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Answering our critics

November 9, 2013

Pentecost 24

Luke 20:27-40

Marian Free

In the name of God who remains constant in the face of change, challenge and confusion. Amen.

There are always people who want to discredit Christianity. The most articulate and voluble critic of recent years has been Richard Dawkins, but another caught my eye recently. It is in fact old news, but The Courier Mail only mentioned it only in the last couple of weeks. Apparently, in 2006 a man by the name of Joseph Atwill published some research arguing that Jesus did not exist but was a creation of the Roman Empire who designed a new religion in order to keep the peace. From what I can gather, Atwill draws attention to the god myths surrounding the Caesars and demonstrates the similarities between these myths and the story of Jesus. Some similarities exist, but to draw the conclusion that Jesus was a cleverly designed myth seems to me to draw too long a bow. Many Christian scholars would argue that the reverse situation is true – that similarities exist because Christianity adopted some of the language of the empire in a way that was subversive and confrontational. The very fact that Christians adopt the language of “Lord” or “Son of God” for Jesus could be seen as an act of sedition against a state which held that the Emperor was god. The creation of a new god is certainly not outside the religious practices of the time, but I wonder why an empire would create a religious myth that, apart from anything else, led its adherents to abandon Emperor worship which was a key tool in ensuring unity and peace in the empire.

I have not read Atwill’s original work, so am unable to enter into fruitful dialogue, but his thesis demonstrates that information can be put to quite different uses depending on one’s point of view. In this case to suggest that Christianity is a myth created by Rome, or that its adherents quite deliberately used the mythology surrounding the divine status of the Emperor to challenge and undermine the Emperor cult.

That it is possible to draw different conclusions from similar information or beliefs is demonstrated by today’s gospel. The Judaism of Jesus’ day was not a monolithic structure, but one that encompassed a great deal of difference. One area of dispute was the validity of the Temple rituals which many Jews, including the Pharisees, believed had been corrupted by the Sadducees cooperation with foreign rulers. Another point of difference was belief in the resurrection of the dead. A reading of the OT and of the Psalms in particular reveals that resurrection was a newer addition to the belief system of the Hebrews. The Pharisees believed that the dead were raised but the Sadducees did not.

It was this difference of opinion that the Sadducees thought they would be able to exploit to their advantage. They hoped be able to make Jesus look foolish and thereby to reinforce their own authority. Of course they were unable do this. Jesus knew and understood his scriptures, he had a deep grasp of his faith and an intimate, unshakeable relationship with God. Jesus’ response to their challenge is interesting. In the first instance, he does not say that they are wrong. He simply presents a different point of view – one that challenges their own. Heaven is not an exact replica of earth, the spiritual existence will be quite different from the earthly experience, he says. Jesus continues with a reference to scripture, something both he and they believe to be true. According to Moses, God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Moses speaks of these long-dead men as if they are still in some sense alive. If they are alive, Jesus argues, then they must have been raised from death. The Sadducees had hoped to out manoeuvre Jesus, to demonstrate to the crowds their superior wisdom. Instead, of embarrassing Jesus, they have forced the scribes to admit that Jesus has answered well.

On a number of occasions the religious authorities try to embarrass Jesus, to discredit him in front of those who believe in him. However, no matter how hard they try, they cannot put one over him. Jesus is too confident, too sure of himself and of what he believes to waver.

We are living in changing times. We can no longer be sure that our faith is understood by a majority of the population, let alone accepted as the norm. In our society, there are many people who are resentful of the privileges that the church seems to enjoy, there are many others who are angry with the church because their experience of church has been harmful or demeaning and there are many who are disappointed that their questions were not answered and who no longer believe in God and who want to convince others to share that view. (Just last night I read that a new, non-religious organisation called Sunday Assembly is coming to Australia. Its founder says: ”it has been called the atheist church, but we prefer to think of it as all the best bits of church but with no religion and awesome songs. Their motto is “live better, help often and wonder more”, and their mission is to help everyone live this one life as fully as possible.”)

Just as the Sadducees’ place in the religious world of their time was being challenged by new ideas so too is ours. We can no longer expect that those around us will share our faith or even that they will understand why we should have faith.

In this day and age, one thing that we can be sure of is that our faith will be questioned – by those who want to trip us up in order to prove that their view of the world is right, by those who want to discredit Christianity by pointing out its past failures and present sins, by those who want to convince us to hold a different world view or by those whose hurt and anger at the church’s betrayal of them causes them to lash out at anyone who represents that church.

It is important for us to be ready for such confrontations so that we can respond with confidence and truthfulness and not be left feeling ashamed, outsmarted or confused. While it would be wonderful if every Christian knew their scriptures as well as Jesus did, it is unrealistic to imagine that everyone will become a biblical scholar or a theologian. However, we can all work on our understanding of our faith and on our relationship with God. We can think about what it is we believe, what our faith means to us and how we might explain that faith to someone else.

Sometime, ask yourself: What is central to your belief? What is it that gets you up on a Sunday to come to church and engage in this curious ritual? How do you envisage God? Think about what is central to Jesus’ teaching and what do his life, death and resurrection mean for your day-to-day existence? Consider what is it that keeps you believing when your prayers appear to go unanswered, when calamity strikes or when your life doesn’t work out the way you expected? How do you respond when someone says: how can you believe in a God who does this or that?  What language would you use to share your answers to those questions with others?

Having done that you might like to ponder some questions that those who do not believe regularly ask. For example: if God is love, why is there suffering in the world, how could God let that (say, the death of a child) happen? How would you respond to the accusation that it is religion that causes division and wars?

Increasingly it will not be strangers who question us, but our own children and grandchildren who will wonder why it is, in the face of scientific advances, the evidence of the church’s failures in cases like child sexual abuse, the church’s conservatism in the face of social change and the increasing number of alternatives to the Christian faith, that we continue to believe in and worship Jesus Christ.

It is important that we honour the doubts, questions and challenges of others, that we listen and respond with respect for their point of view. It is equally important that we hold fast to what we believe and that we do not compromise those beliefs in order to be accepted or to fit in. When your faith is challenged, when you are asked questions designed to embarrass or outwit, how will you react? Will you, like Jesus, be able to respond with love, with dignity and with confidence in the faith that you hold?

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Our place in the kingdom

August 31, 2013

Pentecost 15

Luke 14:1,7-14

Marian Free

In the name of God whose kingdom recognises no distinction between rich and poor, foolish and wise, leaders and led. Amen.

In the last five years or so, we have witnessed a number of British state occasions – the wedding of Kate and Will, the Consecration of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the funeral of Margaret Thatcher. All of these events have been the result of careful planning and adherence to codes of etiquette that are centuries old. If you had observed any or all of these ceremonies, you would have noted that the guests (who were pre-determined and specifically invited) were all seated in allotted places. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have their own chairs which (in St Paul’s at least) are distinct from those around them. In the processions likewise, everyone has their place. No one would dare to break with convention and disturb the order of things. That would lead to embarrassing consequences – not least their expulsion from the event and their almost certain exclusion from their peers.

A dinner at Windsor Castle or at the White House or the Lodge is similarly orchestrated. Guests will have been carefully chosen and notified of the dress code. An enormous amount of effort will have been put into ensuring that the guests are seated in such a way that no one has any excuse to feel slighted. With matters of state, it is not just a matter of ensuring that the most senior invitees are assured of the places at the head of the table, but also of making sure that the representative nations are accorded the status that they might feel they deserve. Of course, the guest list will have been carefully thought out in the first instance so as to avoid any embarrassment and place cards will make it easy for guests not to make a mistake.

Similar social norms existed in Jesus’ time. Members of society were ranked according birth, wealth and position and everyone knew their place in relation to everyone else. Only members of one’s own class of people would be invited to a meal and those who were invited would have been sensible of their status relative to the other guests. Tables were arranged in a U-shape so that the servants could move freely around them and guests were seated according to their position in society. It is probably not surprising then, that at the meal Jesus is attending the guests began to seat themselves. Even without place cards, they would have had a reasonable idea as to where they might be seated. (If they were of equal status they might have tried to get a better seat than their fellows in order to claim some form of superiority.)

One of the things that is clear throughout the gospels is that Jesus consistently disrupted and subverted the accepted order of things. He welcomed children and spoke to unaccompanied women. Worse, he ignored the religious scruples of his fellows and disturbed or, should we say extended, the practice of hospitality. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners and allowed a woman of the street to interrupt a dinner to anoint his feet. Instead of upholding the traditions of his forebears, Jesus consistently undermined or reinterpreted them. Here he is, doing it again.

Jesus has been invited to the home of a Pharisee. He is not a comfortable guest and it is clear that there is a certain expectation that he will not be so on this occasion. We are told: “they (presumably the other guests) were watching him closely.” What, they seem to be wondering, will he do this time? Jesus doesn’t disappoint. First of all, he throws out a challenge with regard to the law: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” he asks. The lawyers and Pharisees are silent, so despite it being the Sabbath, Jesus heals a man and sends him on his way.

Then, Jesus’ notices the guests beginning to take their places at the table. This leads him to reflect on the social practice of priority in seating. He tells a parable which will certainly hit its mark. In a culture in which status, honour and shame are all important, the humiliation and disgrace of having to give up one’s place is one thing with which all the guests will be able to identify. Not one of those present would want to be singled out and told to take a lesser position at the table. If a person was asked to move having first seated themself it would suggest that they had a false sense of their worth and indicate a failure to acknowledge someone of greater status than themself. It would be impossible to outlive the shame and the loss of face that such a demotion would entail.

This parable will have got everyone’s attention. Jesus presses his point home by directly addressing his host. It is all very well to provide a banquet for those who can repay the favour, Jesus says, but how much better to fill the banqueting hall with those who have no hope of ever returning the invitation.

Verses 11 and 13 tell us where Jesus is going with the parable and the teaching. “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” and “you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Jesus is speaking less of the present situation, but of the life to come. Resurrection life, he suggests, is going to be very different from this life. Kingdom values are the reverse of worldly values. Jesus is less concerned about the social conduct of the dinner party he is attending, than he is about how people will fare in the life to come. God has no favourites. In fact, as the author of Luke has made clear from the beginning of the gospel, Jesus’ coming heralds a great reversal. In the kingdom which Jesus proclaims, the mighty will be brought down from their thrones and the humble will be lifted high. The poor will be blessed and the hungry filled.

Heaven is a place in which status counts for nothing. In the world to come those who think themselves better than others, will discover that God has different ideas and those who have no idea of their own worth will be astonished to discover how much God values them. If Jesus’ fellow diners would be mortified at being asked to move lower at the table, how much worse would it be to experience such shame at being demoted at the resurrection. Better to identify with those of lower status now than to be cast down before all in the kingdom. Similarly, if it is the poor who are to inherit the kingdom, better to make yourself at home with them now, than to find yourself a stranger to them at the end.

Rank, status and recognition are beguiling. It is human nature to want to stand out from the crowd. Jesus is saying to his fellow guests and to his host, as clearly as he can, that there will be no distinctions in the life to come therefore it would be well to be prepared and to stop observing such distinctions now.

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BUT ….

March 30, 2013

 

Easter Day 2013

Luke 24:1-12

Marian Free

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

I don’t know if it still happens, but I know that people in workplaces were taught that when they were giving feedback to staff it was important to begin with an affirmation. That sounds all very well – emphasising the positive rather than the negative. However, the whole point of feedback is to let someone know how well they have been doing and if they haven’t been doing so well in their work at some point in the process this has to be pointed out to them. What happened was that those being reviewed came to expect the “but”. “Your telephone manner is very good but …”, “You have good attention to detaiL but ….. and so on.

The problem with “but” is that it has the effect of negating everything that has come before it. All the positive sentiments are seen in a different light when followed by “but”. A common response to positive feedback was “Yes, but?” as the expectation was that any affirmation would be followed by a criticism.

In Greek it is often the small words that you have to look out for. “Νυνι δε”, “μη γενοιτω”, “μεν”, “but now”, “no indeed”, “rather”. These words often carry a lot of weight which may or may not be obvious in translation. So it is in the 24th chapter of Luke’s gospel. Chapter 23 concludes the traumatic events of the Friday. The women observe where Jesus has been laid, go home to prepare the spices and to rest according to the law, because it is the Sabbath. To all intents and purposes that is the end of the story. Jesus, whom many had followed and supported all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem was dead as were all the hopes and dreams that his teaching and presence had fostered. All that remained was to see that his body was treated respectfully according to the tradition of the Jews and that part of the disciples’ lives would be over.

BUT – “on the first of the sabbath at deep dawn”, “BUT when they went in”, “BUT the men said to them”, ‘BUT these words seemed to them an idle tale”, “BUT Peter got up and ran to the tomb.” At least six times in twelve verses “but” contradicts what has come before – Jesus is laid in the tomb .. but. The women find the stone rolled away .. but. The women are terrified, but the angels said to them .. but he has risen. .. The women tell the apostles but …. The eleven do not believe the women, but still Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Everything that has happened has been negated, nothing is as was expected – a tomb is opened, a body has disappeared, terrified women are reminded of Jesus’ teaching and told he has risen, even so, no one believes the women and yet Peter goes to the tomb.

On the Friday the story had come to an end. Their leader dead, the disciples were frightened and confused. They had no hope or expectation for the future. Then all that changed and a new story began. The “BUT” at the beginning of  chapter 24 stands in defiance of all that has previously happened, it turns the impossible into the possible. In the midst of terror and confusion there is hope. Jesus’ body is not in the tomb, heavenly messengers speak to the women and Peter, against all his cultural conditioning, cannot help but go to see if what the women said was true.

Despair is turned into expectation, resignation to hope. Perhaps the end of the story will have to be re-written. In fact, the end of the story is nothing more than the beginning of a new story.

Jesus’ resurrection contradicts all that we know about life and death. It explodes the natural order of things, expands our horizons and opens our eyes to a different way of being. The resurrection demonstrates that evil and violence do not have the last word – goodness can and does triumph even though it may appear to have been defeated. It exposes our timidity, our cowardice and fear and replaces them with boldness, courage and confidence. The resurrection stands in defiance of all that is wrong in this world, by showing us what can go right. It thumbs the nose at the brutality, hatred and greed which tear people apart and points to a different way of being. We do not have to resign ourselves to terror, to poverty, to war and oppression. We can hope for and expect compassion, peace, equality and encouragement. We need no longer be held captive by death but can embrace life for ourselves and struggle to bring life to others.

The story doesn’t end with the tomb. Jesus is risen and nothing will ever be the same. Jesus is risen and our lives are charged with the power of the resurrection. Nothing is impossible. We have no more excuses. All our “maybe’s” are turned to “yes”, all our “buts” are exposed as procrastination – a failure to trust in Jesus’ presence and strength with us and in us.

Our story begins with the resurrection and our sharing with Jesus in the resurrection life. It is a story full of contradictions. A story in which death is overcome. A story that has no end but is full of new beginnings as again and again we die with Christ only to discover that it is in dying to the things of this world that we become more truly alive.

Jesus died – BUT he rose from the dead. That is our story – a story of new beginnings, fresh starts, opportunities to make good. Our story is the story of new life. So no more “buts” – let us embrace the life that God has given us and the new life that Jesus has won for us, that through us God may bring life to the world.

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