Posts Tagged ‘beatitudes’

Blessed are those who know themselves blessed

January 28, 2023

Epiphany 4 – 2023
Matthew 5:1-12
Marian Free

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

“Bless you,” we say when someone sneezes – whether we are a person of faith or not. This habit derives from the 6th century when a sneeze was the first sign that someone had contracted the plague. Pope Gregory introduced the practice in 590 CE and by around 750CE it had become a common practice. At one time in our past, it was even thought that a person’s soul left their body when they sneezed, and that God’s blessing was required to avert such a disaster from occurring. We no longer believe such things, but the habit remains. “Bless you.”

“Bless you,” we say when someone unexpectedly helps us out. In extending a blessing, we are hoping that they will be blessed for their generosity. “Bless you,” we say, as shorthand for ‘God bless you’ when someone sets off on a journey. When we bless a traveler, we do so in the hope that throughout their travels they will be kept safe from harm.

A blessing, offered by one person to another is a short prayer, a wish for the well-being/health of another, a form of thanks, or a request that the one blessed be under God’s protection .

These forms of blessing are very different from the “beatitudes” that we encounter in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount or Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” is not a prayer that the poor might have God’s blessing bestowed on them. It is a statement of fact, a description of a current situation – not a desire for something to happen in the future. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who grieve” and so on. They don’t read: “God bless the poor”, but inform us that the poor, the grieving are already blessed. They are blessed in the present and at the same time (at least in three of the first four beatitudes) are offered hope for the future.

At first sight this doesn’t make sense. For those who know/have known what it is to count every dollar, who have sent their children off to school without breakfast, who cannot afford basic health care, being poor does not feel like being blessed – just the opposite . On the other hand, being poor does mean that there is nothing left to lose. Jesus is addressing his disciples – not the rich, the establishment or the rulers. Because they have little or nothing, the disciples can afford to give themselves entirely to the Jesus’ project. The kingdom of heaven is already theirs because they have already thrown their lot in with Jesus.

The apparently contradictory statements of the first four beatitudes are intended to help those who can, identify their present state of blessedness, to see what they do have rather than what they do not have. In other words, “Jesus gives to those in need by taking what is negative and planting in them something steadfast: deep inner joy, trusting the promises” (Chelsea Harmon). Hearing these words spoken by Jesus might enable someone to see what they already do have, and more importantly to understand that what God is promising for the future will make the present (however bad) bearable. The grieving are promised comfort, the meek will receive the world, and the hungry for righteousness will receive satisfaction! Jesus’ promises have the effect of changing the present, even if circumstances do not seem to undergo obvious change. To paraphrase Harmon, “there is more than one thing true about any situation. Disciples of Jesus can cling to and build their lives upon the deep hope implanted in them in order to live in the midst of the struggles and difficulties they face in this world.” The present circumstances of Jesus’ disciples might change for the better, but even if they do not, the future that Jesus offers is filled with promise.

Interestingly, after the first four beatitudes, there seems to be a change in direction. The first four beatitudes identify a person’s external situation (poverty, grief, meekness, hunger) as blessed and, without changing the situation, offer hope. The next three appear however to identify blessedness in a person’s internal qualities or in their actions and the “promises” the consequences of being those things: merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers – they will receive mercy, see God or be called children of God.

These apparently different sets of beatitudes are not opposites – one set spoken to the downtrodden (who need hope) and the other to the privileged (who have a responsibility to use their privilege for others). Instead, the latter set of beatitudes elaborates and spells out the consequences of the former. Those who have recognised that they are blessed, with the kingdom of heaven, the promise of comfort, the promise of the earth or the promise of fullness are liberated to stop focusing on themselves and to stop being concerned about their own future. Being freed from self-absorption, they are doubly blessed, because now they can look outwards and share their blessedness with others through showing mercy, being pure in heart and working for peace. Blessedness appears to extend outwards from the one who is blessed to all those who encounter that person.

A final beatitude sums up what it is to follow Jesus – to hold fast to the gospel, to speak truth to power, to maintain one’s integrity in the most difficult circumstances. This last, like the first, is evidence that those who are persecuted on account of Jesus, are, like the poor, already citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The former by their poverty, and the latter through their suffering, are able to fully identity with Jesus and therefore to belong to him and to his kingdom.

The beatitudes are not prayers or blessings, they are statements of fact. Jesus’ disciples, are, by virtue of being Jesus’ followers, already blessed and those blessing have consequences in the present or in the future. Such blessedness cannot be contained but will in turn be a source of blessing for others – salt for the earth, light for the world – as Jesus goes on to say.

We who are blessed, cannot help but be a blessing for others.

Blessed are those who know themselves blessed.

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Blessed are YOU

November 5, 2022

All Saints – 2022
Luke 6:20-25
Marian Free

In the name of God, Creator of the Universe, Sharer of our earthly existence, and Giver of life and love. Amen.

Some decades ago, in experiments that would now be considered to be unethical, infant rhesus monkeys were removed from their mothers at birth and put in cages. with so-called “surrogate mothers”. These “surrogates” were very basic inanimate structures. One consisted of wire and wood and the second was covered in foam over which was a soft cloth. There were two experimental conditions. In one the wire structure had a milk bottle and the cloth one did not and in the other the situation was reversed. In both cases, the infants spent more time with the cloth mother. In both cases the infants were, needless to say, traumatised by the experience.

Touch is an essential component of human well-being, the sense we missed most during COVID. It not only indicates love and compassion, but it is essential to a child’s development – the growth of physical activities, of language and cognitive skills and of social-emotional competency. In adults, touch signifies safety and trust, reduces stress, and allows the immune system to function effectively. Without touch a person can become stressed, depressed, or anxious.

Indeed, the power of touch is such that it is seen to have the ability to heal or to transfer energy from one person to another. Physical touch gives a sense of connection, as if by association, the essence or charism of the other passes to the recipient and they share, for a moment at least, something of the other. (We see this when crowds reach out to touch, albeit briefly – a member of royalty, a rock-star, or say the Dalai Lama. Their desperation to touch suggests that they believe that the contact will mean that something of the status of the other will brush off on them and that their lives will be changed as a result.)

When Jesus begins his “Sermon on the Plain”, he is surrounded by a “great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. All in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

“Power came out of him and healed all of them.” Everyone wants something from Jesus – they want to touch him, or to be touched by him. They want to be healed by him or they want to feel distinguished from the crowd by virtue of association with him. In other words, they want what Jesus has to give them – whether it is wholeness or a sense of importance.

When we read the Beatitudes in this context, we can see that they are not so much a comforting set of sayings but much more a form of rebuff, a corrective to the crowds’ way of thinking. Jesus is not commending the poor etc as much as he is challenging the crowds to consider what he really means to be one of his disciples and whether they are truly prepared to follow where discipleship will lead.

Luke tells us that the crowds have come to Jesus to hear his teaching and to be healed. They are drawn to him for what they can get out of the relationship. Jesus needs them to know that it is not so simple –something of him may rub off on them – but it will not be what they expect.

Perhaps this is why, when Jesus begins to speak, he focuses his attention his attention on his disciples – those in the crowd who identify themselves as his followers. What he has to say relates directly to them. When Jesus says: “Blessed are you who are poor”, he is not referring to the poor and hungry in general, but to those who are in right front of him – “you”.

His words then are a stark description of what it means to be a disciple, to be one of his followers. Jesus is saying that if some of his charism has flowed from him to them, it is a charism that leads not to glory, but to the cross, not to wealth and distinction, but to deprivation and obscurity. Being a disciple of Jesus will not spare them poverty, hunger, grief, or persecution. It will require resilience, fortitude, being willing to follow Jesus wherever that takes them, and understanding that the fate of the master will be the fate of the follower. But – and this is important – it is this dependence on God, this trusting in God to see one through, that will lead to the blessedness of being able to take life as it comes, to being content with one’s current situation and being able to cope with grief and loss.

In contrast, Jesus warns, those would-be disciples who are seeking notoriety, wealth, or entertainment will not, in the end, be satisfied. They will always be striving for what they do not have, and such striving will, in fact, take them away from the satisfaction, joy, and security that they are seeking. They will be cursed by dissatisfaction, discontent, and disappointment.

Jesus is telling his would-be disciples, and by inference us, that if we want to touch and be touched by him and if we want to share his charism and to be made whole, then we must understand that blessings will be found in suffering as well as joy, in emptiness as well as in satiation, in deprivation as well as in richness and that seeking to escape poverty, sorrow and obscurity will only lead to the very things that we seek to avoid.

Blessed are you if you seek Jesus above all else, for then you will know that you already have all that you need.

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True blessedness

February 12, 2022

Epiphany 6 – 2022
Luke 6:17-26
Marian Free

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

At the end of last year, at a time when there was a great panic about Rapid Antigen Tests, I bought a pack online. Later, when it seemed as though such things were going to be impossible to obtain I thought that as the first purchase had been so straight forward I should buy some more. After all, I was going to be responsible for babysitting all the grandchildren whose parents might be comforted in the knowledge that their children were unlikely to contract the Omicron variant of COVID as a result of being in my care. If I had any symptoms I could simply do a test! Now that the peak of infections has passed, children are eligible for vaccinations and restrictions are being eased I find myself in the embarrassing possession of unused RATS.

Today’s gospel has given me a great deal of cause for thought about my behaviour and its significance. I find myself asking whether my need was really so great that I needed to purchase so many tests? As it turns out, I haven’t benefitted from having them. In retrospect I now understand that it is possible that someone missed out because I was in a position – financially and otherwise – to ensure that I was covered. In my anxiety to protect myself and my family I had failed to consider the consequences to others if I had more than necessary and what I might do with more than enough.

One of the problems in managing the pandemic world-wide has been this sort of self-centred, nationalistic approach to the situation. In January 2020, the WHO made it clear to an anxious world that a universal rather than local tactic would bring the pandemic to an early end. WHO urged first world nations to ensure that all nations have equal access to vaccines so that we could knock the virus on its head and avoid the long-drawn out consequences of new variants emerging. Yet, while the situation has been made more complex by a number of other issues, by and large, those nations who could afford to purchase the vaccines have ensured that their nations have had enough (more than enough) to go around, while third-world nations have gone without.

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks directly to this problem – the problem of who we are, on what do we base our identity and where do we fit in the world? In essence, Jesus is encouraging his listeners to ask themselves who they are and on what basis have they come to that conclusion? Against whom and against what do the disciples measure themselves and with and to whom are they connected?

The Beatitudes, whether pronounced on the mountain as in Matthew, or on the plain, as here in Luke, are in direct contradiction with what is normal human nature – the drive to survive at all costs, to avoid pain and suffering and to compare our situation against that of others. Jesus confronts our idea of is what “normal” and insists that an individualist focus and individualist behaviours will take us down the path of woe and not of blessing. In other words, he is suggesting that focussing on ourselves and on our own well-being is harmful not only to those around us, but also to ourselves. If we are driven by our own need for satisfaction and comfort, if we spend our lives trying to avoid suffering and pain and if we amass more than we really need, the consequences will not be blessedness, but will be isolation from others, indifference to the experiences of others and, ultimately, the cause of hurt to others. Furthermore, self-reliance, the belief that we can shield ourselves from harm, is futile. None of us, no matter how rich or privileged can escape the traumas and accidents that life throws at us.

In naming who is and is not blessed Jesus is challenging those things that collectively we have accepted as identity markers and has shown how ineffectual and self-centred they are and how they disconnect us from our fellow human beings. It is only when we truly understand the interconnectedness between ourselves and every other person (dare I say every other living thing), that we will begin to understand that our contentedness and sense of well-being is tied to the well-being of others. We will never be truly blessed if our blessedness comes at the expense of someone else’s blessedness and we will never be truly at peace if our idea of peace comes at the cost of competition – for resources or for security.

Jesus’ words are not easy to hear, let alone act upon. Most of us find it hard to let go of the need to quantify his words/our situation. How poor do we really need to be? we wonder. Does Jesus really intend us to be destitute, starving, and grief-stricken and if so what sort of life would that be? In asking such questions, we fail to see is that Jesus is not suggesting that we develop a scale against which to measure ourselves, but that we enlarge our thinking such that our concept of blessedness embraces the totality of our experiences (good, bad and indifferent) – all of which enrich and enhance our lives. At the same time, Jesus knows that once we are able to dispense with a scale of “blessedness”, we will be open to see how our blessedness is tied up with the blessedness of every other person in the world.

The Beatitudes are anything but comfortable words – especially for those of us privileged enough to live in a nation such as ours. Jesus’ words are designed to stretch and challenge us and – God forbid! – change us. We do not have to make ourselves poor, hungry or sad, but neither should we shy away from such experiences for it is they that form us and humble us and unite us to every living person and ultimately to the one who created us all.

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In the company of saints

October 31, 2020

ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS – 2020

MATTHEW 5:1-12A

MARIAN FREE

In the name of God in whose loving care are the living and the dead. Amen.

‘Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”

 The Beatitudes, one of the best-known New Testament passages, are a reminder of the upside-down world that Jesus preaches and which he encourages us to embrace. In a world that values success and happiness, Jesus promotes humility and sobriety and assures his followers that, contrary to popular opinion, grief and poverty are blessings[1]. Over and over again, Jesus contradicts commonly held values and aspirations. Through his choices and his actions, Jesus demonstrates that it is not necessarily those whom society values – the rich, the powerful and the healthy – who have precedence in the kingdom of God. It is the poor and the marginalised who are the focus of Jesus’ ministry – those who have nothing and who have no opportunity, those who by virtue of their disability, their poverty or their powerlessness demonstrate to the rest of us that it is possible to exist in this world and to have faith without the trappings that many of us find indispensable.

Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is even more stark than Matthew’s: 

“Blessed are you who are poor,

                        for yours is the kingdom of God. 

            “Blessed are you who are hungry now,

                        for you will be filled.

            “Blessed are you who weep now,

                        for you will laugh.”

Jesus knows, as we often do not, that absence makes presence even more special and that the acceptance of one’s current situation frees us from striving and stops us from thinking about what we do not have but rather of what we do have allowing us to live in the present and not in some imagined the future. He reminds too us that this life is only a part of the story. 

For many hundreds of thousands of people this has been a year of unbearable grief and loss, often compounded by the inability to visit a dying parent, or even to attend their funeral. Rituals that have existed since the beginning of human existence are forbidden or limited and those things that provide comfort and allow us to properly farewell those whom we love are being denied us. I cannot imagine the agony and anxiety which countless families have endured, and nor can I conceive the ways in which their grief might have been amplified by COVID restrictions.

The Feasts of All Saints and All Souls which fall on November 1st and 2nd respectively provide an opportunity, as best we can, to express our loss for the souls of the departed but also to affirm our confidence in the commonwealth of heaven and the belief that not even death can separate us from those whom we love. 

On All Saints day we honour the lives of all the faithful and on All Souls’ Day we give thanks for and pray for the departed. We do both in the company of other Christians throughout the world. This year, whether we are confined to our homes or able to worship with our faith communities, we can be both comforted and supported in our common prayer and in the knowledge that we are surrounded by “a cloud of witnesses”. As we remember before God those whom we grieve, we can be confident that we do so with countless others who have known loss and in fellowship with all the saints, both living and departed. We can take advantage of these two days to begin to make peace with our grief and lay to rest those whom we love despite the opportunities that we have been denied.

This year and next and for however long it takes, the feasts of All Saints and All Souls can be an occasion to fill the vacuum created by the COVID restrictions on caring for the dying and farewelling the dead. If we have not been able to say “farewell” in the way that we would have liked – with full churches, families and friends – let us say our farewells in a different but vastly greater community of saints – living and dead.

Remember too that the Beatitudes remind us that however difficult our current situation, stiving for that which is not possible will only lead to discontent and misery. The truly blessed are those who can acknowledge and sit with the present, accept things as they are and to place their trust in the God of time and history.

[1] I like to think that he doesn’t mean grinding poverty but rather the absence of excess, of the things that we don’t need.

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No room to rest on our laurels

February 8, 2020

Epiphany 5 – 2020

Matthew 5:13-20

Marian Free

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

When we think about The Sermon on the Mount most of us think of Matthew 5:1-12 – the Beatitudes. In fact, the sermon as a whole extends all the way to the end of chapter 7. It consists of a selection of Jesus’ sayings that Matthew has gathered into one place and arranged somewhat thematically. Matthew structures his gospel around five (some say six) such blocks of teaching of which this is the first. The teaching material is separated by narrative material which is linked to what has come before. In this instance Matthew introduces the ‘Sermon’ with an announcement that Jesus teaches and heals. The sermon (teaching) is followed by accounts of Jesus’ healing before Matthew moves to the next collection of teaching material. It is most unlikely that Jesus’ teaching consisted of long lists of unrelated material. A more believable scenario is that during the course of his ministry Jesus taught the disciples and the crowds a variety of things and, after his death, Jesus’ followers collected his sayings (and parables) together and repeated them to each other. In time the material was gathered into collections of sayings which the gospel writers used in their own particular way. The sayings included in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and in the Sermon on the Plain and Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem (Luke) are believed to have come from a common source (technically Quelle or Q) that was known to Matthew and Luke but not to Mark.

Though the sayings seem unrelated (today’s being salt, light and law), Matthew appears to have tried to structure them and to gather them into themes. Perhaps the best example of this is chapter 18 that contains sayings that are specifically directed to the community of faith – being careful not to harm another’s faith, how to resolve differences within the community and forgiveness (of other members of the community).

It is generally believed that the community for whom Matthew’s gospel was written was a community of Jews who had come to believe in Jesus and who believed that they were the logical outcome of God’s promises to Israel. That the community still thought of themselves as Jews is implied by the references to “their synagogues” (4:23, 9:35, 10:17, 12:9, 13:54) which suggests “our synagogues”. Only a Jewish Christian would engage so heatedly with the synagogue and would judge Israel so harshly. A Gentile community probably would not feel that there was any need to compete. Further, a primarily Gentile community might have placed more emphasis on the relaxation of the law instead of insisting that, “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

That Matthew’s community were convinced that they were the true Israel is also hinted at by the gospel writer’s use of the Old Testament and of Rabbinic forms of argument. Most importantly, the belief that the community felt that they were the logical and obvious continuation of Israel is demonstrated by the ‘competition’ with those Jewish communities that did not believe in Jesus and the attitude of one-upmanship concerning the law that we see in today’s gospel: “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

This make-up of the community also explains Matthew’s harsh, legalistic and exclusive stance . Whereas the other gospels and the letters of Paul express some ambivalence or even negativity towards the law, Matthew not only affirms it, but insists that members of his community should both keep the law and keep it even more rigorously than members of the Pharisaic sect with whom they seem to be in competition and whom Matthew accuses of hypocrisy. Matthew’s attacks on the scribes and Pharisees are much stronger than in Mark and Luke (see for example the invective in Chapter 23: “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees! Hypocrites!”). Such sayings suggest a defensiveness on the part of Matthew’s community and a need to protect their legitimacy.

Following on from the Beatitudes, the sayings in today’s gospel appear to be instructions to the community. Those who are blessed are expected to be salt and light; seasoning and illumination for the wider community. They are to live in such a way as to make Jesus present in the world. In other words, Jesus both comforts and reassures, commissions and challenges the disciples. He assures them that they are blessed, but insists that with the blessings comes responsibility. The mission does not end with him but must continue in and through the lives of his disciples – in this case the members of Matthew’s community.

It is possible to soften Matthew’s rigid stance with regard to the law, to argue that Jesus here is referring to fulfilling the law in the sense of bringing to completeness, bringing wholeness to the law. We can argue that in some way the law has come to fullness in the person of Jesus that it is fulfilled, not abolished. It is not done away with, but is transformed. I want to suggest that we should let the saying stand if for no other reason than that this saying challenges us never to slip into the sort of complacency and hypocrisy that Matthew’s Jesus accuses the scribes and Pharisees of, but that we are always striving to build lives that fully represent the desires of God for us as revealed by Jesus.

The blessedness of which Jesus speaks is not an excuse for laziness, but a reason to excel, to strive to be worthy of such blessings and in turn to really be the presence of Christ in the world.

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Upside down, back-to-front Kingdom of God

February 23, 2019

Epiphany 7 – 2019

Luke 6:27-38

Marian Free

In the name of God who asks from us only what will serve our own sense of well-being and wholeness. Amen.

Some forty years ago there was a movie about the life of Jesus. It is so long ago that I cannot remember the name of the movie or on which gospel it was based. I do remember two things. One, the language used in the film was that of the King James Bible which sounded clumsy and archaic. The second is the way in which the movie portrayed Jesus teaching the parable of the sower. Time has probably clouded my memory somewhat, but as I recall, Jesus was speaking as he walked through a crowded market. What that meant was that those who heard the beginning of the parable didn’t hear the ending and those who heard the ending had no idea how the parable began. The image jarred at the time, and it jars now as I recall it. The gospel writers don’t describe Jesus walking and talking. Mark depicts Jesus teaching from a boat. In Matthew’s gospel the bulk of Jesus’ teaching occurs in the Sermon on the Mount and in Luke Jesus’ teaching is presented in the Sermon on the Plain and during the journey to Jerusalem. Whenever Jesus is teaching, he appears stationary.

That said, while those who were present would have been able to hear the beginning and the end of the story, if Jesus teaching consisted of a string of sayings such as we have in today’s gospels, I imagine that the crowds would have scratched their heads and wandered away in confusion. Just as Jesus almost certainly did not walk as he taught, so too, it is unlikely that he stood up before a crowd and presented a series of unconnected aphorisms such as we find in today’s gospel. The gospels indicate that Jesus was a good teacher. He able to gain and hold the attention of the crowds who surrounded him, and he taught in such a way that many came to understand that he was the anointed one. No proficient teacher would include such diverse and unconnected material in one lecture as we have before us today.

Love your enemies, give your coat and your shirt, don’t complain if someone takes away all your goods, lend to those who can’t pay you back, forgive, don’t judge and give generously. No doubt, over the course of his ministry Jesus said a number of things in a variety of different contexts – over meals, as he and the disciples walked along and at times when Jesus was teaching a crowd. He may have been responding to a question from the disciples, commenting on the behaviour of the Pharisees, making an observation or simply repeating Old Testament wisdom. What is almost certain is that Jesus didn’t say all of these things at the same time.

After Jesus’ death, his followers will have recalled and repeated Jesus’ teachings. At some point, and being anxious to keep Jesus’ memory alive, someone has gathered his sayings together and created some sort of order. For example, today’s gospel suggests that the collator of the material has grouped similar sayings together – the sayings about non-resistance are placed with sayings about love of enemies, the saying about being merciful is connected with that about not judging and the saying about giving more than what is asked is put in the same context as that of giving abundantly.

This means that we don’t have to insist that the sayings in this morning’s gospel fit together neatly nor do we have to worry about their relationship one to one another.

Like the beatitudes which on the surface are counter-intuitive, the sayings reverse our usual way of thinking. Jesus insists that poverty, grief and persecution are to be seen as a blessing not as an affliction, that they are life-giving and not soul-destroying. Jesus goes on to demand that we live in ways that are counter-cultural, non-reciprocal, non-judgemental, selfless and generous. In other words, we are to behave in ways that are contrary to our natural instincts and which have the potential to set us apart from the society in which we live. Like it or not, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to give to those who can give us nothing in return, to refrain from retaliation, to forgive and not to condemn.

Contrary to expectation, applying these values to our lives does not leave us impoverished, down-trodden, taken advantage of or abused – just the opposite. Self-sacrifice, love of those who do not love us and generosity towards others rewards us in ways we cannot begin to imagine. If we live according to these principles, we will discover that instead of being small and petty, jealous and judgemental, we become expansive and open-handed, gracious and understanding. We are not called to make sacrifices for the sake of sacrifice. We are called only to let go of those things that limit us and to relinquish those things that have us in their power. God does not make demands that are burdensome and life-denying. God seeks only our well-being, our development and our wholeness. Indeed, when we learn to graciously accept what life throws at us and when we focus more on others than on ourselves, our world-view is enriched and enlarged, our anxieties are diminished, our hearts are expanded and our sense of satisfaction with our lives and our place in the universe is increased beyond our imagination.

In the upside down, back-to-front kingdom of God what we give up is more than compensated for by what we get back.

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Blessed are the poor – so much we have to learn

January 28, 2017

Epiphany 4 – 2017

Matthew 5:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God on whom, if we dare, we can totally rely. Amen.

Some years ago, I acquired a book titled Poor in Spirit – Modern Parables of the Reign of God. Compiled by Charles Lepetit[1], it consists of a number of stories written by people living and working alongside the poor who inhabit the slums in many parts of the world. Lepetit is a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus. He says of himself: “I have lived in slums, I have known hunger, I have been in jail (oh not for long). I am an invalid. So I am at home with my brothers and sisters the poor.” The book is a compilation of true stories – stories that have been shared with him by those who are also poor, but who in his words, “share one poverty in common: that of the heart. They do not know the treasure they bear.”

Many of the story-tellers are members of religious orders. Some tell their own stories and others stories of the people whose lives have touched their own. The authors are identified only by their Christian name and by the country from which they write. So Catherine writes from Black Africa, Martin from Northern Europe, Roger from Central America, Olive from South of the Sahara, Larry from India and Nancy from North America. I wish I could share the whole book with you, the stories are powerful and confronting and challenge Western values and our dependence on material possessions.

One of my favorite stories is written by Lisa. It concerns a man who has been cruelly affected by leprosy. Most of his feet and all ten fingers were gone. Even his face was affected, but as Lisa tells it, when he smiled his whole face was transformed. Life was so hard that he had at one time tried to drown himself, “but even the sea didn’t want me,” he says. The leper made a living selling charcoal wearing his stumps raw from filling his customers’ baskets. Somehow, despite his extreme poverty, he maintains his dignity and his home as described by Liza is an oasis in the midst of a busy and noisy city. He has friend, who also has leprosy who cuts grass for sheep and sells it at the market. The two friends share what they have earned each day. One day his friend returned home with “three beautiful coins” that he had found on the pavement – an unexpected windfall in their barren lives. What to do with them? After some thought our friend says: “It is true that you need socks. But this money, we have haven’t earned it. God has given it to us. Why don’t we go to the cinema? One needs a change of scene sometimes.” “So we went to the cinema, and we had a very nice time.”

What touches me in this story is that these two had not allowed themselves to be so overwhelmed and ground down by their poverty that they could see that God might want them to have some joy and pleasure in their lives. Given the choice between the practical (socks) and the impractical (cinema) they had chosen something that would bring some happiness into their bleak and mundane existence.

A second story and one that never fails to move me is told by Dan from North Africa. Dan is stuck in a small town that he’d never seen before. He had spent a whole day trying to get a visa and faced the prospect of doing the same the following day! He says somewhat sarcastically that a “spiritual” reaction drove him to drown his frustration in a café. He was neither an Arab nor a local so needless to say he was the focus of a certain amount of interest. Dan found a seat opposite someone who didn’t look any happier than he was. No sooner had he sat down when his anger spilled out and he shared the story of his day. Ahmed (for that was the name of his companion) returned the favour. Ahmed had no work and was delaying going to home to tell his wife. They shared a few drinks when Ahmed asked Dan where he was spending the night. “Haven’t a clue”, Dan replied. “Then come to my place!”

Ahmed took Dan to a neighbouring suburb. There on top of a pile of rubbish was a little shack. This was Ahmed’s home. Inside the rickety door was a single room – not a stick of furniture graced it. Fourteen pairs of eyes greeted Dan – Ahmed’s wife, his parents-in-law and eleven children! They sat on the floor and after a while Ahmed’s wife produced a “mountain of rice on a copper plate – almost certainly their only valuable possession”. After a quick meal, and numerous cups of tea they stretched out on the floor and slept. In the morning Dan left to try again to get a visa, promising to stop by before he left. Another day wasted! Dan decided to take the bus and take his chances on getting a visa later.

True to his promise he makes a quick visit to see the family before he goes. As he leaves, a parcel is pressed into his hands. It happens so quickly and he is in so much of a hurry that he doesn’t even think about it until he is safely on the bus and here I have to use Dan’s own words: “Ah, yes. The parcel. I opened it discreetly, as my neighbours were looking at me. Actually my mind was still mostly on my visa. Suddenly my eyes filled with tears. I was going to cry, for a good half hour, completely overwhelmed by what I found in the parcel. I didn’t care now what the other passengers might think.

There in my lap was the copper plate from which we’d eaten the rice. And a little rubber camel .. the kid’s only toy.”

Blessed are the poor – who teach us to find joy in life and who, without a thought for themselves will give everything they have.

 

[1] Lepetit, Charles. Poor in Spirit: Modern Parables of the Reign of God. Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1989.

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Perfect has no part measures

February 15, 2014

Epiphany 6 – 2014

Matthew 5:21-32

Marian Free

In the name of God who loves us and expects us to share that love with others. Amen.

There used to be a playground chant used as a response to teasing or insult. I’m sure that most of you know it: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” I imagine it was a jingle that was taught to children by people who wanted to build their resilience and I suspect that it worked at least to some extent. That is, it taught children not to let negative comments get under their skin, but to treat them as something superficial, to have such a solid understanding of their worth as a person that the taunts could run off their back. If the child in question felt that they had been heard, the advice would have assured them that someone was on their team, recognising that the attacks were not warranted and giving them a strategy for coping[1].

The problem with the statement, “words will never hurt me” is, that in a great many cases, it is not true. Words can do as much, if not more, damage than physical attack and they leave wounds that are not immediately obvious to others – and sometimes not even to the victim.

Children who are constantly demeaned by the adults in their lives or taunted by their friends, can develop a sense of self-loathing that is difficult to turn around. Women and men who are constantly put down by their partners begin to believe that they are in fact worthless. In many cases, broken bodies heal with the proper attention, but broken minds and hearts can go unattended, often with disastrous consequences.  Thanks to social media we cannot ignore the devastating effects of on-line harassment which tragically has led young people to take their own lives. I can’t even imagine what the consequences of the current practice of “shaming” young people will have on their future lives and development.

Jesus, without the benefit of modern psychology seems to know intuitively the power of words to hurt. You have heard it said: “You shall not kill, but I say to you whoever calls their brother or sister “fool” will be liable to the Gehenna of fire.”

In this rather long selection from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is addressing the radical love that being his follower demands. In a series of anti-theses, “It was said – but I say,” Jesus takes the teaching of his day one step further. It is not sufficient, he suggests, to do the bare minimum. True love does not demean another person, real love is not limited to those who love us back, love that is real seeks reconciliation not conflict. Love is based on an authenticity that does not need to swear on anything, because it is always truthful.

When we think of the Sermon on the Mount, we tend to think only in terms of the beatitudes. However, the way in which Matthew has arranged his material extends the sermon from what we know as the beginning of chapter 5 to chapter 7:28. Within this section, verses 5:21-48 consist of a series of six anti-theses of which three are included in today’s gospel reading. These six anti-theses are divided into two groups of three 21-32 and 33-48. What links these six together – apart from their common structure – is the commandment to love which is implied throughout and stated explicitly in verse 43. In verse 48, Jesus’ hearers are exhorted to “be perfect as their Heavenly Father is perfect.” This conclusion makes clear that Jesus is demanding his followers to go above and beyond duty and law and to try to emulate the perfect love of God.

Throughout this section of the sermon, Jesus uses the formula: “you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times” – or an abbreviated form of the formula. It is difficult to say with certainty to which authority Jesus is referring. As there few are exact quotes Jesus could be referring to the Old Testament, to the oral tradition of the Jewish people or to the teaching of the Pharisees. One commentator, Luz, argues that on the basis of the content and the language of the sayings that the content refers to the Jewish scriptures. This, Luz argues, is consistent with Matthew’s overall view that Jesus fulfills or completes the scriptures. That does not mean that Jesus contradicts or rejects the Old Testament scriptures but rather that he expands and breathes new life into precepts that were always true. In other words Jesus rewrites what he has inherited in such a way as to bring to fulfillment or completion their true purpose.

Jesus begins with what is the only explicit quote from the Old Testament: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’” He then goes on to list five antitheses to this statement. In other words, Jesus takes one of the commandments (slightly expanded) and demonstrates how different it looks with love at the centre – or when a lack of love is replaced with love.

Jesus follows the commandment with three negative examples of unloving behaviour, examples of not keeping the commandment. He points out that anger and name-calling are not expressions of love. They can be just as damaging and hurtful as physical violence. He continues with two positive examples of being loving (keeping the commandment) – making peace with a fellow believer who is angry at you and coming to an agreement with someone who is taking you to court. Jesus is insinuating that while not loving is as bad as murder, loving leads to reconciliation. In other words, nothing less than unconditional love and respect fulfills the sixth commandment.

In these anti-theses, Jesus takes the law to its ultimate goal. By making clear the intention of the commandment, he introduces a radical law that is free of compromise. One is either loving or one is not.

It is relatively easy to keep the letter of the law: do not kill. It is much harder to live in such a way that no one is ever hurt by a thoughtless word or a deliberate barb. Until we are perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect (5:48), we must accept that our behaviour falls far short of the law, that the standard set by Jesus is one that we may never reach and that we must never judge another or consider ourselves better than another.

Perfect has no part measures.

[1] A quick look at my Facebook account tonight had two posts that I was tempted to use as examples – one on the top twenty things to say and another about breastfeeding. The latter posted on upworthy reminded me of a great response to bullying by a American broadcaster who received a nasty emai about her weight.

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Our inheritance is with the saints

November 2, 2013

All Saints – 2013

Luke 6:20-26

Marian Free

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

 I wonder if you are well prepared for your death? By that I mean a number of things: do you have a will, an advanced health directive? have you talked to your family about practical details like cremation or burial? have you planned your funeral? Hopefully your answer to at least some of those things is “yes”. It seems obvious enough that a certain amount of planning is useful and even necessary, but even though death is inevitable, there are some people who are superstitious about making plans for it. They seem to think that if they talk about or plan for their death that somehow they are inviting it to come before time. Their attitude seems to be that if they don’t think about it then it won’t happen.

It is hard to imagine a Christian being fettered by such fears. After all, Jesus resurrection has demonstrated that death is not something to be feared, but something to be faced with confidence, that death is not the end, but a new beginning. We may not know exactly what lies beyond the grave, but the various descriptions of life-hereafter, give us a glimpse of an existence in which there is joy and peace and abundance – forever!

Death holds no fear for us, because we are confident of the resurrection to eternal life. But there is more to it than that – dying to ourselves and living to God is central to the practice of our faith.  In order to be united to God, in order to realise the divine presence within us, we need to learn to let go of those things that bind us to this life and to embrace those things which belong to our heavenly existence. In this way, we already have one foot in the kingdom – death is simply the fulfillment of our Christian journey. At the same time, we will be so practiced at dying, so used to the new life that results that we will be ready for this one last death.

This style of existence does not come easily. Dying in order to live is counter-intuitive to all that we know and experience in this life. Everything that is human in us screams “no” to death! Nature itself is designed to be resilient, to reproduce, to resist obliteration. No wonder that we find it so hard to let go, to do anything that would reveal weakness or suggest failure. The irony is that all our struggling, all our efforts to prevent disaster, all our attempts to deny our vulnerability are, in the end, life-denying. We become so focused on ourselves, so anxious about avoiding pain and suffering, so determined to hold on to what we have that we lose the ability to be truly free and fully alive. As a result our world becomes smaller and more limited. We tie ourselves to this life thus losing sight of the life to come. Worse still, in our attempts to build for ourselves a world that is safe and secure, we simply succeed in locking God out of our lives. Instead of placing our trust in God, we are placing all our trust in ourselves – believing that our own efforts will keep us safe and happy.

The poor, the hungry, the grieving and the reviled have no such problems – they know and recognise their emptiness and their reliance on God. This is why Jesus calls them blessed not because it is good to be poor and hungry, but because those who have nothing are forced depend on God for everything, those who are empty are able to be filled by the presence of God, those who grieve look to God for solace, those who have nothing to bind them to this life are free to place all their hope in the life to come. On the other hand, those who in this life are rich, full and happy do not have the same pressure to recognise their need for God. Being satisfied with their situation in this life, they have no need to look forward to the life to come. Worse, they are tempted to hold on to and to protect what they have and this serves to separate them further from their future hope. In worldly terms they may appear to be blessed, but when it comes to the kingdom, their material blessings can become an impediment to a deep and fulfilling relationship with God.

In every age, there have been those who have learned to detach themselves from this world, who have focused not on worldly success and possessions but have developed those characteristics which will best equip them for the life to come. They have sought out solitude, embraced poverty and hardship, practiced self-denial, relied on God to meet their needs and when the occasion demanded it, have given their lives for their faith. It is people such as these whom we number among the saints.

If we want to count ourselves among the blessed, if we would like to be numbered among the saints, we do not necessarily have to set ourselves apart, embrace poverty and become ascetics. However, we do have to unlearn our need for independence, we have to stop our striving for worldly success, we have to learn to value the lessons and blessings that adversity and loss bestow upon us, we have to allow ourselves to fall and to fail so that God can help us up and we have to be willing to empty ourselves so that God can fill us.

Our journey through this life is a preparation for the life to come. It is an opportunity to develop and embrace those characteristics which will serve us for eternity. For that reason it is important to practice dying in order that we might live, to keep our focus on what is really important, to let go of those things that do not matter, to relinquish those things that we cannot take with us and to place all our trust in God, so that when God calls, we are not only ready, but willing to abandon this life so that we can enter with joy the life that has no end.

So let us learn to die that we might live and so live that when we die, we will do so in the full assurance that our inheritance is with the saints for ever.

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Wealth management

September 21, 2013

Pentecost 18. 2013

Luke 16:1-8

Marian  Free

“Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property.  2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’  3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.  4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’  5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’  6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’  7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’  8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.”

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

If you were to write a novel, or an essay, or a scientific report, there would be certain steps that you would take and particular methodologies that you would employ. Writing a psychological report is quite different from writing a history essay. Writing a novel is quite different from writing a poem. Writing a sonnet is quite different from writing a haiku poem. Every style of writing has its own rules which serve to make the intention of the author clearer. A novelist wants to engage the reader and to maintain their attention, a scientific writer wants to ensure that the results of their research are presented in a clear and convincing manner. Students of English literature would be able to examine a poem or novel in great detail to determine the different techniques used by an author.

We should not be surprised to learn that New Testament writings also follow established modes of writing and story-telling. Like some novels the gospels, which are essentially biographies, contain a variety of styles – parables, sayings, miracle stories and more. Each of these have their own particular patterns. Furthermore, it is important to note that in the first century, there were no printing presses and few people who could read or write. Stories were heard, not read. For that reason, techniques were developed, consciously, or otherwise to make the stories memorable. One of the methods was that of repetition, another was to create a pattern or to tell a story that would make people sit up and listen.

Jesus appears to have been a good story teller and the gospel writers likewise re-told the stories in ways which would ensure that the listeners would hear and remember the point that was being made. I mention all this because the parable recorded in today’s gospel has a very specific pattern which provides an example of one form of story-telling in the first century.

Crossan identifies the following three acts and the patterns within those acts.

Scene 1 (16:1-2) Master and Steward

(a)  16:1a (relationship given: steward)               16:2a (accusation repeated: “I hear”

(b) 16:1b (accusation made: charges)                16:2b (relationship broken: “no  longer”)

Scene 2 (16:3-4) Steward and Self

(a)  16:3a = 16:4a (“What shall I do?”/”I have decided what to do”)

(b) 16:3b = 16:4b (“stewardship” “stewardship”)

(c)   16:3c = 16:4c (problem/solution)

Scene 3 (16:5-7) Steward and Debtors

(a)  16:5a = 16:7a (“he said to the first”, “he said to another”)

(b) 16:5b = 16:7b (“how much do you owe?” x2)

(c)   16:6a =16:7c (He said: a hundred x2)

(d)  16:6b = 16:7d (“Take your bill and write” x2)[1]

It is evident that that even in these few verses, a number of the ideas are repeated. In scene one the relationship is reversed by use of repetition. In scenes two and three repeated themes emphasise the points that are being made. Because we are not used to listening to these stories and because, unlike Crossan and others, we are unskilled in literary criticism, we do not recognise these patterns without help. However, in Jesus’ day, it would have been patterns and structures like these which will have earned and kept the listener’s attention.

Of all Jesus’ parables, the parable of the master and his steward is probably the most difficult to understand. In it Jesus appears to be condoning dishonesty- something which seems completely contradictory to all that Jesus stands for. Jesus might eat with tax collectors and sinners, but he doesn’t condone bad behaviour – just the opposite. In order to understand this parable then we need to understand a few things – the role of steward, the accusations laid against him and the reason Jesus commends his action. As is the case today, a steward (manager) might have almost full responsibility for the concerns of his employer. The manager would make the day-to-day decisions about the business and be responsible for ensuring that it made a profit. In this instance, the manger would have determined how much to charge for the various products and, so long as the master was making money could determine how much he kept for himself. In reducing the amounts owed he may well be reducing the margin that he kept for himself, rather than defrauding his employer. Another point to note is that the manager is being dismissed for incompetence – not for dishonesty – so to assume he begins by being dishonest, is to draw the wrong conclusion.

In reducing his share of the profits the manager is assuring himself of a welcome in the homes of those whose debts he reduces. This is what Jesus is commending – not dishonesty, but the manager’s willingness to give up his worldly comforts (wealth) in the present for the sake of potential benefits in the future. “He has not clung to his wealth, but used it to earn goodwill that will serve him in his hour of need.”[2] In the same way, Jesus’ hearers should give their wealth to the poor so that those who will inherit the kingdom will welcome them into the eternal dwellings.

The author of Luke’s gospel does not condemn wealth, but he is very clear that wealth or our desire for it, should not come between ourselves and our relationship God. The desire for security and comfort in this life, should not distract us from developing those things which will provide us with security and comfort in the life to come. Further, the author of Luke is clear that those who possess wealth have an obligation to share it with those who do not (if for no other reason than that of today’s parable – to ensure a welcome from the poor (who as we are told in the Beatitudes) will inherit the kingdom of heaven (Lk 6:20). In the kingdom everything is reversed – it is just as well to get used to that now. In the final analysis, none of us can take our wealth with us. It is more important to build up those things/those values and characteristics that will be of value in the life to come, than to waste our time building up and protecting possessions that will be of no use in our heavenly existence. It will do us little good to be wealthy if greed, selfishness and egocentricism exclude us from the life to come. It will be of little value to have secured a fortune if we have not at the same time secured the peace, joy, love, patience and generosity that will be treasured in heaven.

Where does your security lie? What are you doing to ensure that your relationship with God comes first and not last?

[1] Crossan, John Dominic. In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus. California: Polebridge Press, 1992, 107,8.

[2] Byrne, Brendan S.J. The Hospitality of God: A Reading of Luke’s Gospel. Minnesota: St Paul’s Press, 2006, 134.

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