Posts Tagged ‘Choice’

Hearing the call of Jesus

January 20, 2024

Mark 1:14-20

Third Sunday after Epiphany – 2024

Mark 1:14-20

Marian Free

In the name of Gods who insistently calls us. Amen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Who would God choose?

December 18, 2021

Advent 4 – 2021
Luke 1:39-55
Marian Free

In the name of God who overturns the structures of power, wealth and status and who chooses the poor and the vulnerable to bring God to life in the world. Amen.

This year I received a Christmas card on which the image was a reproduction of a painting by Australian artist Rod Moss. I have to say that it is the most realistic image of the Holy Family that I have ever been privileged to see. Rod Moss has adapted a painting by Caravaggio and has used as his model an indigenous family and a central Australian setting. What stands out to me is the fact that the scene is not sentimental, nor has it been sanitised or primped. It is posed to be sure, but the models are real people – people who are almost certainly more like Mary and Joseph than any other representation that I have seen.

The background is likewise unadorned – it is bare and plain – a simple corrugated iron structure, a family of dogs and an angel that is not overtly “angelic”.

From the image one can deduce that this is a family who have little to spare. Mary is dressed simply in a blue, ill-fitting, open-necked polo shirt paired with a bright patterned skirt. Her long hair is not covered, and strands have broken loose from her ponytail. Not for this Mary the spotless white head covering or perfect blue robe in which she is usually depicted. Joseph wears a shirt that is a bit too big for his narrow frame and his longish hair is tousled rather than neatly brushed unlike the tidy, well-groomed Joseph of most nativity scenes.

The baby is lying (arms outstretched) on a bed.

Moss’s image provides what to me is a realistic picture of Mary and Joseph – a couple from a poor rural town who have travelled by foot for several days only to discover that there is nowhere for them to stay when they arrive at their destination. The painting is a stark reminder that neither Mary or Joseph came from families of privilege, wealth, status or power.

An image such as this – one that doesn’t gloss over the poverty and the hardships faced by Mary and Joseph – gives power and meaning to Mary’s song. “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly” (Lk 1:52). In response to Elizabeth’s blessing, Mary seems to grasp the implications of what God has done – that in choosing her to bear God’s anointed, God has clearly demonstrated God’s preference for the poor. Mary has no position or heritage that sets her apart, a fact that is further amplified by the fact that she is a woman, yet she is the one whom God has chosen to bring God into the world. In choosing Mary, God has acted contrary to expectation that God will enter the world with power and might and God has made it clear that justice and equity are at the heart of God’s relationship with the world.

Our English translation does not do justice to grammar of the text. As O. Wesley Allen Jn. Allen points out Luke shapes the Magnificat by having Mary speak of God’s actions in the past tense: “God looked, did great things for me, showed strength, scattered the proud, brought down the powerful, lifted up the lowly, filled the hungry, sent the rich away empty, and helped Israel (verses 48–54). English translations render the verbs in the perfect tense (for example, “has looked”) implying an action in the past that continues into the present. But the Greek verbs are all aorist, indicating actions completely completed in the past .”

In the words of her song, Mary is saying that God has (already) acted. God’s choice of Mary is proof positive of God’s preference for the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. It is not something that is going to happen – it has happened. God has acted. God has demonstrated God’s preference, has provided a glimpse of the kingdom values.

God’s choice of Mary is a slap in the face of all who think that their power, their influence or their wealth comes from God, who think that their place in the world implies that they are better than those who do not share their privilege, or who think that because they are richer and more powerful that it is within their right to exploit or to oppress others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes the Magnificat this way: “It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings…. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”

Mary’s song is an indictment against a church that has become institutionalised and that has aligned itself with the cultural norms and values of the world in which it finds itself. It critiques a church that has become contented with its place among the establishment, the respectable and the comfortable. It puts the lie to the idea that God needs beautiful churches and well-dressed congregations, and it challenges all of us who believe that we are doing all that we can to bring about God’s kingdom.

Mary’s song is an uncomfortable song and echoes down the ages with a message for us all.

What does God’s choice tell us about our attitudes and dispositions, our value judgments, our position in the world? I wonder who God would choose today and how comfortable would God’s choice make us feel?

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God’s choice and ours

April 21, 2018

Easter 4 – 2018

John 10:11-18

Marian Free

 In the name of God who calls us to give ourselves completely and who in Jesus, gives Godself entirely to us. Amen.

In the BBC News magazine recently there was an article about young Indian men who are kidnapped and forced to marry young women in a neighbouring state. The bride’s parents take such extreme action to ensure that their daughters can be married to someone of a similar caste to their own. Two men were interviewed. The first commented that he had no choice. Several years and a couple of children later he has made peace with his situation. The second man said that he would not accept the situation and that he was not living with, let alone sleeping with the woman that he had been forced to marry. In both cases the men believed that if they were to try to escape they would have been killed.

We often hear people say that they had no choice – drug mules claim that they had no choice except to carry the drugs  because their family would be killed. Men working in Hitler’s labour camps insist that they had no choice but to obey orders or they would join the prisoners in the gas chambers and climbers who leave colleagues on the mountain state that had they stayed both would have died.  In fact in most cases there is a choice – the choice between life and death and to be fair, in such situations most of us would choose life.

We often justify making an unsatisfactory choice by claiming  that “it was the lesser of two evils”. While that may be true, it ignores the fact that there is often a third – if very unpalatable choice – the choice to refuse to choose. The choice to be excluded, derided, discredited and yes, sometimes the choice to die – the sort of choice that Jesus made.

John’s gospel is very much about making choices. The Jesus of John’s gospel chooses to challenge the law and the law makers when he could have quite easily chosen to conform to the norms of the time. He chooses to expose himself to criticism and ridicule instead of trying to fit in. He chooses to be confrontational and divisive, challenging and difficult when he could have placated, comforted and reassured. He chooses to be obtuse when he could have been direct. He chooses to heal on the Sabbath when he could have healed the sick on any day of the week. He chooses to antagonize the leaders of the Jews when he could have engaged them in debate. Above all, he chooses to die and he chooses when to die.

Early in the gospel, when things becomes uncomfortable in Judea or when the Jews threaten to kill him in Jerusalem, Jesus retreats to Galilee or across the Jordan. In the end, despite the dangers of returning, Jesus chooses not to avoid Jerusalem and certain death because he has heard that his friend is ill.

In today’s reading from John 10 Jesus states not once, but five times, that he will lay down his life (for his sheep). This is not some attention-seeking device on Jesus’ part, but a deliberate decision. Jesus makes a choice, not to avoid death, but to face it head on. Jesus makes it clear that he is not at the mercy of the Jewish leaders or anyone else who would take his life. He is not subject to the whims of the political and religious authorities. Jesus is completely in control: “no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.”  Jesus chooses to give his life that others might live and he does so out of love.

In choosing to give himself completely, Jesus models God’s choice – God’s choice in the first instance to give us free will and then to accept the consequences. God’s choice to bear the pain and heartache of watching us make the wrong decisions. God’s choice to sit back and watch us harm ourselves and others. God’s choice to allow us to destroy the planet. God’s choice to endure the grief of not intervening when we get things so terribly wrong.

Jesus models God’s choice to keep on believing in us – hoping that we will at last come around and trusting that eventually we will get it right. Jesus models God’s choice to keep on loving us despite all that we do to give God reason not to love. Above all, Jesus models God’s choice to give Godself willingly and joyfully for the well-being and the salvation of the entire world.

In modelling God’s choice, in laying down his life for us, Jesus models a way for us to make our own choices. Jesus challenges us to ask ourselves whether we act out of self-interest: protecting our reputation, securing our wealth, ensuring our own safety and comfort, and holding on to our own lives whatever the cost to others or, whether we are prepared to follow Jesus to the end by acting selflessly, caring little for what others think of us, sitting lightly with our possessions, letting go of our need for security and having more concern for the well-being of others than for ourselves. In other words, would we have the courage to choose to die (figuratively or literally) so that others might live?

 

 

 

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The vulnerability of God

December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve 2012

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who gave up all power and authority to create and then to re-create us. Amen.

I often think that the infant in the cradle, “wrapped in cloths”, distracts us from the reality of the situation. We are drawn to the baby as we are drawn to all babies and our hearts are filled with love and a longing to wrap our arms around the child. In the depictions of the Nativity, we see a loving family, comfortably gathered and surrounded by the shepherds and wise men who come to worship.

What we don’t always see is the raw, naked vulnerability of the child – the child who is God and who at this point in time is completely powerless to control his destiny and who is utterly dependent on those around him – on Mary and Joseph, on Herod and the political circumstances of the  country which he finds himself.

Thinking of God as a defenceless child can be startling and a little confusing. It goes against our expectations and forces us to see God from an entirely different perspective. A vulnerable, powerless God does not conform to our concept of a God who is omnipotent and all-powerful, who directs and determines, who judges and condemns. To think of God as a helpless baby challenges everything we might have thought about God. And yet, from the inception of Christianity this is one of the images of God – a God without power, a God unable to intervene and God unable to force God’s will on anyone.

In fact, from the very beginning of the Judeo-Christian faith, the image of God is of a God who instead of keeping all authority to himself, chooses to give that power to humankind. In the Garden of Eden, God the creator gave humanity the freedom to choose. God who could have determined the future of humankind, ceded that power to human beings who used that power to choose to compete with, rather than serve God.

When it all went horribly wrong God chose, not to force humankind to change, but to trust humankind to change themselves. In order to do that, God put himself in our hands and risked everything in the hope that we would rise to the occasion, in the hope that our response to the infant Jesus and to the man, would serve to bring salvation to the world.

God still depends on us to get it right, trusts us to return the world to the idyllic state of the garden. God is still powerless unless we co-operate. The vulnerable God in the cradle depends on the people around him for his survival. The powerless God depends on us to change the world.

The powerlessness of God is demonstrated in the vulnerable and suffering of our own time. Until we accept the vulnerability of the baby, the helplessness of the child in the manger, we will not recognise our responsibility to be those who empower God’s saving work in the world. We will not change the situation of

–       the children of Syria and throughout the Middle East who are dependent on warring parties sitting down at the negotiating table and committing to a lasting peace.

–       the children of Niger, the Sudan and countless other nations who are dependent on our goodwill for food,

–       the millions of children who are victims of the AIDS epidemic who are dependent on education programmes and access to health care,

–       the children working in sweat factories and mines, who are forced into slavery and prostitution who are dependent on enough international advocacy will to set them free,

–       the children of Sandy Hook whose lives along with the 20,000 other young people killed by guns in the US are totally dependent on the will of a nation to give up a love affair with guns.

Until we are willing to change our lives, until we are willing to give us some of our comforts, until we are determined to engage our political leaders and to confront world leaders, until we in our turn become vulnerable and dependent on each other, God remains powerless to intervene in world affairs. Because God is dependent on us, God can only do what we are prepared to do in God’s name.

Next time you look in the manger, see beyond the comforting image of a well-fed, well clothed, well-loved baby and see in that child’s eyes, the eyes of God doing the only thing God knows how to do to change the world around – to give himself utterly and completely to us, hoping against hope that we will give ourselves to God and to each other.

 

 

Let us pray

Holy God,

give us grace and courage to acknowledge our contribution to the suffering in the world. Help us to become vulnerable as you became vulnerable that we may be part of the solution and not of the problem.

Powerless God,

make us aware of your presence in and around us. Help us to have the grace to open ourselves to you, that your presence may be made known through us.

Living God,

be with all who live life in the shadow of poverty and despair,

especially those in our own community whose needs often are overlooked

as we look further afield in our desire to ease the suffering of others.

Give hope to the lost and support to the powerless and make us sensitive and responsive to needs and concerns of those around us.

 

Healing God,

in Jesus, you shared the pain of the sick, you knew what it was to face death. Be with all who at this time are in need of comfort and healing. Encourage and strengthen those who are ill and recovering from surgery, support those who are dying and be with all whose task is to bring about healing.

 

Dying and rising God,

as you shared our existence, may we strive to share yours, that at our end we may             join you and all the saints for eternity.

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