Posts Tagged ‘exclusion’

« Older Entries

Gratitude or salvation – the thankful leper

October 11, 2025

Pentecost 18 – 2025

Luke 17:11-19

Marian Free

In the name of God who leaves no one out and no one behind. Amen.

Ward 13 is the last remaining structure of the former Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island in Morton Bay. Stradbroke Island is 62 Kilometres from the mainland and 2 hours 8 minutes by boat. The Benevolent Asylum housed many different groups of people particularly those who were unable to support themselves for a variety of reasons – age, unemployment, illness or mental or physical disability. Immediately next to the Asylum and beside a swamp was a Lazaret – which housed men who were diagnosed with leprosy – a disease which, rightly or wrongly was deemed an incurable, communicable disease.

A visit to Ward 13 and the associated information centre reveals just how isolating and cruel the treatment of lepers used to be. A person, once diagnosed, was sent to Stradbroke (and later Peel) Island with no hope of ever returning home. A married man would never set eyes on his wife and children again. A child would be separated forever from her siblings and a mother from her children. Though the care of such people seems to have been reasonable, nothing would ever have made up for the stigma, the shame, the self-loathing, the pain, but above all the isolation and the sense of loss.

Leprosy which leads to the damaging of nerve endings and the disfigurement and subsequent loss of digits, hands, feet and even limbs is a dehumanising disease which for millenia created fear and disgust in the wider community. A leper not only had to deal with the disease and its consequences, but also with the reaction of those around them. In order to protect themselves, communities from ancient times have secluded and excluded not only those with the disease that we know to be leprosy, but also those with any form of obvious skin disease[1]. This is why the lepers in our gospel story this morning are keeping their distance from Jesus.

For obvious reasons, Jesus’ healing of the lepers is most often interpreted as a story of gratitude – the gratitude of the Samaritan in contrast with the apparent self-absorption of the nine. There are a few problems with this simplistic approach, perhaps the most serious of which is the implication that gratitude is an obligation. The idea that God demands our gratitude turns gratitude from a freely offered reaction to God’s love to a formal, superficial response. Gratitude that is not freely given is not really gratitude but rather the rote observation of a code of conduct. It does not come from the heart but is simply the fulfilment of an expectation. 

Another problem with an emphasis on gratitude is the implied judgement of the nine who did not return and the belief that Jesus’ comment is pejorative and judgemental. Certainly, Jesus expresses astonishment and perhaps disappointment that nine of the ten did not return, but after all they were doing what Jesus told them to do. 

Luke’s first readers will have noticed a number of other surprises that are at least, if not more, significant than gratitude or lack of it. Firstly, the one who did return was a Samaritan, a person who was doubly burdened by the disease and by his race, who was considered doubly unclean because of the leprosy and his exclusion from the religious practices of the Jews.  He was an outsider. He did not, could not belong.

Readers would also have been surprised that it was the Samaritan, a man who not Jewish by heritage, who was the only one of the ten to identify the hand of God in his healing and therefore the only one to recognise that Jesus was God, that is, the only one of the ten to demonstrate that he truly belonged in the family of God[2]. 

A third and perhaps the most important surprise for the first readers of this gospel would have been Jesus’ response to the Samaritan’s declaration. Here, unfortunately, our translation lets us down. The English usually reads: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” This leads us to the conclusion that faith and wellness are connected and to the misconception that if only we have enough faith we will be made well. In fact, it is only after the Samaritan notices that he is healed that he understands that the one who made him well is God – his healing has led to faith, not the other way around. 

The Greek text makes more sense of this order of events. Jesus actually says: “your faith has saved you”. By identifying Jesus as God, the Samaritan has been saved from exclusion and has earned the salvation previously associated only with the Hebrews. In other words, the Samaritan’s faith has earned him a place in the people of God. The one who was doubly excluded – from his community and from God’s family has been doubly saved – restored to his family and friends and saved in the sense of becoming a child of God.

In my experience, it is much easier to construct a faith based on rules and expectations. Many of us want to know what to do and how to behave so that we can be sure to get it right.  Such a view can lead to rote performances of gratitude and praise, a desire to please instead of a wiliness to be pleased.

The Samaritan shows us that our sense of belonging depends not on timidly, fearfully doing things that might earn us God’s good favour, but by recognising that God’s abundant love is already poured out on us and responding freely and spontaneously with joyful gratitude and praise that springs from our wonder and delight at all that God does in and for us.

Let us not be tied down by rote observance of rules, but liberated to joyfully and gratefully praise the God who has already saved us.

[1] That “leprosy” included diseases which could be cured or could be temporary, is evidenced by the fact that those who were “healed” could be reinstated into the community if the priest gave them the all-clear.

[2] In fact, the Samaritan has a unique role in this gospel as he is the only one apart from Peter, who identifies Jesus as God, a point that is often overlooked. 

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in healing, Luke's gospel | 1 Comment »

Who infects who? Woman with a haemorrhage.

July 2, 2024

Pentecost 6 – 2024

Mark 5:21-43

Marian Free

In the name of God who sees our deepest needs and sets us free. Amen.

Thanks to Reginald and Catherine Hamlin, the prevalence of obstetric fistula in Ethiopia became known and, more importantly, addressed. Their story is well known. The medical couple responded to an advertisement for a medico to establish a midwifery school in the hospital in Addis Adiba. Once there, it was not long before they observed the huge number of untreated injuries caused by childbirth. Instead of returning to New Zealand when their contract was completed, the couple founded the Addis Adiba Fistula Hospital. It is the only hospital of its kind and has treated over 60,000 women.

The tearing of the fistula during childbirth can have devastating consequences. It is especially prevalent in places where there is inadequate access to pre-and peri-natal care and where there are no midwives to assist with birth. In countries where child marriage is allowed and in which female circumcision is practiced the situation is even more dire. Girls whose bodies are not ready for childbirth become pregnant and genital mutilation can make the birthing process even more difficult. In Ethiopia something like 100,000 women and girls live with a fistula and around 9,000 new cases occur every year (this in 2022).

An obstetric fistula is a hole or tear that is created during a long or obstructed labour.  The tear creates a hole between the bladder and/or rectum which leads to leakage of urine or faeces over which the woman has no control. This in turn results not only in physical discomfort, psychological distress and infertility but also in rejection by the spouses and families of these women and social isolation. Rejected by their communities, young women who suffer from this condition become homeless and impoverished.

The medical situation of the woman with a haemorrhage in today’s gospel is different but the resulting situation is similar – rejection, isolation and penury. In the ancient world, blood, especially menstrual blood, rendered a woman unclean, a source of contamination and therefore as someone to be avoided. The woman with a haemorrhage would not only have been unclean, but also infertile. She would have been socially isolated and her value as a woman (able to bear children) would have been seriously compromised. The woman would have been an object of fear, isolated, destitute and desperate.

No wonder she takes her chance with Jesus. No wonder that she is driven to break the law, to cause offence and to risk the wrath of the crowds.  Jesus is her last and only hope of restoration – to health and to the community.

We know nothing of the woman, but we can imagine that she had been a person of some means, because she has, over the course of twelve years, been able to seek the help of doctors. Now she has spent all that she has on doctors – to no avail. 

Jesus’ reputation has reached the woman, and while the woman dare not appeal to him openly for fear of the crowd’s reaction, she presumably knows that that Jesus has not demonstrated an unwillingness to engage with those deemed unclean. After all, he has healed lepers who, like her are considered impure and forced to separate themselves from family and community. 

So when she learns that Jesus is near the woman somehow slips into the crowd, makes her way to Jesus and touches, not him, but his cloak.  Two things happen simultaneously – the woman knows that she is healed, and Jesus feels power flow from him to another. 

In Jesus, the process of contamination is reversed. His purity is not polluted by her impurity, her uncleanness does not taint him but rather her impurity is sanitised by his purity. His ‘power’, his pureness, moves from him to her, cleansing and restoring her. In healing the woman, Jesus not only sets her free from her suffering, but restores her to her family: “Daughter” he says.

It is easy to fool ourselves into believing that notions of purity and impurity belong to another time and age, but I challenge you  to think of the ways  in which we limit and exclude those who do not fit the norms of our own time, the ways in which we judge those with health issues that we do not understand, the barriers we place between ourselves and those who are different, the ways in which we exclude people from participation in things we take for granted. 

The examples are manifold so I shall only list a few – women with endometriosis who spend years and fortunes convincing doctors that they are unwell and are made to feel that the problem lies with them, the rough sleepers who endure our discomfort rather than our compassion and who feel our discomfort, fear and revulsion, our physical environments that make it impossible for the differently abled to fully participate in the lives we take for granted and which tell them of our indifference. Consciously or unconsciously, we isolate and protect ourselves from the suffering of others. 

Consciously or unconsciously, we send the message that we are repulsed or affronted by those whose situations we do not fully understand.

Time and again, Jesus demonstrates that compassion for and engagement with the despised and rejected takes nothing from himself and gives everything to them – restoring them physically, psychologically and socially. If we are willing to learn from his example, we will create a society in which everyone is valued, included and made whole, a world infected and transformed by kingdom of God.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in healing, Mark's gospel | Comments Off on Who infects who? Woman with a haemorrhage.

Breaking boundaries- Jesus at the well

March 11, 2023

It is usually trivial matters that keep us apart. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well challenges us to ask:

What “truths” do we hold on to that limit, separate and divide?

In what ways do we deny other full expression of their humanity?

Are we guilty of excluding from full participation to the community of faith or to the sacraments – baptism, Eucharist, marriage – those who do not fit our prescriptive norms?

 

Can we, like Jesus, to see beyond the external, to the superficial specifics, to the broader, deeper, more significant, shared faith in the one true God?

 

 

Lent 3 -2023

Luke 4:5-42

Marian Free

 

In the name of God for whom there are no boundaries, who sees and loves us just as we are. Amen.

 

Last week was International Pride Week – a whole week dedicated to celebrating the lives of all who do not fit the heteronormative profile.  It was an opportunity for members of the LGBTQI+ community to celebrate who they are and for the rest of us to celebrate the diversity of humanity. Community reaction was, by and large positive. Two things stood out for me. I had heard that the Uniting Church in Pitt St Sydney had painted their steps in the colours of the rainbow and had made it clear that theirs was a welcoming and inclusive church. Sadly some, unable to accept or tolerate difference, defaced the steps with grey paint[1]. In complete contrast, the Coles Supermarket chain used their free magazine to celebrate Pride week (with rainbow themed recipes) and to shine a light on the diversity and inclusiveness of their workforce.

 

While the wider population have come to a point where they can recognize the value of all people regardless of their gender identity, there are many (represented by our paint throwers) who want to judge, to draw boundaries and to exclude those who don’t fit their idea of who and what is acceptable.

 

Today’s gospel speaks to the issue of boundaries and in particular to the way in which Jesus ignored or defied boundaries which to him were arbitrary, unnecessary and even irrelevant when it came to the bigger picture of worshipping God. Jesus constantly caused offense by acknowledging, befriending and uplifting those whom his own community would exclude – lepers, sinners, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and even those with whom is own community is in serious conflict – the Samaritans.

 

Following on from Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus, John continues his story of Jesus with another encounter (the Samaritan woman), another opportunity to demonstrate the way in which Jesus introduces a puzzle (never thirst again) which provokes his conversation partner to question what he has said (are you greater than our father Jacob?). This in turn provides an opportunity for Jesus to elaborate, to develop the idea of living water and to build on the faith which he and the woman share. Through the process of discussion and discourse Jesus’ dialogue partner (the woman) comes to a deeper understanding and, in this instance, to faith and to proclamation.  

 

According to the gospel account, Jesus, having been in Jerusalem for Passover, is returning to Galilee. The quickest way to do this is to travel through Samaria – something which most Jews would avoid.  Tensions between the two groups of people were high and Jesus could not be certain of safe passage. The Samaritans were perhaps the worst kind of enemies – those who with whom the Jews had most in common, but with whom they disagreed on what to us are trivial matters – the date of Passover and the mountain on which Yahweh. That they had the same law and observed many of the same customs only made the differences between them more obvious and the tensions more extreme. They were competing for what they believed to be the truth[2] – the stakes could not be higher.

 

When Jesus asked the woman (a complete stranger) for a drink, he was overlooking centuries of enmity and more astounding, he was revealing his vulnerability – he needed help, the woman was in a position to give it. Immediately, he breaks down any reservations the woman might have. Though he is a Jew, he is vulnerable. He is not a threat.

 

In engaging the woman Jesus saw beyond her gender, ethnicity, religion and marital status to that which they had in common – faith in God and a longing for the kingdom to be restored. In the face of their shared faith, all other barriers dissolved. Instead of seeing difference Jesus saw what they shared, perhaps more importantly he recognised the woman’s spiritual thirst – a thirst he could slake. He saw too, that the woman needed help to move beyond the superficial observance of faith to a deeper, more personal relationship with God. In order to do this, Jesus began the conversation with a conundrum, piquing her interest and drawing her into discussion. The woman responded with what she knew, the visible and practical -whose well and which is the correct mountain on which to worship.  Jesus moved her beyond these trivial and earthly details (details which separate and divide), to what really mattered – the spiritual worship of the God in whom they both believe.

 

Instead of accentuating difference, or asking the woman (and her community) to conform to the Jewish practice of the faith, Jesus looked beyond the detail to the bigger picture – the faith that they shared – faith in the one true God. Instead of criticizing and condemning the Samaritan practice of faith, Jesus affirmed their faithfulness and shared with them the message that he had for all people. As a result, he broke the walls of enmity and with the help of the woman drew all her neighbours into a new, renewed relationship with God

 

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman (the longest recorded conversation that he has with anyone) shines a light on our own pettiness, our concern with details (rather than the big picture), our tendency to see difference rather than commonality and our willingness to judge and exclude those who hold a view other than our own.

 

Jesus was not concerned to know whether the Samaritan woman was rich or poor, promiscuous or chaste, Samaritan or Jew. He didn’t want to change or “fix” her. He saw beyond the outward appearance of social isolation and shame, to their shared faith and their shared longing and it was to her, a woman of Samaria, that he first revealed himself to be the Messiah.

 

It is usually trivial matters that keep us apart. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well challenges us to ask:

 

What “truths” do we hold on to that limit, separate and divide?

In what ways do we deny other full expression of their humanity?

Are we guilty of excluding from full participation to the community of faith or to the sacraments – baptism, Eucharist, marriage – those who do not fit our prescriptive norms?

 

Can we, like Jesus, to see beyond the external, to the superficial specifics, to the broader, deeper, more significant, shared faith in the one true God?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

[1] The rainbow was repainted.

[2] Similar differences – the date of Easter, and how to shave one’s head – were among the reasons that the church originally divided – into East and west.

Lent 3 -2023
Luke 4:5-42
Marian Free

In the name of God for whom there are no boundaries, who sees and loves us just as we are. Amen.

Last week was International Pride Week – a whole week dedicated to celebrating the lives of all who do not fit the heteronormative profile. It was an opportunity for members of the LGBTQI+ community to celebrate who they are and for the rest of us to celebrate the diversity of humanity. Community reaction was, by and large positive. Two things stood out for me. I had heard that the Uniting Church in Pitt St Sydney had painted their steps in the colours of the rainbow and had made it clear that theirs was a welcoming and inclusive church. Sadly some, unable to accept or tolerate difference, defaced the steps with grey paint . In complete contrast, the Coles Supermarket chain used their free magazine to celebrate Pride week (with rainbow themed recipes) and to shine a light on the diversity and inclusiveness of their workforce.

While the wider population have come to a point where they can recognize the value of all people regardless of their gender identity, there are many (represented by our paint throwers) who want to judge, to draw boundaries and to exclude those who don’t fit their idea of who and what is acceptable.

Today’s gospel speaks to the issue of boundaries and in particular to the way in which Jesus ignored or defied boundaries which to him were arbitrary, unnecessary and even irrelevant when it came to the bigger picture of worshipping God. Jesus constantly caused offense by acknowledging, befriending and uplifting those whom his own community would exclude – lepers, sinners, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and even those with whom is own community is in serious conflict – the Samaritans.

Following on from Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus, John continues his story of Jesus with another encounter (the Samaritan woman), another opportunity to demonstrate the way in which Jesus introduces a puzzle (never thirst again) which provokes his conversation partner to question what he has said (are you greater than our father Jacob?). This in turn provides an opportunity for Jesus to elaborate, to develop the idea of living water and to build on the faith which he and the woman share. Through the process of discussion and discourse Jesus’ dialogue partner (the woman) comes to a deeper understanding and, in this instance, to faith and to proclamation.

According to the gospel account, Jesus, having been in Jerusalem for Passover, is returning to Galilee. The quickest way to do this is to travel through Samaria – something which most Jews would avoid. Tensions between the two groups of people were high and Jesus could not be certain of safe passage. The Samaritans were perhaps the worst kind of enemies – those who with whom the Jews had most in common, but with whom they disagreed on what to us are trivial matters – the date of Passover and the mountain on which Yahweh. That they had the same law and observed many of the same customs only made the differences between them more obvious and the tensions more extreme. They were competing for what they believed to be the truth – the stakes could not be higher.

When Jesus asked the woman (a complete stranger) for a drink, he was overlooking centuries of enmity and more astounding, he was revealing his vulnerability – he needed help, the woman was in a position to give it. Immediately, he breaks down any reservations the woman might have. Though he is a Jew, he is vulnerable. He is not a threat.

In engaging the woman Jesus saw beyond her gender, ethnicity, religion and marital status to that which they had in common – faith in God and a longing for the kingdom to be restored. In the face of their shared faith, all other barriers dissolved. Instead of seeing difference Jesus saw what they shared, perhaps more importantly he recognised the woman’s spiritual thirst – a thirst he could slake. He saw too, that the woman needed help to move beyond the superficial observance of faith to a deeper, more personal relationship with God. In order to do this, Jesus began the conversation with a conundrum, piquing her interest and drawing her into discussion. The woman responded with what she knew, the visible and practical -whose well and which is the correct mountain on which to worship. Jesus moved her beyond these trivial and earthly details (details which separate and divide), to what really mattered – the spiritual worship of the God in whom they both believe.

Instead of accentuating difference, or asking the woman (and her community) to conform to the Jewish practice of the faith, Jesus looked beyond the detail to the bigger picture – the faith that they shared – faith in the one true God. Instead of criticizing and condemning the Samaritan practice of faith, Jesus affirmed their faithfulness and shared with them the message that he had for all people. As a result, he broke the walls of enmity and with the help of the woman drew all her neighbours into a new, renewed relationship with God

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman (the longest recorded conversation that he has with anyone) shines a light on our own pettiness, our concern with details (rather than the big picture), our tendency to see difference rather than commonality and our willingness to judge and exclude those who hold a view other than our own.

Jesus was not concerned to know whether the Samaritan woman was rich or poor, promiscuous or chaste, Samaritan or Jew. He didn’t want to change or “fix” her. He saw beyond the outward appearance of social isolation and shame, to their shared faith and their shared longing and it was to her, a woman of Samaria, that he first revealed himself to be the Messiah.

It is usually trivial matters that keep us apart. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well challenges us to ask:

What “truths” do we hold on to that limit, separate and divide?
In what ways do we deny other full expression of their humanity?
Are we guilty of excluding from full participation to the community of faith or to the sacraments – baptism, Eucharist, marriage – those who do not fit our prescriptive norms?

Can we, like Jesus, to see beyond the external, to the superficial specifics, to the broader, deeper, more significant, shared faith in the one true God?

.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel, Lent | Comments Off on Breaking boundaries- Jesus at the well

Breaking boundaries- Jesus at the well

March 11, 2023

 

Lent 3 -2023

Luke 4:5-42

Marian Free

 

In the name of God for whom there are no boundaries, who sees and loves us just as we are. Amen.

 

Last week was International Pride Week – a whole week dedicated to celebrating the lives of all who do not fit the heteronormative profile.  It was an opportunity for members of the LGBTQI+ community to celebrate who they are and for the rest of us to celebrate the diversity of humanity. Community reaction was, by and large positive. Two things stood out for me. I had heard that the Uniting Church in Pitt St Sydney had painted their steps in the colours of the rainbow and had made it clear that theirs was a welcoming and inclusive church. Sadly some, unable to accept or tolerate difference, defaced the steps with grey paint[1]. In complete contrast, the Coles Supermarket chain used their free magazine to celebrate Pride week (with rainbow themed recipes) and to shine a light on the diversity and inclusiveness of their workforce.

 

While the wider population have come to a point where they can recognize the value of all people regardless of their gender identity, there are many (represented by our paint throwers) who want to judge, to draw boundaries and to exclude those who don’t fit their idea of who and what is acceptable.

 

Today’s gospel speaks to the issue of boundaries and in particular to the way in which Jesus ignored or defied boundaries which to him were arbitrary, unnecessary and even irrelevant when it came to the bigger picture of worshipping God. Jesus constantly caused offense by acknowledging, befriending and uplifting those whom his own community would exclude – lepers, sinners, prostitutes, tax-collectors, and even those with whom is own community is in serious conflict – the Samaritans.

 

Following on from Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus, John continues his story of Jesus with another encounter (the Samaritan woman), another opportunity to demonstrate the way in which Jesus introduces a puzzle (never thirst again) which provokes his conversation partner to question what he has said (are you greater than our father Jacob?). This in turn provides an opportunity for Jesus to elaborate, to develop the idea of living water and to build on the faith which he and the woman share. Through the process of discussion and discourse Jesus’ dialogue partner (the woman) comes to a deeper understanding and, in this instance, to faith and to proclamation.  

 

According to the gospel account, Jesus, having been in Jerusalem for Passover, is returning to Galilee. The quickest way to do this is to travel through Samaria – something which most Jews would avoid.  Tensions between the two groups of people were high and Jesus could not be certain of safe passage. The Samaritans were perhaps the worst kind of enemies – those who with whom the Jews had most in common, but with whom they disagreed on what to us are trivial matters – the date of Passover and the mountain on which Yahweh. That they had the same law and observed many of the same customs only made the differences between them more obvious and the tensions more extreme. They were competing for what they believed to be the truth[2] – the stakes could not be higher.

 

When Jesus asked the woman (a complete stranger) for a drink, he was overlooking centuries of enmity and more astounding, he was revealing his vulnerability – he needed help, the woman was in a position to give it. Immediately, he breaks down any reservations the woman might have. Though he is a Jew, he is vulnerable. He is not a threat.

 

In engaging the woman Jesus saw beyond her gender, ethnicity, religion and marital status to that which they had in common – faith in God and a longing for the kingdom to be restored. In the face of their shared faith, all other barriers dissolved. Instead of seeing difference Jesus saw what they shared, perhaps more importantly he recognised the woman’s spiritual thirst – a thirst he could slake. He saw too, that the woman needed help to move beyond the superficial observance of faith to a deeper, more personal relationship with God. In order to do this, Jesus began the conversation with a conundrum, piquing her interest and drawing her into discussion. The woman responded with what she knew, the visible and practical -whose well and which is the correct mountain on which to worship.  Jesus moved her beyond these trivial and earthly details (details which separate and divide), to what really mattered – the spiritual worship of the God in whom they both believe.

 

Instead of accentuating difference, or asking the woman (and her community) to conform to the Jewish practice of the faith, Jesus looked beyond the detail to the bigger picture – the faith that they shared – faith in the one true God. Instead of criticizing and condemning the Samaritan practice of faith, Jesus affirmed their faithfulness and shared with them the message that he had for all people. As a result, he broke the walls of enmity and with the help of the woman drew all her neighbours into a new, renewed relationship with God

 

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman (the longest recorded conversation that he has with anyone) shines a light on our own pettiness, our concern with details (rather than the big picture), our tendency to see difference rather than commonality and our willingness to judge and exclude those who hold a view other than our own.

 

Jesus was not concerned to know whether the Samaritan woman was rich or poor, promiscuous or chaste, Samaritan or Jew. He didn’t want to change or “fix” her. He saw beyond the outward appearance of social isolation and shame, to their shared faith and their shared longing and it was to her, a woman of Samaria, that he first revealed himself to be the Messiah.

 

It is usually trivial matters that keep us apart. Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well challenges us to ask:

 

What “truths” do we hold on to that limit, separate and divide?

In what ways do we deny other full expression of their humanity?

Are we guilty of excluding from full participation to the community of faith or to the sacraments – baptism, Eucharist, marriage – those who do not fit our prescriptive norms?

 

Can we, like Jesus, to see beyond the external, to the superficial specifics, to the broader, deeper, more significant, shared faith in the one true God?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

[1] The rainbow was repainted.

[2] Similar differences – the date of Easter, and how to shave one’s head – were among the reasons that the church originally divided – into East and west.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel, Lent | Comments Off on Breaking boundaries- Jesus at the well

Sit down, Shut up, Listen up

July 9, 2022

Pentecost 5 – 2022
Luke 10:25-27
NAIDOC Week
Marian Free

In the name of God who shows no distinction but values all people. Amen.

At the beginning of the year Professor Josh Mylne, the Chair of the planning committee for the International Congress on Plant Molecular Biology (IPMB) tweeted a poster for the upcoming Conference. The poster featured head shots of all the headline speakers and the chairs for the various sessions – over 90 people in total. Professor Mylne, who had been working on the Conference since 2018 was proud of the line-up, especially the diversity that it displayed. As he told the ABC programme Science Friction: “We had one of the best gender balances I’d seen, career-stage diversity with younger and older scientists, so much different science — more than ever before — chairs from all around the world, including for the first time Africa and India.”

The poster had been shown to hundreds of people before it was tweeted, all of whom responded positively. It was not surprising then that Professor Mylne was taken aback when one of the responses to the tweet was: “International, and no Africans.” Professor Mylne had just cycled home and, instead of stopping to think, he quickly replied: “Look harder”, directing the tweeter to the one African face among the 94.” Of course, potential attendees did look harder, and discovered that not only was there only one person from an African nation. While Asia was well-represented and there was a good gender balance, African and South America speakers were notable by their absence. A closer look also revealed that the website for a conference that was to be held in Australia failed to include an acknowledgement of country.

Instead of dampening the fire, Mylne’s response ignited a blazing fire with the eventual result that one of the sponsors withdrew their support and the Conference itself was postponed.

By taking the tweet personally and by responding hastily, Mylne made the sort of mistake that many of us make. Instead of recognising the hurt (and sense of exclusion) behind the critical tweet, Mylne responded defensively which turned the hurt into outrage. His response was interpreted as “disrespectful” and “tokenistic”. The situation was only made worse when an email was sent to one of the critics suggesting that it was up to people of colour to fix the problem.

It would be good to report that a occurence such as this is unusual, that seeing a situation only from one’s own perspective was a rare occurrence in today’s Australia, but sadly the failure to listen carefully is illustrative of a common reaction towards those who are different from ourselves – migrants, refugees and most egregiously our indigenous community. Our best efforts – when they do not include diverse voices – can be experienced as paternalistic and condescending. Our responses to criticism often demonstrate a failure to hear and an unwillingness to adequately address the concerns of those who outside our field of vision. When our failures are drawn to our attention, we too often become defensive instead of being open, and graciously listening and responding to the grievances of those whom we have (deliberately or inadvertently) excluded, patronised, or offended.

Not being heard or having one’s concerns ignored or carelessly dismissed are experiences that our first Nations people know only too well. There have been amply opportunities (particularly in the past 50 years) for white Australians, policy makers and members of industry to respond to the injustices wrought upon indigenous Australians for generations, and yet our responses have been inadequate at best and detrimental at worst.

To mention just a few – despite the apology, children of indigenous families are still being removed in greater numbers than children of other Australians, despite the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody people of indigenous background are still over represented in our prisons, despite laws protecting sacred sites it was still possible to blow up the Juukan caves in Western Australia, despite commitments by the former Federal Government and the Uluru Statement from the Heart, first Nations people are still waiting to be recognised in our constitution and given a voice in government.

Since colonisation, we have not only forced indigenous people from their land, taken away their culture and their language, removed their children from their care, but we have also failed to listen to their wisdom, to appreciate their history and to value their knowledge of this land.

We cannot say that we have not been told – and told – what the problems are and how they can be solved. I was shocked, for example, when I heard Rachel Perkins deliver the Boyer Lecture of 2019 and hear her raising issues that had been raised by Professor Marcia Langton AO when she gave the Boyer Lecture in 2012. Nothing, it seemed had changed in the seven years between those lectures. It was a sad indictment on our failure to truly hear what was said or, if we had heard, our failure to respond in ways that demonstrated that we had heard and understood.

There will be no discernible change in this nation until we truly listen to the members of the indigenous community, to their rage, their indignation, their sense of injustice, their grief and their grievances, their sense of loss and dispossession and until we recognise their willingness to work with us and understand that they know better than we do, what the solutions for their own people might be.

Of all the meanings of today’s parable of the good Samaritan, the one that speaks to us today is that the outsider, the despised and the oppressed have much to teach us about generosity, inclusion and forgiveness, and about seeing and responding to the needs of those who are different from themselves no matter how badly the other has treated them.

The theme for NAIDOC week this year is Get up! Stand up! Show up!

Perhaps for white Australians it should be: “Sit down! Shut up! Listen up!”

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Indigenous Australians, Luke's gospel | Comments Off on Sit down, Shut up, Listen up

Angry enough to do something?

March 6, 2021

Lent 3 – 2021

John 2:13-22

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Amen.

On Friday I attended the UN Women’s International Women’s Day lunch. It was an inspiring, if somewhat gruelling experience – especially in the light of recent events. Australian of the Year, Grace Tame was the key speaker. I imagine by now that most of you know at least the outline of her story. Grace is a powerful and direct speaker, and she doesn’t spare her audience the intimate details of her ordeal. Sadly, her story is not unique, but even if you have heard other stories of abuse, you cannot help but be shocked and brought to tears as she recounts the way in which a much older man, a teacher in a position of trust, targeted her at her most vulnerable and manipulated her to the point where she felt utterly unable to refuse his sexual advances. How, in this day and age, could this man’s behaviour – in his office, on school grounds – go unnoticed? Why, in a world sensitised to child sex abuse, did no one notice or think to question what was going on? 

Equally shocking and revelatory was the speech by Dr Kirstin Ferguson who, at the beginning of her presentation provided a dramatic, visual illustration of the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace.  Before she began, Dr Ferguson asked those in attendance (men and women) to stand if they had ever experienced sexual harassment at work. At least two thirds of the room rose to their feet – two thirds of a room filled with professional people. Dr Ferguson went on to tell us that 1,600 hundred women a week, experience some sort of sexual harassment at work. 

Listening to the two women was a salutary and sobering experience.

What does it say about our society that a fifteen-year-old girl can be raped every day at school – in the office of a 58-year-old teacher? Who are we that one woman dies every week at the hands of someone who professes to love her? How is it that our aged care system is so broken that vulnerable older people are over-medicated, mistreated and badly fed? Why is that we cannot assume that our workplaces and schools are safe and nurturing environments? Why can’t we keep our children safe from abuse? 

Something at the very heart of human nature is broken. Countless Royal Commissions and changes to legislation have been powerless to bring about the institutional change that is required so that all people can live and work with dignity. More importantly, no amount of legislation has been able to bring about the personal transformation that is required to build a society in which all the vulnerable are protected and nurtured – not abused or exploited.

In today’s gospel Jesus is angry, very angry. He is angry that the Temple (or at least its forecourt) has been turned into a marketplace. He is angry because he can see the way in which Temple practices exploit the poor, take advantage of the vulnerable and exclude those who cannot take part in the Jewish rituals. 

This event is the most explicit description of Jesus’ anger. It is the moment at which all his frustration and rage reaches boiling point – resulting in his fashioning a whip so that he can drive traders and animals from the Temple and overthrowing tables covered with money. It is the most explicit expression of Jesus’ anger, but it is not the only time that he gets angry.

We know that Jesus got angry at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, at the indifference of the rich towards the poor and at the apathy of the comfortable towards those who were suffering. Jesus got angry when he saw the religious leaders put the law before compassion while congratulating themselves on their own state of righteousness. Jesus got angry at the complacency, self-satisfaction and judgementalism of those who thought themselves better than sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus got angry with those who put burdens on the shoulders of others and who created barriers which prevented them from seeing how much God loved them.  Jesus got angry at the failure of the disciples to understand, at their desire for power and at their belief that they should be rewarded for joining his cause. 

Most importantly, Jesus got angry because the religious institution of his day was broken. Despite John’s call to repentance nothing had changed. Jesus’ contemporaries still believed that the outward practices of sacrifice and ritual were sufficient. Jesus could see that what was really needed was a change of heart, repentance and personal transformation – all of which are much more difficult to achieve than simply presenting a semblance of goodness, observing rituals or consoling oneself with the knowledge that at least one is not as bad as the next person.    

Jesus got angry at injustice and suffering, at pretention and arrogance, at self-serving behaviour and at the refusal to take responsibility for one’s behaviour. Jesus got angry at indifference and inaction. 

Jesus saw a broken world. His grief and angry at what he saw spurred him into action. 

We live in a broken and damaged world, but do we get angry? Do we get angry enough about the exploitation of the poor, the disenfranchised or the refugee? Do we voice our anger loudly enough with regard to people trafficking and slavery? Do we speak out loudly enough against violence towards women or the abuse of children? Do we protest strongly enough about the neglect and abuse of the elderly or the destruction of indigenous sacred sites? Do we rage against injustice, corporate greed and the destruction of the planet? Do we rail against indifference and carelessness? Do we care enough to do something about what we see?

Our world is broken and needs from each of us a change of heart. When will we be angry enough to take action? 

.

 

 

   

. 

 

In the name of God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. Amen.

Equally shocking and revelatory was the speech by Dr Kirstin Ferguson who, at the beginning of her presentation provided a dramatic, visual illustration of the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace.  Before she began, Dr Ferguson asked those in attendance (men and women) to stand if they had ever experienced sexual harassment at work. At least two thirds of the room rose to their feet – two thirds of a room filled with professionals. Dr Ferguson went on to tell us that 1,600 hundred women a week, experience some sort of sexual harassment at work. 

Listening to the two women was a salutary and sobering experience.

\

 

. 

Tags:, , , , , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel, Lent | Comments Off on Angry enough to do something?

Besides women and children

August 1, 2020

Pentecost 9 – 2020

Matthew 14:13-21

Marian Free

“And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children.” Matt 14:21

In the name of God who by becoming one of us affirms the dignity of all humanity. Amen.

Some time ago I watched a rather harrowing movie – The Whistle-blower – starring Rachel Weisz. The movie is based on the real story of Kathryn Bolkovac, a police officer in Nebraska, who was recruited by an American company, DynCorp International. DynCorp had a contract with the United Nations to hire and train police officers for duty in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Kathryn had not been in Bosnia long when she came across Raya, a young Ukrainian woman, who had managed to escape from a brothel where she was being sexually exploited and abused. Raya had been trafficked across the border by the uncle of a friend who had persuaded both girls that he had found them a job in a hotel. It was a sophisticated operation. He had brochures of the hotel and job descriptions but in reality, he was preying on their financial vulnerability and their trust in him. When the girls arrived in Bosnia, they discovered that they had been sold into prostitution. If the movie was accurate, the conditions in which the women were kept was appalling and the brutality they experienced at the hands of their “keepers” was horrendous. 

Bolkovac endeavoured to find a place of safety for Raya only to discover that her employer, DynCorp was facilitating the sex trafficking and worse, that the international peacekeepers knew of the operation but chose to turn a blind eye. As a consequence, Raya’s whereabouts was leaked, she was recaptured, violently punished. Within a few weeks was shot dead as an example to others. Kathryn tried to bring the situation to the attention of the United Nations and as a result she received death threats and was fired. She took her employers to court for unfair dismissal and won, but while she reported that the company was involved in prostitution, rape and sex-trafficking, only local employees were prosecuted as UN contractors had immunity from prosecution.

The deliberate, calculating trafficking of people for profit is endemic. Despite the efforts of William Wilberforce and others in the late 18th, early 19th century, slavery is far from dead. At any one time in 2016 there were an estimated 40.3 million people held in slavery. Over 40 million people – that is 5.4 people for every thousand person on the planet! The statistics are horrendous:  

  • 51% of identified victims of trafficking are women, 28% children and 21% men
  • 72% people exploited in the sex industry are women
  • 63% of identified traffickers were men and 37% women
  • 99%  percent of all women and girls who are trafficked are trafficked into the commercial sex industry.[1]

Australia is not immune to this trade in human beings. In 2018, Anti-Slavery Australia helped over 123 people who had been trafficked to or from Australia.[2]  A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology published in February last year estimated that in 2015-16, 2016-7 the number of people trafficked or forced into slavery in Australia was between 1,300 and 1,900 meaning that for every person who is identified as being trafficked or enslaved, there are another four who are not identified.[3]

Trafficking is only the beginning of a lifetime of exploitation, torture and abuse.

There are millions of stories of trafficking, exploitation and abuse – slavery in the 21st century.

The human capacity to denigrate, dehumanise or ignore others is almost beyond comprehension. The ability to be blind to the talents, hopes and dreams of those who are different from ourselves almost defies belief. And yet, as is evidenced by modern day slavery, both are very real human characteristics. 

Whenever we view another person or group of people as lesser than ourselves, we are in danger of dehumanising them – as if there were gradations of being human. When we consider that another person is of less value than ourselves, we free ourselves to disregard their needs, their feelings and their ambitions which in turn frees us to treat them in ways that are cruel, degrading and exploitative. When we take the view that a person or group of people exists primarily as a source of our own comfort or our own enrichment, we become blind to their needs for comfort and security. Whenever people are put to use to improve the lifestyles of others, they are vulnerable to financial exploitation or to physical or sexual abuse. 

Failing to take notice of the gifts, talents and capacities of people whose race, background or economic status are different from our own, impoverishes all of us. We not only lose the contribution they could make to our society; we also allow our own selfishness free rein. At the same time, we also excuse ourselves from taking responsibility for their well-being, and fail to advocate on their behalf. 

In today’s gospel it is the women and children who are unnoticed. Jesus fed 5,000 men we are told by Mark and Luke to which Matthew adds as something of an afterthought: “besides woman and children”. Only John includes everyone in the story.

Throughout history many people have been left out of our story – women and children, the poor, the disenfranchised, the disadvantaged, the prisoner, people of colour, people whose faith is different from our own, people whose sexual orientation or gender identification does not conform – on and on it goes. 

If slavery and exploitation are to end, it has to begin here, with us – with our own attitudes, beliefs and values. 

Who are the people whom we leave out of the story and whom are we abandoning to potential abuse and exploitation by our ignorance, our blindness, our selfishness and our desire to pay less than a product is truly worth?

In other words, who are the “besides” in our story and what will it take from us to ensure that they are included?

[1] https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/human-trafficking/

[2] https://theconversation.com/human-trafficking-and-slavery-still-happen-in-australia-this-comic-explains-how-112294

[3] https://www.aic.gov.au/publications/sb/sb16

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Feeding of the five thousand, Matthew | Comments Off on Besides women and children

The proper place to worship

October 12, 2019

Pentecost 18 – 2019

Luke 17:11-19[i]

Marian Free

In the name of God, from whom nothing can separate us. Amen.

While it is part of a long, historic conflict, modern Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria represents some of the malaise of the modern world. In Israel, the United States and in parts of Europe, nations are building boundaries to separate themselves from their enemies (real or perceived) and to protect their interests and to provide a barrier between themselves and any kind of danger. Nations feel that not only their safety is at risk, but that their identity is being compromised and their resources stretched, so they create borders not only to bolster their own security and so that they can determine who goes out and who comes in. At the same time those whom they wish to exclude are stereotyped, demonised and excluded.

In the Hebrew world, boundaries related to personal purity rather than to personal safety. Six whole chapters in Leviticus deal with the issue of purity, the ways in which uncleanness can be avoided and the ways in which purity can be restored. Pollution or contamination could be communicated by the consumption of impure foods, the release of bodily discharges, by menstruation and childbirth and through skin disease. The first of these pertain to boundaries between the body and the external world. Approved and unapproved foods enter the body through the mouth; blood, children and bodily discharges cross the boundary of the body through other openings. “Leprosy[ii]” is a little different from other forms of contagion because it concerns an external skin complaint – a flaky, repulsive or scaly condition that crossed the boundaries of skin, clothes and walls. It was impossible for those with a skin disease to keep their contamination to themselves, so they were thrust out of their families and communities and forced to live on the outskirts of society. Like anyone who was considered to be unclean, they were also excluded from the Temple and therefor from the worship of God.

According to anthropologists, cultures that are concerned with the maintenance of safe and secure bodily boundaries, are often as concerned about societal and geographic boundaries – in part, because they risk being polluted by those who do not observe the same restrictions as they do.

We usually associate the account of the ten lepers with gratitude, but in fact it is as much about worship and about boundaries. The scene is set in an in-between place, the boundary between Galilee and Samaria. Differing views of scripture, worship and what it means to be holy had created tensions between the two peoples. Centuries of hostility between the Samaritans and the Jews meant that most people would prefer to make the much longer journey to Jerusalem rather than to travel through Samaria. Anyone travelling to Jerusalem would not want to risk exclusion from the Temple (usually the point of their journey) by being polluted by association with the Samaritans.

Throughout the gospel, Jesus has demonstrated that he finds boundaries restrictive, limiting and even inhumane. He mixes with sinners, allows himself to be touched by a woman with a haemorrhage and comes into contact with the dead. He is not afraid of pollution or contamination. Jesus’ own godliness or purity means that rather than impurity flowing from the unclean to himself, Jesus’ presence and goodness make clean, restore and heal those with whom he comes into contact. Jesus has no need to be afraid of being contaminated by the Samaritans.

He has barely entered Samaria when he is confronted by a group of lepers who dare not cross the invisible boundaries that separate them from their families, their communities and him. They beg Jesus, not for healing, but for mercy – a word that means he should meet his obligations to them! As Jews, they were “owed” membership in the holy community of Israel, freedom to return to their families, freedom to worship God in the Temple and they ask Jesus to make this possible – to break down the barriers that prevent their return. Jesus responds to their request by telling them to: “Go and show yourselves to the priests”. In other words: “Go to the Temple and worship God”.

Jesus’ instruction is all well and good for nine of the ten. Once certified as clean by the priests they will be free to enter the Temple and to worship God with other members of their community. But the tenth, the Samaritan, is caught in a dilemma. He sets off with the others but stops short. He knows will not be welcome in the Jewish Temple and that nothing the Jewish priests say or do will make him fit (in their eyes) to be a member of their worshipping community. Does he go instead to the Samaritan place of worship on Mount Gerizim and to his own priests? Where does he go to worship God? Then it comes to him – God is no longer to be found either in Jerusalem or at Gerizim. God is to be found in the person of Jesus.

The Samaritan turns back “praising God”. He bows his face to the ground at Jesus’ feet and thanks him – using a word only used in the Greek for thanks and praise given to God.[iii] He is commended and the nine are censured, not for giving thanks, but for returning to Jesus and giving praise to God.

The Samaritan, the outsider, recognised what the others from their privileged position of inclusion did not, that God was no longer to be encountered in the exclusive space of the Temple, but in the person of Jesus. In Jesus, the boundaries between clean and unclean, sacred and profane, insider and outsider are broken-down. The barriers between God and humanity have been torn apart. Through Jesus we have direct access to God. We do not need intermediaries to intercede for us or to praise God on our behalf. We are free to worship as we are and where we are. We have no need to feel worthy enough or holy enough to worship God.

It doesn’t matter where we are as long as together and individually we recognise all that God has done for us, and that we respond with praise and thanksgiving.

 

[i] I am indebted to John J. Pilch and Denis Hamm for some of these insights. (see http://www.liturgy.slu.edu for October 13, 2019)

[ii] What we know as leprosy is not very contagious and was not known in antiquity.

[iii] “eucharistein” is used in the Greek bible only for thanks and praise given to God.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Luke's gospel, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The proper place to worship

Exposed for all to see

August 29, 2015

Pentecost 14 – 2015

Mark 7:1-8, 14-23

Marian Free

 

Lord our God, our Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, we ask you to cleanse us from all hypocrisy, to unite us to our fellow men and women by the bonds of peace and love, and to confirm us in holiness now and forever. Amen.

Last week we looked – in a rather light-hearted way – at a number of the reasons people give for not inviting others to church. As I reflected on some of those reasons, it occurred to me that not one of us mentioned that the church was perceived as hypocritical. In the latter half of the last century if not before, the accusation of hypocrisy was often leveled at the church and used to justify non-attendance. If the subject of church attendance was raised, we were as likely as not to be told: “I don’t go to church, the church is full of hypocrites”. Those who made the accusation felt that the lives of churchgoers did not match the values and morals that they proclaimed to uphold. To be fair, this statement was made in an age in which the church had set itself up as the moral guardian of society at large and not only did many people feel burdened by the sometimes harsh demands placed on them, but on more than one occasion the church or its members had spectacularly fallen from grace. Issues such as fraud, adultery and underage sex all made front-page headlines and demonstrated that even members of the church were unable to achieve the high standards that they set for others.

The reputation of the church was seriously eroded long before the more recent revelations of the prevalence of child sex abuse in the church and its agencies.

It has been a long time since I have heard the hypocrisy of the church used as a reason for someone not to come to worship or as a justification for abandoning the faith. The reason for this is simple. Over the last decade or so the human frailty of the church has been laid bare for all to see. In the light of catastrophic failures such as child sex abuse it has become impossible for the church to continue to claim the high moral ground and difficult for us to impose on others standards of behaviour that we ourselves cannot consistently achieve. Collectively, we have been forced to concede that we cannot always live out what we preach.

I don’t know about you, but I find this new situation strangely liberating. It means is that we no longer have to pretend. Instead of trying to present a perfect face to the world, we can now be honest about our brokenness and frailty. Instead of standing apart from (dare I say above) society as a whole, we can admit our common humanity. Instead of constantly striving to be what we are not, we can finally relax and let people see us as we really are – imperfect, struggling human beings, set apart only by virtue of our belief in the God revealed by Jesus Christ.

While the exterior of the church may be tarnished and our failures laid bare for all to see, we have been set free from the unnecessary burden of pretence. Now that there is no longer anything left to hide, now that it is impossible to pretend that we are something that we are not, we can concentrate on our true vocation – being in a relationship with the God who accepts us as we are, frees us from guilt and fear and challenges us to strive for wholeness and peace – for ourselves and for others.

Our gospel this morning warns us against giving priority to rules in the belief that somehow we can achieve a degree of godliness simply by our own efforts. It is a reminder that it is what we try to be, not what we pretend to be that really matters. Authentic living, the gospel suggests, means that we should not elevate our public image at the expense of an honest and authentic engagement with and identification with the world at large.

These are lessons that for today’s church have been hard-won but, thanks to the failures of the past, it is much clearer now that the church (the Christian faith) is less about codes of behaviour and more about love, less about being good and more about being with God, less about judgement and more about forgiveness, less about guilt and more about acceptance, less about anxiety and more about confidence, less about exclusion and more about inclusion and most importantly that it is less about putting on a face and more about being real.

We come to church, not because we believe that we are better than everyone else, but because we know that we are not. We come to church as we are – broken and lost – knowing that we are assured of a welcome from the God who forgives the sinner, seeks the lost, embraces the prodigal, lifts the fallen and who longs to heal, forgive and restore a humanity that has lost its way.

This is what we (the church) have to offer the world – not a false image of perfection, but an assurance that God who loved us enough to die for us, is waiting with outstretched arms until each of us finds our way home.

 

As Rowan Williams said in his enthronement sermon: “The one great purpose of the Church’s existence is to share that bread of life, to hold open in its words and actions a place where we can be with Jesus and to be channels for his free, unanxious, utterly demanding, grown-up love. The Church exists to pass on the promise of Jesus – You can live in the presence of God without fear; you can receive from God’s fullness and set others free from fear and guilt.”

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Mark's gospel | Comments Off on Exposed for all to see

Shepherds and sheep

September 7, 2013

Pentecost 16

Luke 15:1-15

Marian Free

 In the name of God who will not be bound by human convention or constrained by human wisdom, and whose love extends to all. Amen.   

When we were in Tanzania, we observed the local Masai herdsmen (often children) herding their sheep to pasture in what seemed to be a harsh and unforgiving land. Each person had somewhere between ten and twenty sheep and they were kept together with a switch. I don’t know, but I assume the loss of one sheep due to carelessness would have been a serious matter when the total number was so low.

How different from the Australian experience! When I was young I visited a sheep station that was 100 square miles in size. The boundaries were fenced as were the interior paddocks – no opportunity for sheep to wander off. Shepherding was required only when it was time to move the sheep from one pasture to another and then it was done from the back of a motorbike – no switch and no personal relationship between shepherd and sheep. I can no longer remember how many sheep the landowner stocked on the property, but I clearly remember a delivery of sheep. A double, two-layer sheep trailer disgorged its contents in front of us – probably in the vicinity of two hundred sheep. In the crush of the transport one had died. The farmer immediately took out his knife and skinned it in front of us. Before our holiday had ended, that sheep had contributed to at least one evening meal. When such large numbers of livestock are involved, there is no room for sentimentality. Pragmatism rules the day.

But back to our Tanzanian experience which is a much better illustration of today’s parable. Small herds are not only more precious, they are better able to be cared for in a more intimate way. There is no need for them to be herded on to freight trains or abandoned to their own devices far from the homestead. Small herds can be protected from wild animals which Australian fences do not deter and it is easy to recognise when one is missing. Every evening the animals are returned to the village where they are contained behind a fence in the centre of the huts so that they will be safe until morning. Every morning they are taken from the pen to once again find pasture.

From what we can gather, herding in Jesus’ day was similar to that of the East African experience. There were some notable differences. The Palestinian herdsmen didn’t necessarily return to a village in the evening (think of the shepherds to whom the angels relayed the news of Jesus’ birth). Instead, crude walls out of stones were made in the pastures to protect the livestock from predators. These sheepfolds seem to have been ad hoc structures – in any case, they were constructed without a gate. In the evening, the shepherd would herd the animals into the enclosure and then lie in front of the opening so as to be able to prevent wild enemies from entering. The shepherds may have built fires for warmth and added protection, but all that kept the animals safe from harm was their shepherd’s ability to aim a sling or to otherwise deter or frighten off an attacker.

Seen from the perspective of shepherding in Israel, Jesus’ parable about the lost sheep is far from a benign, feel good story. Jesus’ audience would have justifiably been shocked and outraged. What sort of shepherd abandons ninety-nine sheep to the wolves in order to go off and search for one that is missing? Wolves or hyenas could cause far greater loss to the shepherd among ninety-nine unprotected sheep, than to one isolated sheep. In other words, for the sake of the one, the shepherd is risking several, if not all, of the others.

You can almost hear the gasps of Jesus’ listeners – the Pharisees, the tax collectors and the sinners. They are not herdsmen, but they have some idea of animal husbandry – even the biggest cities of Palestine are not far from the countryside. Is this shepherd crazy they must be wondering? What is one sheep when you have ninety-nine safe and sound? It gets even worse.  Not only does the shepherd abandon those sheep which have kept close to him, but when the shepherd recovers the sheep which has strayed, he calls all his neighbours over to rejoice with him. Surely that is an over reaction. A party for a lost sheep?

Jesus has almost certainly caught the attention of his listeners. They are probably beginning to wonder what sort of meaning he can draw from the story. How can he use a story about a lost sheep to defend eating with tax collectors and sinners which, in the eyes of the Pharisees breaks the codes of purity and implies that he overlooks their obvious sinfulness. What they have not realised is that the story is a not so subtle attack on their own arrogance and self-satisfaction and a challenge for them to re-assess their understanding of God. Jesus piques their interest and then he goes in for the kill. This is what heaven is like he says. God (we are to suppose) seeks out not the upright, not the law-abiding, but those who have strayed. The people whom the Pharisees despise, exclude and denigrate are the very people whom heaven will seek out and rejoice to welcome home.

What a slap in the face that must have seemed to the Pharisees.  From what we can tell these righteousness and law-abiding people, believed that behaviour set them apart from those around them and assured them of a place in heaven before all others. Jesus’ story about the lost sheep is an affront to everything they had been led to believe and it was a direct attack on their attitude towards those who didn’t achieve their high standards of behaviour. They think that entrance into heaven is something that has to be earned by keeping the law, by prayer and by fasting, that God has particular standards that people have to reach before God will grant them salvation. At the same time they are so sure of that they are right that they have made themselves both judge and jury of the behaviour of others. Anyone who doesn’t conform to their standards is, they believe, automatically excluded from the heavenly realm.

Jesus puts the lie to that belief. Contrary to God’s abandoning and turning his back on sinners, God does what for the Pharisees is unthinkable – God seeks out those who are lost and takes more pleasure in the return of a sinner than in those whose very goodness leads them to forget how much they need God and who believe that their righteous behaviour sets them apart from and above everyone else.

There are times in our lives when we wander from the path, and when we do, God seeks us out and brings us home rejoicing. At other times we find ourselves safe and secure in the fold. At such times it is important that we remember the love sought us out and that we do not begrudge the fact that God extends that love to those who in the present are lost. Having been found, it is important that we do not allow ourselves to be smug or self-satisfied, that we do not think that we better or more worthy than others. We are all beneficiaries of God’s love and we are all dependent on God’s forgiveness. God’s loving forgiveness seeks us out, overlooks our faults, restores us to the fold and welcomes us with rejoicing into the realms of heaven.

Tags:, , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Luke's gospel | Comments Off on Shepherds and sheep

« Older Entries