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A matter of life or death. Willingness to change and be changed

November 9, 2025

Pentecost 21 – 2025

Luke 20:27-40

Marian Free

 

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

There are many who tend to think of the tenets of faith as fixed and unchanging that God is one thing and one alone, yet experience shows us that nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from anything else,  God is beyond our comprehension we, and we as mere humans, are always grasping for understanding, we are only ever ‘seeing through a mirror dimly’ (to quote the Apostle Paul). God is both known and unknown and our scriptures, our traditions and our dogmas are simply human attempts to put into words and actions the revelations about God that have been made manifest or experienced since the beginning of time. What this means is that over time changes, subtle and not so subtle, come about as believers form new insights, as scientists broaden our horizons, or as the faith moves into and learns from or adapts to new situations.

We should not be surprised that this is the case, for we are followers of that great disrupter Jesus who challenged cherished traditions, confronted outmoded regulations and who insisted that sinners (even Samaritans) be included in God’s kingdom. We are followers of Jesus, Jesus the change-maker who so offended the religious establishment of his day that they put him to death rather than change their fixed ideas about God and faith.

Christianity itself did not emerge from a monolithic, stable belief system. The Old Testament demonstrates that there were changes over time as the people responded to the prompting of the Holy Spirit – through direct communication, through the prophets and through changes in circumstance.

A clear example of this willingness to accept and adopt new insights is demonstrated by the development of a belief in angels and a belief in the resurrection of the dead. Up until the time of the exile in Babylon, neither of these formed a part of the Jewish faith. Prior to the exile for example, it was believed that a person went to Sheol after death, to “a land of deep gloom and darkness” according to Job (10:21). It was thought that all humanity (good and bad alike) would end up in that dark and joyless place in which, the Psalmist tells us, there is no memory of God (6:5). In Babylon, the exiles were exposed to a belief in life after death, a belief which many embraced and incorporated into their ancient faith. Likewise with angels. Winged creatures had no place in the earliest forms of Judaism. Messengers from God, intermediaries between God and humanity, such as those who visited Abraham took the form of people.  It is only after the return from exile that angels find their way into our ancient texts.  Decades of living among the Babylonians saw the absorption of Babylonian ideas into the Jewish faith.

Change as we know is not always universally embraced. Some cling on to the old ideas, confident that faith is static and fixed. So the idea of a resurrection of the dead was not universally accepted which explains the debate in this morning’s gospel. In the first century there were many different expressions of Judaism – different attitudes to the purity regulations, to the Temple and to a belief in the resurrection. The Pharisees, lay men who preferenced the law over ritual, believed in the resurrection. Sadducees, priests who preferenced ritual over law did not. Both groups in their different ways tried to catch Jesus on the practice of the law or the interpretation of the scriptures primarily so that they could discredit him before the people and in so doing diminish Jesus’ influence and the threat he posed to their influence over the people.

Today it is the turn of the Sadducees to try to trick Jesus. Referring to the law of Moses, they are confident that they can expose the folly of a belief in the resurrection of the dead. Jesus, however, is not is easily trapped and he in turn reveals the narrowness and foolishness of the thinking of the Sadducees. Resurrection life Jesus points out, is not a replication of our earthly existence but something different altogether.

Though they had different ideas about the resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees, the Pharisees thought that they had God and faith and the law worked out. They knew or thought they knew what God wanted and lived their lives accordingly. Jesus, with his new and different teaching, his willingness to break the law and his refusal to conform unsettled their sense of complacency and security. In the end, they felt that it was only by destroying him that they could find peace.

Over the centuries the church has made the same mistakes as their forbears- setting in stone, things that were never intended to be immutable. Yet, at the same time the church has demonstrated a willingness to re-examine ancient practices and beliefs and to acknowledge that at times we have got it wrong and that at times we have caused more harm than good – the endorsement of slavery being the most obvious example. The world and the church is in a constant state of flux. If we are not to become self satisfied and complacent like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, if we are to avoid the trap of believing that we know all there is to know and if we are ready to acknowledge that we do not have the mind of God, we have to develop a a sense of curios expectancy, remain prayerfully open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and examine new ideas thoughtfully and prayerfully rather than fearfully and timidly.

We have to find the courage to admit, as Paul did that our knowledge can only ever be partial because a God that can be fully known is no god and the opposite of faith is certainty. (God is God of the living not do the dead.)

May we have the courage to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit, be responsive to the winds of change and humbly acknowledge that God, as God, can never be defined or confined by the limits of our minds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

January 27, 2024

Epiphany 4 – 2024

Mark 1:21-28

Marian Free

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

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

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

But: “Better the devil you know.”

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

After all: “Better the devil you know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Change of mind – Syro-Phoenician woman

August 19, 2023

Pentecost 12 – 2023
Matthew 15:21-28
Marian Free

In the name of God who is always beyond our comprehension. Amen.

I begin this having just read the SMH report (18.8.2023) relating to the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. The Doctrine Commission of that Diocese has produced a report that will be presented to their Synod later this year. The document includes a new doctrinal statement on homosexuality that says that the mere desire for same-sex sexual intimacy is contrary to God’s will, “an inclination toward evil” and something from which Christians seek to be liberated. It concluded that people who are same-sex attracted but celibate are not “actively and consistently perpetuating sin”, and their desire alone does not demand repentance. However, it is “something to be lamented and from which we seek to be liberated”.

Rob Smith, a member of the Committee stated on The Pastor’s Heart Podcast: “Sinful desires are sinful. It’s not just the doing of sin that’s sinful, the desiring of sin is sinful,” he said. “There are not godly ways of expressing same-sex sexual desire. There’s no opportunity there, there’s no open door … It’s contrary to nature from the get-go.”

I find myself grieving for all who are same-sex attracted, who are being told that something over which they have no control is sinful and deserving of God’s wrath and at the same time I am puzzling how any mere mortal can truly put themselves in the place of God to determine what is good and what is evil, who is in and who is out.

It seems to me that today’s gospel speaks directly to this issue and it demonstrates that even Jesus did not entirely know the mind of God – that is, Jesus was sure that he knew the mind of God until he was humbled by the insistence of the very person whom he judged to be unworthy of his help and “deserving of God’s wrath” (to use the language of the language quote above).

The scenario is one with which we are very familiar. Jesus is a long way from home – in the region of Tyre and Sidon when a woman of that region – a Canaanite, a gentile – comes out and begins shouting that her daughter is tormented by a demon. Jesus’ response is to ignore her, until the disciples, unable to listen to her shouting tell him to send her away. When Jesus does speak, it is not to address the woman’s concern but only to coldly inform her that she is outside his area of concern. She is a gentile, and his role (he is certain) is only to the lost sheep of Israel. Undeterred, the woman falls to the ground and begs him to help her. Jesus remains unmoved: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and feed it to the dogs.” The woman shrugs off the insult: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs,” she says.

At last Jesus is moved to help, though what changed his mind is not entirely clear. The woman’s faith alone seems unlikely to have forced Jesus to reverse centuries of antipathy towards the gentiles and his lifetime immersion in the Jewish faith and it practices .

What is clear though, is that when the woman approached the group, Jesus was so confident in his understanding of Judaism, so sure that he fully understood his mission (to the lost sheep of Israel), that he could see no reason to give this distraught woman the time of day. Until this conversation, Jesus was absolutely sure that he knew God’s will with regard to the gentiles, that he was knew the difference between right and wrong and who was in and who was out. He was so confident in his point of view that he was completely comfortable with his refusal to show the woman any compassion and he had no hesitation in insulting her to her face. In comparison to his self-righteous assurance, the woman’s anguish and grief was nothing. According to the Jewish law, the gentiles were outside God’s grace and there (or so Jesus thought) they should remain.

And yet now, Jesus makes a 180 degree turn. He lets go of a lifetime of conditioning and prejudice and comes to the realisation that the good news he brings is intended for all not just a few and that just as he has broken boundaries to include sinners, tax-collectors and prostitutes, so he is called to break down the barriers between Jew and Gentile.

What I find extraordinary is that the very person whom Jesus (and the religious system he represents) has deemed as unclean and unworthy to be included in the healing, restorative power of the kingdom is the same person who through her self-belief and perhaps through her recognition of Jesus and his mission, opens his eyes to his narrow-mindedness, his parochialism and his judgementalism and breaks through his self-assurance that he knows God’s will. Through this extraordinary encounter, Jesus becomes aware that God’s all-embracing love is big enough to include all people.

Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman, should be a warning to all of us that we can never presume to speak for God, that we are foolish to think that the norms and attitudes that we have inherited from our forebears in faith are necessarily intended to stand for all time. If Jesus could let go of the beliefs, the biases, and the practices of his time, then we too should be open to the ways in which the Spirit is moving the church of our day.

Jesus saved his harshest words for the self-righteous people of his day, those who wanted to hold on to the past at all costs. Let us not be those people.

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Prayer changes us

June 17, 2023

Pentecost 3 – 2023
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Marian Free

In the name of God whose faith in us is beyond our imagining. Amen.

How and for what do you pray? What do you expect from your prayers? Are you sometimes completely overwhelmed by the needs of the world? Do you sometimes feel that you are inadequate for the task – that even if you did pray hard enough there would not be enough people who cared enough to alleviate suffering? Do you worry that no matter how much you pray some situations simply remain the same? Do you wonder why God does not appear to act?

At the moment many of our prayers are focussed on the peoples of the Ukraine and Sudan, but there are conflicts all over the world that equally deserve our attention and our prayers. When I wonder did you or your church community last pray for the Khmer, the people of Syria or of the Congo or the countless other places still at war? We are rightly focussed on refugees who have fled recent conflicts and especially those who risk drowning at sea, but that means we tend to forget that there are thousands who have lived in refugee camps their entire lives or that in Palestine there are generations of families who have lived in camps. It is the same situation with victims of natural disasters – we simply cannot pray for everyone impacted by fire, flood, cyclone, and our memories tend to focus on more recent events. In 2020, COVID took our attention away from those who had lost everything in the bush fires of January that year and the floods in Northern NSW and elsewhere are, to many of us a distant memory – and yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of people (in this nation alone) who are still trying to rebuild homes and lives.

At the moment those who are impacted by the increased cost of living, rising interest rates and the rental crisis are front and centre in the minds of many of us and yet we are limited in what we can actually do. Our contribution to a Parish Pantry or other charities will not alleviate the pain for one family even for one day, and few of us can afford to purchase accommodation that could be made available for the homeless.

In the face of such mind-numbing issues, it is tempting to wish that God would wave a magic wand, end wars and alleviate poverty and suffering in the world. Yet if that were how God solved problems there would be no need to pray. God would already have responded. Why, in the face of so much anguish does God appear to stand idly by? The answer of course is complex, but God’s apparent inaction reflects God’s faith in us and God’s longing for us to be a part of the solution.

That this is how God responds is reflected in this morning’s gospel, especially in verses 36-38: ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”’

First century Palestine had been under Roman occupation for decades. Land that once fed generations of families had been taken by the occupiers and given as a reward to Caesar’s soldiers. Everything was taxed – the roads, the crops, the right to fish. The church authorities were either Roman appointments or were people who had cow towed to the Romans. As a consequence, the vast majority of the population felt harassed, oppressed and utterly powerless to effect change.

Faced with the suffering and helplessness of the people, Jesus seems to be overwhelmed. You can almost hear him sigh with despair as he observes that they are like sheep without a shepherd. He is filled with compassion. The Greek word “splagnizothai” (compassion) refers to an emotion felt deep within one’s belly, with one’s whole self. In other words, Jesus’ inner being was overwhelmed with concern – but, like God, Jesus doesn’t wave a magic wand. Indeed, he doesn’t even enlist God’s assistance. Instead, what Jesus does is to pray that there might be enough will in enough people to bring about change.

The need is clear, the solution is not to miraculously make it go away but to send people to fill the need – people of compassion – to heal, to console, to challenge unjust structures, to work for peace.

Seen another way, Jesus prays not for the world to change, but for us to change. As long as there are greedy, selfish, power-hungry people in the world there will be wars, injustice, and inequity. As long as people put themselves first we will continue to rape the planet, change the weather patterns, and induce climate change. As long we continue to believe that it is someone else’s (God’s) problem nothing will change.

Mother Teresa said: “I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.

In the end, prayer should change us. It should open us to the ways in which we contribute to the ills of the world; reveal to us our selfishness and lack of action; and open us to the Spirit of God working within us.

We are called to be God’s co-conspirators in changing the world for the better.
We are the labourers for whom Jesus prays. Only when we change can we begin to change the world.

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Change and disruption

November 13, 2021

 

Pentecost 25 – 2021

Mark 13:1-11

Marian Free

 

In the name of the God of our past, present and future. Amen.

Given that that the Bible was written by men in a patriarchal world, a world in which men and women had clearly defined roles and in which pregnancy and childbirth would have been entirely the province of women, it is extraordinary that there are more than a few occasions on which images of pregnancy, childbirth and mothering are used for God and for the journey of faith. Sometimes they are used to describe God’s intimate love and care. They evoke God’s promises – the barren woman will bear seven-fold (Is 54), God’s love – I took them up in my arms (Hos 11), God’s comfort – as a mother comforts her child, God’s compassion – can a mother forget her nursing child and God’s protection – I will be as a bear robbed of her cubs (2 Sam 17).

 

At other times, as today, the pain and the violence of childbirth is used to bring to mind the trauma and disruption that can precede change. This is exemplified in the Song of Hannah (echoed in the Song of Mary) that speaks of upheaval – the bows of the mighty are broken, the powerful are brought down, the poor are raised from the dust and the lowly are lifted up.

 

In our scene from this morning’s gospel the disciples were no doubt expecting Jesus to join them in their admiration of the Temple – after all it was the centre of their faith, the place in which sacrifices were offered to God and to which faithful Jews came for the major festivals of their faith. They must have been completely taken aback by Jesus’ response that not one stone would remain upon another. It would have been completely impossible for them to imagine that within decades of Jesus’ death a new expression of their ancient faith would have been brought to birth and that many of the things that they now considered sacred would not only have been destroyed but would have lost their meaning. How could they conceive that the anointed one, the one for whom they had waited for so long would be the cause of a deep rupture between all that they had known and the future that he was initiating?

 

 

Many of us like the disciples resist change. When everything is going smoothly it is difficult to imagine that there can be any benefit in letting of of the comfortable and familiar. Worse, as our reading suggests, change can be violent and destructive and there are times when the old must be destroyed to allow room for the new to emerge. It can be difficult to see new possibilities while the old structures and the old ways of doing things remain in place and it is often only with hindsight that we can see the benefits that accrued from what had appeared to be a catastrophic event. (Who, for example, would have imagined that a rag-tag bunch of foolish and non-comprehending disciples would have transformed not only their faith, but the whole world along with it? Who could have predicted that anything good could have come out of a pandemic? Yet a bunch of uneducated men and women spread the gospel to the world. And the pandemic has shown us how we can connect without being face-to-face.)

Today’s gospel is a timely reminder that nothing lasts for ever and that even the greatest of edifices can fall. It is also a caution against holding too tightly to the past and of failing to be open to the opportunities offered by the future. 

We are, all of us, on the threshold of change, myself to a future that is not yet fleshed out and you to the adventure of a new period of ministry. It will not be the sort of catastrophic change that our gospel refers to and it will be experienced differently by all of us. At the same time, the future is full of potential and I am confident that any trepidation that we might feel will be more than balanced by a sense of anticipation and excitement as to what that future might hold.

You will have forgotten the disruption that occurred when I (the first woman to have the cure of this Parish) burst on the scene and I am certain that you now take for granted the many changes that have occurred over the last 14 years. There will be a great many things that you will remember as always having been here, or always having been done in a particular way. That will not be true. This is not the Parish I came to 14 years ago. Stalwarts have gone to God and many new faces have joined us. New groups have formed and some have fallen by the wayside. There have been subtle changes to the way we do liturgy and there have been numerous physical changes to both the church and grounds and now we take it for granted that this is how it should be.

That doesn’t mean that this is how it should stay. In the past few weeks, I have become increasingly convinced that the Holy Spirit is present in the timing of this handover, that this is absolutely the right time for another person to take the Parish on the next stage of your journey and that God has wonderful things in store for all of us.

We, like the disciples, are on a journey of discovery, always on the move, always trying to be open to the Spirit and the will of God. No one knows where the road will take us, but we continually leave the past and present behind us to step out in faith, following Jesus, confident that we will  be asked to do more than we are capable of and that we will never be abandoned to face the journey alone.

 

May God bless us all in whatever lies ahead.

 

 

 

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Nothing is perfect, nothing is permanent, nothing is complete

June 5, 2021

Pentecost 2 – 2021
Mark 3:20—35
Marian Free

In the name of God – changeless yet ever new. Amen.

I am sure that many of you have heard about the Japanese practice of Kintsugi or golden joinery. The history of Kintsugi is shrouded in mystery, but legend has it that a Japanese shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa sent a cracked tea bowl to China to be mended. When it was returned to him, he was distressed by the crude repair. Ugly metal staples had been used so to hold the broken pieces together. In response, Japanese craftsmen determined to find a more aesthetically pleasing method of repairing broken bowls. The practice of Kintsugi uses lacquer mixed with gold, silver or platinum to join broken pieces of pottery with the result that though the breaks are clearly visible, the repaired bowl is often more beautiful than the original.

A number of Japanese philosophical ideas are associated with this practice. Foremost among these is the principle of wabi-sabi which acknowledges that everything is imperfect, everything is impermanent, and everything is incomplete. In Kintsugi, the repairs allow the imperfections to be visible, thus illustrating the impermanence of the original bowl and pointing to the incomplete nature of all things. An associated philosophy is that of mushin (no mind) which emphasises non-attachment and the acceptance of change. Instead of trying to hold onto or to recreate an unblemished past, the repaired vessel bears its scars boldly, proudly carrying them into the future.

Kintsugi illustrates the fact that change is not to be feared or resisted but is an integral part of existence. What is more, it demonstrates that change has the potential to forge something new and beautiful.

One of the problems with institutions is that they tend towards stasis. Once established, organisations develop practices, traditions and customs that can become very difficult to change. “We’ve always done it that way.” “It’s worked in the past,” workers or members say. A person who has a vision to improve a company’s bottom line by changing the way it does things is liable to be ridiculed, treated with suspicion and even ostracised. People who see flaws in the way our society operates are likely to be called troublemakers, radicals or revolutionaries. This is as true of the church as it is of any enterprise. People become comfortable with the way things are done and, in the worst-case scenarios, actively resist any attempt to innovate preferring a slow death to a revitalised, but different way of being.

The problem with Jesus was that he represented change. He refused to conform to the societal norms of his time, and he actively defied attempts to make him fit in. Instead of supporting the religious institutions of his time, he seemed to be undermining everything that they stood for. This I suspect is part of the tension that is recorded in today’s gospel. Jesus’ actions are making people uncomfortable. He is behaving in ways that are unconventional. He seems to have some sort of hold over the crowds. He is putting the whole fabric of society and of the church at risk. Who knows what might happen if he is allowed to continue unchecked?

Jesus’ behaviour is causing anxiety at every level – from his family to the state (as represented by the Temple). Jesus’ notoriety has grown to the point where he cannot find time or space even to eat. His family, who have heard that people are saying: “He is out of his mind,” have come to constrain him. In a world in which the honour of a family depends on all its members conforming to the cultural customs of their society, Jesus’ behaviour was a source of embarrassment. His family needed to stop him, to bring him back into line so that their reputation could remain intact.

While the people attribute Jesus’ behaviour to madness, the scribes take it even further and accuse him of being possessed by Beelzebul. After all, how else could he have such a sway over the crowds unless he was possessed by some supernatural power? Jesus’ influence over the people threatened the authority of the scribes (the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the High Priests). Worse, Jesus’ popularity threatened the whole religious establishment. If Jesus could heal and teach and cast out demons, what role was there for the Temple, its representatives and its sacrifices? If Jesus was able to point out the flaws in the religious practices of his time, how could the church continue to exist? The stakes were high. No wonder the scribes accused Jesus of being in league with the devil. They needed to bring him to heel, to discredit him, to make him conform.

Centuries of religious practice could come tumbling down if the people discovered that healing and forgiveness could be found beyond the walls of the Temple. The institution of the church would break apart if the people refused to be bound by age old traditions and customs. It was impossible for the scribes and other religious leaders to see that the change Jesus heralding would lead not to the destruction of all that they knew, but to a renewed and revitalised relationship with the living God. They were so sure that they were doing all that God wanted that they had lost sight of the fact that God was dynamic, vital and creative not static, lifeless and unchanging. They had become so comfortable in their own ways that they could not see that God in Jesus was trying to break open their narrow vision and their stagnant practices. They were blind to the fact that Jesus was attempting to re-energise their relationship with a life-giving and innovative God. They could not see that if only they could allow their rigidity and their conformity to be cracked and broken that they would be put back together, stronger, more resilient and even more beautiful than they had been before.

The scribes wanted things to stay the same, so they chose stasis over growth, stagnation over change and their current practice over the possibility of new life in Jesus.

Our present situation is a stark reminder that nothing stays the same. Let us pray that we might always be open to the living God, expectantly waiting to see what it is that God will do next and ready and willing to join God in whatever it is that God has planned.

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God’s trust in us

October 6, 2018

Pentecost 20 – 2018.

Mark 10:2-16

Marian Free

In the name of God who trusts us to make wise and compassionate decisions in a changing world. Amen.

I am applying for a new passport. The last time I applied the choice of gender was simply between male and female. Now there is an opportunity to tick a box “Indeterminate/Intersex/Unspecified”. A lot has changed in ten years. When discussing the School’s report at Synod yesterday one of the comments/questions related to the way in which one of our schools handled the sensitive issue of a child who was ‘transitioning’ from one gender to another (you may have seen reference to this on the news). The person who brought the issue to our attention praised the response of the school and asked whether there was a uniform approach to similar situations across Anglican schools. I have to admit that I was surprised, but pleased, to hear that in January the Heads of Schools will be addressed by an expert in that field.

I had a fairly enlightened upbringing. In an era in which divorce was spoken of in hushed whispers, my parents spoke openly of the few members of the church and among their acquaintances whose marriages came to an end. In the past fifty years or so there have been many changes to our social and cultural landscape that could not have been envisaged 50 years ago or even 15 years ago. We laughed at Mr Humphries in Are you Being Served, but did not imagine that gay marriage would become part of the social fabric, or that gay couples would become natural or adoptive parents. During my childhood the notion that there were people, even children, who felt that they had been born into the wrong body would have been completely novel to a majority of the population.

If the difference between the world of my childhood and the world today is huge, the differences between first century Palestine and 21st century Australia are vast as is the gap between the composition of the Torah and the time of Jesus. It would have been absolutely impossible for the writer of Genesis and Deuteronomy to envisage, let alone write for a time and culture so different from its own. It would have been equally difficult for Jesus to make pronouncements in the first century that would be as relevant now as they were then.

There is great wisdom in having only Ten Commandments – universal principles that govern our life together – as opposed to writing detailed, prescriptive laws that would prevent us from responding to changes and developments in the world around us.

The problem is that the lack of detail forces us to look for overarching principles as we seek to govern our lives together.

Todays’ gospel is more complex than a superficial reading would suggest. It includes two apparently distinct periscopes – one the question of divorce and the second Jesus’ welcome of children despite the disapproval of his disciples, Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and what Jesus says to his disciples. A closer look suggests that the stories were put together in order to emphasise the point that Jesus seems to be making – a view that is reinforced by a consideration of both the immediate and wider context. Earlier, in chapter nine, Jesus has placed a child in the midst of the disciples and said: “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” In first century Palestine children had no legal status and little to no value. Not only is Jesus identifying with those who are vulnerable and powerless, he is elevating them to his position! In today’s gospel Jesus welcomes and blesses the children whom the disciples consider to be beneath his notice. It seems clear that the writer is making a point about Jesus’ concern for those who have no status, no agency and no voice. He is overturning accepted behaviour and claiming another way of seeing the world or of responding to those of no account. This is reinforced by his earlier tirade against disciples who would cause harm to any of these “little ones” saying that; “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Such strong language is indicative of Jesus’ passion for the inclusion and protection of those who have no voice.

Jesus modelled both in his teaching and his actions a concern for those who were marginalised, disempowered and disenfranchised. He showed little respect for the social norms and cultural mores of his time. He demonstrated that compassion, tolerance and understanding overrode convention and tradition and he continued to welcome, include and call those who were reviled and excluded by his fellow countrymen and women. He implied that no law could ever adequately reflect the will of God and that laws, no matter how well intentioned, were a concession to human frailty and could not be held valid for all time and in all places.

We do not have a crystal ball to tell us what the future might throw at us. We cannot guess what we have still to learn about the human condition. What we do know is that God who created us loves us in all our wonderful diversity and complexity, that God in Jesus has demonstrated God’s concern for the vulnerable and dispossessed and that God has faith in us to make decisions that will lead to the inclusion and valuing and healing of all our brothers and sisters.

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Changing God’s mind, changing our minds about God

September 5, 2015

Pentecost 15 – 2015

Mark 7:24-37

Marian Free

Loving God, free us from the arrogance that leads us to believe that we know all that there is to know. Fill us with holy awe such that we might tremble in your presence knowing that our understanding is both finite and limited. Amen.

I think I can safely say that the rise of ISIS in the Middle East and Boko Haran in Nigeria has filled us all with horror and that presence of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan – especially the terrible consequences for women and girls in those countries – has been a source of continuing concern. Fundamentalism (in any religion) is a very dangerous thing. Black and white thinking and literal interpretation of a few select scriptural texts not only damages and constricts spiritual development but it can give some people permission to behave in ways that most of us would consider to be not only cruel and oppressive but also ungodly.

One of the problems with fundamentalism is that it allows people to believe that they know all that there is to know about God and about their holy texts. Being convinced that they and they alone know the mind of God, such people believe that they are authorized to act on God’s behalf and to impose on others what they believe to be God’s law. In general fundamentalists have a very narrow view of faith and of God. They are blind to the inconsistencies and complexities of their scripture, unable to discern developments in the way in which God is understood and known and ignorant of the fact that scripture has been interpreted in very different ways in different times and different contexts. Very often, fundamentalists confuse true religion with social conservatism believing that the will of God was most fully expressed in a particular way and in a particular time and thinking that the only way to restore order to the world is to return to that time.

In many cases fundamentalism is as much about power and control as it is about faith in and faithfulness to God. At the moment we are witness to the fact that the worst excesses of fundamentalism result in violence against those who do not or cannot hold the same views.

While God – the same yesterday, today and tomorrow – does not change and God’s plans for humanity do not waver, our understanding is limited and finite and our knowledge is always incomplete. This means is that over time our knowledge of God and of God’s purpose for us changes and develops. A relationship with the living God is not static – as if God were able to be contained and defined in human terms. A relationship with God is always growing and changing – both collectively and individually. Different life experiences, changes in culture, developments in science and new tools in biblical interpretation all serve to deepen and enrich our understanding of God and of scripture and help us to live and behave in ways that reflect these new insights and understanding.

Different life experiences can cause us to rethink our relationship with God and God’s relationship with the world. As we learn more about ourselves and others we become more compassionate, more tolerant and more understanding – all of which enables us to see scripture and God from the point of view of our own limitations and frailty.

Of course the most dramatic, and for us most compelling, revision of our understanding of God comes in the person of Jesus who broke through all previous preconceptions and revealed God in a way never before conceived. Jesus was both a continuation of the Old Testament ideas and values, but also a radical departure from them. Jesus extended God’s love of the poor and vulnerable to tax collectors and sinners, he showed a blatant disregard for the letter of the law, he refused to unquestioningly submit to the leaders of the church and he interpreted scripture in a new and different way.

Not only did Jesus completely change the way we think about God, it appears Jesus himself was open to change. So far as we can tell, when Jesus began his ministry he had in view the people of Israel. Being a person of his time and place, Jesus understood that Yahweh was the God of Israel and as such concerned only with the salvation of Israel. As he saw it, Jesus’ role was to restore the relationship between Israel and God.

It should come as no surprise then that he refused to help the woman from Syrophoenicia. She and her daughter did not belong to God’s chosen people. They were not his responsibility. Undaunted by Jesus’ response and desperate that her daughter be cured, the woman persisted with her request, debating with Jesus and demonstrating that his point of view was unnecessarily narrow. The woman’s argument was so persuasive that Jesus was forced to concede that her point was valid. By helping Jesus to understand that God’s love and compassion need not be limited to a few, the woman opened his mind to a new way of thinking and pointed his ministry in a new and different direction. Her argument persuaded him that God’s love and compassion need not be limited to a few, but could be extended and offered to all.

It is true that God doesn’t change, but our understanding of God is continually developing and expanding. It is this that allows us to make changes in our practices and doctrine that help us to continue to open our hearts and our minds to new possibilities of relating to God and to others.

If we lock God in to one particular way of being, what we really do is to limit and confine ourselves. If we think that we have nothing more to learn about God, we have essentially elevated ourselves to the position of God and reduced God to an image of ourselves and to a set of easily understood formulae.

As Jesus demonstrates, God will continue to burst through the narrow confines of our understanding, confronting and challenging us, stretching our imaginations, forcing us to acknowledge new and changing boundaries, refusing to be defined and contained and reminding us that God is, and always will be, beyond the limits of human understanding.

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Gospel Truth?

May 23, 2015

Pentecost – 2015

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Marian Free

 In the name of God who has entrusted us with God’s very word. Amen.

Occasionally I watch an Australian crime drama set in the 1920’s: “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries”. If you are unfamiliar with the programme, Miss Fisher is apparently an independently wealthy woman turned private detective. Phryne (yes, that is her name) has a personal assistant named Dotty. Dotty, under Phryne’s tutelage, assists her employer in the art of detection. Both women are unusually independent and intrepid for their time and place and both take risks that even today some of us would consider foolish. One of the on-going sub-plots is a growing affection between Dotty and a junior Police Officer, Hugh. Like most men, then and now, Hugh is protective of Dotty and would prefer that she keep herself out of danger.

When I caught up with the show last week I discovered that Dotty and Hugh are engaged. Dotty is a practicing Roman Catholic so Hugh needs to adopt Catholicism before they can be married in the Catholic Church. At first, Hugh is hesitant, but his enthusiasm grows when he discovers that a Catholic wife must obey her husband. (Remember it is the 1920’s!) Having clarified with the priest that he has understood this aspect of the faith correctly, Hugh becomes much more engaged in the process. An obedient wife, he thinks, will have to take his concerns and his cautions seriously, an obedient Dotty will stop taking risks and stop engaging in amateur sleuthing.

Unfortunately for Hugh, Dotty is not to be so easily restrained. In a private conversation with the priest, she happens to mention that Protestantism has a lot to offer – implying that if the priest insists on her obedience, she will leave his congregation for another. Poor Hugh is completely nonplussed when, at their next meeting, the priest points out that of course, times have changed, and that in the modern world one needn’t take the obedience clause absolutely literally!

I don’t have to tell you that in the Anglican tradition many things that were once held to be sacrosanct have been softened or even abandoned. It is almost impossible to believe that only fifty years ago people who were divorced could not be remarried in an Anglican church, children of parents who were unmarried were refused baptism and women were not admitted to holy orders. The debates that accompanied these changes were often fierce and uncompromising because those who opposed change found support for their position in the Bible and were unable to see things any other way.

It is tempting to think that there is such a thing as “gospel truth” but the reality is vastly different. What was “true” four thousand years ago for a nomadic Middle Eastern tribe cannot always be applied in a digital, technological twenty first century world. No one today would take all of the Old Testament literally. Medical science has come to the conclusion that circumcision can be detrimental rather than beneficial. The development of refrigeration means that the health risks of eating shellfish have been significantly reduced and I think that I am safe in saying that none of us believes that a woman caught in adultery should be stoned to death.

Even Jesus did not seem to think that the rules and regulations of the Old Testament were immutable. Where the Old Testament counselled: “love your neighbour and hate your enemy” Jesus taught “love your enemy”. Where teh Old Testament demanded “an eye for an eye”, Jesus said: “Do not resist an evildoer”. Where the Old Testament allowed divorce and remarriage Jesus claimed this to be adultery[1]. Just as Jesus did not feel utterly bound by the Old Testament, later New Testament writers did not feel obliged to follow absolutely the teaching of earlier writers. Colossians and Ephesians, then the Pastoral letters seriously altered Jesus’ and Paul’s inclusive view of the role of women. And over time societal values change. Both Jesus and Paul took slavery for granted, something that we find abhorrent today.

It is impossible (when human writers are concerned) to be completely dispassionate and not to allow one’s own views to permeate what is written. It is equally impossible to imagine that someone writing four or even two thousand years ago could envisage and therefore write comprehensively for a situation so far removed from their times as ours. Our scriptures – Old and New – have a great deal to say about love, forgiveness and compassion and about the care for the weak and vulnerable, but they have nothing to say about climate change, genetic modification or IVF. On many of the issues of our time, we are left to our own devices. Rightly or wrongly God expects us to work through the ethical issues of such things as stem cell research and to come up with answers that are right and just. Rightly or wrongly God has given us responsibility to determine how far we should take genetic engineering and other medical advances.

Because nothing stays the same and few things are true for all time, God has given us minds to use and hearts to feel. Far more importantly God has blessed us with the Holy Spirit. Three years were not nearly enough for Jesus to prepare the disciples and thus the church for every possible eventuality. He does not leave them/us unresourced but promises to send the Spirit who then, as now will guide them/us in all truth.

God who sent Jesus, Jesus the sent one, and the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent empower us (the church) to think and act as God the Trinity would act. It is an awesome responsibility and one that requires of us a union with God – Father, Son and Spirit – such that their mind is our mind and that decisions that we make are in accord with decisions that they would have us make. In a complex and ever-changing environment, God has entrusted us not only with God’s word, but also with the power and the resources to interpret that word across time and space.

History has shown that time and again we have abused that trust, yet God has not withdrawn it. In our time and place let us demonstrate that we are worthy of God’s confidence and whatever the cost, let us give ourselves entirely to God, Creator, Redeemer and Holy Spirit so that all our decisions are wise, compassionate and just and consistent with God’s desires for us and for the world.

[1] Albeit to protect women from arbitrary abandonment.

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Reimagine the Divine

March 3, 2015

Imagining the Divine – God in the 21st Century

Evensong – March 1, St John’s Cathedral

Marian Free

 

May my spoken word, lead us through the written Word, to encounter the Living Word, even Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

 

If you were in church this morning you would have heard a reading from Genesis 16: 1-7, 15-16. Unless you were at Hamilton, you will not have heard how the story continues. Verse 17 says: “Abraham fell on his face and laughed.” He fell on his face and laughed. God tells Abraham that he will have a son and this is Abraham’s response. He doesn’t show his disbelief by rolling his eyes or snickering behind his hand. He doesn’t wait till God is out of earshot and share the joke with his friend. There is nothing subtle or discreet about Abraham’s incredulity. This is a laugh from the depths of his being, he is so overcome by the ridiculous nature of God’s promise that he laughs out right out loud, he guffaws. Abraham is so overcome with mirth that he bends over double, falls to the ground. This is rib-tickling, thigh slapping, laugh until you are ill amusement – and it is directed at God.

Perhaps you are thinking that this is an odd place to begin a discussion on God in the 21st century – to choose a story, which if it is historical is something like 4,000 years old. You are right – what do miracles and Hebrew characters have to do with imagining the divine today. Haven’t we moved past the view of God presented in what we know as the Old Testament? Don’t we need a new and refreshing vision?

Obviously, I’m not sure. We neglect the Old Testament at our peril. Our best imaginings cannot imagine the God depicted here. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our imaginations have been severely limited, even impoverished by our distrust of the God of the Old Testament. God, as envisioned by the writers of the Old Testament is at once approachable and remote, passionate and compassionate, loving and firm, constant and unpredictable. There is almost no limit to the imagery that is called into use to try to capture something of the experience of God. God is described and imagined as breasts, as a mother bear, as an eagle, a fortress, a rock, a tree, a king and a shepherd. In order to try to capture something of the nature of God imagery from the real world – both animate and inanimate are used.

Unfortunately, the New Testament does not provide us with such a wealth of imagery. Apart from the Gospel of John which provides us with images such as light and life, the predominant way of thinking about and addressing God in the New Testament was Father. This, until the feminist objections of the 1980’s is, with some notable exceptions how God has been addressed and imagined ever since.

Language is a powerful tool, it describes our reality and defines our reality. For good and for ill our language for God determines the way in which we understand and relate to God. I would contend that for two thousand years, with some notable exceptions there has been a failure of imagination, a limit to the ways in which the institution speaks of God and therefore in the way that many people think of God. Just to give one example, the stereotype of God that is rejected by the new atheists, is a God whom we might recognise from our Sunday School days, but that is a God whom most of us (along with them) have firmly renounced and rejected.

Where to go then in the twenty-first century? How might we imagine God anew? Why are we imagining God – for ourselves or for others? Imagining the divine in the twenty-first century is a much more profound issue than I had realised when I agreed to preach this evening and has given me much pause for thought – not least that a response to the topic required a great deal more research than I allowed for. What language could begin to express the extraordinary, miraculous, ever-present nature of God? If I/we were going to try to find images to which the twenty-first century mind could relate, what would they be? Some of the biblical language might be able to be put to good use, but a great deal has become obsolete. Few of us have direct experience of a shepherd, let alone a mother bear. In today’s language of kingship conjures up ideas of, at best paternalism and at worst oppression and rocks are simply that – geological formations.

I found myself wondering what, in terms of modern experience, would be the most amazing, most indescribable, the most pervasive and the most impossible reality of today’s world? What in today’s world knows all about me, and knows where I am at any one time?

In other words, apart from God what is it about the twenty-first century that absolutely astounds me. My answer – the mobile phone. With this phone I can speak to anyone at anytime. I can even speak face-to-face with someone in another country. I can check my emails and read my bible (in whatever language I choose). I can get directions to anywhere that I wish to go and ask the phone to take me there. I can book air tickets. I can take photos and look at photos, find out what the weather is going to be – here, in Hamburg, in London or anywhere else that I choose. I can point it at the night sky and it will tell me what I am looking at. I can buy books or borrow books from the library and read them. I can draw, write, play games, listen to music, make music, watch TV. I can write my sermons and upload them to my website. If the screen is too small, I can attach a device to my television and use it as the screen. If the sound is too poor I can connect to my amplifier and my fancy speakers. AND because my devices are synched, all of this is possible on my iPad and my computer. In fact, I can do almost anything that I would wish to do – the limit is only someone else’s imagination.

All this is possible because of something that is diffuse and incomprehensible and completely invisible to me – the internet and “the cloud”.

The world is changing so rapidly that most of us cannot keep up. WE are living in a world of radical change and radical personal transformation. In fact, Prof Anthony Elliott [1] in a lecture aired on Big Ideas during the week, suggests that as a result of what he calls the “reinvention revolution” there is an increasing cultural anxiety. Women and men, he says, feel that they need to undertake a process of recalibration in order to confront the challenges of everyday living, to keep up with the latest changes. The problem is that there is always the worry that that won’t be enough for them to face the challenges of tomorrow. It is no wonder that the transformation industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.

While men and women are anxious about change and the need to keep up, they also seem to find it strangely liberating. Elliott, reporting on the work of Thrift, a British sociologist, says “women and men today are no longer blindly just following customs and traditions and pre-ordained ways of doing things. They are trying things out and trying things on as never before. They are not waiting for permission in either their personal or professional life as to how to get on to what they need to do. They are embracing reinvention societies in such a way as to engage in ongoing, incessant experimentation. These are not random, but are associated with various socio-technical systems – touch screens, virtual landscapes, location tagging, augmented realities and so on. iPhones and other things we carry strapped to our bodies are rearranging the whole social cartography.”

Reimagining God in this ever changing, inter-connected, over-anxious, app driven world is no easy task. The story of Abraham with which I began suggests that we can afford to lighten up. As we begin to explore the divine in the twenty first century, perhaps one of the things we can do is to take ourselves less seriously, stop over-thinking things. Maybe it is time to relax a bit, to allow images to form and re-form, to give ourselves some freedom to listen to and engage with the world around us and, instead of thinking so much, simply open ourselves to what is utterly other and see how that otherness is being revealed in the world today.

In a world that embraces change and yet finds the need to do so a source of anxiety, perhaps we can help women and men imagine a God who is both stable and ever-changing, both at the centre and at the periphery, who loves us as we are and yet challenges to be all that we can be. In a world driven by socio-technology it may be that we need to imagine God as personal and relational, as always present and accessible, as a source of strength and a well-spring of creativity. A God who extends us and enables us to do more than we thought possible.

In the final analysis, God simply is, and as such God always has and always will define all our attempts to reimagine.

[1] Lecture presented at ANU, aired on Big Ideas (Radio National) Tuesday 24th February, 2015.

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