Posts Tagged ‘outsiders’

Insiders and outsiders

June 9, 2018

Pentecost 3 – 2018

Mark 3:20-35

Marian Free

In the name of God who does not observe conventional boundaries and who brings the outsider in and challenges the insider to rethink their ideals and their values. Amen.

I don’t need to tell anyone that families are complicated beasts. An ideal family provides nurturing and safe place in which there is a genuine desire that each member is given the space and resources to develop their full potential. The reality however is sometimes very different. Children, and even parents can compete with one another for the limelight. Some parents want to live out their missed opportunities through their children and others want their children to follow in their footsteps. Even though most of us have good intentions, we can unwittingly bring to our relationships our own experience of family and our unmet needs.

Families may not be perfect, but most of us stumble through and our lives are enriched by the relationships and the security that family affords and most of us retain our loyalty to and our love for our families despite their flaws.

In the first century family life was complicated by the cultural norms of honour and shame and of the collective personality. Individualism as we know it did not exist. Society consisted of a web of relationships and individuals existed in relationship only to others – primarily to their extended families. At the same time a person’s honour was their most precious possession and had to be guarded zealously. A man’s reputation (his honour) could be negatively impacted or seriously undermined not only by his deeds but also by the actions of his family (who were seen as extensions of himself). Expectations of family members were much higher a result.

According to today’s gospel Jesus’ behaviour had led his family to believe that: “he had gone out of his mind” . It is not surprising then, that they determined to “restrain him”. The reputation of his brothers, his mother and his sisters and their standing in the community were at stake. We don’t immediately hear how this part of the story works out because Mark interrupts the discussion with a comment from “the scribes who came down from Jerusalem” who, while acknowledging that Jesus was possessed of power to heal, claimed that his power derived from Satan . When Mark returns to the story of Jesus’ family the reader is shocked to hear that Jesus not only ignores their call, but completely dissociates himself from them.

By placing these stories together Mark suggests that Jesus’ family was as misguided as the scribes. They were concerned with superficial issues such as reputation. They misinterpreted his teaching, his healing and the attention of the crowds as madness. The scribes, who were perhaps threatened by Jesus’ popularity, could not believe that God was at work through him (or indeed that God could be at work in the world). They refused to believe that a nobody from Galilee could work miracles that they themselves were unable to perform. They resented the fact that Jesus was liberating the poor and the marginalised from illness and possession.

Jesus pointed out the foolishness of the scribes’ point of view. Satan, he says, simply has no interest in relinquishing his power over individuals and certainly would waste no time in setting them free from the cords that bound them – to do so would only weaken Satan and ultimately destroy him – which would be counter- productive to Satan’s goal of controlling the world!

The actions of both Jesus’ family and the scribes reveal not only their lack of understanding, but that they in fact are in league with Satan. Both have committed the “unforgivable sin” – mistaking God for Satan and by standing in the way of God’s work in the world. They are unable to see God’s compassion and grace being worked out through Jesus – in fact they reject that very possibility. They have confused the divine with its opposite and what is worse, is that both Jesus’ family and the scribes try to stop Jesus – the family by restraining him, the scribes by denouncing him. Their hearts are hardened and their eyes are blinded to the presence of God’s liberating grace. They themselves have not been set free from the powers that bind them (honour in the case of the family, cynicism in the case of the scribes) and they cannot rejoice when others are set free.

That Jesus would reject his family is shocking even now. That he would put his family in the same category as the scribes and even Satan seems utterly outrageous.

Through his teaching and healing ministry, Jesus broke apart the conventional ways of behaving and of seeing the world. He opened up new possibilities for those willing and able to recognise the potential to bring about healing and wholeness for the world. Those who had not as yet identified their own brokenness resisted and condemned him, unable to relinquish their pre-existing points of view (as to how things should be done and who should do them).

Jesus broke down the barriers that separated people from one another and from God. His acts of healing restored them to family and to society, his teaching freed them to experience God’s love and compassion in their lives. Jesus redefined the meaning of family (personal and religious)– insiders became outsiders and outsiders become insiders. Insiders were no longer defined by belief or by blood, but by their relationship to God, their willingness to see God in Jesus and their desire to work with and not against God.

Insiders were (and are) those who are not concerned with reputation or position in the world, who are not rigidly locked into a particular way of seeing things, who do not resent God’s blessings being bestowed on the unlikely and the unworthy and who are not afraid to see God at work in new and unexpected ways.

For different reasons both Jesus’ family and the scribes are determined to stop him and as a result are exposed for whom they really are – people closed to the possibility that God might be at work in the world.

Let us pray that we do not make the same mistake, but remain open, expectant and excited by what God might be yet to do.

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Entering into the gospel of Luke

January 9, 2016

The Baptism of our Lord – 2016

Luke 3:15-22

Marian Free

In the name of God who opens our eyes and sends us out to waken the world to its salvation. Amen.

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany – the year of Luke has crept up on us, obscured in part by our celebration of a number of festivals that are best illustrated by readings from the other gospels. Year C, the year of Luke began on the first Sunday of Advent. This means that once again we will make our way though the third gospel. As we do we will become familiar with those themes and ideas that distinguish Luke’s account from that of Matthew and Mark and we will begin to discern what the differences tell us both about the author and about those for whom it was written.

In order to fully understand Luke, we have to place the gospel in context. There is a strong consensus that the first gospel to be written was that attributed to Mark. Scholars believe that Matthew and Luke used Mark as the basis for their own accounts but that they also had a common source. So for example, some of the parables and sayings that have been added are common to both Matthew and Luke – for example the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount are absent from Mark, but used by Matthew and Luke.

At the same time, both Matthew and Luke have material that is unique to them. Matthew alone records the parables of the ten bridesmaids and the separation of the sheep and the goats. It is only Luke who records our best-loved and most well-known parables those of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.  From this we conclude that Luke used Mark, a source that he had in common with Matthew and material that only he knew.

Among the gospel writers Luke has a further claim to our interest. He alone wrote two volumes – the gospel and the Acts of the Apostles – the life of Jesus and the history of the early church.  The author of Luke is concerned with salvation history.  He divides time into a number of periods – the era of the promises of God, the  interim time of John the Baptist and the infancy of Jesus, the time of Jesus, the interim of the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension and Pentecost and the time of the Church that will end when Jesus returns.

Like the rest of the gospel writers Luke must confront the conundrum that by and large the Jews have not embraced Jesus whereas the Gentiles.  Luke deals with this in at least three ways. He writes in such a way as to develop demonstrate the continuity of Jesus with Judaism, beginning by formally introducing John as the last of the Old Testament prophets and he frames the story with Jerusalem – the Jews most sacred space. This is to illustrate his argument that salvation in the form of Jesus came to the heart of Judaism and it was there that it was rejected before being offered to the Gentiles. In comparison to Matthew whose gospel has a Jewish focus, Luke is keen to demonstrate that Jesus has relevance for the whole world. Luke’s genealogy goes back all the way to Adam – making Jesus’ humanity (rather than his Jewishness) blatantly clear.

There are a number of other things that make Luke’s gospel distinct. For a start, the gospel is addressed to a single person Theophilus.  Whether or not Theophilus is a real person or a representative figure, it would appear that Luke writes for townspeople, people who had better education and higher incomes than the Galilean disciples of Jesus. Luke changes the setting from a poor rural environment to one that is more familiar to his intended audience. He changes villages to cities, the amounts of money are bigger and the disciples are more informed, less like peasants (they own their own boats)[1].

In Luke’s gospel, the disciples are less foolish than in Mark and more aware of who Jesus is and of their own unworthiness in his presence.  The Holy Spirit has a dominant place in this gospel (and subsequently in Acts) being mentioned 28 times in the gospel[2] and a massive 83 times in Acts. The Holy Spirit moves both Elizabeth and Zechariah, they are promised that John will be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirits overshadows Mary such that she becomes pregnant and Simeon, filled with the Holy Spirit recognises Jesus when he is brought into the Temple. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism and Jesus promises the Holy Spirit to those who believe and warns of the sin against the Holy Spirit. (In Acts, the Holy Spirit directs the action almost entirely.)

Worship and prayer are central to the third gospel. Not only does the gospel begin and end in Jerusalem, but it begins and ends with a worshipping community. Jesus prays at all the important moments in his life (before choosing the 12, before asking who people say he is, before he predicts Peter’s denial and in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus’ disciples see Jesus praying and ask him to teach them how to pray and Jesus encourages them to pray and includes a parable on prayer. The Jesus of Luke scolds people for not giving thanks. All in all there are 20 references to people worshipping in Luke’s gospel.

Outsiders play a significant part in this gospel. Jesus says of the centurion that nowhere in Israel has he found such faith, the Good Samaritan challenges stereotypes of who is “good”, it is the Samaritan leper who gives thanks. Women also play a significant role. Though we can debate what Luke’s intention was, his gospel is more balanced – a woman as well as a man is healed on the Sabbath. The woman who anoints Jesus is identifies as an exemplar of hospitality. God is depicted as the shepherd who looks for the lost sheep and the woman who looks for the lost coin. The parables of growth feature a farmer who tosses mustard seeds and a woman who kneads yeast.

Luke is more concerned with money than the other writers, but his attitude towards wealth is ambivalent. On the one hand, he is anxious not to alienate his audience (patron) Theophilus, on the other, he appears to be convinced that those who are rich have a responsibility to use their wealth wisely.  Wealth is to be used by all. So we see that only Luke records the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and of the man who plans to build extra barns to store his surplus crops.

Unlike the other gospel writers, Luke is concerned to locate the gospel in history. This is evidenced by his reference to the census and to his naming of the various leaders (including differentiating between the different Herods).

We will be spending this year with Luke. Can I suggest that you make the time to read the gospel from beginning to end? Read it on its own or with a commentary. Become familiar with the content, make a note of the things that confuse you, notice the aspects that surprise and challenge you. Ask questions, challenge the text. Don’t be afraid to interrogate the gospel in depth.  Our scriptures are robust, they will withstand any amount of questioning and they have survived so long that they are not likely to be diminished or damaged by our weak attempts at exploration. It is more likely that they will reveal hitherto unexplored, unexposed depths.

Have conversations with the text, with each other, with Rodney, with me so that you will be better equipped to have conversations with others.

Text me, email me, talk to me, make comments on the sermon blog, write down your questions, your frustrations and at year’s end, we will all be better equipped to share the gospel with the world – or at least that small part of the world of which we are a part.

 

[1] There are a number of examples, but perhaps the best example of the way in which Luke re-frames the story is the account of the healing of the paralytic. If you recall, there is such a crowd around Jesus that when a group of friends arrive carrying their friend on a stretcher they find that they cannot get anywhere near Jesus. In order to get closer, they dig up the roof and lower their friend into the room. A city dweller would not understand that Palestinian houses have flat mud roofs, so Luke makes a slight change and has the friends remove tiles from the roof in order to lower the paralytic.
[2] Compared with 25 occurrences in the remaining gospels together.

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