Embracing the present

November 15, 2014

Pentecost 23
Matthew 25:14-30
Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us out of fear and timidity into a life that is full, fulfilling and rich. Amen.

During the week Gail Kelly resigned from her position as CEO of the Westpac Bank. This event not only made the newspapers, but was a matter of some discussion in the wider community. Kelly’s career has been of interest since she was appointed to the position in 2008. She broke the glass ceiling in the corporate world, but more than that, during her time with the bank, she achieved what many of her peers had not. That is, she successfully steered the bank through the global financial crisis and, in what was a critical time for many financial institutions, she significantly strengthened the bank’s position.

In August, at the launch of the St George Foundation, Kelly outlined seven lessons that she had learned along the way. I think that they are worth sharing. In brief, she said: “Choose to be positive; do what you love, love what you do; be bold, dig deep; right people on the bus, wrong people off; have a vision of what you’d like to achieve; practice generosity of spirit (desire to see others flourish) and live a full (whole) life.” Two things caught my attention. First of all, Kelly’s words were not those of a cut-throat, aggressive power-hungry person, but of a pragmatic, sensible, balanced person who has taken risks. Secondly, I was intrigued by Kelly’s advice to be bold and courageous. It is easy for us to imagine that successful people are confident and self-assured at all times. Kelly says that for all her life she has had a sense of: “Gosh, I’m not good enough, I’m not adequate, I’m not going to do this well. I might fail, what happens if I fail?”

A great many of us would relate to these feelings of self-doubt and of the anxiety that doing something new and challenging can cause. Kelly suggests that in such cases we should: “pause, dig deep, take our courage into our hands and actively say: ‘I’m going to back myself.'” Self doubt hasn’t prevented Kelly from taking risks. At such times she has actively said: “there are others out there who are going to support me, there are others out there who want me to win.”

As I reflected on these words, it seemed to me that they helped to make sense of today’s parable about the talents.

It has been usual to confuse the expression ‘talenta’ which refers to a sum of money, with a person’s ability. More often than not, the parable is interpreted as meaning that we have to make the best use of our talents (abilities/gifts). However, if we understand that a “talent” represents something like fifteen years wages of an ordinary worker, we begin to see the huge responsibility that has been given even to the slave who receives only one talent. It is a responsibility that the master expects will be taken seriously. That is he believes that the money will be put to good use.

According to the parable, the first two slaves invest the money. When the man returns, they are able to return to him double what he gave them. The third slave however does not have any confidence in himself. He is afraid of his master and doesn’t fully grasp the master’s confidence in him. (He might only have been given one talent compared to the other’s five and two), but even one talent (fifteen year’s wages) is indicative of the master’s confidence in his ability to manage a huge sum of money. The responsibility paralyses the third slave such that he is too afraid to do anything. He is so fearful of taking a risk that he doesn’t even give the money to the money-lenders which would ensure some form of return. Burying money was regarded as the best form of security against theft. What is more, according to the customs of the time, it was also a way of ensuring that the slave would not be held liable if the money was stolen. The slave presumably believes that he has done what is necessary to protect himself – the money will be safe until the master’s return and even if it is not, he cannot be held responsible for its disappearance.

Unfortunately, he has misread his master’s intention in entrusting him with the money. The master was expecting boldness not timidity. By giving the slave the money, he had demonstrated his trust and his belief in each of the slaves by only giving them only what he believed they could manage. Only one slave has not lived up to that trust. It is his failure to recognise and respond to that trust that earns him the master’s wrath.

The parable of the talents confronts those who, in the present are lazy or fearful who do not understand God’s confidence in them and who do not embrace life to the full, use every opportunity that is put before them and take risks. God does not want us to live in fear of the future, but to live in and be fully engaged in the present.

God has placed His trust in us. Do we honour that trust by being fearful or by stepping out in faith confident in God’s confidence in us?

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Embracing the present

November 15, 2014

strong>Pentecost 23
Matthew 25:14-30
Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us out of fear and timidity into a life that is full, fulfilling and rich. Amen.

During the week Gail Kelly resigned from her position as CEO of the Westpac Bank. This event not only made the newspapers, but was a matter of some discussion in the wider community. Kelly’s career has been of interest since she was appointed to the position in 2008. She broke the glass ceiling in the corporate world, but more than that, during her time with the bank, she achieved what many of her peers had not. That is, she successfully steered the bank through the global financial crisis and, in what was a critical time for many financial institutions, she significantly strengthened the bank’s position.

In August, at the launch of the St George Foundation, Kelly outlined seven lessons that she had learned along the way. I think that they are worth sharing. In brief, she said: “Choose to be positive; do what you love, love what you do; be bold, dig deep; right people on the bus, wrong people off; have a vision of what you’d like to achieve; practice generosity of spirit (desire to see others flourish) and live a full (whole) life.” Two things caught my attention. First of all, Kelly’s words were not those of a cut-throat, aggressive power-hungry person, but of a pragmatic, sensible, balanced person who has taken risks. Secondly, I was intrigued by Kelly’s advice to be bold and courageous. It is easy for us to imagine that successful people are confident and self-assured at all times. Kelly says that for all her life she has had a sense of: “Gosh, I’m not good enough, I’m not adequate, I’m not going to do this well. I might fail, what happens if I fail?”

A great many of us would relate to these feelings of self-doubt and of the anxiety that doing something new and challenging can cause. Kelly suggests that in such cases we should: “pause, dig deep, take our courage into our hands and actively say: ‘I’m going to back myself.'” Self doubt hasn’t prevented Kelly from taking risks. At such times she has actively said: “there are others out there who are going to support me, there are others out there who want me to win.”

As I reflected on these words, it seemed to me that they helped to make sense of today’s parable about the talents.

It has been usual to confuse the expression ‘talenta’ which refers to a sum of money, with a person’s ability. More often than not, the parable is interpreted as meaning that we have to make the best use of our talents (abilities/gifts). However, if we understand that a “talent” represents something like fifteen years wages of an ordinary worker, we begin to see the huge responsibility that has been given even to the slave who receives only one talent. It is a responsibility that the master expects will be taken seriously. That is he believes that the money will be put to good use.

According to the parable, the first two slaves invest the money. When the man returns, they are able to return to him double what he gave them. The third slave however does not have any confidence in himself. He is afraid of his master and doesn’t fully grasp the master’s confidence in him. (He might only have been given one talent compared to the other’s five and two), but even one talent (fifteen year’s wages) is indicative of the master’s confidence in his ability to manage a huge sum of money. The responsibility paralyses the third slave such that he is too afraid to do anything. He is so fearful of taking a risk that he doesn’t even give the money to the money-lenders which would ensure some form of return. Burying money was regarded as the best form of security against theft. What is more, according to the customs of the time, it was also a way of ensuring that the slave would not be held liable if the money was stolen. The slave presumably believes that he has done what is necessary to protect himself – the money will be safe until the master’s return and even if it is not, he cannot be held responsible for its disappearance.

Unfortunately, he has misread his master’s intention in entrusting him with the money. The master was expecting boldness not timidity. By giving the slave the money, he had demonstrated his trust and his belief in each of the slaves by only giving them only what he believed they could manage. Only one slave has not lived up to that trust. It is his failure to recognise and respond to that trust that earns him the master’s wrath.

The parable of the talents confronts those who, in the present are lazy or fearful who do not understand God’s confidence in them and who do not embrace life to the full, use every opportunity that is put before them and take risks. God does not want us to live in fear of the future, but to live in and be fully engaged in the present.

God has placed His trust in us. Do we honour that trust by being fearful or by stepping out in faith confident in God’s confidence in us?

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Ready for anything?

November 11, 2014

Pentecost 21
Matthew 25:1-13
Marian Free

In the name of God in whose hands is the past, the present and the future. Amen.

Dennis Sanders could have read my mind when she stated that as a kid she didn’t like the parable of the foolish virgins, that she thought the wise virgins were selfish for not sharing and that the foolish virgins had been framed. (Christian Century, ‘Living by the Word’) I would go further and say that I haven’t liked the parable for much of my adulthood. One reason for this is that the parable of the ten virgins is very graphic. The reader/listener is drawn into the situation. We ,the readers, can picture the young women excitedly going out to escort the bridegroom to his home. We can sympathize with them as they fall asleep in exhaustion when the groom is delayed. We sense the anxiety of those whose lamps are going out and to some extent of those who are afraid to share their oil. Above all, we are drawn into the despair of those who are locked out because of their failure to be ready in time. Though it is the opposite of the author’s intention, our (my) sympathy lies with the ‘foolish’ virgins. I want to find some way of opening the door for them.

This parable occurs only in Matthew, as does the next but one about the sheep and the goats. It occurs in the context of Matthew’s sayings and parables about the end and about watchfulness. For that reason, it is often taken as a warning that believers should be ready (have their lamps trimmed) for the return of Christ. This may be true. It may be that some forty to fifty years after the death of Jesus that some believers were slipping into complacency. However, given Matthew’s context, it is equally possible that the parable is a part of the writer’s polemic against the Jews who did not believe in Jesus. That is, those who believed in Jesus did expect an apocalyptic end of the world and those who did not believe in Jesus did not believe that the world would come to an end. The parable, especially with the additional phrases about the need for watchfulness suggest that the Jesus’ believers will be ready and the others not.

If however, we take the parable on its own – without the added exhortation to readiness, it could well be a parable for our times. When a bridegroom went to meet his bride, one of the tasks was to negotiate the bridal contract with her father. There was no knowing how long this would take, no guarantee that he would return in a timely fashion. Knowing this, it would make sense for those who were to meet him to be prepared for a long wait and to have sufficient oil for such a situation. If that was not sufficient reason to have extra oil, then the realisation that the groom was delayed might have provided the clue that that might have been a good time to get more oil rather than fall asleep. The problem with the foolish virgins, is that they neither consider the possibility that the groom will be delayed, and when it is clear that he will be late, they still take no action. It is only when disaster is on their doorstep that they are finally moved to do something and by the. It is too late.

Sometimes the signs of impending doom are evident long before it is too late to take remedial action. This might be true of the church in many places.

For at least the past forty five years, I have been engaged in discussions about the fact that fewer and fewer people are attending church on a regular basis. The reasons have been many, but the signs have been obvious. During the successive years, the church has engaged specialists and trialled all kinds of programmes which might have slowed, but not halted the decline. My observation is that instead of drawing on the deep wells of our traditions and our faith, we have tinkered at the edges, trying new things that are not really related to the gospel – modern music, morning tea after church, shorter services and so on. There is nothing wrong with any of these if they are responses to changes in the life of the worshipping community, but if they are seen as “quick fixes” to what is a complex issue, they are not likely to achieve lasting change and those whom such changes attract may not stay.

I do not have a solution, but today’s parable makes me wonder whether we have been too long like the foolish virgins, looking for short-term, stop-gap solutions rather than taking the time to be ready for any situation that might present itself. It may not be too late. For two thousand years the oil of faith has kept the lamps of the church alight. Perhaps the parable is urging us, in today’s world, to stop for a minute to replenish our supplies, to ensure that we have sufficient oil (resilience, faithfulness, trust, courage, resourcefulness) to face any situation, to open doors into whatever future God might have prepared.

Readiness or lack of it, does not have to be about the end, about Jesus’ eventual return. It might just as well relate to the present. The parable may be urging us to live fully in the present, ready for anything.

Is our relationship with God such that we have reserves to draw on or are we always flying by the seat of our pants, hoping that there will be something to draw on, someone to help us out when our supplies run low?

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Ready for anything?

November 11, 2014

Pentecost 21
Matthew 25:1-13
Marian Free

In the name of God in whose hands is the past, the present and the future. Amen.

Dennis Sanders could have read my mind when she stated that as a kid she didn’t like the parable of the foolish virgins, that she thought the wise virgins were selfish for not sharing and that the foolish virgins had been framed. (Christian Century, ‘Living by the Word’) I would go further and say that I haven’t liked the parable for much of my adulthood. One reason for this is that the parable of the ten virgins is very graphic. The reader/listener is drawn into the situation. We ,the readers, can picture the young women excitedly going out to escort the bridegroom to his home. We can sympathize with them as they fall asleep in exhaustion when the groom is delayed. We sense the anxiety of those whose lamps are going out and to some extent of those who are afraid to share their oil. Above all, we are drawn into the despair of those who are locked out because of their failure to be ready in time. Though it is the opposite of the author’s intention, our (my) sympathy lies with the ‘foolish’ virgins. I want to find some way of opening the door for them.

This parable occurs only in Matthew, as does the next but one about the sheep and the goats. It occurs in the context of Matthew’s sayings and parables about the end and about watchfulness. For that reason, it is often taken as a warning that believers should be ready (have their lamps trimmed) for the return of Christ. This may be true. It may be that some forty to fifty years after the death of Jesus that some believers were slipping into complacency. However, given Matthew’s context, it is equally possible that the parable is a part of the writer’s polemic against the Jews who did not believe in Jesus. That is, those who believed in Jesus did expect an apocalyptic end of the world and those who did not believe in Jesus did not believe that the world would come to an end. The parable, especially with the additional phrases about the need for watchfulness suggest that the Jesus’ believers will be ready and the others not.

If however, we take the parable on its own – without the added exhortation to readiness, it could well be a parable for our times. When a bridegroom went to meet his bride, one of the tasks was to negotiate the bridal contract with her father. There was no knowing how long this would take, no guarantee that he would return in a timely fashion. Knowing this, it would make sense for those who were to meet him to be prepared for a long wait and to have sufficient oil for such a situation. If that was not sufficient reason to have extra oil, then the realisation that the groom was delayed might have provided the clue that that might have been a good time to get more oil rather than fall asleep. The problem with the foolish virgins, is that they neither consider the possibility that the groom will be delayed, and when it is clear that he will be late, they still take no action. It is only when disaster is on their doorstep that they are finally moved to do something and by the. It is too late.

Sometimes the signs of impending doom are evident long before it is too late to take remedial action. This might be true of the church in many places.

For at least the past forty five years, I have been engaged in discussions about the fact that fewer and fewer people are attending church on a regular basis. The reasons have been many, but the signs have been obvious. During the successive years, the church has engaged specialists and trialled all kinds of programmes which might have slowed, but not halted the decline. My observation is that instead of drawing on the deep wells of our traditions and our faith, we have tinkered at the edges, trying new things that are not really related to the gospel – modern music, morning tea after church, shorter services and so on. There is nothing wrong with any of these if they are responses to changes in the life of the worshipping community, but if they are seen as “quick fixes” to what is a complex issue, they are not likely to achieve lasting change and those whom such changes attract may not stay.

I do not have a solution, but today’s parable makes me wonder whether we have been too long like the foolish virgins, looking for short-term, stop-gap solutions rather than taking the time to be ready for any situation that might present itself. It may not be too late. For two thousand years the oil of faith has kept the lamps of the church alight. Perhaps the parable is urging us, in today’s world, to stop for a minute to replenish our supplies, to ensure that we have sufficient oil (resilience, faithfulness, trust, courage, resourcefulness) to face any situation, to open doors into whatever future God might have prepared.

Readiness or lack of it, does not have to be about the end, about Jesus’ eventual return. It might just as well relate to the present. The parable may be urging us to live fully in the present, ready for anything.

Is our relationship with God such that we have reserves to draw on or are we always flying by the seat of our pants, hoping that there will be something to draw on, someone to help us out when our supplies run low?

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Seeing each other as saints

November 3, 2014

All Saints Day – 2014

Matthew 5:1-12

Marian Free

 In the name of God who calls us and who sanctifies us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 A fellow priest told me a wonderful story. When my friend was a priest in Canberra (where winters are notoriously cold) he used to celebrate the Eucharist one morning a week at 6:30am. Over time, the congregation dwindled to just one elderly woman. On one particularly cold winter’s day, the priest suggested to this woman that perhaps the time had come to cease that particular celebration, as it seemed as if it would always be just herself in the congregation. Her response was: “But I am never alone, I am surrounded by the communion of Saints.”

That story comes back to me on many occasions when I enter an older church and think about the hundreds of faithful people who have filled that space with prayer, day after day, week after week until their prayers and their presence seems to have soaked into the very walls of the building. I remember the story when I look at the wonderful windows of St Augustine’s, which, to the north commemorate New Testament saints and to the south depict saints from the church in England prior to Augustine’s visit. There is a sense in which they are looking down at the worshipers and encouraging and supporting them in prayer.

Today when we celebrate All Saint’s Day, the introduction to the confession will use the words from the Book of Hebrews: “We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses”. It is an image that, for me at least, conjures up a vision of the heavenly host and is a reminder that in our practice of faith that we are never alone, but that in our worship and in our lives we are not alone, but encircled by all the faithful who have trod this path before us.

All Saint’s Day is an opportunity to remember all people of faith who are now in God’s nearer care and particularly those whom we have known and loved. The letters of Paul, written some 20-30 years after the death of Jesus, refer to all believers as saints and while the use of this term has been narrowed down to a few representative people, it still embraces each one of us.

What that means is that even though we might think that we live dull, uninspiring lives we are still numbered among the saints. A few things flow from this reflection. One is to consider whether or not we think differently about ourselves if we apply the term to ourselves. Does knowing that we are “saints” encourage us to be the best that we can be? Do we fell that we would like to rise to the challenge of being more saintly in the conventional sense? If we are saints, are there things about our lives that we would like to change, things that we would like to strive towards. Perhaps the opposite results – that knowing that we are saints makes us less likely to live up to the expression and more likely to be complacent?

If we are saints then all our sisters and brothers in Christ are also saints. This includes those who share our theology and those who do not, those who hurt us inadvertently or deliberately, those who get under our skin and so on. How does our attitude towards them change if we see them through the lens of sainthood? Would our communities of faith (locally and internationally) look different if this was how we viewed those, who like us, claim to be followers of Jesus?

Last but not least, this more open use of the word asks us to think differently about all the “ordinary” people of faith who have trod this earth before us. Today, instead of remembering those whose acts of courage, fortitude or self-denial have brought them to the attention of the wider community, let us remember with thanksgiving the men, women and children who have been faithful servants of God day-in-day out for all of their lives. People who have never stood out from the crowd but who have lived out their baptismal promises in times of ease and times of hardship – those who have been overlooked because their service takes place behind the scenes, in the home or in patiently and diligently carrying out boring or menial tasks and those who to our minds have done nothing at all. All are saints by virtue of God’s saving grace in Jesus.

In order to be saints we need to nothing more than believe. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, the work of sanctification has been done for us: “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (6:11).

Francis Green wrote a hymn that goes:

Rejoice in God’s saints, today and all days!

A world without saints forgets how to praise.

Their faith in acquiring the habit of prayer,

their depth of adoring, Lord, help us to share.

Some march with events, to turn them God’s way;

some need to withdraw, the better to pray;

some carry the gospel through fire and through flood:

our world is their parish: their purpose is God.

Rejoice in those saints, unpraised and unknown,

who bear someone’s cross, or shoulder their own:

they shame our complaining, our comforts, our cares:

what patience in caring, what courage is theirs!

Rejoice in God’s saints, today and all days!

A world without saints forgets how to praise.

in loving, in living, they prove it is true:

The way of self-giving, Lord, leads us to you. (Francis Green 1903-2000

Today, let us remember all the saints whose lives have influenced our own and rejoice that by the grace of God we are numbered among them.

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Locking God out, letting God in

October 25, 2014

Pentecost 20
Matthew 22:34-46
Marian Free

In the name of God whose foolishness is wiser than our wisdom. Amen.

When I was young I, like many of my contemporaries, had an autograph book. We’d take the book to social occasions and ask people to sign it. If we were lucky they would not only sign the book but write a short rhyme or a riddle. I had completely forgotten about riddles. These days I only seem to come across them in fairy tales. For example, a King offers his daughter’s hand to the first person to solve a riddle or a princess will only marry the Prince who asks her a riddle that she cannot answer and so on.

In my autograph book were such riddles as:
“If your B empty, put :
if your B full, stop putting : ”
It was a play on both punctuation signs and letters and if you don’t remember it, you will need to see it written. I found this one on the Internet, but I would have had to become a member of the site to find the answer – so I’m relying on you to help me out. It goes: “What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and the beginning of every ending?”

In today’s gospel Jesus poses something like a riddle. When he asks the Pharisees whose son the Messiah is they reply (as expected) David’s son. Jesus then challenges them using part of Psalm 110: “If David thus calls him (the Messiah) Lord, how can he be his Son?” The Pharisees are stumped. How can the Messiah (whom they expect to be the son of David) also be the son of God? It does not seem possible.

With the advantage of distance (and with the knowledge that Jesus is both God and human), we might realise that the question is really a matter of semantics. Jesus is using a portion of Psalm 110 to insinuate that David is calling the Messiah “Lord” (or God) and questioning whether David would call his own son God. If he does, then the Messiah must be both human and divine – something the Pharisees would find impossible to comprehend. As a result, they are unable to respond to Jesus’ question.

Jesus is playing with words. The word lord in English as well as in Greek can refer both to God and to someone in authority. This is quite different from the Hebrew in which Yahweh is the word that we translate as Lord. In Hebrew then, the relevant part of Psalm 110 reads, “Yahweh said to my lord.” This makes it clear that the second “lord” is a human being and therefore could reasonably refer to David’s son. In both Greek and English, the sentence reads, “The Lord said to my lord”. Jesus implies that this means that God (“the Lord”) is speaking to another divine being (“my Lord”) who by definition cannot possibly be the human David’s son. It was expected that someone of David’s line would again sit on the throne of Israel. That person would be a human being, a true descendant of David – not God. Jesus is using the Psalm as if the word lord in Greek means God in both places and is challenging the Pharisees to explain how the Messiah can be both a son of David AND a Son of God, both human and divine. Such an idea is completely novel to them and they have no answer.

Over the last few weeks we have observed Jesus in debate with different groups of church leaders. In turn, they have attempted to discredit Jesus by asking him questions that they expect will either confound him or expose him to ridicule or even risk. They have asked him no less than four questions designed to show him up – two general and two about the correct interpretation of scripture – the question of John the Baptist’s authority, the question about paying taxes to Caesar, the question about the resurrection and the question about the greatest commandment. On each occasion Jesus has proven himself more than adequate to the task, answering both wisely and cautiously. The church leaders have not been able to embarrass him or to catch him out – just the opposite. Their failure has given Jesus an opportunity to demonstrate that not only is he a good debater, but that his knowledge and understanding of scripture is at least comparable to that of the church leaders.

Now Jesus turns the tables on the Pharisees by asking a trick question of his own. The end result of this series of questions is that instead of Jesus’ being made to look foolish, it is the Pharisees’ inability to interpret scripture that exposes their lack of understanding. Jesus has proven himself more than their equal as an authoritative interpreter of scripture. They don’t dare continue their line of attack.

It is foolish to think that we can outsmart God, use scripture to our advantage, or twist the bible to make it say what we want it say. It is a waste of time to become obsessed with parts of scripture at the cost of the whole, to focus on individual details rather than seeing the full picture, to worry about little things rather than be captivated by complete message. The religious leaders of Jesus’ time had become fixated on one particular view of the world and of their faith and in so doing had closed themselves to other possibilities. They expected a Saviour, but they expected that Saviour to behave in a particular way and so were completely unprepared for a Saviour such as Jesus turned out to be. They thought that they were able to read and interpret scripture, but their reliance on their own interpretation meant that their minds were closed to God’s revelation in Jesus.

The Pharisees were not necessarily bad, but they were locked into a way of thinking that prevented them from seeing Jesus for who he was. Let us this not be our mistake. May we always remain open to God’s continuing revelation so that we can see and rejoice in the new things that God is doing in and around us. God forbid that we should ever believe that we know all that there is to know or worse still that we think we know just how and when God will act for that would be to close our minds to possibilities and to shut God out rather than to let God in.

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“Get over it” It’s not that complicated

October 18, 2014

Pentecost 19
Matthew 22:15-33
Marian Free

In the name of God, in whom and of whom are all things. Amen.

Sometime ago, I was part of a Parish that took life and faith very seriously. I could tell a number of stories, but three in particular come to mind. One concerns a woman who was a member of a group that had convinced her that the Star of David was a source of evil. The poor woman was distraught not because she had such a star in her home, but because she was afraid that she might have one of which she was unaware. Her plan – until we had spoken at some length – was to go home and turn her house upside down until she was sure that it was safe. To this day I’m not sure what sort of theology promotes the idea that inanimate objects are evil and it frightens me that there is someone out there sowing seeds of fear in the name of Jesus who casts out fear.

Another story relates to an elderly couple. One of their pleasures in life was to create beautiful teddy bears. They poured everything they had into making these bears using exquisite and expensive materials. The bears were of such a high standard that they won prizes at a number of shows and cost more than I could afford to pay. One Sunday morning this pair stopped me after church. On the previous day they had attended a seminar and had been led to believe that they should give up their hobby because it was not holy or religious enough. Needless to say they were very distressed – not only because they might have to give up something that they loved, but also at the thought that for so long they had been doing something contrary to the will of God. Again, I was surprised that anyone could imagine that making teddy bears was in some way offensive to God. After some discussion, I managed to persuade the couple that in making such beautiful toys they were sharing with God in the work of creation and in case that was not convincing enough, I added that every time they completed a teddy that they should say a prayer for the person who would one day own it.

Perhaps the most shocking story of that part of my life was the day I entered the church to see a flyer headed: “Ten reasons why Santa should be shot”. Now I realise that most of us are distressed by the commercialisation of Christmas and that we might wish that Jesus received more credit and more attention than Santa Claus, but to promote that sort of violence in Jesus’ name was to my mind an extreme and unnecessary reaction.

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” The stories I have told suggest to me that the those who see evil in inanimate objects, who believe that only some activities are worthy of being called holy, or those who encourage violence have not only misinterpreted this passage, but have seriously misunderstood the gospel and the relationship between the holy and the mundane.

In order to understand the debate in today’s gospel, we need to understand the background. As we have seen, in these chapters of Matthew various church leaders engage Jesus in debate. Their intention is to expose him to ridicule and to re-establish their authority in the eyes of the people. In this instance it is the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians who try to trip Jesus up. (The Pharisees representing the religious establishment and the Herodians representing the Romans.) “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor or not?” There were many taxes in first century Palestine, but tax in question is one that Rome imposed on its subject peoples in order to support the occupation. That is the Romans expected those whom they had subjugated to pay a tax to support their presence. Needless to say, there was a great deal of resentment in relation to this tax – not least among the crowds – the followers of Jesus. The tax was a constant reminder of their status as a conquered people.

A special coin was used to pay this tax, a denarius or the Tribute penny. Like all Roman coins it had a picture of the Emperor on one side with the inscription Son of God. For the religious leaders paying the tax implied that they acknowledged Caesar as God and this was an affront to their piety.

No wonder the questioners thought that they had Jesus backed into a corner. If he said not to pay the tax, he would have the crowds and the Pharisees on his side, but would be risking his safety by committing treason against the Romans. On the other hand, if he said that the tax should be paid, the crowds might well have turned against him. It appears to be a no win situation. However, Jesus sees through the question and sidesteps the issue. “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus’ response suggests that paying or not paying the tax is a trivial detail in the scheme of things. Ultimately all things are God’s – that includes the Emperor and the Emperor’s coin. The distinction between worldly and other-worldly is a false distinction. What is important is our attitude to the things of the world and the value that we give them. Essentially, the question about the taxes is a distraction. The more important question is the question about being true to God in a hostile and difficult environment.

Non-Christian symbols, teddy-bears, a secularised Santa – all of these things are irrelevant diversions. Worrying about such things takes our focus off God. We become so absorbed in fretting over whether or not something is holy or not, that we lose sight of the bigger picture – our relationship with God. Essentially Jesus is saying to his sparring partners and therefore to us: “Get over it. Concentrate on the things that really matter. Real evil is much more subtle than taxes, teddy bears or Santa. Believe that everything is God’s, place yourself and your life in God’s hands and let the rest look after itself.”

It is just not that complicated. If we put God first in our lives everything else will fall into place.

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Incitement to violence?

October 11, 2014

Pentecost 18

Matthew 22:1-14

Marian Free

 

Holy God, may we so strive to understand your word, that we are not blinded by our own prejudices or limited by our own ignorance, and that we are always on guard against complacency and self-satisfaction. Amen.

As radical Islamists are rampaging though northern Iraq and Syria, wreaking destruction and committing atrocities against innocent civilians who do not hold their world view, the last thing that we want is to be confronted with on a Sunday morning is the violence of our own texts and the possibly that they might be used as an incitement to violence against others. And yet that is just what we appear to have this morning. Sure, the original wedding guests did kill the king’s servants but the king’s reaction does seem excessive. He sends his troops against the offenders and not only kills them but burns their city. It is a parable and not meant to be taken literally, but if it were literal a lot of innocent people would have been killed along with the guilty. If that were not enough, the parable ends with what many think is a second parable – that of the man without a wedding garment who gets cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There is just no getting around the aggression in these two parables.

Before we condemn all Muslims and their holy texts, it is important to understand how easy it is for our own to be twisted or distorted. To recognise how easily they can be used as a justification for violence and exclusion and to exercise some caution before we point our fingers at others.

In recording the parable of the banquet both Matthew and Luke have used it to further their own distinct arguments. Luke’s emphasis on the inclusion of those on the edges comes through loud and clear in his placement and re-telling of the parable while Matthew’s agenda of demonstrating that the Jesus-believing Jews are the true Israel is obvious in the way in his placement and telling.

Luke’s setting is that of a series of banquet stories. In response to a dinner guest who says: “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God!” Jesus says: “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’

In Luke’s story someone has a banquet, there is only one servant, the guests who refuse to come are ignored. The servant is sent out again, not once, but twice. Luke makes it very clear that the replacement guests are the poor, the crippled and the lame – in other words the vulnerable and those who would usually be excluded. As Luke perceives it, the Kingdom of God will include all these outsiders.

Both writers are trying to explain why it is that those to whom Jesus was sent have not embraced him and others, the outsiders (Gentiles), have. Those who were invited did not come and others invited in their place did.

The author of Matthew’s gospel makes this point even more strongly to demonstrate his claim that the new believers have supplanted the old. The Jesus-believing Jews have taken the place of the Jews who do not believe. We see this in the preceding two parables (see Pentecost 16). The vineyard is taken away from the wicked tenants and the son who initially says he will not go, is the one who does. Matthew uses hyperbole in his retelling – it is a royal wedding banquet, there are several servants, not just one, the servants are killed and in retaliation the invited guests are killed. Whereas Luke describes the replacement guests Matthew simply points out that they have been invited indiscriminately – the good and the bad together.

It is possible that as well as using exaggeration Matthew is employing Old Testament allusions to make his point. There was a tradition that Israel killed the prophets sent by God and also a belief that Israel’s faithlessness led to punishments such as defeat by their enemies and being taken into exile. Matthew’s listeners may well have understood the servants to be the prophets and the destruction of Jerusalem as a consequence of the king’s (God’s) anger.

That leaves us with the man without the wedding garment. Why does Matthew append this detail? One explanation is that he is warning his community against complacency. The man without the wedding garment represents those who think that their inclusion is the end of the matter and do not understand that it comes with certain responsibilities. This parable makes it clear that just as easily as they have been included, they can be excluded. They must be on their guard and not take their invitation for granted.

When we go to the trouble of grappling with Matthew’s telling of the story, we can see that it is NOT an incitement for us to use violence against or to destroy those who do not believe what we do. Rather it is a parable, a story (and an exaggerated one at that) to explain why it is that we, who are not Jews came to be included in the people of God. It is also warning that we should look to ourselves. At all times we should be on our guard against smugness and self-satisfaction. If we treat God’s invitation with disdain it can always be extended to others.

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Knowing uncertainty

October 4, 2014

Pentecost 17
Matthew 21:23-32, Mark 12:1-12, Luke 20:9-19, Gospel of Thomas 65-66
Marian Free

In the name of God who cannot be pinned down or contained by the limits of human understanding. Amen.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the issues that confront our world in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Climate change, people trafficking, the Ebola virus, poverty, natural disaster and the displacement of people due to war or civil strife are among the many crises that are facing the world at the present time. Of all these concerns the one that is most exercising our minds and the one that has focussed the attention of our politicians and our media is that of fundamentalism and the violence that ensues as a result of a narrow view of religion and of the attempt to impose that view on others. At the moment our attention is caught by those who call themselves Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but we should not forget that the Taliban are still active in Afghanistan and that Boko Haran is still wreaking terror in Northern Nigeria.

Fundamentalism is a fairly recent phenomenon. It arose in the nineteenth century among the millenarian movements in the United States. According to the Oxford Dictionary it is a form of religion especially Protestant Christianity or Islam, that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture. Among Christians it is usually a reaction to social and political change and to the theory of evolution. Islamic fundamentalism arose in the eighteenth and nineteenth century as a reaction to the disintegration of Islamic economic and political power. I cannot speak for Islam, but for nineteen centuries Christians felt no need for a literal interpretation of scripture. Believers and scholars alike were happy to understand stories such as Genesis 1 as just that, stories. They saw no need to insist that the world was created in just seven days but were content to understand God’s creative energy behind the universe.

There are a number of problems with fundamentalism of which the most serious is a belief that the human mind is able to interpret the mind of God or that any human being can presume that they have the authority to impose the will of God on others. While I would in no way defend the violence and brutality of the militant Islamists, I would urge us to be cautious about feelings of moral outrage and moral superiority and remember of our own checkered history and the hurtful, harmful ways in which we have used our own scriptures – to engage in the Crusades, to defend slavery and domestic violence and to disempower women and children.

Today’s gospel is a good deterrent against fundamentalism if for no other reason than that there are four different versions of the story and, if Scott is to be believed, it is impossible to determine which of these is closest to what Jesus actually said or what he wanted us to learn. Those who have transmitted the parable have each added their own particular slant in the re-telling. Matthew, for example wants his readers to understand that the Jesus’ community are the true Israel, the ones to whom the owner of the vineyard will entrust it. Mark adapts the parable in such a way that it is very clear that it is a reference to the life of Jesus (the beheading of the second servant seems to point to John the Baptist and the language “beloved Son” is reminiscent of Jesus’ baptism). Both Mark and Matthew begin with a quote about vineyards from Isaiah. In the Old Testament, the image of a vineyard is often used of the nation of Israel. Luke omits this reference perhaps as verse 16 suggests, he wants to make it clear that it is not Israel as a whole that will be destroyed, but only the leaders of Israel. Luke also adds the detail that the son, having been killed, was thrown out of the vineyard – he wasn’t even afforded a burial.

The fourth version of this story is found, not in the Bible, but in the Gospel of Thomas – one of the documents uncovered by a farmer in northern Egypt in 1945. In the Gospel of Thomas the parable is only two verses long but it can be argued that whoever recorded it in this form also had an agenda. The focus here is on knowledge and on the failure of the tenants to recognise the messenger and therefore the one who sent him.

It is tempting to try tease out the differences between the four accounts to try to unearth the original. This approach is fraught with difficulty. Whichever way we look at the story, there are a lot of things that just don’t make sense. Why, when the first servant is killed, is another sent? And why, when the second servant is killed does the owner send his son and heir? If the owner has the capacity to destroy the tenants, why does he hold off until his son is killed? In a culture in which honour is paramount, the owner of the vineyard has been shamed not once, but three times and spectacularly so when his son and heir is killed and thrown out of the vineyard.

It may be impossible to discover the original parable or to determine exactly what message Jesus meant us to hear. What we can do is learn about the agenda of the various Gospel writers and the message that they wanted to promote and to understand the reason why a parable or a healing is told in a particular way. An acceptance that the Gospel writers have told the story in different ways to achieve their different ends, is a great deterrent against fundamentalism. It reminds us that we cannot be 100% sure about the meaning of any text and that we need to keep on exploring, seeking to know more about the God revealed by Jesus.

In today’s uncertain time, the very worst that can happen is that we react to fundamentalism with a fundamentalism of our own, that we respond the the present situation by ramping up our own claim to truth and to knowing the mind of God, that we resort to hurling cheap slogans or that we hide behind our own rhetoric and our own self-justification. Our answers should lead us not to certainty, but to new questions, which will lead to new answers and to new questions until at last we are drawn into the fulness of God when all will become clear and god will be all-in-all.

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How well do we tell the story?

September 27, 2014

Pentecost 16

Matthew 21:23-32

Marian Free

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

Recently, our grandchild came to stay overnight. When his mother dropped him off he walked into the living room and waved his arm and said: “MaMa, can you move all this?” I’d have to say that when I surveyed the room and its furnishings I was more than a little dismayed. What on earth was wrong with my living room that a three-year old thought that I should completely rearrange it? Was he having a go at my housekeeping? Did he think that he would knock himself on the sharp corners of the furniture? I just couldn’t make sense of it. Thankfully my daughter came to the rescue. Apparently, before they came, she had been discussing with him the fact that there might be things at MaMa’s house that he wasn’t allowed to touch and he, all three years of him, had responded that that was OK he would just ask MaMa to move things. (And so he did). Without the explanation I would have been completely lost.

So often a failure to understand the context of what is said can lead to misunderstanding and even conflict. We can take offense when no offense was intended or misjudge a person’s intentions because we do not have the full story. Misunderstandings arise when we do not fully understand another person’s culture or background.

This is no less true when it comes to understanding the Bible. First century Palestine was vastly different from today’s Australia. If we are to properly understand the New Testament, it is important to have some knowledge of the historical, social and cultural situation in which the various books were written. It is also important to try to understand the particular agenda of the writer. Why do the gospel writers tell the gospel in their own particular ways? Why does Paul write to a community? What is the purpose behind the Book of Revelation?

Failure to take into account the context of the New Testament has had some disastrous consequences – not least of which was the Holocaust, the destruction of six million Jews. A failure to take into account the historical, social and cultural context of the New Testament has, among other things, led us to defend slavery, to turn a blind eye to domestic violence and to condemn and exclude those who don’t fit our idea of what it is to be “good”.

Context is particularly important when it comes to understanding Matthew’s gospel, a gospel that, to our shame and embarrassment, has been a source of anti-Semitism over the course of history.

Perhaps the first and most important thing to understand is that Matthew is the most Jewish of all the gospels. It is for this reason that the battle is so fierce. The community behind the Gospel is struggling for ascendency over and against the Jews who do not believe in Jesus. It is like two siblings fighting for their parent’s affection or battling it out over the inheritance. An underlying question for the gospel writer is: “Who is the true Israel?” to which Matthew’s answer is: “We are.” What that means is that the gospel is very deliberately setting out to paint the continuing Jews in as bad a light as possible and to do this, he writes the contemporary conflict back into the gospel.

For this reason, we have to be very clear. Jesus was and remained a Jew and while he foresaw that the current trajectory of his people might have led to the destruction of Jerusalem, and though he came into conflict with the Jewish leaders, he did not for one minute imagine the replacement of, let alone the annihilation of his people.

This then is wider context of the today’s gospel. It’s immediate context is Jesus in the Temple as the first sentence makes clear. Jesus is no longer in Galilee, but in Jerusalem the heart of Judaism. It is here that he comes into conflict with the Jewish leaders because he threatens their authority; the people are looking to him not to them. If you remember, when he enters Jerusalem the crowds welcome him as their King. As if that were not enough to cause disquiet among the leaders of the community, his first act is to enter the Temple and overthrow the tables of the moneychangers. No wonder that, on this, his second day in Jerusalem, the legitimate leaders of the Jews want to know what authority he has to behave in the way that he does. No wonder that they want to try to discredit him and reassert their own authority. They ask four questions that they hope will trip him up: about the source of his authority, about paying taxes, about the resurrection and about the law. Jesus not only has an answer to each of these, but he answers in such a way that the leaders do not have a leg to stand on. Finally Jesus asks a question of his own, which convinces them that argument is fruitless. Their plan has backfired. It is not Jesus who has been made to look foolish, but themselves.

In the context of Matthew’s agenda as to who is the true Israel, this section firmly establishes Jesus – the leader of his community – as the legitimate leader (of Israel).

Also in this section are three parables – the parable of the two sons, the parable of the wicked tenants and the parable of the banquet. These are told in such a way that it is clear that just as Jesus is the true leader, so the Matthean community can lay claim to be the true Israel. (Those who were outsiders are the ones who prove worthy of the gospel whereas those who were insiders either reject the invitation or reject the message.) The section finishes with Jesus’ denunciation of the Jewish leaders (which is unique to Matthew) and finally Jesus’ sorrowful prediction of the destruction of the Temple.

Matthew is not alone in telling these conflict stories. All the gospel writers are clear that Jesus runs up against the Jewish leaders, but it is Matthew alone who drives a wedge between the emerging Christian community and its Jewish parent.

It is only when we understand the wider context of Matthew’s gospel that we are able to put his apparent anti-Semitism into context. It is only when we fully comprehend his agenda – to establish his community as the true Israel that we begin to understand why he tells the story of Jesus and Jesus’ stories in the way that he does.

Understanding the context of our biblical traditions ensures that we are less likely to be dogmatic, less likely to be prone to arrogant presumption, more open to the possibility that there is more than one way to understand a story, more willing to engage in discussion with those of different faiths and different points of view and better equipped to explain difficult passages to those who have questions.

If we wonder why our churches are emptying, perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether it has to do with how well we understand and how well we tell the story.

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