Posts Tagged ‘repentance’

The meaning of repentance (John the Baptist 2)

December 15, 2024

Advent 3 – 2024

Luke 3:7-18 (thoughts)

Marian Free

In the name of God who sees into our very hearts. Amen

In Advent we read the story of John in two parts- last week, John’s baptism of repentance (and his role as the voice crying in the wilderness) and this week, the response of the crowds and John’s advice. Luke’s account gives us more detail than the other gospels and (as is typical of the author of Luke) is more inclusive. Among the crowds who come out to seek baptism are the reviled – the tax collectors and soldiers, persons associated with the Roman occupation, corruption, and extortion – those whom we might expect to be judged as unsuitable for the kingdom (guilty of the unforgivable).

Interestingly, John doesn’t exactly welcome the crowds – the exact opposite in fact. Listening to him speak to the crowds, you would think that he had no interest at all in ‘preparing the way’. When he addresses the people, John’s language is accusatory, direct. There is no subtlety or middle ground for John, the wild man of the desert.

Despite his preaching a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, he does not appear to appreciate the response he has received. He is in no mood to offer baptism to just anyone. He questions the sincerity of those who have come out to find him, he doesn’t seem to accept that they have responded to his message, have acknowledged their failings and are ready to repent. He wonders if they are simply self serving, if it is self interest, not genuine repentance that draws them into the desert. John calls them a brood of vipers, asks who warned them to flee from the wrath to come, and insists that their repentance be demonstrated through their actions so that it is evident that they are not simply intent on saving their skins, but really have determined to turn their lives around.

John goes even further. He challenges any idea his listeners might have that their Jewishness might help to save them – “even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees” to thin out those that don’t bear fruit. He warns that: “God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones”. (What matters – as Paul will later make clear – is not a person’s heritage (Jew or Gentile) but their relationship with God.)

Clearly he has put the wind up his audience. It seems that his attack on them has had an effect. Their easy confidence has been shattered. They are all concerned that they understand what John means by repentance, what it means to bear good fruit. The crowds, the tax-collectors, and the soldiers are all anxious to do the right thing. Each in turn ask what it is they must do, in other words what would true repentance look like for them. In each instance John’s advice is practical and doable. He doesn’t suggest that they reach for the impossible or demand that they do something that will lead to their lives being impoverished. What is more, John’s responses are tailor made for his questioners. While there is an underlying theme – that they show by their actions their concern for others, things that will not only show that they are sincere, but which will bring them peace of mind, the actions demanded of each group are particular to their situation.

In response to the question of the crowds: “What shall we do?” John encourages generosity. Those with more than enough should share with those who do not. In response to the tax-collectors’ question: “What shall we do?” John tells them to only collect what they are required to collect (not to enrich themselves at the expense of others). In response to the question of the soldiers: “What shall we do?” John advises that they should be content with what they earn and not extort money by threats or false accusations. In effect, John is saying to them all: “be satisfied with what you have, do not strive to have more than you need, and above all do not try to enrich yourselves at the expense of others.”

You will no doubt have noticed that Luke’ focus is on wealth. Repentance is repentance for having (or wanting to have) more than enough.

“What should we do?”

This Advent as we prepare our hearts for the coming of God among us (as he did and as he will) let us strive to live lives that are authentic, generous and just, let us endeavour not to hold on to our possessions but to be generous towards those who have less and, recognising God’s abundant generosity towards us, let us be content, indeed more than content with what we have.

 

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Jesus’ baptism

January 6, 2024

Baptism of Jesus

Mark 1:4-11 (12-13)

Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to give of ourselves. Amen.

Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism is typically bald and lacking in detail. In fact, it raises more questions than it answers. 

For example: Why does Jesus seemingly appear out of nowhere? Why does he seek out John’s baptism? Is Jesus seeking to become a disciple of John? Does he, like John want to be a part of reforming the practice of Judaism? Has Jesus, at this point, any real understanding of who he is, and what his role is to be? 

Given the starkness and brevity of Mark’s introduction, it is no wonder that when Matthew and Luke penned their versions of events they felt a need to fill out the story with accounts of the lead up to Jesus’ birth, the birth itself and subsequent events. Their stories are filled out with genealogies, angels, shepherds, wise ones and so on. In different ways, both build up to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and in so doing provide the readers with some background as to who this man Jesus might be. By the time we come to Jesus’ baptism in Luke and Matthew we have heard that he is – Emmanuel, Son of David, Son of God, the anointed one, King of the Jews. We know that he is to be called Jesus and that he will save his people from their sins. In other words, by the time Matthew and Luke come to reporting Jesus’ baptism, we already know a great deal about him. 

Mark however has no time for what came before. He is not interested in Jesus’ birth or childhood. He feels no need to establish Jesus’ lineage or miraculous origin. For him the beginning of the good news is not Jesus’ mysterious birth or the missing thirty years of his life, but his bursting on to the scene at the time of his baptism. 

Who Jesus is, and what his purpose in the world is, is announced not by an angel, but by John the Baptist, that wild, strange figure whom we met during Advent. John, so Mark briefly tells us, is the messenger predicted by Isaiah to “prepare the way in the wilderness”. We know little of John apart from what is recorded by gospels[1]. It is possible that he is representative of all those who thought that the present state of religion in Israel was in a dire state. The Pharisees, who sought a solution in the law. The writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Essenes) who took themselves into the wilderness on the shores of the Dead Sea and created a society based around ritual cleansing. John the Baptist seems to fit somewhere in the middle – through baptism he encouraged ritual cleansing and he demanded repentance as a means to restore the relationship between Israel and God.

In seeking out John and submitting to John’s baptism Jesus, is at the very least, indicating that he supports John’s preaching and ministry. Indeed, like John, Jesus begins his ministry by calling people to “repent”. The difference is that John demands repentance and points to Jesus and Jesus announces the good news and points to the coming of the kingdom.

None of this however explains why Jesus needs to be baptised for ‘the forgiveness of sins’.  

Was his baptism an affirmation of John, an indication of Jesus’ desire to fully identify with humanity in all its sinfulness, or was it “to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt 3:15)? Whatever the. reason, it is clear that Jesus’ baptism is a watershed moment. Until this point in his life Jesus had lived in obscurity and had done nothing remarkable. From now on he will preach the kingdom, confront the Pharisees, Sadducees, the elders and the scribes, he will challenge practices and teaching that binds rather than liberates and he will bring good news and healing to all those who are marginalised. 

Jesus may have sought baptism because he knew his trajectory and the task set before him. Or it may be that Jesus’ baptism confirmed and consolidated what, until that point, he had only suspected – that he was God’s anointed, sent into the world to bring the people back to God, and that he was integrally related, indeed a member of the Trinity.

This knowledge – unveiled by the tearing apart of the heavens, the descent of the Spirit and the voice from heaven (“you are my Son, the Beloved”) – is not a cause for triumphalism. We must read on to understand the impact of these events on Jesus whose response to the divine revelation is revealed as much in Jesus does not do, as it is through what he does do. What Jesus does not do, is to claim his Godly power and authority. What Jesus does not do is to go to the Temple and lord it over the priests and Sadducees. What Jesus does not do is to perform miracles that serve his own purposes. What Jesus does not do is to demand obeisance and subservience.

Instead, Jesus allows the Spirit to drive him into the wilderness where, presumably he confronts the temptation that comes from knowing who he really is. Then, he disappears into the relative anonymity that is Galilee. He chooses, not to go it alone, but to share his gifts and his ministry with others and he uses his authority, not for himself but to ease the burdens of others.

At his baptism, Jesus discovers that he has the world at his feet and  yet, knowing this, Jesus chooses not to lord it over the world, but to put himself at the disposal of the world. 

[1] Mandeans consider themselves disciples of John the Baptist, but so far as I can tell, that is where the connection ends.

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Why baptism?

January 8, 2022

The Baptism of Jesus – 2022
Luke 3:15-22
Marian Free

In the name of God who calls us to be the people we were created to be. Amen.

I believe that I have mentioned previously that Jesus’ baptism was problematic for the gospel writers. Matthew and Luke both provide additions/alterations to Mark’s text in order to try to explain why Jesus – who was sinless – would need baptism for the forgiveness of sins and both Luke and John go to the trouble of distancing Jesus and John the Baptist .

One of the problems for us, as for the gospel writers is, that with the exception of the account of Jesus in the Temple, recorded only by Luke, we have no details from the time of Jesus’ birth until he bursts on the scene in connection with John the Baptist. Later, non-canonical, writers tried to fill in the gap. They provided us with extraordinary (if not always edifying) stories of Jesus’ childhood in writings like Proto-James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in order to demonstrate that the trajectory hinted at in Jesus’ birth, continued throughout his childhood – that the divinity that became evident in Jesus’ ministry was obvious from his childhood. For example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts the child Jesus as someone who not only heals and raises from the dead, but who also strikes down (dead) those who disagree with or provoke him!

Such stories only serve to emphasise the difficulty of Jesus suddenly appearing as an adult and beginning his public ministry after his baptism “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” by John the Baptist. Why, we wonder, would Jesus need forgiveness? Of what would he need to repent? These are questioned that taxed Matthew, Luke and John and which continue to puzzle us.

In Luke’s account, Jesus only appears after questions have been raised as to whether or not John is the anointed one, and after John has been imprisoned. In this way, Jesus is neatly removed from John (perhaps to dispel any idea that Jesus was John’s disciple or a part of the movement surrounding John the Baptist). Jesus has been baptised (we are not told by whom) and is praying when the Spirit descends on him in a bodily form like a dove. Luke omits the dramatic tearing of the heavens that characterise Mark and Matthew though the words from heaven are the same as in Mark: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased .” These words are a composite quote from the Old Testament: Psalm 2:7 in which a voice from heaven was seen as a reference to messianic sonship; three references from the Book of Genesis in which “beloved son” occurs in relation to the binding of Isaac (Gen 22:2,12,16); and Isaiah 42:1, the beginning of the first Servant Song in which God says: “with you I am well pleased”. The presence of the Spirit and the words from heaven announce – at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry – his relationship with God and God’s affirmation of his status and mission.

But why baptism? In particular, why baptism for the “forgiveness of sins”? John Kavanagh SJ provides a compelling explanation. He reminds us that Jesus came, not just to reveal God to us, but to reveal to us what it really means to be human. In order to do this, Kavanagh argues Jesus had to fully identify with the human condition including its tendency to sin. Kavanagh states that: “We misunderstand this because we misunderstand our humanity as well as our sin .” He continues: “Not only is he (Jesus) truly God. He is truly human. And he is truly human precisely because he does not sin. All of our sin is nothing other than the rejection of the truth of our humanity.”

This is the critical point and one which is overlooked. “All of our sin is nothing other than the rejection of the truth of our humanity” – our God-created, God-given humanity. Only taking on the human form – with all its frailty, its propensity to go its own way – only by fully identifying with humankind, is Jesus able to “reverse our sinful rejection of our creatureliness”; to redeem and restore humanity to what it was created to be.

You see, even though we know that we are created by God in the image of God too many of us reject or resist our humanity. We don’t like our bodies, our actions, or our thoughts. We build up barriers between ourselves and others (even God) to protect ourselves from exposure or hurt. We continually split ourselves in two – that which we like (the good?) and that which we do not like (the bad?). We separate our human nature from our divine nature and in so doing we not only become riven in two, but worse, we demonstrate our complete lack of faith in our creator who, having made humankind in God’s own image, looked at what God had made and declared that: “indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Our rejection of ourselves is our rejection of God – of our God given humanity. Our rejection of our humanity leads to our rejection of our divinity and this, Kavanagh argues is sin. In identifying with our “sin” – that is in fully taking on our humanity – in “repenting” (and not rejecting) -and by being baptised, Jesus in his own person reunites our divided humanity and restores our divinity.
So much damage has been done to the Christian faith by our failure to understand the true nature of sin and therefor the true nature of our redemption. If only we could allow ourselves to see ourselves as God sees us and allow God through Jesus to make us whole, then perhaps we would all hear the words from heaven: “You are my beloved child, with you I am well-pleased.”

Jesus has done the hard work, we need only to apply to ourselves the results of his repentance and baptism.

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In solidarity with all humanity

January 11, 2020

Baptism of our Lord – 2020

Matthew 3:13-17

Marian Free

In the name of God, who in Jesus became fully human and identified fully with the human plight. Amen.

On page 126 of A Prayer Book for Australia you will find the confession and absolution, a form of which is also to be found on page 120. It is possible that (unlike me) you never pay attention to the words in red print (the rubrics as they are known). The rubrics provide information not only about the Liturgy, but about such variations as are permitted. Since 1978, instead of a long, threatening and terrifying exhortation to confession, the Prayer Book has offered an invitation (which changes according to the season). For the most part the Liturgical Assistant reads, “God is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy, welcoming sinners to the Lord’s Table. Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, confident in God’s forgiveness.”

Those of you who do read the rubrics will notice that there is a suggestion that “silence may be observed”. The observant among you will also have noticed that in this Parish, we do not observe any such silence. I cannot be sure, but I imagine that the reason that silence is suggested is to allow for a moment of personal reflection. Certainly, that is how it seems to be observed in other Parishes. During my time at St Augustine’s we have not observed this practice. The reason for this not that I think that I, or we, have no need to reflect on our sinfulness, but because I do not believe that this is the place for individual introspection.

When we gather together for worship we do so as one body. Our prayer and our praise are collective. Holy Communion is exactly that: communion. It is an activity that we engage in collectively and not as individuals. If there is no one in the church with me, I cannot celebrate alone, for I would be celebrating isolationism not communion. The confession then is not an opportunity for each of us to drift off into our own heads and to count our own shortcomings, rather as the Book of Common Prayer makes clear: “Then shall this general Confession be made in the name of all those that are minded to receive the Holy Communion.” When we say together the General Confession, we are lamenting our collective sin, in particular our failure to love God with our whole heart and our neighbour as ourselves. We are not concerned at this point in time with whether or not we spoke harshly to someone yesterday or whether we are greedy or selfish.[1] Our individual sins are trivial compared to our collective and overarching sin of not giving ourselves wholly to God and to each other.

This may seem a roundabout way of approaching the subject of today’s gospel but, as I hope you will see, it is particularly pertinent to Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism by John. John’s baptism, as he has made perfectly clear, is a baptism of repentance, but so far as we know Jesus has no need to repent. An understanding of the General Confession helps us to begin to make sense of why the sinless Jesus comes to be baptised by John and what Jesus means when he says that he needs to be baptised “to fulfil all righteousness.”

To understand what is going on here, we have to remember that first century thought was very different from our own. Two things are important to note. First of all, baptism as a way of initiating people into the Jewish faith was not widely practiced (if it was practiced at all). Baptism (which if translated literally means to wash or dip) was not, as it is for us, a ritual of membership. On the other hand, washing as a means of ritual purification was widely practiced. Secondly, first century Judaism understood that God’s relationship was with Israel as a whole and not with individuals. (On the day of Atonement for example, the High Priest performed rituals in the Temple on behalf of all the nation.) Likewise the coming of the kingdom of heaven had nothing to do with individual salvation, but everything to do with the salvation of the nation. John’s call to repent then was directed, not at individuals, but with the people as a whole. In this sense, John’s call to repentance was much like our invitation to Confession – it was collective and not personal.

So, if Jesus does not need to repent and if baptism is not a form of initiation what is Jesus doing here? Jesus’ sinlessness or otherwise does not enter the equation, because the repentance John demands is not individual. John is hesitant to baptise Jesus not because he has no sin, but because John has recognised in Jesus the one who is more powerful than he, the one who “will baptise with the Spirit and with fire.” John knows that he himself needs this different and more powerful baptism that Jesus can offer.

Despite this, Jesus insists on being baptised because: “it is fitting to fulfil all righteousness.” We cannot read Jesus’ mind or know what he really meant by these words but – if we understand that John’s call to repent addressed the nation as a whole and if we see in the birth, life and death of Jesus, God’s desire to be fully human – we can deduce that by allowing John to baptise him, Jesus is identifying himself completely with the people of Israel – not standing aloof or apart from his countrymen and women, but becoming completely one with them and sharing a common humanity. Through his baptism he was showing his complete solidarity with them.

In the General Confession we show our solidarity, not only with one another in our sinfulness, but with the troubled world of which we are a part.

 

[1] You may remember the controversy that was played out a few years ago in the Roman Catholic Church. It was the practice in that tradition that anyone who wanted to receive communion would, before coming to church, make their confession before a priest. Rome was concerned that private confession was becoming less regular and that individuals were relying the General Confession that they made in Church as their preparation for communion.

 

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You will be judged

December 7, 2019

Advent 2 – 2019

Matthew 3:1-12

Marian Free

In the name of God who will come in judgement. Amen.

It is difficult for us to comprehend that John the Baptist’s followers did not automatically defect to Jesus. The fourth gospel that tells us that Andrew left John to become a disciple, otherwise the gospels are silent on this matter. This seems strange. According to Matthew John recognized Jesus when he came to be baptised and, we have to presume, shared that knowledge with others. Yet, as next week’s reading will make clear, John still had disciples when he was in prison and those disciples took his body and buried it. It appears that there were still followers of John at the gospels were being written and that John’s role had to be clearly delineated and limited such that it was clear that Jesus was the more significant of the two.

The New Testament was only interested in John so far as his life intersected with that of Jesus and the New Testament writers were certainly not interested in what did or did not happen to John’s followers. Notwithstanding this we know that John the Baptist’s ideas and ministry continued to influence people. This is evidenced by the Mandaean faith that originated in Mesopotamia some 2,000 years ago[1]. The Mandaeans worship John the Baptist whom they call Yehyea Yahana. Worldwide there are 60-70,000 Mandaeans and of these 10,000 can be found in Sydney’s western suburbs. Mandaeans are gnostic, that is they believe that they have access to secret knowledge and that their soul is in exile, seeking to return to its true home.

Not surprisingly, baptism is central to the worship and practice of the Mandaeans. Unlike Christians they can be baptised hundreds or even thousands of times during their lives. Baptism for them is not a sign of entry into the faith or the means by which they receive the Holy Spirit. It is a symbol of purification, an opportunity to cleanse and refresh one’s life and soul. Members are usually baptised in a river where the water is flowing and fresh. Baptism is practiced at significant times in the church calendar and on other occasions including funerals. We know little of their teachings or whether they have records of what the original Baptist taught.

We do know that John seems to have captured the mood of his generation. He established himself on the Jordan River, preached a baptism of repentance, and announced the coming of one who was more powerful than himself. Baptism as a means of entering the Jewish faith was not common if it existed at all. First century Hebrews were familiar with washing as a means of ritually purifying themselves, but it was not related to repentance. Purification related to fitness to worship in the Temple.

The biblical John is somewhat enigmatic and elusive. His role in the New Testament is primarily as a foil for Jesus. Yet, despite their embarrassment about the significance of John – after all Jesus was baptized by him – the Gospel writers are unable to disguise the fact that John had an important ministry and a following of his own.

Like the prophets before him, John named the situation for what it was – a time in which some had lost hope that God would act, and in which others appear to have assumed that their behaviour did matter because God would not act. John’s preaching appears to have exposed the sinfulness and lacklustre faith of his contemporaries. He seems to have struck a chord with both the people and with the religious establishment. John’s call to repentance must have spoken to their hearts and exposed the poverty, selfishness and faithlessness of their lives. Something in his preaching revealed the need for them to turn their lives around. After all, we are told that all Jerusalem, all Judea and all the region of the Jordan were going out to him.

John’s message was not one of comfort and reassurance, but of judgement and condemnation, even his message about Jesus was not designed to encourage, but rather to convince the people of the need to bear good fruit, to turn to God and to be ready for the wrath that was to come. No one was spared John’s tongue. He accused even the penitent Pharisees and Sadducees of being vipers and challenged the complacency that led them to believe that their ancestry assured them of a good outcome at the judgment.

Jesus’ message was quite different. It was aimed more at the people than at the religious hierarchy and was much more conciliatory and compassionate. That said, we forget John’s warning at our peril. Jesus’ death and resurrection may have assured us of God’s love and given us confidence that our sins have been forgiven, but that does not mean that we can afford to be complacent or that we need do nothing in return. Through our baptism we have been made children of God. It is incumbent on us to behave as such. Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom had come near. We, his followers, are called to live as Kingdom people– recognizable as members of that kingdom through all that we do and say.

Advent is a reminder that Jesus will come again and that we will have to answer to him for all that we have done and not done in this life. We will be called to be accountable for the way in which we have used or misused the gifts that God has given us. We will be challenged to consider whether we have taken God’s love and forgiveness for granted or whether the knowledge of God’s love has encouraged us to grow into the people God believes that we can be.

Even though John’s primary role in our faith was to prepare the ground for Jesus’ coming, his words echo down through the generations. We cannot afford to be complacent – repent, be cleansed of your sins – get ready for God to break into the world in judgement!

 

 

 

 

[1] Whether or not this was a direct continuation of John’s ministry is not clear.

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Promise and threat

December 9, 2017

Advent 2 – 2017

Mark 1:1-8

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable. Amen.

Isaiah calls out to those in exile:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all people shall see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

God has charged Isaiah with a message of assurance for the Israelites. The time of their banishment has ended. Soon they will be able to return to their homes. What is more, a road will be prepared for them so that they do not encounter too many obstacles on their way. Isaiah declared that despite all that their forebears have done, despite their present anxieties and fears, God has not forgotten them. During their exile the Israelites have recognised their dependence on God and God, who observed their remorse had sent the prophet with words of comfort and hope.

Centuries later, the author of Mark’s gospel used these same words more as a threat than a promise. John the Baptist did not offer words of assurance but rather insisted that the people: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Instead of offering comfort to a suffering people, John demanded that the people admit and repent of their sins, that they turn their lives around in order to make the path clear for the coming of God.

Isaiah reassured the people that God had forgiven their transgressions and would come to them and will comfort them. In contrast John the Baptist warned the people to seek forgiveness for their transgressions because God was coming among them.

In Mark the words of Isaiah are applied to a different time and place. Whereas the Israelites in exile needed to hear words of comfort and reassurance, the people of the first century needed to be confronted and challenged. The exile had given the Israelites plenty of time to think about the past and to long for their relationship with God to be restored, whereas the situation of the 1st century had allowed them to once again become complacent. It was true that the Romans had occupied the land, but the Temple still stood and the people were free to worship and offer sacrifices without too much interference. Such freedoms however had come at a cost. The priests and leaders of the Israelites had accommodated themselves to the Roman occupation. They had made themselves comfortable with the present situation and they had made compromises that meant that they had lost the trust of the people and led others to believe that the Temple and its worship had become corrupted. They had lost sight of their need to trust in and depend on God to take care of all their needs. They felt that they were comfortable enough. They did not need a prophet to speak words of comfort. They needed to be challenged and confronted. They needed to be forced to consider what was really important – their own comfort or their relationship with God.

Isaiah offered comfort. John demanded repentance. Our scriptures are full of these kinds of contradictions: comfort and judgement, reassurance and challenge, compassion and rage. The different voices of our scriptures reflect the different situations into which they speak. There are times when the prophets need to censure the people of Israel, to remind them of their true calling and to bring them back to God. At other times, often when the people of Israel have been humbled and humiliated – the prophets need to speak words of reassurance and comfort, to reassure the people that God has seen their suffering and has not abandoned them.

The different voices of scripture speak to our own situations. There are times in our lives when we need to know God’s loving presence: when a loved one is dying, when we have lost our job or when our child comes up against an obstacle. At such times it is easy to recognise our dependence on God and to seek the comfort of God’s presence. There are times in our lives when everything seems to be going along smoothly, when we are at peace with the world around us. At such times it is easy to take God for granted, to lose sight of our dependence on God and to go our own way.

The contradictions that we find in scripture help us to seek the right balance between anxiety and complacency. Threats of judgement remind us that we cannot take our relationship with God for granted. Like any other relationship, our relationship with God can be damaged by neglect, by carelessness and disregard and when it is damaged we will experience the pain and heartache of being separated from God as if we really were in exile. Words of comfort provide us with hope in our moments of darkness and despair. They remind us that no matter how far we have strayed, God is constant and will never abandon us.

The tensions and contradictions in our scriptures serve to heighten our awareness of our relationship with God and encourage us to take stock of our lives. Words of judgement and calls to repentance remind us that there are consequences to pay for going our own way. Words of comfort provide strength and encouragement in those times when we are tempted to feel lost and alone.

This Advent, may the contradictions and tensions of our scriptures keep us on our toes, help us to focus on what is really important and prevent us from falling into the sort of complacency that allows us to neglect God and to forget how much God has done for us. May words of comfort not blind us to the need to be on the alert so that we are ready when Christ should come again.

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Fishing for people, mining for the souls of people

January 21, 2017

Epiphany 3 – 2017

Matthew 4:12-25

Marian Free

 

In the name of God who meets us where we are, not where God would wish us to be. Amen.

Anglicans are notoriously shy when it comes to mission. Most of us are very happy for people to know that we attend church, pray, do voluntary work for the Anglican Church and so on, but when it comes to sharing the gospel suddenly our faith is a very private matter. We don’t want to intrude or to impose on others. We respect their right to make up their own minds and above all we are conditioned by the mantra that in polite society we don’t talk about politics or religion. This attitude stems in part from the religious wars of our church’s home. Consciously or otherwise our collective memory tells us how divisive religion can and has been. Some of us are old enough to remember the suspicion with which Protestants and Catholics viewed each other and know that friendships can be ruined if old wounds are opened up.

On top of all that we have to add that until at least the 1950’s it could be assumed that the majority of people professed some faith. A vast proportion of the population were attached to a church community whether they worshiped regularly or simply sent their children to Sunday School. In a Christian nation we could assume that the community knew the basics of the Christian faith. Magazines printed recipes for Shrove Tuesday and Lent, everything closed between Maundy Thursday and the Tuesday after Easter, carols in the park told the story of the Incarnation. Sharing our faith was in many ways redundant. Even those who didn’t go to church knew the stories – that the birth of Jesus was celebrated at Christmas and his death and resurrection at Easter. Most people knew some of the parables and that Jesus was a preacher and a healer. Until the end of the twentieth century we could be confident that school children had been exposed to the Christian faith through religious education.

Ever since Constantine made Christianity the faith of the Roman Empire there has been little to no need to spread the faith amongst our own. As a result, those of us in traditional churches have become complacent and out of practice. We have had so little cause to share our faith that we do not have the language for mission, let alone the experience at sharing the good news.

In recent decades as our churches have emptied and our Sunday Schools fallen silent, we have begun to think of mission as a way to rejuvenate our churches and to fill our pews. We have experimented with a variety of solutions, but our lack of success is evidenced by our failure to halt the decline.

Today’s gospel focuses on the beginning Jesus’ mission and Jesus’ call to the disciples to fish for people. As twenty-first century disciples, we can interrogate the texts to see what it can teach us.

As I see it, the gospel consists of four parts – 1. a reminder that for many the world is a place of darkness and death, 2. Jesus’ call to repentance, 3. Jesus’ calling of the first disciples and 4. Jesus’ preaching of the good news and his offering of hope and healing to the world. The gospel begins by reminding us of God’s promise to bring light to a world filled with darkness and the claim that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise. Then Jesus begins his ministry by calling people to turn to acknowledge through repentance the part they play in preventing the world from more truly reflecting the kingdom of God. Having established who is he and why he is here, Jesus calls some people to follow him – to join with him in his mission to inaugurate the kingdom. He calls fishermen to fish for people, but he might just as well have asked miners to mine for people or seamstresses and tailors to sew lives together, or miners to mine the depths of human suffering. Finally Jesus demonstrates what the kingdom might look like by bringing healing and wholeness to a suffering world.

It is important to notice what Jesus does not do – he does not send people to swell the numbers at the local synagogues. He does not preach the gospel as if it is some sort of moral imperative – “if you are not good you won’t go to heaven”. He doesn’t demand that those whom he calls should be anything other than they are. He doesn’t ask fishermen to teach or teachers to fish. He meets people where they are, acknowledges and affirms what they can do rather than ask them to do something for which they are not suited. He uses the disciples’ gifts and abilities to help him to bring restoration and wholeness to the world.

If we are to learn something from Jesus’ mission it might be this. God has promised to bring light to a world that is filled with the darkness of hardship, sorrow, pain and injustice. God’s desire is that we should catch God’s vision for humanity that the world should be a reflection of the kingdom of heaven and repent our part in the world’s indifference, cruelty and greed and that we should strive with all our being to ensure that our present reality more closely represents the reality that is the kingdom of heaven. We are to recognize and value the gifts and the potential of those around us (valuing them for who they are, not for whom we would want them to be) and through our encouragement and affirmation enable others to share their gifts with the world. And we are encouraged to shower such love and compassion on the world that the recipients of that love cannot help but be changed, renewed and restored and in their turn demonstrate such love compassion to others that the whole world will be healed and transformed and God’s kingdom will be known on earth as it is in heaven.

As we leave behind the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany, and enter into the penitential season of Lent, we as church and as individuals have the opportunity repent the part we play in a world that is far from perfect and to consider more deeply what it is that we can to bring about healing and peace and thus ensure that God’s kingdom will come and God’s will will be done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Epiphany, Matthew | Comments Off on Fishing for people, mining for the souls of people