Domesticating God

November 29, 2014

Advent 1 – 2014

Mark 13:24-37 (Isaiah 64:1-9)

Marian Free

 In the name of God whose power exceeds anything that we can know or comprehend. Amen.

This week I was half way through a wedding rehearsal when there was the most eerie sound – a sound like the intake of breath that ended with what I can only describe as a rather loud popping noise. Moments before I had seen black clouds to the south and so I knew without further investigation that what I had heard was the decrease in pressure before the clouds unleashed a torrent of hail. Even though I knew what to expect, the experience was terrifying. All along the southern side of the church hail smashed into our beautiful stained-glass windows – shattering the glass and sending shards flying from one side of the church to the other. The force and impact of the hail was extraordinary and all that I could think about was finding a place in which we could wait out the storm in safety.

Hardly had the storm begun than it was over – leaving a swathe of destruction throughout Brisbane. Windows were shattered, roofs blown from houses, trees uprooted, cars crushed, power lines brought down, roads and even stations flooded.

Experienced up close, nature is absolutely formidable and totally uncontrollable. In the face of such ferocity human ingenuity is completely ineffectual. No amount of technological advance can withstand the force of nature at its worst. The best that we can do in the face of such power is to hope that we will survive and, having survived, pick up the pieces and start again.

Natural events – earthquakes, storms, tsunamis – all expose the insignificance and vulnerability of humanity in comparison with the vastness and potency of creation as a whole. Earthquakes, floods and tsuamis can destroy entire cities and change the topography of the land. Floods and mudslides can carry all before them. Nature is as violent and unpredictable as it is benign and life sustaining. Despite our best efforts, it cannot be manipulated or bent to our will.

If creation is beyond our reach to control, how much less is the God behind creation within our grasp to manage or direct?

The prophet Isaiah knew this and could only imagine that if God were to visit the earth it could only be in a dramatic and world-shattering way, that the God who created the universe and all that is in it was more powerful and more terrifying than anything that the natural world could throw at us. God’s coming would tear the heavens apart and God’s presence would do nothing less than change the face of the earth – the mountains themselves would quake, the valleys be raised and the mountains laid low, there would be no need for sun and moon, for God would provide perpetual light.

The gospels took up this theme and developed it even further. As the gospel writers saw it, the coming of God would completely transform creation – the sun would be darkened, nor would the moon give its light, the stars would fall and even the powers of heaven will be shaken at the coming of the Son of Man.

Despite these breath-taking and frightening images, I suspect that most of us are rather blasé about the Second Coming of Jesus. If we think about it at all, we associate it with our death or else we have rather romantic images of Jesus’ arriving peacefully on a cloud and gathering us to himself. Centuries of Christianity have led to a certain complacency, a tendency to domesticate God, a belief that all is right between ourselves and God and an assumption that we can know and understand God and God’s purpose for us and for the world.

The readings today put the lie to that kind of thinking. We are reminded that God is magnificent and awesome – beyond our ability to understand, let alone control. We are forced to consider that in the scale of things and in comparison to the universe as a whole we are of less significance and are less powerful than a speck of dust. If nature cannot be contained by our best efforts, how much less are we able to control God.

Advent begins, as the church year ends, with dramatic and vivid descriptions of God’s coming among us. The intention is not to make us cower in terror, but to fill us with awe at the nature and power of God, to remind us of who we are before God, to prick our inflated egos and to expose our arrogance and self-reliance.

Whether God’s coming is as quiet and unobtrusive as a birth in a far off land, or as dramatic and earth shattering as the re-arrangement of the universe, it will not to be caught unprepared. It does us good to be reminded that God is always just beyond our grasp because familiarity can lead to complacency and lead us to believe that we are in control when nothing could be further from the truth.

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Who gets to judge?

November 22, 2014

Christ the King

Matthew 25:31-46

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who is known and served in various and many ways. Amen.

I’d like to begin with two stories that reflect a particular faith perspective and way of interpreting scripture. Some twenty years ago I attended a funeral of someone who had been the former treasurer in the parish and was respected and loved by all. His nephew who had spent many of the previous years as a missionary conducted the funeral. During the sermon the nephew said something that took me completely by surprise, but which was welcomed by many of those in attendance. What he said was: “At this point in the service, I often have the difficult task of telling the family that the deceased person hasn’t made it.” By this I think he meant that this is what he would say if the deceased had been an unbeliever. To this day I hope that he was using poetic licence and that he wouldn’t really have used those words. That if that statement represented his theology, that he might have had the discussion with the family before the funeral and as a result might have refused a Christian funeral or better still, that he might have reminded himself that it is God’s place to judge not his.

The second story relates to a conversation with a Parish Administrator whom I’ll call Sarah. Sarah arrived at work one morning in a very distressed state. The previous night she had watched a documentary about teenage homelessness. One of those interviewed was a young girl who was living on the streets to avoid a situation of abuse that included sexual abuse. In order to eat, she prostituted herself and in order to dull the pain of her past and her present she took drugs. In the process this girl was damaging her health and reducing her life expectancy. Sarah’s question was: “If the girl doesn’t come to faith before she dies, will she go to hell – hasn’t she suffered enough?” I suspect that Sarah hadn’t thought much about the issue of judgement until then. As a result of what she had been taught, she thought, presumably based on John 14:6, that only those who accepted Jesus were eligible for eternal salvation. Confronted with the reality of this young girl’s plight, Sarah was questioning her certainty about this position, but she had no tools to help her to find an answer. Her compassion for the girl was competing with her belief that only those who believe in Jesus go to heaven.

Today’s gospel suggests the solution to Sarah’s dilemma and a point of view that the nephew of the deceased may have overlooked. Most of us hear the parable of the sheep and the goats as an account of the judgement of believers, of God separating Christian from Christian on the basis of good works. Yet the text doesn’t say this at all.

In terms to the two scenarios above a number of things are worth noting. First of all, in this account, none of those who are gathered before the king are believers. They are all non-believers – some of whom receive eternal life and others of whom who are cast into everlasting punishment. The idea of a separate judgement for those who are non-Jews has an Old Testament precedent and the concept that those who are not Jews can still know God is consistent with Paul’s argument at the beginning of Romans. What is being described here is not a separation between those who believe and those who do not.

A second point is related. If those who have been assembled are not believers, then faith in Jesus or lack of faith is not the criterion according to which they are being judged. This leads to a third point. According to this narrative, the criterion on which one is judged relates to what one has done or not done to the “least of these” – whoever they are. Good works are not sufficient. It is the beneficiaries of those who deeds which is the pertinent issue.

When Matthew uses the expression “the least of these” elsewhere, he is referring to Christians – whether they are missionaries or disciples. For example, earlier in the gospel, Jesus is reported as saying: “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” The argument then is that those who do not believe in Jesus will be raised to eternal life if they provide relief to Christians who are thirsty, hungry or in prison even if they do not realise that that is what they are doing. For those who do not believe, genuine compassion for and consideration of others – without any thought of reward – is the key to a good outcome at the judgement. If a person acts generously they may well be generous to a disciple of Christ without recognising that that is what they are doing. (You will notice that those who are commended by the king, are as surprised as those who are condemned. They were not acting out of self-interest, but out of genuine concern for the suffering of another.)

Fast-forward two thousand years – if this is not a story about doing “good works” what does it mean for us today? In the light of the two stories with which I began, may I suggest that the parable is a warning for us not to be too hasty to judge others or to presume to know the mind of God. In the light of the parables that precede this one, it is better that we ensure that we are prepared to face the judge than to become absorbed in worrying about the fate of others.

We will all come before the judgement seat – Christian and non-Christian. Let us not make the mistake of presuming ahead of time, that we are in a position to predict the outcome.

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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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