Posts Tagged ‘offence’

The offence of the Gospel

August 14, 2021

Pentecost 12 – 2021

John 6:51-58

Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.

A recent post on Facebook directed me to an article written in September 2019 for Esquire by Shane Claibourne. He wrote: “To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity. Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.” It is quite a confronting statement. He goes on to quote a (then) recent study of the top three perceptions of Christians among young non-Christians in the United States. Their opinion of Christians in that nation was that they were anti-gay, judgement and hypocritical.

I understand and share Claibourne’s angst. It grieves me to observe that collectively, the church – at least in the western world – causes offense in all the wrong ways. Instead of being generally respected, the church today is often a source of scepticism, ridicule and even of anger. To take the most recent example, the churches are currently under attack for (possibly) making a profit out of Jobkeeper. We have lost our standing in the wider community and have become a target for criticism rather than for congratulation. Much of the great work that is undertaken by the church throuhg our welfare agencies goes unnoticed and our misdemeanours are writ large in the public eye.

There are a multitude of factors that have contributed to our fall in grace. These include the fact that we have promoted obedience to a set of rules rather than submission to a God of love and we have focussed on the afterlife (be it heaven or hell) rather than emphasising what faith has to offer in the present. Instead of being seen as promoting social justice, radical inclusion, and unconditional love the church as a whole is more likely to be identified with upholding conservative values, preaching exclusion, or preserving the status quo. In recent times we could have been accused of protecting our own self-interests (the Freedom of Religion Bill being one such example) and of making out that we are being persecuted. We might have been better to acknowledge to ourselves that our place in the public eye has changed considerably during our own lifetimes.

During this period our hypocrisy and lack of openness have been laid bare as the scandal of child sex abuse has been revealed and as high-profile church leaders have been exposed as having extra-marital affairs or having embezzled church funds. We can no longer hide behind a veil of respectability and nor can we afford to take the moral high ground.

Of course, I’m using a very broad brush here. The criticisms I’ve listed cannot be levelled at all churches, but the general public do not necessarily distinguish between the traditional churches and the more recent, more conservative non-denominational churches. In the minds of many we are all grouped together – the sins (or neglect) of one are attributed to us all. Publicly, the voice that receives the greatest attention tends to be the Australian Christian Lobby which, at best, tells us something about how quiet our voices now are or, at worst, how disinterested the public has become in what we, the mainline churches have to say.

These days, as I have said, the church seems to cause offense for all the wrong reasons. Yet there have been times in recent memory when the church caused offence for all the right reasons. For example, in the late 1980’s our voices were raised in support of legislation related to gun control and Anglicans across Australia signed petitions in favour of tougher gun ownership laws. When Bob Hawke’s promise that “no child would live in poverty by 1990” began to falter, mainline churches lobbied successive governments to try make that promise a reality. Nationally today Anglicare continues to argue for a living wage for all people, but that receives little media attention.

Today’s gospel centres around offense. Jesus makes the challenging statement that: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you”.  To his Jewish audience for whom the eating of blood was absolutely forbidden, this saying, taken at face-value, was utterly offensive. Despite this, and despite the fact that Jesus, and possibly the author of this gospel, were Jews, Jesus repeats this point at least six times – “eat my flesh, drink my blood, eat my flesh, drink my blood” over and over.

I hazard a guess that if we were hearing this for the first time we would be discomforted if not appalled.

No matter what he did, Jesus managed to cause offense in one quarter or another. Whether he was healing on the Sabbath, dining with sinners and tax collectors, confronting the authorities, breaking the law, or questioning long held traditions Jesus seemed to manage to put someone or some group offside. Jesus was always on the side of the oppressed, the disadvantaged and the demonised. This, needless to say, put him into conflict with the ruling authorities. Yet even though Jesus knew that he was causing offense and even though people rejected him and rejected his teaching, he could not stop. He knew who he was and what he was called to do, and nothing (not even the threat of death) would stand in his way.

If we are truly followers of Jesus, we too should be among those who cause offense by challenging unjust structures, lobbying on behalf of the marginalised and the dispossessed, and questioning laws that oppress rather than liberate.

For many of us it would go against the grain but perhaps, just perhaps, in the name of Christ we should cause offense. Instead of trying to fit in we should try to stand out, instead of being silent we should raise our voices for the needy, the destitute and the burdened and instead of trying to present ourselves as perfect, we should humble admit our shortcomings. Maybe then, those who are longing for God’s kingdom to come, will see in us a community determined to see it come about.

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Risking it all

June 2, 2018

Pentecost 2– 2018

Mark 2:23- 3:6

Marian Free

 

In the name of God, who gives us the truth and trusts us to pursue it and not compromise it. Amen.

Those of us who read know that novelists have a gift for building suspense. Detective novels for example, are written in such a way as to totally confuse the reader. Once the crime is committed, there are often there are a number of red herrings that lead the reader to consider most of the characters as potential suspects and to keep them guessing until the very end of the novel when the real culprit and his or her motivation are finally exposed. Romantic novels are also suspenseful. Authors make the reader follow a torturous path of separations and misunderstandings before the two lovers finally admit their love for one another. Every genre of literature – fiction and non-fiction alike – has a particular style or format designed to capture and maintain the attention of the reader.

This is no less true of the gospels. We do not know who wrote the gospels and scholars cannot agree as to what genre of literature they belong but it is clear that each gospel has a particular structure and a particular intention – that of supporting the communities who have come to faith in Jesus and of encouraging others to believe in Jesus. The gospels were not written by Jesus’ disciples – uneducated fishermen and tax-collectors, they were written by second or third generation Christians who were compelled to collect the stories of Jesus at a time when the church was separating from the synagogue and developing a life of its own. There was an anxiety that stories that were repeated from memory were in danger of being embellished. The gospel writers wanted to gather Jesus’ teaching and the account of his life before it was altered beyond recognition.

While we do not know the identities of the gospel writers, we can make a number of assumptions based on the gospels themselves. Only about 1% of the people in the first century could read or write, so we know that our authors had some form of education and whether through formal learning or through the absorption the culture of the educated class, our authors had a knowledge of rhetoric and thus were able to construct their accounts of Jesus’ life in a way that was not dry and uninteresting, but which even today is engaging and even suspenseful.

I have said previously that it is generally agreed that the first gospel to be written is that of Mark. Mark’s gospel is more concise and less accurate than that of Matthew and Mark and his use of the Greek language is much less sophisticated. However an examination of his narrative style and his use of literary techniques reveals that the author is a skilled storyteller. As we journey through Mark’s gospel during the remainder of this year some of the skills that he used will be revealed.

Conflict is a key characteristic of Mark’s gospel – conflict with Satan, conflict with the authorities, conflict with his family, conflict with the disciples and in the end conflict with the crowds who have followed him. Mark introduces conflict at the very start of the gospel and arranges the material in such a way that the conflict continues to intensify throughout the gospel until it culminates with Jesus’ death.

After a brief introduction, Mark introduces the conflict with Satan in the wilderness. Then, no sooner has Jesus begun his ministry and chosen the first disciples, than a representative of Satan in the form of a man with an unclean spirit challenges him (as the demons will continue to do in the first part of the gospel). From the beginning of chapter 2 to 3:6, Mark reports a series of “controversy stories” – Jesus is accused of blasphemy, criticised for eating with tax-collectors and sinners, challenged because his disciples do not fast andbecause they pluck grain on the Sabbath and finally he is attacked because he heals on the Sabbath. At the conclusion of this section, the tension has built to such an extend that: “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”

The story has barely begun and already a number of things have become evident: Jesus was engaged in a battle with the forces of evil (who recognised his divinity), he offended the Pharisees by doing things that only God can do (forgiving sins) and by breaking the Sabbath. At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry Mark hints that the story is going to end badly – Jesus’ enemies will destroy him. A sense of foreboding hangs over Mark’s gospel from the beginning that deepens when Jesus enters Jerusalem and is challenged by the priests.

Jesus does not change his behaviour to accommodate his opponent’s ideas or to quell their fears. He doesn’t compromise his mission for the sake of his own safety or so that he can fit in with those around him. Throughout his mission Jesus manages to cause affront to those who are self-satisfied and to challenge those who keep outdated rules for the sake of keeping rules. The Jesus of Mark’s gospel is confrontational and uncompromising.

Through a focus on conflict, Mark makes it clear that the gospel as he understands it is not about conforming or fitting in, it is about challenging embedded injustice, questioning outdated rules, re-thinking ancient traditions and above all demonstrating compassion for the marginalised and the despised. The Jesus of Mark’s gospel makes it clear that being true to the gospel has the potential to put us at odds with the world around us. Mark doesn’t promise us comfort. His gospel assures us that as Jesus faced conflict, so too will those who follow in his footsteps.

Mark’s gospel challenges us to ask ourselves – How much have we sacrificed in order to fit in with the world around us? Have we compromised the gospel in order to avoid giving offence? When it comes to living out our faith, do we play it safe, or are we prepared to risk all for what we believe to be true, what we believe to be right?

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Causing offense

May 16, 2015

Easter 7 – 2015

John 17:6-19

Marian Free

 In the name of God who with us enters into the messiness of this world and who endures the hatred of those who do not understand and cannot accept God. Amen.

Modern technology is wonderful. On my computer I have a wonderful Bible programme called Accordance. With the push of a button I can find out how many times a word occurs in a particular book of the bible and how that compares with its occurrence in other books. For example, I have just popped in the word “κοσμος” (world). The “hits graph” shows me that this word occurs far more often in John’s gospel that anywhere else in the New Testament – far outweighing its occurrence in the other gospels and most of the other books. Further, the graph indicates that John’s use of ‘kosmos” increases (quadruples) in the later chapters – as you can see for yourselves.

Occurrences of cosmos in New Testament

Occurrences of cosmos in New Testament

For those who are interested in such things, the word “kosmos” occurs 78 times in John’s gospel, 23 in 1 John and 21 in 1 Corinthians. The concordance key tells me exactly where to find each of the 186 occurrences of the word, so were I to be researching this in detail I could examine each usage in its context to determine whether the New Testament writers use the word in the same or different ways which in turn would tell me something about the message that each author is trying to present. Today I am content to note that the majority of occurrences of the word in John’s gospel occur in chapter 17, the portion of the gospel assigned to us this morning.

In John’s gospel the word “kosmos” is used in a number of ways that can be summarised: “the world in contrast to the heavens”, “the created world” and “human society”. It can be used positively, negatively and neutrally. So for example the created world is neutral and the world in contrast to the heavens is negative. When the word is used in the sense of humanity, it can be used in all three senses: “the world has gone after him” (12:19 – neutral), “God so loved the world” (3:16 – positive), “the world has hated them because they are not of the world” (17:14 – negative).

John’s gospel presents Jesus as a divisive figure. The way in which people respond to him reveals their innermost self, their true character. According to John, Jesus does not come to condemn the world but to save the world, however by their reaction to Jesus, people in effect judge themselves. That is, they make a choice to accept or to reject Jesus. In rejecting Jesus, they reject God and in turning way from Jesus they demonstrate that they are not able to accept Jesus’ word (a word that he has received from God). Their rejection of Jesus demonstrates that they belong to the world (that is the world that is opposed to Jesus and therefore to God).

According to John’s gospel, the very presence of Jesus is unsettling. The people who reject him are disquieted by him, either because they don’t understand what he is about, or because they feel exposed (he knows who they really are). At the same they don’t really understand their reaction and this makes them even more uncomfortable. They need to find a reason to be disturbed by someone who teaches what he teaches, does what he does (who is as good as he is). As is so often the case, what they do not fully understand, they hate. The “world” (humanity) thus becomes divided between those who accept and follow Jesus and those who do not. Jesus’ “own” are distinguished from those who are not his own. The disciples are distinguished from the “world”, those who do not believe.

In chapter 17, Jesus’ farewell prayer for the disciples, Jesus warns the disciples that they can expect the same reception form the “world” as he himself received. If his presence was divisive, theirs will provoke the same reaction, if Jesus’ teaching and actions caused disquiet, then the disciples, who teach and do the same things, can expect to cause disquiet. If people responded to that disquiet by hating Jesus, the disciples can expect that same hatred to be directed at them.

It would be wrong, as a result of reading Jesus’ farewell speech (15-17) to believe that Jesus thought that the world was inherently evil. It would be equally mistaken to think that Jesus was urging the disciples to somehow remove themselves from the world, to protect themselves from the taint of all that was worldly. Nothing could be further from the truth – God loves the world and in sending Jesus God hoped to save the world. Nor is the world to be rejected because it has rejected Jesus, God’s desire is still that it be saved. The disciples are only at risk of being hated, because Jesus is sending them into the world. Jesus very specifically says that he is not asking God to take them out of the world, but to give them the strength and courage that they will require to withstand the hatred that their very presence will generate. (If sharing God’s word was difficult for Jesus, it will be just as difficult for those who continue his work – they will only be able to carry out their work with God’s support.)

Like Jesus, the disciples are not to withdraw from the world, but to be fully engaged in and with the world no matter how uncomfortable or how costly that might be. The world will not be impacted by their presence if, to ensure their comfort and safety they hide themselves away. The world will not come to know God if God, through the disciples, is not made known to the world.

In the twenty-first century we, Jesus’ modern day disciples, are not concerned that world might hate us. Jesus’ prayer seems to us to relate to a past time and situation. For centuries the institution of the church has been so embedded in the world, that we have not had to think about being sent out by Jesus, nor have we had to endure the consequences of being misunderstood.

In a changing situation, it is important to revisit Jesus’ prayer and to ask ourselves:

How well do we represent Jesus/God in the world today?

Have we become so indistinguishable from the world that we no longer cause offense?

Are we so complacent about God’s word that we barely disturb the complacency of those around us?

If our lives and our presence are not disquieting how can we expect to unsettle and change the lives of others?

How do we need to change such that Jesus’ prayer for the disciples is Jesus’ prayer for us today?

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