and Moses was a sign that they had returned to presage the end times.

 

According to William Placher, who is referenced by Chelsea Harmon[1], this is why Peter wants to make dwellings for the three men. If Elijah and Moses have returned, and if, as Peter has declared six days previously, Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one of God, they must be properly sheltered as they await the coming of the end.  The problem, Placher

points out is that in declaring that three shelters are needed, Peter is making it clear that he believes Elijah and Moses to be equal to Jesus – even though it is Jesus alone who has been transfigured. In response, the voice from heaven seems to be chiding him: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Elijah and Moses come from the past and belong to the past. God is doing something new. Now is the time to listen to Jesus.)

What Peter, and presumably James and John have failed to realize is that Jesus represents the changing of the guard. The prophets had their part to play, but now they must give way to Jesus, the beloved Son.

 

To be fair, it must have been confusing for the disciples – steeped as they were in the expectations of their faith, tied as they were to current practices and expressions of faith. Jesus didn’t enter the world with a bang, Jesus didn’t behave as they disciples expected a Messiah to behave, and Jesus didn’t conform to the religious standards of the day. Jesus has to bring the disciples along with him. He has to keep correcting the disciples, God has to keep giving them hints (or prods) and Jesus has to try to be as explicit as he can as to what they might or might not expect.

 

(When Peter rebukes Jesus for announcing that he will have to suffer, Jesus harshly likens him Satan, when Peter wants to build tents on a mountain top, God makes it clear that it is Jesus alone who will inaugurate the promised future, when James and John conspire to be at Jesus’ right and left hand, Jesus has to remind them that his message is counter-cultural – the greatest will be least and the first will be last).

 

To us, these thousands of years later, Jesus’ transfiguration seems an obvious way to reveal Jesus’ true identity, but to Peter, James and John it was anything but clear. Overawed by the presence of such great names as Elijah and Moses, they see Jesus as one among many, not as the one.

 

The Transfiguration is just one of the many occasions on which the misunderstanding of the disciples is used by God, or by Jesus to help them understand that something different is happening. Jesus might be one in a long line of heroes and prophets, but he is much more than that. Jesus represents a changing of the guard. Elijah and Moses belong to the past. Jesus belongs to the future. From now on everything will be the same – Jesus was and remained a Jew, as do the disciples. At the same time everything will be different – Jesus exposes all the misconceptions that have grown up over the centuries. He reminds the community of things long forgotten. He challenges the leaders of the church and models a new style of leadership.

 

All of this took some getting used to. The disciples would have to surrender their old ways of thinking and acting. They would have to learn to be truly open to what Jesus has to say and they would have to be willing to take risks – risks that might cost them their lives. The present and past must have seemed safe and comfortable in comparison.

 

On the mountain top Peter, James and John see Jesus revealed in glory but more than that, they begin to learn that they cannot hold on to the past but must let go of what has been so that they can begin to comprehend what might be.

We, like the disciples have become comfortable with the church as we know it. But the church as we love is dying. It took more than the Transfiguration for the disciples to grasp that God, in Jesus was beginning of something new. What will it take for us to see the future God had planned for us? What will it take for us to learn when to hold on and when to let go? What is God saying to us today?

 

 

[1] https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2024-02-05/mark-92-9-4/

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Holding on to Jesus

February 3, 2024

Epiphany 5 – 2024

Mark 1:29-39

Marian Free

In the name of God who will not be held or confined. Amen.

The gospel reading set for today raises far more questions than it answers. What looks like a relatively simple healing story, followed by a story of Jesus’ sense of mission is much, much more. You will remember that Jesus has spent time in the synagogue. There he was confronted by a man with an evil spirit.  When he cast out the demon he raised the ire of the leaders of the synagogue because they interpreted the exorcism as ‘work’, something that was forbidden on the Sabbath. 

In today’s reading Jesus leaves synagogue and goes to the home of Simon and Andrew.  On hearing that Peter’s mother-in-law has a fever, Jesus goes to her, lifts her up and the fever is gone. The mother-in-law immediately gets up and serves them. At sunset – when the Sabbath has ended – people (the whole city!) bring the sick and the possessed to be healed by Jesus. We are not told, but we presume that Jesus has some time to sleep, because he gets up before dawn to find somewhere quiet to pray.

The account seems straight forward, but if we look closer we are left wondering about a number of things.

  1. Why, in a patriarchal society, is Peter’s mother-in-law living in the home of Peter and Andrew? If she is a widow, her sons not her daughter would be responsible for her and yet she is here with Peter.  
  2. If Peter has a mother-in-law, then he has a wife who is never mentioned and is presumably left to run a household and care for children while her husband and sole source of support abandons his job and his family to go with Jesus. 

We learn nothing else about Peter’s family life.

  • Another puzzle is this – why does the author say that the woman (Peter’s mother-in-law) got up and served them? Is it to prove that she is completely made well or is something else happening here. Peter’s wife is the host, it would be her role to serve the guests. The woman’s actions make sense if we understand that in the ancient world healing was seen not just as a cure for the physical ill, but as a restoration of the person to the community.  Serving guests would have been a sign of the woman’s full re-integration into the family and the community. That is well and good but why, one might ask, does the author use the word ‘diakonos’ for serve? Diakonos – the word we use for deacon – is used by Mark only for Peter’s mother-in-law, angels, and Jesus. Is this a hint that women had formal liturgical roles in the Marcan community or played a significant role among the disciples?
  • Another Greek word is equally puzzling. Mark uses the word “katadiöxen” when speaking of the disciples looking for Jesus.  This word can be translated in a number of ways – “hunted” (as in our translation), “pursued”, “looked for”, or “searched for”. ‘Hunted’ gives us a sense of the disciples’ urgency. They have woken to find Jesus missing and are anxious to bring him back. By now, they have seen what Jesus can do, and they know that they want to be part of it. As his disciples, they would also have felt a sense of responsibility for all the people of their city who still seek Jesus’ healing power.
  • Lastly, and this is the question I’d like to focus on, is why, when the crowds are searching for Jesus does he insist on abandoning them and moving to another place?

The author gives us the answer. Jesus responds to the disciples: “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

“So that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

Jesus’ primary focus was never on the miraculous, but on the message. It was never about having crowds of adoring fans, but on challenging people to change their lives around. His mission was not to heal, but to proclaim the good news, to teach God’s inclusive, unconditional love and to draw the whole community into a relationship with God that was based not on their observance of the law, but on God’s love for them.  Jesus heals because he can. Jesus heals because he has compassion not because that is what he was sent to do. Jesus casts out demons because they stand between him and his message of love and inclusion. He casts out demons because they hold people in their thrall and keep them separated from the love of God – not because he wants to draw attention to himself. 

Jesus’ mission was never about building his ego as is made clear in the accounts of the wilderness temptations in Matthew and Luke. There, the devil tempts him to turn stones into bread, to jump from the Temple so that the angels can catch him. Jesus resists the temptation to do the showy and obvious – even though that might have been a much quicker way to gain an audience and to build a following. But it is not about him. It is not about what he can do, but about the message he has come to bring.

Jesus knows that some will follow him because of what he has to offer them. He knows too that they will not last the journey.

If we turn Jesus into a miracle worker, we see only the surface. If we want a hero who works magic then we will lose interest when the magic is not in evidence. If we want someone to make everything right, we will fall away when life gets hard.  So when the disciples seek him out and urge him to return, he turns his face away from the easy option. He will not stay and be made a local hero. He will do what he came to do and preach God’s kingdom.

Who is Jesus to you?  Would you like to own and contain him as your personal helper or are you willing to stand on your own two feet, take Jesus’ teaching as your standard and your comfort and let Jesus go so that his message might ring throughout the world?

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“Better the devil you know” – man with unclean spirit.

January 27, 2024

Epiphany 4 – 2024

Mark 1:21-28

Marian Free

In the name of God who confronts, disturbs and challenges us. Amen.

Several years ago, I watched a documentary that followed the experiences of a group of people who had recently left an abusive and controlling cult. The cult consisted of only a few – mostly related – families and was led by a man who instructed them on every aspect of their lives which included the harsh discipline of their children. The group who  had left were given safe accommodation and counselling. They were traumatised and anxious about forging a future, but by and large were happy to have broken the spell that the cult leader had cast on them. One woman, however, was stuck. Even though she recognised that the teaching and practices of the cult were damaging to herself and her children, she could not accept the assurance of her fellow-cult leavers, or of the counsellor that she would not go to hell if she left. The teaching of the leader was so deeply ingrained in her that she could not trust that her salvation did not depend on her belonging to the cult. Nothing could convince her that the God of love, represented by the crucified Jesus, would not insist on the degree of subjugation and loss of self that the cult leader demanded. So she returned to something that was awful but familiar, demeaning but clear.

Change can be unsettling and even frightening. There is no guarantee that the change will lead to something better. As they say: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” It is better to stay in the situation in which you find yourself than to move to another setting which – while looking more attractive – may turn out to be even worse. For example, a person working for a difficult and demanding boss may resist changing jobs on the off chance that a new boss is as bad or worse. Having got used to working in the current job and having made accommodations to that person’s ill-temper, they don’t want to start all over again and possibly have to make allowances for the foibles of another boss. They are unwilling to trust that a position might give them more opportunity, might enable them to work to their full potential, or at the very least free them to work without always having to look over their shoulder. 

But: “Better the devil you know.”

So many people endure unsatisfactory relationships, suffer injustice or put up with poor health because they are afraid that change will make their lives worse rather than better. They choose not to take risks and so never truly know freedom, joy and fulfillment. 

After all: “Better the devil you know.”

I am sure that this saying did not originate in New Testament times, but It seems to me to be particularly apposite with regard to today’s gospel. A man with an unclean spirit recognises Jesus and demands: “What have you to do with us?” The man, it seems, has become used to his present (demon-possessed) state is anxious that his life might be worse if Jesus exorcises the spirit that possesses him. He would rather stay with the devil he knows than risk the wholeness, peace, and freedom that Jesus could offer. His present status may come with all kinds of negatives, but he is so used to living with whatever the demon is  that he cannot possibly imagine an alternative way of being.

Over and over again in the gospels we see those who are possessed by demons wishing Jesus to be anywhere but in their presence. However uncomfortable or distressed they are, they have adjusted to their current position.   Their illness or state of being possessed, may elicit sympathy from the community or it may be a reason to beg for their living. If Jesus casts out the demon they may lose the support that they currently receive or worse, lose their only source of income. 

What seems good to us – health, release from suffering – may for them be a cause of great anxiety and in some ways may not leave them better off. 

This last goes in some way to explain the reaction of the demon-possessed man. Jesus may promise a better future, but who knows? If they take up his offer of healing and wholeness, what is the guarantee that their life will improve? “Better the devil you know!”

Change is difficult and threatening. It can require mental energy and discipline to let go of the way in which we have understood the world and our faith. 

We do not belong to a cult, but that does not mean that we have not been formed by our Sunday School teachers, our preachers and by the literature we read. We do not belong to a cult, but we have probably become used to the norms of the community in which we find ourselves. We do not belong to a cult, but it is not always easy to trust that change is better.

We resist change because it makes us feel uncomfortable, because it takes energy and courage to adjust our ways of thinking and because we cannot see into the future and believe that change will be good not just for us but for our whole community. We resist change because we cannot be 100% certain that we are doing the right thing, and we don’t trust God enough to believe that God will still love us if by any chance we have it wrong.

The man with an unclean spirit does not want to have anything to do with Jesus because accepting Jesus’ love for him will mean that his life will be irrevocably changed, and he does not have the courage to face a different future.

So, when the idea of change makes us feel uncomfortable (whether in our personal lives, in the church or in the world around us), it is important not to dismiss it out of hand. Instead of asking: “What does this have to do with me?” perhaps we should be asking whether the change will liberate us from the devil we know who has bound us into old, out-dated, ungodly ways of thinking and being.  

In other words, is the devil we know really better?

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Hearing the call of Jesus

January 20, 2024

Mark 1:14-20

Third Sunday after Epiphany – 2024

Mark 1:14-20

Marian Free

In the name of Gods who insistently calls us. Amen

In his autobiography Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis tells of his long and convoluted journey to discipleship. Lewis’s mother died when he was quite young, and his childhood appears to have been emotionally deprived. Like many fathers of that era, his did not know how to relate to children, and again, like many children of that generation, Lewis was sent away – first to a tutor and then to boarding school. At a young age Lewis abandoned Christianity but, while he felt that that was unsatisfactory, he did not stop searching for meaning (joy), particularly in the works of various philosophers[1]. Over time however, his resistance to the faith was worn down and one evening he finally gave in. He describes the moment as follows:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

Earlier in the book, Lewis describes the slow drip that wore away his resolve not to believe, concluding:

“The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. I felt myself being there and then, given a free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armour or keep it on. Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corslet meant the incalculable.”[2]

People come to faith by different routes – by straight lines or circuitous, by gradual revelation or sudden conversion, by a slow burn or a bright light. What Lewis makes clear is that we have a choice – to open our hearts and let God in, or to close the door to God’s insistent knocking and to retain our separation and independence. There is always a choice, though as Lewis reports, it is often more like a compulsion – the lure is so strong that it becomes almost impossible to say ‘no’. Closing the door on God is possible, but it can take more effort to keep the door closed that to open it. Locking God out can feel like committing oneself to a life, if not of regret, then at least of constant curiosity as to what lay beyond the door (and to what we had said ‘No’.)

In today’s gospel, we hear the account of Jesus’ call of the four fishermen. As the story is told, Jesus walks beside the sea and calls first Simon and Andrew and then James and John. All four respond without hesitation. Their reaction to Jesus is often held up as a model response to the call to discipleship– leaving everything without question and without regret.

One wonders though. Did Jesus’ call really come out of the blue? Or had word of his mission reached Galilee? Or were the fishermen in touch with the Zeitgeist of the time – dissatisfaction with the current religious leaders; a degree of scepticism about the value of Temple worship; a desire for religious reform and were they waiting for a leader? Alternately, did they see in Jesus an integrity, an openness and a Spirit-filled life that was absolutely compelling? Or – was Jesus’ presence so authoritative that they knew that they could have complete confidence in him? 

Of course, it could have been a combination of things that led to the fishermen abandoning their nets (and their livelihood) to follow Jesus. One thing is sure that though they followed without question, it took the rest of their lives to truly become disciples. The choice that they made beside the sea was a choice that they had to make over and over again. Mark’s gospel tells us of their faltering beginnings, their questioning, their foolishness and, in Jesus’ moment of need, their terror and their abandonment. 

There are many ways to come to faith. For the fishermen, it seems that it was immediate and without question. For C.S. Lewis, it was the result of years of following false trails and dead-ends. 

In the same way, the journey of discipleship is not uniform. The fishermen, for all their enthusiasm took time to learn the ways of the gospel and to change their lives accordingly. Lewis, for all his scepticism was well-informed when he came to faith. Lewis’ reluctance sprang from his prior knowledge, the fishermen’s eagerness, reveals how little they knew of the cost of discipleship.

However enthusiastically or however reluctantly the fishermen and Lewis made a choice. A choice to live as they always had, or a choice to leap into a future in which God, not they, is in control. 

Our choice may have been made for us by our parents, or it may have come on us so gradually that we cannot put a finger on the time and place. We may have felt the insistent call of God or experienced a sudden transformation. It matters not how the choice came about, but that a choice was made and that a choice continues to be made to give our lives to Christ, to place our selves at the disposal of the living God. 

Do you hear the voice of Jesus? or the nagging tug of God? Is your answer ‘yes’ – this time, next time and every time?  

[1] This is my memory of his story. The book is readily available.

[2]https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/ownwords/joy.html#:~:text=by%20Sigmund%20Freud-,From%20Surprised%20by%20Joy%3A%20The,of%20My%20Early%20Life%20(1955)&text=%22I%20gave%20in%2C%20and%20admitted,reluctant%20convert%20in%20all%20England.%22

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Who or what is a disciple? some thoughts.

January 13, 2024

Second Sunday after Epiphany – 2024

John 1:43-51

Marian Free

In the name of God in whose kingdom all are welcome. Amen.

If I was to ask you to tell me the story of Jesus’ calling the disciples, I am sure that your default option would be to tell me the story of the fishermen – Peter and Andrew, James and John. It is the story that we will all have been taught in Sunday School and many of us will still be captivated if not in awe of the way in which the fishermen, without hesitation, left their trade and their families to follow someone who, to all intents and purposes was a. complete stranger. At this point in Mark’s gospel, nothing has set Jesus apart from the crowd and still they follow.

John tells a very different story. In the fourth gospel Jesus does not choose the first disciples – they choose him – which is more in keeping with the Jewish tradition. In this gospel, Jesus is not a complete unknown. John the Baptist has already declared Jesus to be the “Lamb of God” the one who takes away the sins of the world – the one who comes after John but who ranks ahead of him. It is perhaps no surprise then, that on the following day when John points out the same “Lamb of God” that two of his disciples follow Jesus. One of those is Andrew – the brother of Simon Peter. It is Andrew who brings Simon to Jesus (not Jesus who calls).

The setting of this scene is Bethany which is not far from Jerusalem but something like 160 kilometres from Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. So, it is at Bethany on the Jordan that Andrew and one other decide to follow Jesus.

It is only on the following day that Jesus leaves the place where John has been baptising and makes his way to Galilee. There Jesus finds Philip and asks him to follow him. Philip finds Nathaniel who famously cannot believe that Nazareth (a tiny village) can produce anyone of note. We are not told whether or not Nathaniel becomes a disiciple, but what is clear is that Jesus does not take offense, rather that he is happy to engage with the cynical Nathaniel and to reveal something of himself.

This introduction to Jesus’ ministry illustrates two ways in which the Johannine gospel differs from the Synoptics. In the first instance, the characters that populate this gospel are different, or have different roles. The second is that one of John’s teaching methods is to have Jesus engage in conversation – with people who question him and his role (Nathaniel, Nicodemus), with outsiders, like the woman at the well.

It is the people I would like to focus on.

In the Synoptic gospels, the key characters – Peter, James and John are the members of Jesus’ inner circle, but we look for them in vain in John’s gospel. Here the key people include Andrew one of the first to follow and the disciple who finds a boy with five loaves and who brings the child to Jesus. Thomas, of whom we hear nothing in the Synoptics is the disciple who, in this gospel declares that he will go to Jerusalem with Jesus – even if he must die with him (11:16) and who says when Jesus announces his departure: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (14:5). Martha and Mary play a leading role in the account of the raising of Lazarus. It is Mary Magdalene to whom the risen Jesus reveals himself, and who is entrusted with a message to the disciples. Peter, James and John do not even have speaking roles until the last (disputed chapter).

It seems that the heroes in John’s community were very different from those know to other early communities. This is interesting, but it is also important. It tells us that the early church was not monolithic and that Jesus’ disciples were not remembered equally in all places. It tells that perhaps the disciples spread out and formed churches and that they were (of course) better known by the communities they formed or within which they found themselves.

Perhaps more importantly, John’s gospel widens our perspectives as to what it meant to be a disciple. A disciple did not have to be rash and foolish like Peter, or ambitious like James and John. A disciple was not only someone who followed blindly, but someone who followed only when their questions were asked. A disciple could be brave enough to ask questions without feeling that they would be made to look foolish. A disicple could challenge Jesus (If you had been here our brother would not have died). And a disciple could weep at the empty tomb and cling to the risen Jesus.

Knowing the disciples in John’s gospel, broadens our understanding of Jesus’ followers and knowing their cynicism, questioning, challenging natures, makes it easier to find our place among them.

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