Posts Tagged ‘signs’

A trivial miracle?

January 15, 2022

Epiphany- 2022
John 2:1-11
Marian Free

In the name of God who can be found in the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Amen.

A hymn that I had not heard or sung for over twenty years has been doing the rounds of Facebook this year. Jim Strathdee adapted a poem by Howard Thurman. The first verse reads:

‘When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home
The work of Christmas is begun.’

‘When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home, the work of Christmas is begun.’

The miracle of Jesus’ birth and the wonders that attended it are only a small part of the story of the Incarnation. It is important to realise that if we remain fixated on the extraordinariness of the event, if our attention is focussed only on signs and wonders then we miss the unexceptional presence of God in the everyday. The very ordinariness of the Incarnation – a child born to an unexceptional couple in an obscure part of the world, a boy like any other boy and an adult with needs and fears common to every human being – can get lost if we are more interested in the dramatic and the showy – in the stars, the angels, the wise ones and the gifts. Indeed, the Incarnation is robbed of its meaning unless we understand that Jesus’ life was filled with the mundane, everyday business of living that is common to all human beings.

Our gospels are written ‘in order that we might believe’ but even so they cannot entirely obscure the fact that God in Jesus became fully human. There was no pretense. Jesus/God ate and drank, slept and worked like the rest of us. He had the same bodily needs and functions as all of humankind. Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is not Jesus’ birth, or dare I say it, Jesus’ resurrection, not Jesus’ teaching or his healing power, but the very fact of God’s becoming human – God’s extraordingary decision to enter into the earthy, fleshy, ordinariness of being part of the created world.

Perhaps this is why John begins his account of Jesus’ life with a wedding – a festive gathering of friends – rather than the more dramatic, showy and more obviously divine action of healing or exorcism with which Mark begins. John doesn’t surround Jesus with crowds of people whom he can impress – just the opposite. The action of this miracle not only takes place behind closed doors as it were, but in the presence of a few (servants who may not have been believed had they told their story). Having begun the gospel with the Christ hymn in which John proclaims an exalted Jesus who is pre-existent with God, the author of the fourth gospel brings us right back down to earth, setting Jesus’ first miracle in a private domestic scene – a family wedding.

The Word made flesh begins his ministry with a very fleshy deed – turning water into wine – meeting a very basic human need. One might go so far as to say that this first miracle is a superficial extravagance. How can turning water into wine – albeit to save the pride of the host family – compare with giving sight to the blind, freeing an enslaved person from their demons, healing the lame or raising the dead? What does such an action achieve in the wider scheme of bringing the community to faith? Indeed, what is the point if no one knows about the miracle except the servants who fill the water jars. (No one but Mary appears to know that the wine has run out. Even the steward is unaware that there is a problem and Jesus does not know until his mother tells him.) From the point of view of making Jesus’ presence and ministry known to the world at large, the changing of water into wine is something of a non-event. It will not draw the crowds or make his powers known and it seems too trivial a miracle to be repeated over and over again as some sort of party trick when there is no end to the more serious needs for healing and exorcism.

John, it appears, wishes to begin by demonstrating that Jesus is firmly embedded within the community in which he finds himself and that the Incarnation – God’s dwelling among us – is absolutely authentic not simply a matter of God’s lauding it over us, or of God’s trying to make us feel insignificant. Rather the Incarnation, the Word made flesh is God’s fully engaging with our experience, and this includes enjoying a good party.

That this might be the case becomes even more evident when we consider that the Gospel of John consists of what is known as a book of signs or miracle stories to which the Passion narrative has been added . These ‘signs’ are designed to convince people to believe that Jesus is the Christ. As the gospel is written the signs become more and more astounding until we come to the last – the raising of Lazarus – which presages Jesus’ own resurrection, but which also heralds his crucifixion. In this context, turning water into wine seems out of place especially when it it not accompanied with a discourse or a dialogue to explain it as are the others.

In juxtaposition with the Christ hymn, the wedding at Cana brings us back down to earth. Before we can become too wound up in the divine Logos we are confronted with the Word made flesh engaging in a very fleshy activity and performing a very fleshy miracle.

The wedding at Cana, serves as a reminder to us not to exalt Jesus to the point at which we can no longer see his humanity and so deprive the Incarnation of its true power and meaning.

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Reading the signs

November 14, 2015

Pentecost 25 – 2015

Mark 13:1-11

Marian Free

In the name of God who remains beyond our knowing and beyond our ability to control. Amen.

“Red sky at night, shepherds delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning,” goes the saying. Reading the weather is an essential part of a farmer’s life, whether the farmer is a herder or an agriculturalist. Lambs have to be brought in if it looks as if it is going to snow, grapes have to be covered if a frost is likely, seed is best planted if rain is imminent and so on.

Signs and signals are an integral part of all of our lives. Signs help us to order our lives and to navigate our way through what can be a complex and confusing world. Signs can be natural or constructed, simple or complex, obvious or subtle and our ability to read them can make a difference to our day-to-day lives and to our relationships with others.

Signs warn us of danger, create order and provide direction. Signals at a level crossing tell us when a train is imminent, green lights indicate that it is safe to continue driving, traffic signs warn us that a road might be steep or windy, slippery or gravelly. Signs enable us to drive in a way that is appropriate to the conditions and to avoid accidents at busy intersections.

Some signs warn us of unseen perils – telling us that we are close to an edge of a cliff, that we are approaching crocodile infested waters, or that kangaroos are likely to jump out onto the road in front of us. Others provide helpful information – which train to catch, which road to take to get to a certain place, which gate our plane is leaving from and so on.

There are signs are relatively easy to read. If the clouds are low and black we can presume that there will be a storm somewhere close. If the clouds are low and green then we can be sure that hail will accompany the storm. Other signs are much more subtle and complex and require a certain amount of knowledge or skill to interpret. Symbols don’t always mean the same thing to all people and pictures can have more than one meaning that can lead to misinterpretation. The subtle signals that make up inter-personal relations can be particularly confusing. People can say the most malevolent words while at the same time keep their facial expressions absolutely bland or even friendly and others can make a joke while keeping an absolutely straight face.

A failure to properly interpret signs can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings – between people and sometimes between nations. Missing an important cue in another person’s facial expression or stance or giving off the wrong cues by one’s own expression or bearing can lead to embarrassment or even cause affront. A misplaced look or gesture can leave another person (or nation) feeling denigrated, insulted or humiliated.

From a human point of view then, the proper interpretation of signs is absolutely vital to the smooth running of society and even of international relations.

Reading heavenly signs is another thing altogether. Indeed, it can be a foolish and dangerous occupation – foolish, because behind such reading is an assumption that God is able to be interpreted and dangerous, because it leads to rash and sometimes deadly actions[1]. A belief that we know what God will do and can predict when God will do it can on the one hand lead to the sort of complacency that Jesus’ return is not to be feared because it belongs in a distant and irrelevant future and on the other lead to a state of constant terror that God will return at any moment and catch us unawares.

In today’s gospel Jesus warns the disciples to be careful how they read the signs lest they make the mistake of believing that they are able to discern when the end is near. He tells them that there will be times when the world seems to be collapsing in on itself, times when violence prevails or when natural disasters wreak untold destruction. These things will happen he says, but they do not herald the end of all things[2]. The planet on which we live is unstable, the weather patterns are essentially outside of our control, and we seem unable to be able to leave peaceably with one another. None of these factors mean that God is behind the heartache and devastation that we witness on a daily basis.

In fact, if we read to the end of the chapter, Jesus reminds us that even he does not know when the end will come. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.”

Two things are essential. The first is to remember that in good times and in bad we need never fear for we are never alone, God is always with us and in the event that it is necessary God through the Holy Spirit will even speak for us. The second is to live in joyful expectation of Jesus’ return – whenever that might be.

We might not be able to read the heavenly signs, but that does not prevent us recognising God’s presence with us, and living lives that allow that presence to be a reality in the world.

[1] The Jonestown massacre comes to mind, as do other apocalyptic cults that persuade members to take their own lives in the belief that the end is near or that their deaths will bring on the end.

[2] I write this within twenty four hours of the terrible violence in Paris, and in a world that seems hell-bent on destroying itself through terror and war and through a careless disregard for the environment but I am not sure that these signs of human failings are evidence that Jesus is about to come and rescue us from ourselves.

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Opening the eyes of the blind

March 29, 2014

Lent 4

John 9:1-41

Marian Free

In the name of God who causes the blind to see and the deaf to hear. Amen.

Some of you may have seen the movie A Time to Kill. It is based on a John Gresham novel and set in the Deep South of the United States. A black man (Carl) is on trial for attempting to kill the men who raped and tortured his ten-year-old daughter Tonya. The evidence is clear and the white jury have no sympathy for the grief and rage that led the man to take justice into his hand. It becomes clear that he will be condemned and that he will receive the death penalty. His lawyer (Jake) tries to persuade him to plead guilty but Carl says to him: “If you was on that jury. What would convince you to set me free?” What follows moves and challenges me every time I think about the movie.

In his summing up, Jake takes the jury on a journey in their imagination. He describes what happened to the child – how she was abducted, raped so viciously that she would never have children, used as target practice – full beer cans thrown so hard that they tear her flesh to the bone. He tells how she was urinated on, had a noose place around her neck and hung from a tree and how when her tiny body proved too heavy for the branch, she was tossed back into the truck, driven to a bridge and thrown thirty feet into a river. “Can you see her?” he says.” “I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she is white.” At that point the penny drops for the jurors. At that moment, the child is no longer a stranger, no longer a member of a race for whom they have no respect. She becomes their own child – their daughter, their niece, their granddaughter. The horror of the crime and the violent grief of the father become understandable. They would have felt the same.

Of course, powerful as that is, it is fiction and it is set against a particular background. That said, it is a reminder that many of us tend to see the world in a certain way. We tend to be blinded by our experiences, by our cultures and our religious ideals. Whether we like it or not, most of us make judgements about other people. We create stereotypes that are difficult to break and make assumptions based on false or limited information. Sometimes our ideas change gradually as we get to know the person or group we have demonised. At other times we need something to shock us out of our complacency so that we can see the other for whom they are, not who we believe them to be.

Jesus is an expert at shocking people into a new way of seeing. He wants us to see things in new ways, not in the conventional, centuries old way of seeing things. He astonishes us by appearing to disregard the law, by healing on the Sabbath and by eating with tax collectors. His parables explode existing religious truths and force his hearers to reconsider their ideas about God and about other people. His teaching and behaviour are sometimes contradictory. In Luke, the story of the rich young man is followed by the account of Zaccheus. Jesus urges the rich young man to give away all his possessions then he commends Zaccheus who only gives away half of his possessions. It begs the question: What are we to do with our possessions? Jesus is not being fickle or obtuse, the contradiction and confusion have a purpose – they are designed to destablise our preconceptions, to make us dependent on God and to prevent us from believing that we can have all knowledge and all truth. If Jesus does not conform to the party line, and if his teaching is apparently then inconsistent it is impossible for anyone to claim that they fully understand or that they have a monopoly on truth.

The account of the healing of the blind man is a lesson about seeing – seeing differently. The Pharisees, who believe that they can see clearly are exposed as those who are blind whereas the blind man gradually comes to see who Jesus really is. The Pharisees who believe that they have nothing to learn are shown to be misguided and ignorant whereas the blind man who is aware how little he knows is proven to be the one who recognises the truth. The Pharisees are so locked into what they think they know that they are unable to change their preconceptions and expectations, whereas the blind man who recognises that he knows little is open to new ideas. He is aware that he has room to learn.

Throughout the story the Pharisees dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole – demonstrating how little they really know. The blind man not only receives his sight, but allows himself to be enlightened and his ideas to be challenged. The Pharisees who represent the religious leaders, judge Jesus on outdated credentials – he is a sinner, he does not observe the Sabbath, he does not observe the law (9:16), they do not know where he comes from. The blind man uses other – also legitimate – criterion to accept that Jesus comes from God. Just as his forebears believed Moses because of the signs he performed so the blind man sees and believes in the signs that Jesus does – making the blind to see (9:16). He understands intuitively that God listens to one who worships him and obeys his will (9:31). The Pharisees believe that they give glory to God by rejecting Jesus, yet it is the blind man who gives glory to God by worshiping Jesus.

John’s gospel is written for those who will come to faith – that is ourselves. As witnesses to the drama that is unfolding, we are challenged to think about ourselves and our ability to see; to ponder whether we identify with the blind man or the Pharisees and to consider how much we know about and whether we are willing to know more. We are challenged to remain open and expectant, to allow God to reveal God’s self in ways that are unanticipated and that break apart our previous ideas as to who and what God is. We are warned against holding rigidly to preconceptions and assumptions that lock us into only way of thinking and that therefore lock us out of the truth.

The problem with believing that we know it all is that it can blind us to what is actually in front of us. confidence in what we know means that we see things from one point of view – ours. If we believe that our perspective is the only one that has a claim to truth, we are forced to protect and defend it even when the facts contradict it. The Pharisees were unable recognise Jesus because they persisted in their way of seeing things, even when Jesus’ actions seemed to put the lie to it. The blind man was not bound to one interpretation, one view of the world. He was willing to learn and to use what he did know in a different way.

Let us not be so self-assured, so confident in our way of seeing that we are blind to the presence of God or that we fail to see Jesus even when he is right in front of us.

 

 

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