Accordingly, to understand Jesus’ ministry we need to understand what John
the Baptizer was doing and what motivated him.
John expected God to single handedly restore the Israelite nation to its
rightful place on earth and to end the oppression and exploitation of the
majority of the Israelites by the Romans. Those Jews, who were loyal and
obedient servants of God, would become members of God’s eternal kingdom. The
remainder would suffer a violent end. Under God’s earthly rule, oppression and
exploitation would cease and peace and harmony, would prevail. Heaven, as it
were, would come to earth.
Thousands of Israelites shared John’s view of the future God would make for
them. However, as their suffering at the hands of the Romans and of their own
landed aristocracy and political and religious elites persisted, they kept
posing this question. Why hasn’t God intervened already? In the words of Isaiah,
O God that you would tear open the heavens and come down! You are no use to us
stuck up there. Things are going so badly for us. How do we make it through the
nights, days, months, years, of darkness and despair?
Prophets kept saying God’s intervention will happen soon, meaning in our
lifetime. Well, if it is going to happen soon, why not now? John the Baptizer
emerged from the wilderness with an answer to everyone’s question. God is
holding back from intervening because of our sins. John offered a program to
remove sin as the impediment to God’s intervention.
Crossan interprets John’s program this way. John proposes a reenactment
symbolically of the Exodus from Egypt. He calls on the Israelites to follow him
into the desert East of Jordan, as their ancestors had gone into the desert
under the leadership of Moses. They are to enter the waters of the River Jordan
and as their bodies are washed in the river, their souls will be washed by God.
After the baptism for forgiveness of sins, they will re-enter the Promised Land
as a purified people. John claims that if there is enough support for this
program God will no longer delay cleaning up the world’s mess. Rather God aided
by his minions will destroy the Romans and the people’s local oppressors, and
establish his rule on earth.
John’s message spread beyond Jerusalem to the province of Galilee where Jesus
lived. Jesus, like the great majority of the Israelites, abhors the cruel and
oppressive occupancy of the Romans and as a member of a poor peasant family,
knows first-hand the injustices imposed on the ordinary people by their own
aristocracy and elites. He believes God can and will set things right. He wants
to help make it happen.
Because Jesus wants to be part of the solution, it is hardly surprising he
journeys south and seeks baptism from John. John’s call for the Israelites to
join his program works. Not only Jesus, but thousands of his fellow Israelites
flock to the banks of the Jordan to hear John preach and to receive baptism.
John preaches divine judgment and retribution. His God uses violence to achieve
his ends. You gathered how John put his message across from today’s gospel
reading. "When John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said
to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’
John assigns a vindictive and cruel role to the Messiah, that is to Jesus. ‘The
Messiah will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with
unquenchable fire’. Jesus subsequently rejects the cruel role John foretells him
executing. But, John uses these terrible word images to plant fear not love in
the hearts of the hearers. "If you do not get with my program this is what will
happen to you: you too will burn".
John’s violent view of the kingdom conflicted with the non-violent view of
the kingdom Jesus subsequently offered. Initially, however, if Jesus did follow
John he must have accepted, even if in a conditional way, much of John’s
message.
Probably because of John’s popularity his career is short lived. The Romans
are quick to stamp out any perceived threat to their control. God’s champion,
John, is executed and there is still no apocalyptic intervention by God. John’s
movement is finished.
Jesus watched all this happen and he learnt, and he changed, observes Crossan.
In the New Testament record, Jesus shows great respect for John, and declares he
is more than a prophet, which is high praise. However, Jesus does say "the least
in the kingdom of God is greater than he [John]". It seems John’s violent
message has no place in the kingdom program of Jesus.
Let us now turn to Jesus’ kingdom program. Jesus puts to one side John’s way
of talking about the Kingdom as a future event and announces that it is a
present reality. There are a number of sayings of Jesus that can be interpreted
as proclaiming that the Kingdom is already here; that it is among you (For
example, Luke 11:20; Matthew 12.28).
When Jesus announced the kingdom is already here there must have been
wide-eyed rejections of the message. "How can he say the kingdom is already here
when nothing has changed? Look around, Tiberius is still on Caesar’s Throne, and
the peasants are still being exploited". Crossan asserts that Jesus responded to
these attempted rebuttals of his message by communicating a message that
amounted to the following: "Don’t you see what is wrong? You have been waiting
for God to do it for you – to clean up the world’s mess -- and God has been
waiting for you to collaborate with him. You are waiting for an intervention
that will never come". Jesus may also have reminded them that God’s covenant is
always a two-way relationship. The people have to play their part. God never
works single handedly. The people have to join him in making change happen or it
will never happen. We too, you and I, have to collaborate with God for any
significant change to occur in our world.
Here is the good news, those who collaborate with God, discover God is
present. Do you recall the insightful aphorism of Bishop Desmond Tutu’s I shared
with you several weeks ago. He said, "God without you will not, you without God
cannot". That is the message concerning the Kingdom that Jesus offers through
his teaching and his work with people. As for Jesus’ baptism? By being baptized
Jesus identified himself with those who seek to make God’s kingdom a reality by
cleaning up the world’s mess. And to what end? So that all human beings can be
what God intends them to be: people living joyful and fulfilling lives in peace
and harmony with one another, and with their God. AMEN
* In preparing this sermon I have made use of a public lecture John Dominic
Crossan delivered at Ridges Hotel, Carlton in September 2010 for the Progressive
Christian Network of Victoria.
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Introducing Matthew's Gospel
Every year a crucial part of our collective journey as
followers of Jesus takes the form of gathering each Sunday for worship and
fellowship. Much of what happens during most services of worship is influenced
by the Church’s lectionary.
The lectionary is the three-year cycle of Biblical readings.
For each Sunday there are four prescribed readings: usually two from the Old
Testament – a Psalm and one other, and two from the New Testament: usually a
reading from an epistle and a gospel reading.
Whatever else is read, the gospel reading is viewed as the
cornerstone of the lection. This is reflected by the fact that each of the years
of the three year cycle is named after one of the first three gospels: Matthew,
Mark and Luke. You may be thinking as you hear this: why does my favourite
Gospel, John, not have its own year? Whatever the historical reason, do not
fear. John gets a fair go. In the year of Mark there are more weekly readings
coming from John than from Mark! Considerable chunks of John get a run every
year.
2011 is the year of Matthew. Because it is, I propose to
talk to you about its main characteristics. Let us start with the title of the
book: The Gospel According to Matthew. What does that mean? The word gospel in
the New Testament means the good news of the saving act of God in Jesus Christ.
That meaning holds if we are talking about any one of the four gospels. However,
each offers a somewhat different account of what happened, what Jesus said and
most importantly, a somewhat different interpretation of Jesus’ life and
teaching. That is why Matthew’s book is called, the Gospel According to
Matthew.
Well who wrote Matthew’s gospel? I was raised to believe that
Matthew the tax collector wrote it. I now know that he almost certainly did not
write it. We do not know who wrote this gospel, nor for that matter do we
know who wrote any of the other three gospels. The gospel named after Matthew
the tax collector was for a very long time No 1 on any list of gospels. This was
in large part because it was believed to offer us a first hand account of Jesus’
life and teaching.
Now, very few reputable scholars believe the tax collector
wrote the gospel, or that any other person who had been with Jesus wrote it.
The broad consensus is that it was written by an unknown Jewish Christian
approximately 50 years after the death of Jesus.
Until some time in the second century, all the gospels
circulated as anonymous works. They were all written for specific church
communities. You could attract interest in your gospel by putting the name of a
famous person on its cover page. No one saw an ethical problem in doing this.
In this way all the gospels became endowed with the name of a famous early
Christian. It is highly unlikely any of them offers us an eye witness account of
Jesus’ life. Each was written by a second generation or even a third generation
Christian.
Although we do not know who wrote the first gospel we can
say with a high degree of confidence that a Jewish Christian wrote it. The style
of writing and the cast of thought of the gospel strongly suggest that this was
so. The community for whom ‘Matthew’ wrote this gospel probably lived in
Palestine or Antioch in Syria.
He wrote his gospel to help sustain the faith and commitment
of a particular group of followers of Jesus during a time of persecution.
Although it has a single author, the gospel expresses the faith of that
community: that is what Jesus had come to mean to its members by the time it was
written which would have been some time in the last quarter of the first
century.
The overriding purpose of this Jewish Christian gospel was
to show that Jesus was the Messiah the Jews had been waiting, for centuries, to
arrive. The gospel portrays Jesus as God’s instrument for making things right
for the Jewish people, and specifically for those Jews who placed their faith in
Jesus and became committed followers.
Matthew makes it clear that all the events of Jesus’ life he
relates in his gospel were decreed by God from the beginning. Matthew shows
this through the use of quotations from the Hebrew scriptures. He does so
because he is writing for a Jewish audience, some of whom are committed
followers, whilst others are enquirers. Many of the potential Jewish converts to
Christianity would be saying, how can I possibly believe in a Messiah who has
undergone the death of crucifixion? God would not permit that to happen to the
Messiah. Matthew's answer to this perplexing question is this: all that
happened to Jesus, including his death, is a fulfillment of the will of God and
it is foreshadowed in the Psalms and prophetic writings of Israel.
To make this point Matthew includes more explicit references
to the Old Testament in his gospel than do any of the authors of the other three
gospels. I am referring to statements such as “This was done so that what the
Prophet Isaiah said would be fulfilled”. Matthew’s gospel abounds with such
statements.
Matthew displays his Jewish heritage and the Jewish
character of the audience he is targeting by presenting Jesus as the new Moses.
Moses was the greatest of the prophets, so that claim on behalf of Jesus is
likely to impress Jewish hearers. Matthew writes his account of Jesus’ birth in
a way aimed to confirm that Jesus is the New Moses. For instance, there is a
clear parallel between the birth of Jesus in the first two chapters of Matthew
and the birth of Moses in the first two chapters of Exodus. In both cases, an
evil ruler plans to kill the child. Pharaoh plots to kill Moses and Herod plots
to kill Jesus. In both cases only divine intervention saves the child.
For Matthew, Jesus is the new Moses bringing a new
law** from a new Mt. Sinai (a reference to the Sermon on the Mount).
Jesus is the one, of whom Moses and the ancient Prophets wrote. From the new
Mt. Sinai, the new Moses states, “Do not think I have come to abolish the law or
the prophets: I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (5:17).
Matthew’s Jesus actually makes the law harder. For instance,
on the subject of murder: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient
times, ‘You shall not murder’; and whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.
But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be
liable to judgment”. Jesus makes the law tougher regarding adultery, divorce,
retaliation and so forth.
In Matthew’s gospel, the writer instructs his faith
community to keep all of the laws set down in the first five books of the Bible
– the section called the Torah. At the same time, for Matthew, love is the core
commandment. For Matthew, the Jewish law hinges on the commandment to love God
and one’s neighbour. Matthew’s Jesus breaks new ground by saying we are to love,
even your enemies. This was a big concession for Matthew because his community’s
enemies were some Pharisees who were persecuting Christian Jewish members of his
community.
So what does one do if the law of love clashes with any of
other commandments – which at times it does? Matthew took the view that if that
happened the love commandment was to take precedence. Ulrich Lutz, one of the
world’s great Matthew scholars, says that Matthew failed to recognize the full
implications of saying the love commandment was to be prioritized. Love can, and
does, at times, conflict with some of the commandments found in the Sermon on
the Mount and in the Torah. For instance, the directive that divorce may never
occur has the potential to clash with the commandment to prioritize love. It may
be that, in some circumstances, the only loving thing to do is to permit divorce
to take place. Which way do we jump when we are commanded to always obey both
directives?
A similar problem arises concerning the absolute ban in
Matthew’s gospel on the use of violence. Does one stand by and watch an
innocent person murdered because we are commanded to never resort to violence?
If we do stand and watch the innocent killed, we are, of course breaching the
absolute law, to always act out of love.
What these examples illustrate is that we cannot resolve
conflicts between many of the laws laid down in the Sermon on the Mount and the
Torah in advance by giving clear cut rules to always obey to the letter. Any
clash between such laws can only be resolved in the circumstances of one’s
life.
A word of caution: because Matthew stresses the importance
of deeds it does not mean he reduces the Gospel to an ethical agenda. Matthew
has a strong emphasis on what we call spiritual matters. The law is God’s gift
to human beings. Our deeds are to be grounded in prayer. It is not accidental
that Matthew places directives concerning prayer and the Lord’s Prayer itself,
in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount. This placement amounts to saying that
the deeds we perform are to flow from our ongoing relation to God, which is to
be nourished by prayer.
Ordinary people have used Matthew’s gospel for 2000 years as
a guide to imitating Jesus. The imitation of Jesus’ way for Matthew means
courageous action and prayer, obedience and prayer, and suffering and prayer.***
Matthew shows us that Jesus is the one to follow in these ways. Matthew shows
us that Jesus is a man of deeds not only of words. This is a message not only
to individuals, but to church communities. Jesus calls us as a church community
to be a community of doers, not merely of listeners to the word. That was the
message communicated two weeks ago by Elaine.
Notwithstanding what I have just said about the significance
of faith and prayer in Matthew’s understanding of the gospel, throughout this
presentation you may have been saying to yourself, well this is not the gospel
message I was taught when growing up. Nor is it the gospel message I have heard
from the pulpit. That may well be true. The message we Protestants typically
heard was that we are not saved by our good works, but by grace alone and faith
alone. Yes, the great reformers Luther and Calvin emphasized this message; the
one they had gleaned from Paul’s Letters to the Galatians and to the Romans.
Yes, Paul is the New Testament’s champion of grace whereas
Matthew is the champion of deeds. They seem to be at opposite poles. Now that
is a simplistic statement to make about them but Lutz stresses it is true in its
essentials.
The next question that suggests itself is this: Is it
possible to harmonize these two apparently disparate messages? After all, Paul
recognized the importance of works when he says that faith that does not give
rise to good works is dead. He did say that, but he also made clear that good
works do not move us closer to God. God saves us we cannot save ourselves, is
Paul’s message.
For his part, Matthew recognizes the significant part faith
and grace play in the life of the authentic follower of Jesus, and also the
importance of our ongoing relation with God. However, he does believe that our
salvation ultimately depends on our deeds, rather than our faith.**** No, these
two competing perspectives on salvation cannot be readily harmonized. *****
Should this worry us? Not at all. I did say that all four gospels are
acknowledged in their titles to be a particular person’s interpretation of the
gospel. Each of the gospels is a mixture of a community’s memory of Jesus’
actions and teachings and an interpretation of these things.
I believe it is good news that we have contrasting
interpretations because that increases the likelihood that we will each find an
approach that works for us. Yes, one approach will suit one person, or one
faith community, better than another. We may find more than one gospel, perhaps
all four, a valuable guide. Go with what works for you, whether as an
individual or a faith community.
AMEN
* I have drawn on the following in preparing
this reflection: Eugene Boring, ‘Matthew’ in Leander Keck (editor) The New
Interpreter’s Bible, Vol 8; Marcus J Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The
First Christmas and The First Paul; Ulrich Luz, The Theology of
Matthew.
** Some scholars say they are not new laws but
moral imperatives.
*** They knew first hand about suffering for
their faith because they were being persecuted by some of their fellow Jew’s who
rejected the claims that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah.
**** Lutz says
that from Matthew’s perspective, “All that ultimately matters is [people’s]
works”
***** Salvation here does not mean getting to
heaven when you die but the transformation of one’s life in this world and the
transformation of the world itself.
Top of page
Revisiting
the Beatitudes
Today when the gospel was read
from The Good News Bible, you heard each of the nine beatitudes open with
the expression ‘happy are those’. For example, happy are those who are merciful
to others.’ People may experience feelings of happiness if they are engaging in
acts of mercy, especially if their actions produce good outcomes. Yet, the
expression ‘happy are those’ does not ring true for every beatitude. Think for a
moment about the expression: ‘happy are those who mourn!’ Does it ring true in
the light of your experience? Are you happy when you are grieving over the loss
of someone or something precious: say the loss of your partner, a parent or a
child; or perhaps the loss of your health, your job?
Those referred to as mourners in
the sermon would have included all those people who were suffering because they
were being treated unjustly, or were afflicted with serious ailments. Those who
grieve for the sufferers of the world are going to be feeling anything but
happy. Do you feel happy when you reflect on the suffering of the millions of
people who this very day are starving to death in famine stricken or war
stricken countries? Do you feel happy when you think of the flood, cyclone and
bush fire victims in our country who have lost loved ones, houses and
possessions so recently?
Let us take a further example --
the expression – ‘happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God
requires.’ Does that ring true? Who is going to be experiencing any happy
feelings if he or she is being humiliated and belittled, much less physically
bruised and battered for being a follower of Jesus?
The NRSV offers a more accurate
translation. It begins each beatitude with this expression, “Blessed are
those”. Does it sound like I am making a lot about nothing? There is a crucial
difference between these two expressions: ‘Happy are those’ and ‘Blessed are
those.’ Let me explain.
The word happy refers to a
subjective human experience: how we feel. ‘I feel happy’. The word blessed in
the Biblical context refers not to our feelings but to an action by God.
So, for example, the expression, Blessed are you when you mourn does not mean
happy are you when you mourn but God gives you his blessing for mourning. Here
Matthew is drawing on an important Biblical tradition. According to this
tradition, one of the characteristics of the true people of God is the fact they
lament the present situation of God’s people and of God’s program. For this
mourning, God gives you his blessing. We can continue in the same way with other
beatitudes: God gives you his blessing for being merciful, for being a peace
maker, for being pure in heart, and so on.
So who is God blessing in
Matthew’s gospel? Not individuals but a community. Jesus addresses the nine
declarations that comprise the beatitudes to people living together in the
community of discipleship for whom Matthew wrote his gospel.
God blesses this community because
its members live lives based on trusting Him. They live such lives in
anticipation of the coming of God’s kingdom to this world. They live in
anticipation that God’s programme will be fulfilled, and they, his people,
rewarded.
The faithful disciples comprising
Matthew’s community are not going to be feeling happy much of the time. The good
news communicated to them by the nine declarations is this: no matter how rotten
you may be feeling be reassured that God is with you, God blesses you. These
blessings offer you consolation in your suffering. They strengthen you to remain
true to God, in the face of your persecution by your enemies. You see, members
of this community are suffering for proclaiming that Jesus is God’s Son. Yes,
some of their fellow Jews slander and reject them.
Jesus calls on the members of this
little faith community to rejoice and be glad for in their suffering they have
the consolation of knowing they are blessed by God for displaying the qualities
affirmed in the Beatitudes: they are merciful, meek, pure in heart, hungry for
justice, etc. They are to rejoice also because when God establishes his reign on
earth they will receive their ultimate reward: membership in His kingdom. During
the interim they can be sure in the knowledge that God is with them blessing
them, consoling and sustaining them.
Understood in these ways the
beatitudes constitute good news to this community who are experiencing travail
for being followers of Jesus Christ.
Now the kingdom did not come as
Matthew and members of his community expected it would come. Two thousand years
have passed and each Sunday we continue to pray, “Your kingdom come”. Many
Christians still believe the kingdom will come more or less in the dramatic and
conclusive way described in Matthew’s gospel. Such people say God will defeat
the powers of evil and establish His rule on earth. When this happens, those
who have lived faithful lives will be part of his kingdom, but those who have
not will miss out.
Others take the view that it is no
good waiting for God to intervene some time in the future to put things right,
when the reality is that God is waiting for us to exercise some initiative.
These people say, the kingdom comes insofar as we join God in cleaning up the
world’s mess and work at shaping our relationships according to his guiding
principles.
There are other Christians, who do
not exercise their minds concerning when and how God’s kingdom comes. The
matter of the kingdom does not influence the way they go about living their
life.
So what relevance do the
beatitudes have for each of these three sets of people? I contend that they are
relevant to all three sets. The beatitudes serve as a prologue to the Sermon on
the Mount. In its entirety, the Sermon offers invaluable guidance for those
engaged in a quest for God and for a peaceful and caring world.
Today, we will not attempt to
unpack the sermon in its entirety. We focus on the beatitudes. As well as
offering us God’s blessing and assurance He is with us on our journey, the
beatitudes offer us some fine insights into God’s character and how he wants us
to behave and relate to one another.
The beatitudes highlight the fact
that our God is a God who cares about the economically impoverished and the poor
in spirit. He favours humility not arrogance. He expects us to care for all who
suffer pain. God values the peacemakers. He cares about those who are persecuted
for seeking justice, and he cares about those who are being treated unjustly.
Viewed collectively, the
beatitudes encourage us to live in a non-competitive, non-grasping way, and
compassionate way way. They encourage us to live a life grounded in our
dependence on God: a life that recognizes that all we are, and all we have, come
ultimately from God.
In the time remaining this
morning, I will concentrate on one beatitude: ‘Blessed are those who are
merciful, for they shall receive mercy’. For Matthew mercy is the focal point of
Jesus’ message. It is on a par in significance with love and forgiveness. Later
in his gospel, Matthew makes it clear that mercy is an essential quality for the
leaders of his community to possess. Indeed, not only for the leaders, but for
everyone who comes to God in prayer (6:12, 14-15). The quality of mercy is a
golden thread running through all the beatitudes.
Living by the exhortation to be
merciful requires us to be non-grasping in our relationships: to prioritize
compassion over self-serving action. The exercise of mercy shows that a faith
community’s life, or an individual Christian’s life, is not turned in upon
itself but “reaches out to those who are hurting”.
God calls on us to show mercy by
forgiving those who have failed us in some way. Jesus exemplified this value in
his life. He forgave those who misused him and abused him, even those who
brought about his death. For Jesus, being merciful entailed healing the sick,
and befriending and giving hospitality to the despised members of his society.
Jesus calls on today’s faith
communities and their members to reach out to soothe the sufferer’s pain, to
heal the sufferer’s wounds, and to hold back from taking advantage of those who
are vulnerable, but instead, to show them compassion.
The final thing I want to do is
come back to the matter we started with -- happy feelings. Following Jesus may
or may not bring feelings of happiness but generating such feelings is not what
following Jesus is principally about. Much of the time followers will feel far
from happy. We may well feel sad, bewildered, and be in a state of grieving,
possibly for ourselves, and for those people experiencing great suffering.
The members of Matthew’s community
experienced these things too. However, they would have recognized that the
beatitudes were, above all, a blessing. They were a blessing bestowed on them
because they were already what the beatitudes described: they were merciful,
humble, meek, pure of heart, and so forth.
Notwithstanding the fact that the
beatitudes offer us good guidance as to how to live our lives, we too should see
them as first and foremost a blessing and a consolation, rather than an as an
ethical code.
Yes, the final word is not about a
God making heavy demands on us but about a God who is merciful: who forgives and
cares for us, and upholds us every step of the way on our journey as disciples
of Jesus Christ. Yes, the God we meet in Jesus Christ is a God who blesses and
consoles us now and in the future. AMEN
Sources utilized in preparing this reflection: Walter
Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, Year A, pages 124-126; Brendan
Byrne, Lifting the Burden; M. Eugene Boring and Fred B. Craddock, The
People’s New Testament Commentary.
Top of page
The Sermon on the Mount: A vision of the character of God
Today’s
gospel reading is provocative and uncompromising. It may sound outrageous to
you. It does to some scholars.
Listen to a
few of the commands attributed to Jesus.
·
‘If anyone
wants to take your coat give him your cloak also!’
·
‘If you are
forced to go one mile volunteer to go a second!’
·
‘Give to
everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from
you!’
·
‘Love your
enemies’.
These moral
commands amount to saying do not resist evil, that is, do not use force to meet
force; Give away everything you possess: look for no repayment of loans, and
place no limit on your generosity; always prioritize love: No matter how much
someone abuses you and misuses you, love them in return.
It is hardly
surprising many people dismiss these moral directives as naïve and utopian. They
often prompt the observation, ‘Does Jesus mean what he says? After all, he often
exaggerates to gain his hearer’s attention. He must have had his tongue in cheek
when he delivered these lines’.
The church
has debated for 2000 years just how it should interpret the seemingly tough
directives Jesus offers in the Sermon on the Mount. There have always been
plenty of people saying they are not meant to be interpreted literally. On the
other hand, there have always been those who said we are obliged to implement
them to the letter of the law. For example, St. Francis of Assisi took this
approach. He said Christians of all eras are obliged to obey them. Francis,
himself, gave all he had to the poor and lived a life of impoverishment. The
novelist, Leo Tolstoy, also claimed that the Sermon on the Mount was a basis for
living. He said that implementing the directives often required devotees to
withdraw from ordinary society.
Yes,
throughout its two thousand year history, the institutional church has struggled
with the Sermon on the Mount. Biblical scholar Eugene Boring says, it has not
been easy for the church to take the text seriously. “Most of the church’s
struggle has been oriented to this question. How can anyone actually live this
way?” Boring emphasizes that the church has usually sought to reduce the impact
of Jesus’ commands by restricting their application. For example, the great
medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, said the directives are only meant to apply
to priests, monks and nuns. That sounds like a good let off. I suppose the
Protestant equivalent would be they are only meant to apply to ministers,
moderators and deacons.
Seriously
though, what relevance does the Sermon on the Mount, including the portion Bev
read, have for us? Do we believe that as disciples of Jesus we should try and
implement the directives under discussion?
Can we get a
clear indication from the scriptures as to what Jesus expected when he offered
these directives? Contemporary scholars are divided on this matter. For
example, there are those who say what Jesus says on the question of violence is
to be taken literally: so Christians are never to take arms or use violence even
to protect their family. There are, on the other hand, equally reputable
scholars who say that these teachings of Jesus were never meant to be
interpreted as directives we have to live by in contemporary society.
The debate
over what Jesus expected will go on interminably in large measure because Jesus
did not leave a written record of what he said. The substance of Jesus’
preaching and teaching was passed on, by word of mouth, and we know what happens
when we pass on directions by word of mouth. The earliest written records we
have of his teachings are the first three gospels and these date from the 70s
and 80s of the first century. Eugene Boring reports that most scholars believe
that the Sermon on the Mount is not a verbatim account of Jesus’ teaching. It
does contain significant material that Jesus uttered, and I will come back to
that, however, the more common view among scholars is that the Sermon is
Matthew’s composition.
The
contemporary view is that Matthew has done what Calvin observed in the 16th
Century, that is, brought together in the one speech sayings of Jesus delivered
in a variety of contexts. Most scholars also believe Matthew has given his own
distinctive twist to some of the sayings and composed some of the material
himself.2
The fact that
the Sermon is not a verbatim report of Jesus’ teaching may diminish the
authority of the Sermon for some people: provide them with wriggle room.
However, in working out where we stand on the key question: are we meant to
live by these directives - we need to bear in mind that a majority of scholars
believe that many of the more demanding commands in the Sermon can be sourced to
Jesus. These sayings include ”If someone strikes you on right cheek, turn to him
the other also” “If someone wants your coat let him have your cloak also” “Give
to the one that asks you” and “love your enemies”. Yes, scholars are confident
that the more demanding commands come from Jesus, although not necessarily
exactly as we have them in Matthew’s gospel.
If they do
come from Jesus that does lend weight to the claim that disciples are bound to
live by them. However, many scholars say that even if Jesus required his
disciples to implement these directives it does not mean that they are binding
on we who live in the 21st century. Historical context makes a
difference, and ours is markedly different from theirs.
Here is one
difference that is crucial to this discussion. The cornerstone of Jesus’
preaching was repent because the Kingdom of God has drawn near. We live two
thousand years on and we know that the Kingdom has still not come in the way
that Jesus was talking about and which Matthew was writing about. Consequently,
we are probably not as ready as Matthew to accept that we should live by the
directives given in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus and
Matthew saw things differently to us. They like many Jews, believed the
Israelite people, and all of human kind, stood on the brink of a new era. Jesus
and Matthew’s moral directives on how people were to live, expressed what they
saw to be the ethical implications of God reigning on earth. What the Sermon on
the Mount offers us is a picture of how life will be once God establishes his
kingdom in its final form.
Jesus
believed that the reign of God would produce an era where cooperation and
harmony would prevail where once conflict and violence was dominant. When the
Kingdom comes to full fruition deception will be a thing of the past, and in its
place will be simple truth-telling. Outrageous generosity will be a daily
occurrence, and love for one’s enemies will replace hatred, rancor, dispute, and
violence. In short, we will have paradise on earth: it will be God’s reign on
earth was the message.
Why would
these particular changes occur? Because human relationships exhibiting these
qualities would truly reflect the character of God: this is what God is like,
according to Jesus. This is what he wants us to be like in our relationships
with one another. If this is how things are going to be any time soon, then
Jesus seems to be saying to his disciples, and Matthew, to his readers, “Get
with the programme”. Some scholars say they are saying, “Help make the kingdom a
reality by living by these directives now.”
The
observation that the seemingly naïve demands about being generous to an
extravagant degree, and not resisting evil, reflect God’s nature should cause us
to pause before dismissing them as utopian and irrelevant. We have to think
about them seriously. And a good starting point for doing so, is to think about
the question I have just alluded to. Did Jesus expect these commands to be
implemented by his disciples prior to the kingdom being established in its final
form?
The question
matters because if he did, then it lends weight to the view that the commands
have relevance for us as we too live in a time that has not experienced
the kingdom as Jesus envisaged it.
I believe the
answer to the question did Jesus expect the disciples to attempt to implement
his commands? Is Yes! In Matthew’s gospel he does not say when the
kingdom comes, you are to do these things. He puts the commands in the present
tense. He says do these things now: start living a life that manifests the
nature of God; start living a life that reflects what you are now: children of
God. The commands we heard in today’s reading fit with this reading of what was
going on. Matthew interprets them as binding on Jesus’ disciples, and if they
are binding on Jesus’ disciples they are binding on Matthew’s congregation, or
at least that section of the congregation that commits to the vision of God they
meet in Jesus.
To put this a
little differently, Matthew sees the directives of the Sermon as binding because
of the authority of the one who utters them: that is Jesus. The one who shows
all followers what the character of God is like, the one who is the Messiah and,
by the time Matthew wrote his gospel, is for the church, Lord. Yes, the message
of Matthew’s gospel is that we cannot separate the ethical demands of Jesus’
teaching from the character and authority of the one who declares them: Jesus
Christ, Lord and Saviour.
Jesuit New
Testament Scholar, Brendan Byrne teases out the implications of what I have been
putting to you. He says, “Everything Jesus commends or requires in the sermon
rests upon the distinct theological vision overarching all (the sermon)
from beginning to end. The instructions only make sense to those who share and
have been grasped by that vision – a perception of the character of God as
revealed by Jesus, …a God who is now intervening … in the world to save it from
destruction”. Here is an important message: the various ways the sermon
commends followers to act – some requiring generosity and risk taking – only
make sense because this is the way God acts.
Byrnes astute
observations surely bear on the question: to whom are these directives seen as
relevant? Not to everybody but to those who perceive the character of God in
the teaching and life of Jesus.
Consistent
with this message is the fact that in Matthew’s gospel it is the disciples to
whom Jesus addresses the Sermon on the Mount. The crowd is nearby, they are a
source of potential disciples, but they are not the people to whom the Sermon is
directed. This means Jesus is giving his directions on how to live to those who
have already committed their lives to following him, to those who have grasped
the vision of God’s character revealed in Jesus.
In a similar
way Matthew fifty or so years later, is offering his account of Jesus’ gospel
and his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to those members of his faith
community who too have grasped the vision. He knows that there are some weeds
among the wheat of his community, but it is to those members who are the real
disciples that he directs his words; it is those members Matthew targets in his
account of the Sermon on the Mount.
The Biblical
position is that the teaching is not for everyone. Although there is much in the
sermon that other religious leaders have said, we should not see the Sermon on
the Mount as offering a stand-alone set of moral rules. The Biblical message is
that it is a program of action for committed disciples of Jesus Christ: for
those people who share the vision. So, for example, the Bible does not offer the
Sermon as an ethical program for a total society. It will only make sense, says
Brendan Byrne, to those “who share and have been grasped” by the vision of the
character of God revealed by Jesus.
So where
does that leave us? Should we see the Sermon on the Mount, or sections of it as
providing Christian communities, like ours, with a program to follow? If the
answer is yes, are we obliged to follow the program literally?
By no means
do all Christians agree on these matters. What do you think? After Rae and I
return from leave, I will pursue these particular questions further. In the
meantime, I will leave you with this précis of the argument I have been putting.
Matthew’s gospel communicates this message: Jesus offers in the Sermon on the
Mount a set of directives instructing followers how to treat other people. These
directives do not constitute a stand-alone system for anyone or any society to
adopt. Matthew believes the ethical commands will only make sense to, and be
compelling for, those people who have grasped the vision of God revealed in the
life of Jesus Christ: that is the one who is for them Saviour and Lord. AMEN
1. The
sources that have proven most helpful in preparing this reflection are: M.
Eugene Boring’s comments on the Sermon on the Mount, in The New
Interpreter’s Bible (New Testament Editor, Leander E. Keck) especially pages
219-222; Brendan Byrne, Lifting the Burden Reading Matthew’s Gospel in the
Church Today. I also made use of Charles Cousar’s comments on Matthew
5:38-48 in Walter Bruggemann, et.al, Texts for Preaching, Year C, pages
153-54.
2. You can
carry out a partial check on this for yourselves. Compare the Sermon on the
Mount in Matthew, with the Sermon on the Plain in Luke (chapter 6). It is clear
that both writers draw on a common source but there are many significant
differences between the two. Ask yourself, which version is nearest to what
Jesus said? Most of the scholars I am familiar with say Luke’s version. Perhaps
neither one is closer than the other.
Top
of page
'Jesus Way'
The directives Jesus gave in today's
gospel reading sound irrational and foolish. Jesus says, no longer do we go
with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. From now on, we always give in
to the evil doer. This command would have shocked his hearers because the
natural thing to do is protect yourself, and the people and things you love
from the harmful actions of another person.
Jesus puts before his hearers three
examples of how people should give in to the demand of an evil doer. I will
talk briefly about each in turn. However, bear in mind they are only
illustrative. They do not set out all Jesus expects of people. They do
indicate some of the key ways Jesus wants people to respond not just in the
specific situations and circumstances he describes, but in all spheres of
their life. Did he want people to take them literally? That remains
controversial. I do believe he wanted his contemporaries to take them
seriously.
The first directive states, if someone
hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek to hit too. It was a
public insult to strike somebody. It was proof that you hated that person.
The insult was deemed much worse than any physical pain you experienced.
You could take the assailant to court and seek retribution. Why then would
anyone of right mind say, "Slap me on this cheek too!" Yet, Jesus is saying,
do not seek retribution by taking the offender to court. Rather let him
strike you a second time. The message is clear: People are to eschew
violence. They are not to retaliate.
Jesus' second directive states, if
anyone wants your coat, offer him your cloak as well. He is referring to a
situation where a money-lender asks a borrower to surrender his coat as a
pawn. The borrower says to the money lender, 'Here have my cloak as well!'
This is sillier than we realise, because the cloak was much more valuable
than the coat. Why would anyone do this?
The third directive Jesus gives is this:
If someone forces you to go one mile, go a second mile. The Romans followed
the Persian practice of making it lawful for military personnel or a
government official to demand a service of a citizen, such as providing
transport, or carrying an object for a specified distance. Jesus is, in
effect, saying do twice as much as you are commanded to do. Any Jewish
freedom fighters who heard this would have regarded Jesus as a traitor.
By the world’s standards, the behaviour
Jesus seeks people to engage in is imprudent, even foolish. If the poor
person gives up his cloak as well as his coat, the most likely thing is that
he ends up both poorer and bereft of vital clothing for keeping out the
cold. Nor is a person likely to gain by collaborating enthusiastically with
the occupying force. It will help the occupier maintain his control, it
almost certainly will not convert him to your point of view. So why is Jesus
doing this?
Some scholars say Jesus has his tongue
in cheek. He is deliberately exaggerating to make a point. He is using
these stories to highlight certain ideals which he does not expect people to
live up to but which he wants them to take into account in going about their
daily lives. Some of these commentators say there can be circumstances in
which you are justified in not living by a particular directive.
Other scholars argue that Jesus is
directing people to do more or give more because such action may turn the
enemy into a friend. Such a turnaround is far from assured. During the last
week of his life, Jesus cooperated with his enemies but they certainly did
not become his friends.
Both explanations miss the mark because
they fail to consider the purpose of Jesus' public ministry. To understand
the Sermon on the Mount we have to see it in the context of Jesus'
conviction that the Kingdom of God was breaking into this world. His
ministry was about facilitating the coming of the kingdom. Jesus believed
that when the kingdom did finally come the way things were presently ordered
would be turned upside down. The new order would reflect the character of
God. This meant, for instance, there would be no violence, no oppression of
the weak by the strong. Rather generosity, love, humility, mercy and purity
of heart would flourish among human beings. When the kingdom comes those
people who are now oppressed, poor, and ostracised would be at the centre of
things and leading rich and fulfilling lives.
Jesus knew that far from everyone would
make it into God's kingdom. There would be a judgment. The great judgment
scene of the 25th Chapter of Matthew shows the sheep standing on one side of
Christ the judge and the goats on the other. So how do the directives we
heard in the reading from Matthew this morning fit into the picture? What
have they to do with the kingdom? They are part of the Sermon on the Mount
and the Sermon sets down the entrance demands for the Kingdom. Today's
directives amount to requiring those who wish to enter the kingdom to eschew
violence in their relationships.
Well, to whom was Jesus directing his
demands? In the first instance, his inner circle of followers. He has formed
them into a community of brothers and sisters who are in the peculiar
position of having God's son as their exemplar and teacher. Jesus wanted to
maximise the opportunity for people to participate in the Kingdom so what
Jesus trained up his community of brothers and sisters to do is reveal the
character of the future kingdom by their deeds as well as their words.
That is why is he now directing them to
do things that fly in the face of conventional practice, and conflict with
urges and wants deep within the average human being.
Notwithstanding such preparation the
kingdom did not come in Jesus' time, and still has not come in the way Jesus
envisaged it. Following Jesus' death each successive generation of
Christians expected that during their lifetime Jesus would return to
establish God's reign on earth. To that end, they committed themselves to
living by Jesus' directives. Their commitment to doing so is understandable
for there was a lot at stake. They believed faithful implementation of the
directives ensured they would be part of God’s realm for eternity. Failure
to meet them would result in God excluding them forever.
As we have seen, one of the core
conditions of entry to the kingdom was foregoing the use of violence in all
circumstances. Accordingly, until the early years of the third century the
church forbad any Christian to become a soldier. The church forbad those
soldiers who converted to Christianity to kill even if ordered to do so by a
superior. In short, the church was a pacifist body. However, when in the
third century Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire
the church moved away from this approach. How could the official church of
an Empire expanded and sustained by violence profess pacifism?
After the church became the official
religion of Rome, two competing approaches to practicing Christianity were
evident. The newest approach was to participate in the law making and
governing of what we now call the secular world. Many Christians took on
such roles to benefit humankind. However, they often had to give up
interpreting Jesus' teachings rigorously because to do so would prevent them
carrying out their official duties.
The second approach was the old approach
of living by Jesus' teaching literally. Now, however, only a minority of
Jesus' followers practiced this approach. They included the Mennonites, the
Amish, and in the course of time, the Quakers and still more recently
Jehovah's Witnesses. There have always been notable individuals endeavouring
to live rigorously by Jesus' radical teachings; people such as Francis of
Assisi, Tolstoy, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi. Their
endeavours were largely motivated by love and a sense of responsibility for
the world. They, however, usually perceived that they could only practice
Jesus' ethics rigorously if they did not participate in an official way in
the business of government and law.
Probably the Reformers – Luther,
Zwingli, & Calvin – made the biggest move away from the Sermon on the Mount
as a main source of specific ethical demands for Christians. The Reformers
argued that the standards of the Sermon on the Mount were too high for any
Christian to attain. They further argued that the purpose of the directives
was to convince human beings of their sinfulness and their utter dependence
on Christ’s expiation of their sin through the cross for their salvation.
The question of how to interpret the
Sermon on the Mount remains controversial. People on both sides of the
argument will put their point of view vigorously, and probably cite
scripture and/or the writings of highly claimed theologians and ethicists to
support their position.
What I have shared with you today
suggests that each generation of followers needs to undertake a fresh
evaluation of the demands Jesus set down in the Sermon on the Mount, and for
that matter, of his teaching found elsewhere in the gospels. It is most
unlikely
that Christians will come to one mind on these matters. One reason a
diversity of views will persist is the fact that current circumstances
differ among followers and the circumstances of all followers differ from
those of Jesus. Our circumstances matter. The character of our personal
journey, our temperament, and our ethical and theological convictions, will
greatly influence our assessment of the relevance of the Sermon on the
Mount.
It is true that Jesus' conception of
God's character and his particular historical circumstances resulted in him
calling on his followers to live by a radical and demanding ethical code.
However, I do not believe he meant humans to take his directives as law. One
can legitimately read the text of his teaching as giving us a degree of
freedom in the response we make.
In my view it is a mistake to sideline
the Sermon on the Mount, either by arguing it is too difficult to sort out
its ethical implications, or, by arguing that it sets an impossible standard
for humans to attain. At the same time, one has to acknowledge that the
directives are demanding. For instance, they do not seem to leave room for
vengeance at a personal level. They seem to call for an unselfish
temperament, humility, and a willingness to suffer loss of personal rights
(Allison in Barton and Muddiman, p 855).
Notwithstanding these qualities, I do
not find it helpful to view Jesus' directives as inflexible moral absolutes
for us to follow to the letter of the law. Rather, as New Testament Scholar
Dale Allison suggests, I prefer to see them as offering us a moral vision.
The purpose of the vision is to instil principles and insights that will
facilitate us treating people decently and making Jesus' way our way. AMEN
*Of the various authors I consulted in
preparing this address the two I am most indebted to are Dale Allison,
'Matthew" in John Barton and John Muddiman (editors) The Oxford Bible
Commentary and Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7 A Commentary. 1866 words
Top of page
'Jesus' Way II'
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Luke
6:27)
Jesus commands his followers to love their enemies. This may
sound an unreasonable command to make, and one that goes against what comes
naturally to human beings. There seems to be deep within human beings the urge
to pay back – particularly those who hurt us, or hurt our kin or friends, in
some way.
Notwithstanding the human urge to hit back – an urge with
which Jesus must have been familiar – Jesus' call to love your enemies is, in
effect, a call for the disciple to overcome or, at least, sideline his own hurt
and resentment and focus on what is good for his enemy.
This is such a big ask. For one thing, are there not crimes
so horrific that it is impossible to love those who commit them? It is also the
case that the call to love your enemies can be compromised by the fact that the
disciple's interests are invariably enmeshed with those of other people: such as
those of his or her spouse or children. As a follower of Jesus, you may be
prepared to prioritize your enemy's interests over your own. But, would you be
prepared to prioritize them over your children's interests? Does Jesus require
this? He may well have, because, you may recall, he told his disciples that if
their commitment to him clashed with their duties to their parents and siblings
they were to prioritize their commitment to him and the kingdom.
If, as I am suggesting, Jesus' intended his command to love
one's enemies to apply in all situations and to all people, then it went well
beyond what the Jewish law, the Torah, demanded. The Torah commands Israelites
to love their neighbour (Leviticus 19:18). However, the Torah makes it clear
that the only neighbours you are to love are one’s fellow Israelites. This means
the demand to love does not extend to gentiles whether they live within Israel
or outside it. For his part, Jesus extends the definition of neighbor to
include people of other ethnic groups and societies.
To highlight the radical step he is taking when he commands
his followers to love their enemies Jesus juxtaposes his commandment with what
tradition requires. This is what he says: "You have heard it said you shall love
your neighbour and hate your enemies" Presumably he is referring to the Hebrew
Scriptures but where do the Hebrew Scriptures make that statement? Not
anywhere. However, there are a number of passages in the Old Testament that
make clear that God hates certain groups and he expects his chosen people to do
the same. For instance, in the Book of Deuteronomy God declares his animosity
toward the Ammonites and the Moabites. He hates them because they failed to
facilitate the settling of his chosen people in the Promised Land. God commands
the Israelite people never to extend friendship to either the Ammonites or the
Moabites and never to promote their welfare or their prosperity. This amounts to
a command by God to his chosen people to hate the people that he hates. Jesus
probably has such communications in mind when he says, "You have heard it said
you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemies"
Within the Hebrew context, Jesus' command to love your
enemies constitutes a serious departure from the Biblical tradition. That holds
notwithstanding that he said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law
or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill". Enemies are the
new neighbours to be loved in the same way and to the same extent as fellow
Israelites. Yes, Jesus is substantially modifying the Jewish tradition.
There is a further question to consider. Does Jesus' command
to love one's enemies break new ground for human beings generally? Many
Christians claim this command is an ethical first, but is it? Is Jesus the first
sage to issue such a directive? Strictly speaking, it is not an ethical first.
Other sages, other traditions express a similar idea. However, as a rule they do
so in more moderate language than Jesus used. Yes, there are similar statements
if expressed in more moderate language in the writings of some Jewish scholars,
and of scholars in the Greek Stoic and Platonic traditions, Buddhist scholars,
and in Taoism (Luz, 341).
For instance, a number of religious traditions offer a
version of “the golden rule”. It is possible to interpret these versions as
encompassing one's enemies as well as one's fellow countrymen, friends and kin.
For example, the Jewish Rabbi, Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, said, look into
your own heart, see what distresses you and then refrain from inflicting similar
pain on other people. If Hillel means this command to apply to one's enemies
then it is in sympathy with what Jesus said but it is not expressed in as robust
language as Jesus' directive.
Some religious and philosophical traditions issue a general
commandment to love all human beings. But, the command to love everybody does
not have the same bite to it, as the command to love your enemy, especially in
Jesus' case because he makes it clear he includes as enemies people who behave
vindictively. Jesus speaking, "But I say to you … Love your enemies, do good to
those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you"
(Luke 6:27-28) The three key words used by Jesus in relation to enemies are
hate, curse and mistreat. Jesus' use of these words leaves his followers in no
doubt that they are to love the people they are most likely to hate, especially
when it is evident from the context in which Jesus speaks that the enemies his
followers are to love include the Roman occupiers of their country. Yes, those
people who regularly pillage and murder Israelites. Clearly this was a big ask.
Yes, Jesus is issuing a comprehensive command to love your
enemies. Jesus has also commanded his followers not to resist the evil doer. If
we put the two commands together, do they amount to saying that you are to allow
the evil doer to do his or her worst? You are not to restrain him, even if he is
raping and pillaging.
I do not believe this is Jesus' intent. Preventing someone
performing some horrific crime does not preclude loving that person. Remember
that in giving his directives about turning the other cheek, going the second
mile, loving one's enemies, Jesus believes he is facilitating the kingdom
becoming a reality and making followers fit persons to enter the kingdom in its
final form.
Jesus is fully aware that there are at present only small
intimations of the future kingdom. He knows he lives in a society scarred by
oppression, exploitation, brutality and inequity. These are the realities.
Jesus also knows when humans are left to their own devices
they invariably create a defective society, a defective world. Jesus knows that
in such a world evil doers have to be restrained, by force, if necessary.
Without courts of law and a system of enforcing the law, any society becomes
anarchic. Consequently, we should not interpret Jesus’ command to love your
enemy to preclude restraining the evil doer if he is bent on the destruction of
people or their property. Yet, restraining such people does not relieve us of
the responsibility to love them.
I said earlier that Jesus' command to love one's enemy
worries many people because they interpret it as a command to go against their
own natures. Such people have in mind the fact that there is something deep
inside us that drives us to get what we want even at the expense of someone
else, and to use force, if necessary, to achieve our goal. There also seems to
be deep in human beings the need to engage in payback, to get even with those
who hurt us or hurt ones we love.
Our experience confirms that these things are true. However,
I would put it to you that our experience also teaches us that humans possess
the capacity to put to one side their anger and hurt, and empathize with another
human being in trouble, even when he or she is the cause of one's pain. We are
born with, or acquire the ability, to love and forgive those who hate, curse and
physically mistreat us.
We should be thankful that the reality is that in every era
of human existence, there are numerous examples of human beings exhibiting these
exceptional qualities. Let me tell you about one I came across recently. In the
concentration camp of Ravensbruck an extraordinary prayer was left by the body
of a dead child. “O Lord remember not only the men and women of goodwill but
also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have
inflicted on us. Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering,
our comradeship, our loyalty, and humility, our courage, our generosity, the
greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to
judgment let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness.” (Dowrick,
p.334).
The writer, Stephanie Dowrick goes on to say that this
radical request that their murderers should benefit from the gifts retrieved
from the suffering that they themselves had caused is a wonderful example of
compassion at its most profound and unifying levels. Just at the moment when
feelings of revenge, hatred and contempt would seem not only natural, but
inevitable, this prayer is drawing our attention to the human capacity to love
even one’s worst enemies.
"This depth of connection with life as revealed in this
prayer is foreign to most of us. We neither live that intensely nor could die
that gloriously, but we can learn much from it [this prayer]" says Dowrick.
Dowrick says that if her own life she sets in train,
an intention to forgive then she is acknowledging two things. The first is that
she is capable of learning from her suffering, and the second is that she is
willing to acknowledge that you are no less and no more deserving of love than
me.
We obviously cannot explore this morning all the lessons that
the prayer has to teach us. Perhaps we can at least make a start by recognizing
what the person who wrote the prayer clearly understood. There are many diverse
and conflicting strands within each one of us. The best of us are capable of
doing seriously damaging and hurtful things to others and the worst of us has a
better side. One step we can take towards loving those who have seriously hurt
us is to resist the practice of typifying our opponent or enemy as an evil
character and, instead, to start looking for the good they do. We need to
recognize that the flaws we criticize others for are also present in ourselves.
Yes, we are much more like other people than we are different from them
There is one further thing I would like to mention that may
help us forgive what may seem unforgivable. It is something that the novelist
Joanna Trollope said life has taught her. I paraphrase. All people get things
wrong but most do not get things wrong out of malice. They get them wrong out of
muddle.
Jesus saw the coming of the kingdom as evidence of God’s
limitless love for human beings. Yes, God loves the sinner as well as the
righteous is the message. Two thousand years have passed since Jesus proclaimed
that the kingdom was near, many people are still waiting for God to act. I
think biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan was right when he said, all these
centuries we have been waiting for God to act when God has been waiting for us
to collaborate with him in making the Kingdom come.
If we can grasp that God's love for us is limitless that
should inspire us to act: to love and forgive others, even those who have hurt
and mistreated us. Do that and the kingdom becomes a present reality. Amen
Resources used in writing this reflection included Dale
Allison, 'Matthew" in John Barton and John Muddiman (editors) The Oxford
Bible Commentary, Eugene Boring and Fred Craddock, The People's New
Testament Commentary, Stephanie Dowrick, Forgiveness and other Acts of
Love, and Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7 A Commentary.
Top of page
'Turning lives around' *
It is morning, and a great crowd
of people is listening to Jesus’ preaching. To be better heard, Jesus asks Simon
Peter if he can use his boat as a speaker’s platform. When Jesus finishes
speaking, he asks Simon Peter to prepare for a catch in the deep water.
Simon Peter objects because his
experience has taught him that doing what Jesus proposes will fail to produce a
catch. He was probably saying something like this to himself: ‘Who does this
Jesus think he is handing out advice on catching fish, he plies another trade.’
Simon Peter and the others had
fished all through the night and caught nothing. Simon Peter knows that the
chances of netting fish in the morning are virtually zero. Nevertheless, Simon
Peter reluctantly agrees. He says to Jesus, “At your direction, Master, I will
let down the nets”. This seems to indicate that Simon Peter is ready to accept
Jesus’ leadership. But, he does only on the outside. Internally he is not
committing. He probably is saying under his breath, “No point really Jesus –
this a waste of time and energy". However, to humour Jesus, he says, "We will
try again!”
To his astonishment, Simon Peter
nets so many fish he needs help from the other boat to land the catch. Both
boats are at risk of sinking. A catch of this size, particularly in the morning
is contrary to their years of experience in the fishing business. The catch
produces a feeling of amazement for Simon Peter. But, something more: Simon
Peter experiences a profound sense of awe. Something new and astonishing is
happening. It is something that makes the usual daily round of Simon Peter’s
life pale by comparison. Simon Peter concludes this is not a human event
God is at work through this man Jesus.
Luke uses this story to
communicate to his readers that Jesus is special. The story has a
similarity to stories featuring Moses and Elisha. God uses Moses to supply manna
and water to the Hebrew people whilst they journey in the wilderness. Through
God's intervention, Elisha feeds a hundred people with twenty loaves of bread
and provides an endless supply of oil.
Now God through Jesus provides an
abundance of fish. What is the message for us? When Jesus brings followers into
the work of fishing for men and women, he is inaugurating a time of abundance
and blessing. Yes, Jesus is special.
Luke also communicates the
message that Jesus is special by describing in graphic detail the extraordinary
response of Simon Peter when he and the other fisher-men, seemingly miraculously
net a wondrous catch. Simon Peter cries out “Woe is me!” "Go away from me,
Lord, for I am a sinful man!"
The fishing episode proves so
‘awesome’ for Simon Peter, James and John that all three leave their fishing
business, their families, their friends and neighbours and follow Jesus. Yes,
they turn their backs on jobs, boats and relationships and take up with the
person who will transform their lives, and, indeed, change the course of human
history. Yet, the three men commit without understanding what they are letting
themselves in for.
So what is the real miracle here?
Is it the size of the haul of fish? Not really! For Simon Peter, James and John
the far greater miracle is meeting this remarkable person Jesus. This is the
miracle that changes Simon Peter’s life.
So let us look a little closer at
this story and do so by addressing these questions: What does Simon Peter’s
shock and awe response tell us about him? What can it tell us about ourselves?
The first thing it tells us is that Simon Peter is a passionate and
enthusiastic man; second, that he is a humble man! He not only recognizes that
God is at work but he is overawed by what for him is the great gulf between
himself and this Jesus who can bring about such a miracle. So Simon Peter
proclaims: “Go away from me for I am a sinful man”.
When he utters these words, Simon
is highlighting the gulf between himself and God’s emissary, Jesus. Because we
know how the story develops, we can use Simon Peter's statement to remind us of
the gulf between what he Simon Peter is at the time of his call and what he
eventually becomes. He becomes a person who repeatedly risks martyrdom by
courageously proclaiming to his fellow Jews that Jesus is the long awaited
Messiah, and that with Jesus' coming the Kingdom of God has drawn near. He calls
on his fellow Jews to become part of God's future by becoming followers of Jesus
Christ.
Perhaps of greater relevance to
us is the fact that as the result of becoming Jesus' disciple he takes on the
difficult job of serving as the leader of a community of followers. The members
of this Jerusalem based community were endeavouring to live out the demanding
values and directives of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Yes, they were engaging in
the tough task of living together and treating each other decently, lovingly and
compassionately notwithstanding differences in age, gender, work experience,
health and wealth. The strong looking after the weak, the rich sharing with the
poor, the healthy caring for the sick and despairing. They lived together
knowing the quality of their relationships within the community and with
outsiders decided the judgment people made about Jesus and the kingdom. This was
discipleship in action under the leadership of Peter.
What you have just heard offers a
glimpse of Simon Peter's future. However, at the time of the fishing miracle, he
is in the boat with Jesus and he is scared. You are thinking of course, he is
fearful for his life because the boat may sink. That is only part of the reason
he is scared. He is scared for a similar reason as the great prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I
dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts!”
Simon Peter is very scared
because he knows he is a man with many weaknesses and frailties and now he
senses God is present in a unique way in Jesus and he feels stripped bare, all
his frailties are on display.
Is there a lesson in this segment
of the story for us? Perhaps it can encourage us to reflect on the gulf between
what we are and what we could be. We need, like Simon Peter, to acknowledge to
ourselves our frailties. At the time of his call, Peter knew himself in part but
the future experience of fleeing when the soldiers took Jesus in the Garden of
Gethsemane, and of subsequently betraying Jesus three times will result in him
plumbing the depth of his own frailties in a way that probably was not possible
at the time of his call.
The good news is that Peter will
learn that these frailties and the acts of betrayal that flowed from them will
not cause God to abandon him. On the contrary, if we wind the story of Peter’s
biography forward we will see it demonstrates to us, who also are inadequate,
that God’s gracious generosity is without bounds. Peter learns this when Jesus
reappears to him after his resurrection. When he does appear to Peter, Jesus
does not say, “Peter you let me down so badly I now know I was mistaken to think
you were genuine leadership material. Sorry Peter you are off the team!” No!
Instead of revoking Peter’s call, he confirms it. Is this not reassuring for us
who know just how frail we are, how often we fall short of what we have
committed to doing?
The insight Peter’s story
provides is this: If we are going to work effectively for God's kingdom we too
have to plumb the depth of our frailties and come to an understanding of God’s
gracious calling of us notwithstanding our shortcomings, our failures, yes, even
our betrayals.
There are three further
observations it is important to make about the calling of Peter, James and John.
First, these three fishermen have done nothing to merit the call. Jesus did not
call them because of their qualifications, character, or potential. God’s call
is both unpredictable and unmerited. It is easy for us to lose sight of these
facts with our emphasis on having the right skills, qualifications, and
personality type to take up a specific vocation.
Second, the call does not come in
a holy place such as the temple or synagogue but in the midst of the
fisher-man’s daily work. This is significant because it is one of many signs in
Jesus’ ministry of God’s kingdom reaching into the arena of human life. The
great message of this miracle is that God's grace can imbue our everyday life
and relationships with one another. For us it is a reminder that it is in the
everyday life of people, in what is so often described as the secular realm,
that we followers are expected to be quietly witnessing to the presence of the
kingdom, and the power of God in Christ to transform people's lives personally.
Yes, Peter's story reminds us that God relates to us as persons, and that the
relationship we have with God is the path to personal transformation. This
relationship liberates from bondage and provides the path to new beginnings.
Peter discovered in Jesus a new way to a life-centred on God.
The third thing we can take from
the story of the calling of the first disciples is this: Jesus did not come
asking people to add on to their ordinary life a new spiritual exercise, or an
additional article of faith to believe, or another interest to fit into a busy
program. He came seeking a commitment that would pervade all areas of a
disciple's life, all activities, all relationships. Yes, Jesus calls us to
transform us. Consequently, the question for us is this: Do we, like Simon
Peter, want our lives transformed? Do we want to be liberated from bondage to
any false God we are serving?
Because
the Christian church has had such an acceptable place in the Western world,
westerners usually fail to grasp the radical nature of what Christ was ushering
in. For the same reason the radical nature of what he still asks of potential
participants often goes unnoticed.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German
Pastor the Nazis hung for joining in the plot to kill Hitler said: the call of
Christ to discipleship is a call to come and die. When people are responding to
a call to follow Jesus the likelihood is that if they live in the Western world
they will not have to die physically because of their discipleship. However, God
expects us to die to living a life that reflects the world's priorities. That
is what it means to have our lives turned around.
It is never easy to commit to
Jesus' cause. Remember, huge crowds followed Jesus around and they heard the
message. A large crowd was present when Jesus said: if anyone will come after me
he must take up his cross and emulate me! It is understandable that relatively
few of Jesus' hearers were prepared to pay the price when in the course of time
it became clear what following Jesus entailed.
God does change things. That is
the message communicated by the story of Jesus' calling of Simon Peter James and
John to be fishers of men. He breaks into the events of our daily lives: he
breaks nets and sinks boats. Yes, he changes things radically for those who
commit to follow him. This is what God is up to in Jesus. For us the question
is the same as it was for Peter, James and John. Are we prepared to be part of
this? To have our lives transformed personally by Jesus and by joining others
followers in making the world a place of justice, plenty and peace: a place
where everyone has enough, people live in harmony and no one need be afraid.
Amen
*Sources used in writing this
reflection. Marcus J Borg, Jesus; Charles B Cousar et al. Texts
for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C, R
Allan Culpepper, 'Luke', in Leander E Keck, editor, The New
Interpreter's Bible, Vol IX. 2091 words.
Top of page
'Why was Jesus killed?*
On occasions, at Christmas time you come across a Christian celebrating the
birth of his Saviour by wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words 'Born to
Die'. Yes, Jesus was born in order to die is the message.
Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ conveys this message too.
The film concentrates on the last 18 hrs of Jesus' life from his arrest on
Thursday evening through his crucifixion on Good Friday. It commences with this
verse from Isaiah. He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities; by His wounds we are healed (Is. 53:5). This verse sets the focus
for the film. The message is clear: the primary purpose of Jesus' life was to
die for the sins of humankind.
Probably most of us who grew up in a Christian church – whatever the
denomination -- are familiar with this story. We heard it from the pulpit, we
heard it in the liturgy, we sang it, the whole year round.
We still love and sing hymns that convey this message; hymns such as 'There is a
green hill outside a city wall where the dear Lord was crucified who died to
save us all'.
What was and still is highlighted is the message that before God could forgive
us our sins a substitutionary sacrifice must be offered to God. The hymn goes
on to say: He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good, that we
might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood.
God has to put his own son in our place because we are such serious sinners that
nothing we could do or say, no amount of punishment of human flesh, could blot
out our offense against God. Jesus alone is acceptable as the payment for our
sins because he is without blemish. By dying in our place, he makes our
salvation possible. The hymn writer puts it this way: "There was no other good
enough to pay the price of sin, he only could unlock the gate of heaven, and let
us in".
In the light of the communication of such views through hymns, teaching and
preaching it is not surprising that the notion of substitutionary sacrifice has
become widely accepted as the true, the official church explanation of Jesus'
death. But, is it the official explanation of Jesus' death? Is it what Jesus
taught? The answer is no to both questions.
What is true is that the substitutionary sacrifice theory is one of many
interpretations of Jesus' death. Paul, offers several explanations. First,
Paul does speak of Jesus' death as a sacrifice. However, he does not see Jesus
as standing in for us so God can forgive us. Paul offers other explanations. He
says that the purpose of the cross is to show us that the path to our
transformation is by dying and rising with Christ. Nothing there about
substitutionary sacrifice. Nor is there in Paul's statement that the cross
reveals to us the depth of God's love for us. In summary, Paul offers multiple
explanations for Jesus' crucifixion.
What about Jesus himself, did he believe that God willed he must die and did
Jesus meekly accept that this was his fate? There are statements in all four
gospels that suggest that Jesus saw things this way. John presents a Jesus who
has always known he is going to die. John's Jesus says that dying is the very
purpose he has come into the world. Jesus is going to die because this is what
God preordains for him from the beginning of time.
In attempting to sort out what Jesus himself believed and said Marcus Borg
stresses, we must bear in mind that the gospels are not historically factual
accounts in every detail. Rather they are a mixture of memory and
interpretation. The great majority of mainline Biblical scholars acknowledge
that all gospel writers, at times, put words into Jesus' mouth. Statements such
as the following from Mark's gospel fall into that category. ‘The Son of Man
(that is Jesus) must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders,
chief priests and the scribes and be killed'.
Why did the gospel writers have Jesus make such a statement? Remember they were
writing forty or more years after Jesus' death. By then the emphasis on Jesus'
divinity had grown among followers. They were shocked by Jesus' ignominious
death. It was the opposite of what should happen to the Messiah. They must have
spent much time in reflection on the meaning of his death. They asked themselves
this question. Given that God is all powerful and all loving, how could He allow
this to happen? The only way they could make sense of it was to say God must
have willed it. It had to be part of his salvation plan for his people. They
must have further argued that because Jesus had been with God from the outset he
knew of God's plan, and as an obedient Son, he accepted it.
I find the argument of mainline Biblical scholars that the gospel writers not
Jesus were the source of the idea that God willed Jesus' death convincing. I am
also uncomfortable with the idea that God willed Jesus' death because to go
along with that idea creates serious theological and ethical problems for us.
IN particular, to claim Jesus' death was inevitable because God willed it is
tantamount to saying that Jesus had no choice in the overall direction of his
life. That, in turn, means he did not have to wrestle with the moral dilemmas
with which we wrestle. If Jesus was controlled by God, to this extent, what
value can there be in our trying to emulate his example in our daily living?
That brings us to the next question. Is there any indication, in the gospels
that Jesus did exercise choice on the big issues of his life? If there is, that
further calls into question the claim that Jesus was born to die. Yes, there is
such evidence. There is evidence that Jesus tried to avoid being killed by his
enemies. Mark offers the first piece of evidence in his account of Jesus'
movements during the last week of his life.
Jesus goes to the capital of his people, Jerusalem, to make a double
demonstration: a demonstration against Roman imperial power and a demonstration
against the Jewish high priestly collaboration with Roman power (Borg, Jesus).
He goes, knowing these demonstrations could bring about his death.
The first provocative act occurred on Palm Sunday. He enters Jerusalem on a
donkey. He enters from the East possibly at about the same time that Pilate
enters from the west riding on a warhorse. Pilate is in Jerusalem with
additional troops because the great Passover festival creates a tinder box
situation. You have a huge number of Jewish people from all over the world in a
confined space and they are celebrating deliverance from Egyptian bondage while
they are under Roman bondage (Crossan, lecture).
On that first Palm Sunday, the crowd of pilgrims hoped to witness a fresh
demonstration of the power of God. They were yearning for their nation to have
a new military ruler who would drive out the Romans and restore their nation to
its former glory.
Yes, a riot could happen very easily. Pilate is there with his troops to ensure
it doesn't happen. Enter Jesus on a donkey, on a female nursing donkey with a
foal trotting along with her. Biblical scholar and historian, Dominic Crossan,
says there is only one interpretation we can put on this action. Jesus is
caricaturing Roman power. This is precisely what will not be tolerated during
Passover. There is zero tolerance for anything that could cause trouble.
You could have yourself martyred in five minutes during Passover. If Jesus had
wanted to die, he could have got it done by Sunday evening. However, he is not
killed. First, because the crowd is on his side. They provide a protective
shield because the authorities dare not move against him in daylight for fear of
causing a riot. But they could get him at night when the crowd has dispersed. As
you heard this morning in the 1st reading from Mark, Jesus thwarts this action
by not spending the night in Jerusalem. He leaves the city for the comparatively
safe place of Bethany. He persists with this pattern until Thursday: In
Jerusalem in the day, in Bethany for safety of a night.
Since Sunday the chief priests have been searching for a way to arrest Jesus
quietly and kill him. By Wednesday they are saying we cannot risk it "during the
festival it, or there may be a riot among the people." It seems Jesus has won
the struggle. But, something else happens on Wednesday that turns it all around.
Yes, Judas acts. He goes to the authorities and says, "I know where Jesus goes
of a night. I can take you to him and you can take him at night, so there will
be trouble from the crowd". Judas takes the authorities and the guard to the
Garden of Gethsemane in the hills above Jerusalem, where they seize Jesus.
This brings us to the second piece of evidence that Jesus was not viewing his
death as a God given inevitability. We find it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's
account of what transpired in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately before Jesus'
arrest.
All three gospel writers show us a Jesus in distress at the prospect of his
death. In Mark's account, he becomes deeply agitated and distressed. He says to
Peter, James and John, "I am deeply grieved even to death." He throws himself on
the ground and prays, "Abba Father, for you all things are possible, remove this
cup from me, yet not what I want but what you want". He goes through this
process on three separate occasions, on each occasion begging God to save him
from his fate.
Jesus' action in the Garden and in fact throughout that last week is not the
action of a man trying to get himself killed but the action of a man trying very
much to stay alive.
I believe Jesus was a man who, like other men, could and did make choices; one
who agonized over moral decisions in the way we agonize over them. That is what
happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus presents as a man who knowingly
risks his life by trying to change the way things are done in his society so
they reflect more fully the character of God. I see Jesus as a man seeking to
make God's kingdom a reality on earth.
Jesus did not die because God willed it, nor because, he Jesus, sought
martyrdom. Nor did he die as a substitutionary sacrifice for you and me. He
died because Roman authorities with the support of the Jewish authorities
perceived him as sufficient of a threat to execute him. We know Rome did the
deed because Jesus was crucified and crucifixion was an imperial form of
execution. If the Jewish Council had executed Jesus, they would have stoned him.
Rome had a variety of ways of executing people. They often beheaded criminals.
The fact that Rome crucified Jesus helps us understand why he was killed. Rome
reserved crucifixion for two categories of people: chronic runaway slaves and
other persons who in some way challenged Roman authority. Jesus' death was
politically, as well as religiously motivated.
Jesus' death was not a divine inevitability rather it was virtually a human
inevitability (Marcus Borg, Jesus). A crucifixion says, this is what we
do to people who oppose us. Rome carried out such executions on a daily basis.
The authorities crucified Jesus to make a statement.
Jesus got into trouble because he was passionate about God's kingdom, and God's
justice. Remember kingdom was a political term in Jesus' time. Jesus'
experience of the limitless character of God's love and his commitment to God's
kingdom drove his mission.
The promotion of the message of an alternative kingdom to Rome's imperial
system, brought him into direct conflict with the Roman authorities and with the
Jewish leaders who were benefiting from Rome's rule.
The irony of the story is this: Jesus did not die because God willed him to die
to propitiate for human sin. He was not substituting for humans on the cross,
but ironically, he did die because of human sin.
That said, it needs to be stressed that Jesus did not die the death of a victim.
Jesus chose the path he walked. He chose it knowing that there was a high
probability he would be killed. After all, he knew that Herod Antipas had
already killed his mentor, John the Baptizer.
Jesus died a martyr's death, and he died it filled with passion for God and
God's kingdom, and filled with God's passion for justice. Jesus' passion led him
to oppose the domination system of his time and that system – the Romans in
collaboration with the Jewish authorities -- killed Jesus.
However, that cannot be the final word. Jesus was motivated to risk all because
of love – love of God and love of his fellows. Yes, love was on that cross. We
look forward to Sunday knowing that God's love not death had the final word.
AMEN
* I am indebted to the following
authors for much of the material presented in this reflection: Marcus J. Borg,
Jesus; Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week,
John Dominic Crossan, 'The Death of Jesus', a lecture presented in Melbourne in
July 2010.
Top of page
'Easter Transformations: Personal and Political'*
If Jesus'
life had ended with his crucifixion, we would not know about him. He would have
been just one of hundreds of Jewish trouble-makers executed by the Romans. If
his story ended with his crucifixion, we would not even have Good Friday because
there would have been no surviving community of followers to keep his memory
alive and give meaning to his death. Without Easter, there would be no Jesus
story to tell (Borg and Crossan, p. 190).
So what is Easter about? On one level, it is about God raising Jesus. But, what
does that mean? Was this the miracle to top all miracles? Was this proof that
there is a life beyond death? Did Easter demonstrate that Jesus was indeed God's
Son?
Before we can address such questions in a useful way, we have to consider what
kind of stories are the Easter stories. Are they historical reports of events
that happened as described or, are they couched in the language of metaphor and
parable so that they convey truths that are more than factual or, are they some
combination of both?
All of us who grew up in the church come here today with a pre-understanding of
what Easter is about, gleaned from Sunday school, liturgy, hymns, teaching, and
preaching (Borg, p. 275). This pre-understanding lays stress on the historical
factuality of the Easter stories. We have learnt that the core "facts" are
these. (1) The tomb was indeed empty. (2) It was empty, not because some person
or persons had stolen the body, or the followers had gone to the wrong tomb. It
was empty because God had transformed Jesus' corpse in some way. (3) Jesus did
appear to his followers after his death in a form that could be seen, heard and
touched.
Perhaps there has been too much emphasis placed on the factuality of these
stories. For some committed Christians it is an impediment to understanding
their meaning. For others, they constitute a stumbling block. This second group
of people, think that one has to believe these stories are historically factual
in order to be a Christian, and if you cannot believe these stories, they reason
you cannot be a Christian. The problem for these people is not just the
character of the stories but the numerous differences among the stories. It is
impossible to reconcile many of these differences.
The main point to make is this. If we focus on the factuality of the stories –
"Did they happen or did they not" we may not ever get to the question that
matters: "What do they mean?" (Borg and Crossan, p.192). I am suggesting that we
should consider these stories as parables and put to one side the issue of their
historicity. Now treating them as parables does not amount to declaring
them fiction. A parable may be historically factual.
The point to stress is that the meaning of the parable does not depend on their
historical status. For instance, does it matter to the truth of the Good
Samaritan if there really ever was a Good Samaritan? To take a second example,
would we say the story of the Prodigal Son is not true because there never was a
father who welcomed home in such a generous and forgiving manner a wayward son?
The meaning of the parable is to be sought in what it is telling us about God;
it does not depend on its factuality.
As far as the Easter stories are concerned. To see them as parabolic is not to
deny their historic factuality. Because that is so let us leave the question of
their historic factuality open and look at their meanings because the importance
of these stories is to be found in their meanings. "If you believed the tomb was
empty, fine; now, what does this story mean?" If you believe that Jesus'
appearances could have been videotaped [if the technology was available] fine;
now, what do these stories mean? And … even if you are quite sure it didn't
happen in the ways described in the Biblical accounts, fine; now what do these
stories mean?" (Borg and Crossan, 193).
Parables do not merely illustrate something – like how to be a good neighbour –
they can lay claim to the truth. For instance, God is like the father who is
overjoyed at his son's return from exile in "a far country" That is what God is
like is the truth being enunciated.
So what claims to truth do the gospels Easter story make? The two main claims
are these: Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord. Mark, the earliest account, sets the
scene for the first claim. Three women go to the tomb. They find the stone
rolled away. A young man dressed in white greets them. He says, "You are looking
for Jesus of Nazareth who has been crucified. He has been raised he is not here.
See that place over there? That is where they laid him. Go tell his disciples
that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he
told you".
In Mark's account, the women fail to pass on the angel's message to the
disciples. However, in Matthew's version the women see Jesus, and he orders them
to tell his disciples that they will see him.
Jesus subsequently appears on a mountain in Galilee. Mountains are important to
Matthew. In his gospel, Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount on a mountain.
Jesus is transfigured on a mountain and now he appears for one last time to his
disciples on a mountain. Moses delivered God's law on a mountain. Jesus'
mountain top appearances signify that Jesus is the new Moses, but more than
Moses: he is the bringer not only of law, but of life. Jesus lives in the Easter
message.
The gospel appearance stories deliver the promise of the angel, "You will see
him" Jesus' appearances highlight the parabolic meaning of the empty tomb:
Jesus is not among the dead but the living.
Yes, Jesus continues to be
experienced after his crucifixion, but in a radically new way. "He is no longer
a figure of flesh and blood, confined in time and space, but a reality who can
enter locked rooms, journey with followers without being recognized,… vanish in
the moment of recognition, and be with his followers always" (Borg and Crossan,
p.204).
That brings me to the next point: Jesus' presence, experienced by his followers
before his crucifixion, continues to be experienced after it. However, the
"Jesus lives!" experience of followers is not confined to the 40-day period
between his resurrection and ascension but continues down the centuries until
the present time. Yes, some Christians experience Jesus as a living reality in
our present era. However, it is important for me to stress, that not all
Christians have had such an experience. Nor is it an essential experience. As
John's Jesus says when Thomas requires visible proof that the one in their midst
is Jesus, "Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe."
The second affirmation of the Easter stories is this: God has vindicated Jesus.
His enemies have done their worst. On Friday and Saturday, it looked as though
evil had triumphed. On Sunday, God's reversal of fortunes transpires. Easter is
God's "yes" to Jesus and "no" to the powers that executed him. The gospel
stories emphasize this meaning. For example, Luke and John's stories report the
risen Jesus still bears the wounds the Romans inflicted on him during his time
of agony. "Look at my hands and feet and see that it is me." The wounds
vindicate the truth that he is Jesus and he has conquered death (Luke, 24:39).
Jesus' vindication by God means Jesus is Lord and those who killed him are not.
That is the second message of Easter. Jesus is Lord. Paul, as well as the
gospel writers, puts out this message. Paul's emphasis on the Lordship of Jesus
puts him on a collision course with Rome, and resulted ultimately in his death.
Just as 1900 years later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's acceptance of Jesus' Lordship
put him on a collision course with Hitler's Third Reich, and resulted ultimately
in his death.
The last observation highlights the fact that Good Friday and Easter are as much
about the political as the personal. Now the political implications of Jesus'
message is such a big topic that it will have to wait until another time.
However, I want to say this much today. If God does not reverse things at
Easter, we end up with political cynicism: with expressing sentiments such as
these: this is the way the world is, the powers are and will always be in
control, and you are deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Let us remember
that Jesus' passion was the kingdom of God. This is about how the world is
organized. How life would be like in this world if God were king, and those that
presently rule and dominate were not. Among other things, it would be a world
in which everybody has enough and the systems are fair and equitable. That was
Jesus' vision.
If there is no divine reversal then Christianity is not about this world.
If there is no reversal this world belongs now and forevermore to the wealthy
and the powerful. It seems that way much of the time, especially as the powers
that Jesus opposed and God said no to, are still so active.
Yet, Easter does convey a message of hope and promise. It is true Jesus' passion
got him killed, but God vindicated Jesus at Easter (Borg and Crossan, p.213).
The reversal of the world's order has begun. But, its fuller realization
requires followers to individually and collectively join God in making it
happen. Perhaps we hang back because we fear the price we would incur too great
to contemplate.
The final point I want to make is this: Good Friday and Easter address the
fundamental question of what ails us. One thing that may ail us is a tendency to
live a life centered in the self and its anxieties and preoccupations, or, what
may ail us is living a life too centered on the successful self and its
achievements. There is nothing wrong with being a self, rather, it is a
question of what kind of self I am, you are, we are (Borg and Crossan, p.210).
Good Friday and Easter, death and resurrection are central images in the New
Testament for the path to a transformed self. This is a message for individuals
but also for the collective forms of Christianity: yes for denominations,
dioceses, synods, presbyteries, congregations, church councils and so on, as
well as for individual followers.
The path of transformation entails dying to the old way of being and being born
into a new way of being. Good Friday and Easter are about this path of dying and
rising, of being born again. In Mark's gospel, after Jesus speaks of his
impending death and resurrection he says, "If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (8:34).
The way of discipleship, is the path of transformation that Paul had experienced
when he wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,
but it is Christ who lives in me"(Gal. 2:19-20).
Yes, Jesus' last week affirms that Jesus is Lord and the powers of this world
are not, and it invites all followers and Christian organizations to a journey
through death to resurrection, journeying with the risen Jesus, the risen
Christ.
* I am indebted to the following authors for much of the material presented in
this reflection: Marcus J. Borg, Jesus; Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic
Crossan, The Last Week, John Dominic Crossan, God and Empire; John
Dominic Crossan, 'The Death of Jesus', a lecture presented in Melbourne in July
2010.
Top of page
'Jesus and women'*
Jesus heals a woman crippled
for 18 years: a woman, so deformed that she cannot straighten her body. Is
this just one more miracle story? That is how preachers often regard it.
They ignore the gender of the person healed. They miss the story's core
message. Yes, this miracle is special because it is a woman whom Jesus
heals.
There is an ancient Jewish
prayer in which men thank God that they are not women. This prayer reflects the
realities of life in Israelite Society. Women came off second best to men. The
Jewish law affirmed their inferior status and lesser power. All women had a
master. Under Jewish law, a woman was included among the possessions of her
master.
A woman's master was most likely
to be a father or a husband, but it could be a brother or, in the event of the
death of a woman’s husband, a father in law.
In Israelite society, women
remained minors and dependents all their lives. In this sense, they were in the
same position as children and non-Jewish slaves.
Women's inferior position was
highlighted by the fact that women rarely had the opportunity to study the Torah
(The first five books of the Hebrew Bible). These books are for Jews the primary
source of knowledge of God’s will. Its study was men's business. Attached to
the synagogues were schools where the Torah was taught, but only men and boys
were allowed to attend a school. Consequently, it was extremely difficult for a
woman to know the will of God. This exclusion of women from the study of the
most important religious and legal books of Judaism highlights the bleak reality
that only a male was a full member of Jewish society or a full participant in
Jewish religious life
Yes, the woman whom Jesus
singled out to heal was socially and legally inferior to men. We also need to
keep in mind that this woman's crippled status marginalized her, not only
physically but, also socially. It was widely believed that the chronically ill
were ill because an evil spirit had taken possession of them. Luke's gospel
declares that an evil spirit possessed the woman Jesus healed. People who saw
themselves in good standing with God – such as the synagogue leader – gave a
chronically ill person a wide berth to avoid the risk of contamination.
The people attending the
synagogue the day Jesus was preaching were likely to interpret this woman's
crippled state as proof that God had abandoned her.
Given this woman's stigmatized
legal, social and religious status, the remarkable thing is that Jesus reached
out to help her, rather than reserve his curative skills for those who mattered
the most, men!
Yes, Jesus restores this woman
to a healthy state physically and, by so doing, he makes it possible for her to
participate once again in the life of her neighbourhood; that is to participate
as much as men permitted a woman to participate in Hebrew society.
Her restoration to the life of
her society was made possible, in part because Jesus' healing enabled her to be
more active physically, but because by healing her he demonstrated that she was
no longer possessed by an evil spirit, nor was she out of favour with God.
By healing this woman, Jesus
made an assault on the patriarchal culture of Israelite society. Jesus' action
showed that he held women generally in high regard. One can go further. One can
make a case that viewed in their totality the actions he took in regard to this
woman and the title he bestowed on her –daughter of Abraham - demonstrated that
Jesus saw women as men's equals rather than their inferiors. Yes, when Jesus
healed this woman, he challenged the negative evaluation of women generally. By
his action, he declares to the woman, her kin and her neighbours that she
matters!
There were three aspects to
Jesus' interaction with this woman, which, from a feminist perspective, put
Jesus in a favourable light. First, the healing occurred on Jesus’ initiative,
rather than from the woman pressing Jesus into service. It happened in this
way. As Jesus was teaching in the synagogue his eyes came to rest on a woman so
malformed that she was bent over. Presumably, because her pitiful state moved
him greatly he interrupts his teaching to come to her aid. He releases her from
her ailment by pronouncing that she is cured and he lays his hands upon her.
Second, the laying on of hands
had special significance because healers and various other people used it, not
only to cure a disease, but also to bestow a blessing. In this instance, Jesus
demonstrates the high regard he has for this woman, and, by implication, for
women generally by conferring his blessing on her.
The third sign that Jesus
regards this woman as much as any man as God's child is his declaration that she
is a daughter of Abraham. This needs explaining. Abraham was the patriarch
from whom the Jewish nation traced its descent. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the
title son of Abraham was often used to bestow honour on a person. However, the
person was always a male. This meant that only a male was a true descendent of
Abraham. Jesus now extends to a deformed woman the social and religious status
inherent in that title by calling her a daughter of Abraham. This means that as
far as Jesus is concerned, women as well as men are true descendents of Abraham.
This was a giant step for Jesus to take. It would have sparked critical comment.
Why? Because by calling this
woman daughter of Abraham, Jesus is challenging the social and religious
boundaries of Israelite society. He indicates that he believes women are
entitled to full religious, legal and social membership of Israelite society. He
is saying that, in the eyes of God, women are men’s equals. There would have
been few, if any, of Jesus' contemporaries who perceived women as men’s equals
and treated them as such.
When we keep all this in our
minds, we begin to understand the significance of what Jesus did on the occasion
described in today’s reading. Jesus’ action gives dignity and status to this
woman.
Now you may be thinking I am
making too much of one incident when I claim that the healing of this woman
showed that Jesus rejected the patriarchal values of his society and saw women
as men's equals. We do not have to base the argument for saying Jesus is radical
in this regard on just one case.
Jesus did five further things
that support the argument that he regarded women as men's equals. First, Jesus
healed other women. Second, he broke the rule that rabbis were to teach only
males. Jesus taught women. The story of Mary and Martha confirms that Jesus
included women when he was teaching. Mary was present when Jesus was teaching
men whilst Martha was preparing the meal. Third, Jesus showed he was not a
sexist by permitting a prostitute to anoint him and by praising her publicly for
her action, and, at the same time condemning his male host, a Pharisee, for
failing to treat him hospitably. Fourth, Jesus invited several women to join
him and the male disciples on his missionary journeys. Finally, the fact that
several women and at most only one male follower were present at Jesus'
crucifixion, and that a woman, or several women were the first persons to
visited Jesus' tomb strongly suggests that they were anything but marginal
participants in Jesus' movement.
The next point I want to stress
is that Jesus' positive and inclusive action toward women was in keeping with
the character of his ministry generally. What was Jesus' ministry about? It was
primarily about announcing that the kingdom of God was near and preparing people
to participate in the kingdom. Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount made
it clear that when the Kingdom came to fruition those who were presently
marginalized and downtrodden, would experience transformed lives. They would be
set free, and have conferred on them the recognition, status, and the fair share
of resources denied to them under the oppressive present rule.
Accordingly, Jesus invited tax
collectors, the poor, the sick, those declared sinners rather than those of high
status, or the wealthy, or the powerful, to join his movement. As we have seen,
women also occupied a marginal position in Israelite society. Given his
overriding concern for the marginal and oppressed it is not surprising Jesus
breaks with his religious and social past by conferring recognition and
acceptance on women, and that he treated women in ways which declared that they
were men's equals and belonged as much as men in God's kingdom.
Jesus was an exception – perhaps
the exception -- to the patriarchal practices of his age. And, in this
regard, his teaching and action stand in opposition to much of the material
presented in the Bible. This material is male-centred and the rules presented to
be obeyed favour men over women. This is not surprising because, without
exception, the numerous authors of the books of the Bible lived in patriarchal
societies. And patriarchal societies are male centred and male dominated.
It is true there are passages in
the Bible that transcend the patriarchal culture of its writers. It is also
true that the Bible presents the stories of several outstanding women, but, for
the most part, women are viewed as inferior to men. The Bible shows women living
lives that are adjuncts to those of men, and, as it were, the Bible gives God’s
blessing to the inherent inequity of such an arrangement.
The second story of creation
found in the book of Genesis is one of many examples of what I am talking about.
It makes explicit woman’s second rate standing in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Whereas Adam was made by God Eve was taken from his body. She does not share
Adam’s glory or his divine image. She is to be obedient and subservient. He is
to be master and she servant.
A similar patriarchal culture
helps shape much of the content of the New Testament. Paul reiterates the
message of Genesis in his first letter to the church in Corinth: (1 Corinthians
11:8-9). For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man
created for woman, but woman for man.
For much of its 2000 year
history the church has not heeded Jesus' message but rather exhibited the
characteristics of a patriarchal institution. Saying something about why things
worked out the way they have – that is contrary.
To Jesus' values and practices
-- will have to wait to another time. I Will say this much: notwithstanding
numerous measures put in place in this society and in most western societies to
try to ensure women are given full equality with men they are often denied it in
private as well as public life.
What I have tried to do today is
alert us to Jesus' high regard for women, his non-sexist treatment of women, and
his message that God loves and values women, and welcomes them into His Kingdom.
That should be a welcome message on Mother's Day. That message should inspire us
to ensure that women are fairly treated and valued in the homes, communities,
churches, workplaces and public forums of Australia society and the world
beyond.
References: Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
'Interpreting Patriarchal Traditions' in
Letty M. Russell (Editor) Feminist Interpretation of the Bible; John
Shelby Spong The Sins of Scripture: Alan Culpepper “The Gospel of Luke”
in The New Interpreters’ Bible, Editor: Leander Keck
Top of page
'Jesus meets us on the road to Emmaus'*
It is Easter Sunday and two of Jesus'
distraught followers are wearily making the long journey from Jerusalem to the
village of Emmaus: a journey of some eleven kilometres. They are so shattered
by the event of the day – the crucifixion of their master Jesus by the Romans --
they cannot think or talk of anything else.
As they journey, Jesus joins them.
They do not recognise him, however, he can read the grief on their faces. He
says to them, “What are these words you have been pitching back and forth to
each other as you walk along?” Jesus' question brings them to a dead stop and
they stand sad, downcast and gloomy, as if possessed and paralysed by their
grief. Cleopas replies, “Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know
what happened over the last few days?” “What things?” says Jesus. "The terrible
things that happened to the Nazarene Jesus. This man was a prophet! He
demonstrated he was God's prophet by the power of his words, and his mighty
deeds. Yet, the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to the Romans and
pressed them to sentence him to death, and the Romans crucified him.
"We had hoped he would redeem Israel and
set her free from the Romans. Alas, it didn’t happen. It is now three days
since he was put to death. Some of the women of our group went to the door to
the tomb this morning but they could not find his body. They came back
reporting that they had seen a vision of angels who told them that he was
alive. Several of our men went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women
had said but they did not see him!" Yes, the two disciples are sad and confused
because it seems their cause is lost. They had hoped Jesus would fulfil the
scriptures. The irony of the situation is that he has but they fail to
recognize this fact or to recognize him.
Then Jesus said to them, “How foolish
you are. How slow you are to believe everything the prophets said". Jesus
explained to them what was said about him in all the scriptures beginning with
the books of Moses and the writings of all the prophets. The suffering of the
Messiah was necessary in God's providential plan for Israel. Yet, Cleopas and
his companion still did not recognise Jesus.
As they came near the village to where
they were going, Jesus kept walking. They said to him, "The day is almost
over. It is getting dark. Stay with us". They offer Jesus hospitality and he
accepts it. They sit down together to eat. When they do, Jesus takes the bread,
blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them. It is then and only then that they
recognise him.
They recognize him in the breaking of
the bread. Alas, they no sooner recognize him than he disappears from sight.
They say to each other, "When he talked to us on the road and explained the
scriptures to us, wasn’t it like a fire burning within us?" They get up at
once and go back to Jerusalem where they find the eleven disciples gathered
together with the others. The eleven say to Cleopas and his companion, “The Lord
is risen indeed, he has appeared to Simon.” Then Cleopas and his companion
explain to the other disciples what had happened on the road, and how they had
recognised the Lord when he broke the bread for them.
What a wonderful story. It is the
longest and perhaps the most evocative of all the resurrection appearances. How
should we regard it? Do we take it to be literally true? Many people do. But
that is not the only possibility. We know Jesus frequently used parables to
communicate his message. They were not necessarily factual. Indeed, Jesus'
parables were often stories about things that had not happened. Yet, he told
parables because he could use them to convey an important truth. What mattered
was not whether the story was, or was not, literally true. What mattered was the
meaning the story conveyed.
My suggestion is that we put the
question of whether the Emmaus Road story is literally true or not to one side.
We cannot settle that no matter how much we discuss it. We lack the evidence to
prove or disprove it. So, let us see the story as a parable and ask, "What
meaning does it have for 21st followers of Jesus?"
It is often said that it is a story told
to help us believe Jesus bodily rose from death. It may have that meaning for
many people. But, for many other people it does not work that way. For many
its usefulness resides mainly in the fact that it provides several answers to
the question where does the risen Christ meet us today?
One place this story tells us Jesus
meets us is in the study of the scriptures. Following Jesus' disappearance, the
two disciples say, "Were not our hearts burning within us as he expounded the
scriptures to us?" Jesus interpreted for them the first five books, the so
called books of Moses - and the writings of all the great prophets. He also
told them how the scriptures referred to him and his suffering.
This part of the Emmaus Road story
reminds us that to the end of his life Jesus was a faithful Jew. He concentrated
on the first five books of the Old Testament and the prophets because together
they provided the foundation of Jewish belief and culture in Jesus' day. We
cannot understand Jesus without understanding the Old Testament.
We get so much of the teaching of Jesus
wrong if we do not understand his Jewish background. Yes, the scriptures are
most important for in the scriptures we meet the risen Jesus. Alas, when it
comes to the scriptures we clergy have failed our people. We have failed to tell
the exciting story there is to tell about the scriptures. For fear of alienating
or upsetting people we have failed to share with them the findings of the
critical study of scripture that have occurred over the last couple of hundred
years.
There is an exciting and transformative
story to share but we have not shared it, and, not unsurprisingly, the
scriptures rarely find a valued place in the day-to-day life of Christians and,
apart from the Sunday worship service, in the collective life of the local
church. A clergy mate of mine said recently, "If you want to kill a discussion
group before it gets off the ground advertise it as a Bible Study Group"
A second place we meet Jesus is in the
stranger whose needs we address. The part that caring for the stranger plays in
bringing us into touch with Jesus is spelt out for us in the great judgement
scene in the 25th chapter of Matthew. The sheep are mustered on the King’s right
and the goats on the left. The King says to those on the right, “I was a
stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick
and you took care of me.” And, those on the right say, “Lord, but when did we
see you as a stranger and welcome you? When did we see you naked and give you
clothing? When did we feed you? We have no recollection of that. Jesus
replies, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who
are members of my family you did it to me.”
If the two disciples walking with Jesus
had let Jesus go into the night to fend for himself instead of giving him
hospitality, they would never had recognised him, nor had their faith in their
Lord restored.
A third
place we meet Jesus is in the breaking of bread.
Cleopas and his companion did not
recognize Jesus until he broke bread at their table. Preachers often interpret
the significance of Jesus’ breaking of bread for these two distraught followers
in Emmaus as symbolic of the Eucharist.
We meet Jesus at the communion table,
and I hope that proves true for us today. However, I do not think that Jesus was
celebrating the Eucharist in Emmaus. I think the breaking of the bread episode
of the story has wider significance.
The clue to its wider significance is
the important transition in the role Jesus plays that occurs as he and the two
disciples are sharing a meal. Jesus who has been the guest of two disciples'
becomes host. It is at this point that Cleopas and his companion discover that
the stranger is their Lord. It is when
Jesus takes the bread, breaks it,
blesses it and gives it to them. These four actions are Jesus' signature. They
state that Jesus is Lord. The two disciples may have witnessed Jesus perform
these four actions before, perhaps many times before. The New Testament records
that Jesus performed them when he fed the five thousand, and again, at the last
supper. No, Jesus is not performing the Eucharist in Emmaus, anymore than he
was performing it when he fed the five thousand. What in both instances the
breaking of the bread episode demonstrates is that "every meal has the potential
of being an occasion in which hospitality and table fellowship become sacred
occasions when God's blessing occurs" (Culpepper).
What today's evocative story teaches us
is that Easter did not end on Easter Sunday eve. It goes on affecting the rest
of our lives as it went on affecting the rest of the lives of Cleopas and his
companion even though they may never have met the stranger a second time. That
will not matter.
We too meet him in the stranger, who
breaks bread with us, or whose needs we are able to satisfy in some way, we meet
him in the scriptures when we feel our heart strangely warmed, we meet him as we
gather around the Communion Table. Cleopas and his companion share their table
with the stranger and discover they are in the presence of their Lord. At the
table, we eat the bread and drink the wine that speak to us of new life, of new
beginnings for those who commit to following Jesus.
AMEN
1786 words
I am indebted to Rev. Graham McAnalley for some of the ideas
I have explored in this sermon. A second valuable source is Allan Culpepper
'The Gospel of Luke' in Leander Keck et al, editors, The New Interpreters'
Bible, Vol 8.
Top of page
'The Church, Christianity and the Future (I)'
*
The
Church, Christianity and the Future [1]
Across the
Western world, support for the mainline churches is declining rapidly, in some
instances it is in free fall. The Uniting Church of Australia is possibly
experiencing more demographic stress than most. In recent years, many of its
congregations have been forced to shut their doors because there are too few
Sunday worshippers, too little money, or too few lay leaders to sustain the
operation.
During the
five-year period between the last two censuses, the number of people declaring
that they belonged to the Uniting Church fell by fourteen percent. This is a
surprising and worrying figure. It is a fall close to one sixth. All but one
of the mainline churches in this country experienced a decline during that
five-year period. The exception was the Roman Catholic Church. They are doing
better than the Protestant churches. However, they are experiencing a serious
rate of defection, especially among the young. Present indications are that that
only one out of ten children now attending a Catholic school will attend mass as
adults.
Most of us
present today know first hand that the Uniting Church is experiencing a marked
deterioration in its fortunes. We know it has insufficient ministers to fill
existing placements. We know many congregations no longer have a Sunday School.
We know many congregations have closed their doors.
Rae and I
sometimes attend a church with a weekly congregation in excess of 100. It has an
aging congregation. There are usually only a handful of people present under the
age of sixty. It has no Sunday school. Recently a supply minister decided to
give a children's talk because he spotted one boy in the congregation. At the
end of his talk, he asked the boy if he would be back the next week. "No, his
grandmother called out, he is only visiting".
IN 2006 we
attended a Sunday morning service at a church at which there was standing room
only. That day the congregation numbered 138. I counted, at most 10 people, who
would have been under 60 years of age.
At the
present time the average age of many, possibly most Uniting Church
congregations, is in the seventies, for some it is in the eighties.
The
congregation was located in a suburb with a predominantly youthful adult
population. The minister had baptized 27 babies in the previous twelve months.
Not one of the couples whose baby had been baptized was attending worship. The
minister said they were all too busy with young families and recently acquired
houses to come to church. She continued, "I am not worried, I know they will
return to church when their lives are less hectic".
In the light
of your experience do you share her confidence? How likely is it that any of
those couples will return some time down the track?" That 2006 Sunday morning
experience brought home to me the high likelihood that many Australian churches
face a bleak future.
The reality
is that across Australia the Uniting Church has lost two generations. In many
cases, when you view a Sunday morning congregation, you are viewing its last
generation of churchgoers. There are far too few people in its congregation
below retirement age for it to survive.
A loss of the
magnitude the Uniting Church is experiencing makes the task of it continuing as
a denomination whose base unit is the congregation very difficult. The problem
is not peculiar to the Uniting Church, if present trends continue this one will
eventually face all mainline Protestant churches in this country.*
So if
congregations are to survive in any numbers once the present generation of
attenders departs the scene, where are their future members and lay leaders
going to come from? Christianity is a complex religion. You cannot acquire a
working knowledge of the liturgy, the doctrine and the core stories over night.
It takes years.
There are
those who say, "Don't worry the church will go on. God will see to that!" Will
God fix the problem? Those that claim that God will not let the church go under
base their claim on the questionable assumption that the church is God's
creation; His or Her chosen instrument of salvation.
I put it to
you that rather than being Gods or Jesus' creation the church is a human
creation. If you doubt that claim examine the role the church has repeatedly
played in the oppression and sometimes genocide of its own people, as well as of
people of other faiths.
This week we
celebrate the publication, 400 years ago, of the King James Bible. There is a
cruel irony to this celebration; one that demonstrates how oppressive and cruel
the church, often in concert with the secular powers has repeatedly proven to
be. There were 54 translators of the King James Bible. However, they drew
heavily on the work of an earlier translation of the Bible into English by
William Tyndale. The best estimate is that about 3/4's of the King James Bible
is derived from Tyndale's translation. Yet, less than a hundred before the King
James Version appeared, Tyndale was condemned as a heretic by Bishop Tunstall
and Cardinal Wolsey. On the initiative of Henry VIII Tyndale was hunted down put
on trial and found guilty of heresy. "He was strangled to
death while tied at the stake, and then his dead body was burned" **
Henry the VIII sought Tyndale's death for condemning his
marriage to Anne Boleyn but the church hierarchy was complicit in the act. It
was accomplished in the name of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was
born a Jew and died a Jew. He did not commence a new religion. Jesus preached
that the kingdom was at hand. He spoke repeatedly about the kingdom. If he had
come to establish the church, he would have spoken about it constantly, and all
gospels would have reported him doing so.*** We make a serious error when we use
the terms church and kingdom of God interchangeably. Jesus did not do so.
I do not
believe we can take any comfort from the notion that God will not let the church
fall away or implode. Christianity will continue but not necessarily in its
church form.
There are
those who say that as people age, religion becomes more important to them and
they return to church. I conducted a study of attendance practices of people in
several churches in a country town over a 15 year period and I found the
opposite. Those who had stopped attending did not start attending when they
reached retirement age. Rather there was a marked tendency for those of senior
years who had attended all their lives to decrease not increase their attendance
and often to eventually stop coming.
In the last
few years, we have witnessed a similar pattern at St. Stephens. When you think
about it, it is not surprising people disengage from church activities as they
age: less energy, painful ailments to contend with, hearing so impaired cannot
hear much of what is said, few if any of one's long time friends still
attending, and so on.
Some people
say our own young people will return some time. Will they? There is little
evidence to support this claim either. I have not witnessed young people present
in any but small numbers in the various churches I have attended in recent
years, and most of the colleagues I have asked, say the same. There has been
little sign of our young people returning to St Stephens during the five plus
years I have been here. Let me add though that our hearts are cheered by the
recent arrival of Christie, David and Destry, Philip, Sara and Linda. However,
for this community to remain viable in the not to distant future, we need
considerably more young people than we have at present.
It would be
helpful to know why most of the younger adults raised in this church and most
other congregations of the Uniting Church and of many other churches now absent
themselves. Do they find the church's doctrinal claims unbelievable? That is
what Lorraine Parkinson claims in a just published book. She says many members
of two generations of Christians have voted with their feet because they believe
church dogma is irrelevant to their life. That, however, is not the only
possible explanation for their absence.
They may be
absenting themselves because in their social circles it is not cool to
participate in church life. They may be absent because they have found more
interesting and rewarding things to do with their Sunday mornings.
Many may
absent themselves because they work on Sundays, or because the combined workload
of raising a family, keeping house, and holding down a paying job during the
week exhausts them.
Whatever the
reasons, the large-scale absence of younger adults from Sunday worship and other
church activities strongly suggests that the contemporary church fails to
address their needs, provide them with a sense of belonging, or contribute in a
meaningful way to their sense of identity.
Why have
things turned out this way? Where do we look for explanations for the
unprecedented decline in Sunday school and church attendance, and support for
church activities generally? A famous social scientist, C. Wright Mills, once
said that if five or six people out of every hundred divorce then we have a
personal problem, which means you look to the people divorcing for explanations
as to why their marriage has broken down. However, if say 30 in 100 marriages
break down we have a social problem, which means do not expect to find the
explanation for failed marriages by examining the behaviour or attitudes of the
couples concerned. Rather look at how macro-social, cultural and economic
forces are putting such pressure on couples that they cause many marriages to
fall over.
It is true
that there is a personal aspect to the dramatic exodus of people from the
church. It is true that the character of our religious practices and teachings
also play a part, but almost certainly, the major causes are macro-social,
cultural and economic ones. Some of the key factors have come into play in the
20th and 21st Century. I will delay talking about the recent ones until next
week. But to fully comprehend the extent to which the situation has changed for
the church we need to realize that until the last three to four centuries the
church exercised enormous power in every sphere of human activity: education,
science, political activity, leisure and all matters of faith and doctrine.
For instance,
the church decided how much interest you charged on money you lent. Now the
market decides. The church decided who got an education and who did not, what
they were taught and what they were not taught. Today various church authorities
are fighting to retain access to schools to instruct pupils in the Christian
faith. Once the teaching of Christian doctrine was given priority over all other
subjects.
The church
punished, often executed, those teachers and scientists who disseminated ideas
that it did not condone. For example, in the 17th Century, the Church's
Inquisition, found the astronomer Galileo guilty of heresy. The church took
umbrage because he had declared that the sun not the earth was the centre of the
universe. The church said his view was contrary to scripture. To save his life
he recanted but spent the rest of his days under house arrest.
There is not
time to detail the extent of its control or how it came to lose that control.
The fact is that eventually all spheres of human activity gained independence
from the church. The sense that life had a religious purpose, and that there was
a Christian rationale for most activities has, for many westerners, disappeared.
It took several centuries but the church was slowly pushed from the centre of
things to the margins.
For people
for whom their church and their Christian faith are pivotal factors in their
lives, I know I have painted a somewhat gloomy picture. I thought long and hard
before doing so. But if we are to think productively about the future of the
church generally and of our faith community in particular we need some
understanding of the long term character of the decline in the church's power
and control of the hearts and minds of human beings. The process of decline has
accelerated in the last few decades, and some new forces have come into play. As
I said earlier, I will leave talking about these until next week. But the
downward spiral the institutional church finds itself in was in place well
before the 20th century. I also want to say something next week about the
future of the church. I do not have a blue print to put before you as to how to
go about things. I do have some questions to raise and thoughts I will share
during the main reflection.
My final
word. Notwithstanding what I have said this morning about the difficult future
the Uniting Church and other mainline churches face, I want to affirm that it is
most appropriate that we give thanks to God for a good 2010 and for many earlier
good years. It is true we are experiencing a bit of a dip in attendance at
present but since de-linking this congregation has grown notwithstanding the
loss of quite a number of members through death, physical incapacity and
movement away from the immediate neighbourhood. Your commitment and your work
have produced the growth in numbers and in the vitality of congregational life.
Here one experiences a rich and rewarding fellowship. One receives practical
help from practical people. Here one is nourished, nurtured, and loved, and at
times, challenged. I especially thank you all for what you have done and
continue to do for Rae and myself. AMEN
* It is a
problem facing many mainline churches throughout the western world. For example,
in the U.S. the average age of mainline church attenders is in the seventies,
and the average size on congregations is 80 or less. They too have a future
problem. Their congregations are getting older and smaller.
** Foxe's
Book of Martyrs
*** The claim
that Jesus as God's representative created the church is based on chapter 18
verse 16 of Matthew's gospel. Jesus allegedly speaking, "And I tell you, you are
Peter and on this rock I will build my church". This is one of the most
controversial verses in the scriptures. Many mainstream Protestant scholars
believe that these words are Matthew's creation.
Top of page
'The Church, Christianity and the Future (II)'
*
Last
week I drew a picture of how the church moved from the centre of life in
Western societies – a position where it exercised immense authority and
power in every sphere of human activity --to a place where today, it is so
marginalized, it is often invisible. The changes I talked about took
centuries to evolve. However, the impact of them on congregational life and
on the place of Christianity in the life of the society seems to have
gathered momentum as the 20th Century progressed, and particularly in the
last three to four decades.
In the second half of the 19th Century the churches still
exercised considerable influence in many areas of community life. For example,
the growth in the membership of the Methodist Church – the one I have researched
–was spectacular in the 19th Century. In the second half of that century, its
membership increased sevenfold as did the number of ministers, lay preachers and
church buildings. The church leaders boasted of a future of continuing to go
from strength to strength. No one could foresee the extent of decline that was
to occur in the next Century.
By the sixth decade of the 20th Century the membership of the
Methodist Church was actually falling. That trend has continued in most
mainline churches, but at an accelerated rate. In 1947 the people who declared
themselves either Congregational or Methodist or Presbyterian or Reformed
constituted 22 percent of the Australian population. By 2006 those declaring
themselves Presbyterian, or Reformed or Uniting Church constituted only 8
percent of the Australian population.
Even though in 1960 the Methodist Church's membership was
falling, this church, along with other mainline churches, was still a visible
presence in Australian society. Like most other mainline churches it had a
vital community life. Do you recall the Protestant churches effective
opposition over several decades to the introduction of organized Sunday sport,
and to the extension of hotel hours?
In the 50's, 60's and 70's all mainline churches had much
more contact with the populace generally than now principally because the great
majority of weddings were conducted by ministers of religion in a church, many
perhaps most middle class parents dropped their children off for Sunday School,
and ministers conducted most funerals. By the standards of the time, the
churches offered an extensive range of leisure activities, such as tennis
courts, sporting clubs, dances, youth clubs, concerts. Many of us found our
closest friends in the local church and often our future spouse.
In 1951 in this church, which was then known as the North
Williamstown Presbyterian Church, the Sunday School had an average attendance of
179 children. The church had an effective membership of 159 people.
In the same year 35 babies were baptized, 22 couples married
and the minister conducted 49 funerals.
The 1950s was also a time when a much larger proportion of
the population than at present, declared they believed in God and saw themselves
as affiliated with one of the mainline denominations, even though many of them
did not attend worship.
We now live in a time when it is becoming acceptable, even
cool to declare that you are an atheist. Between 2001 and 2006 the proportion of
Australians declaring in their census return they were atheists increased
fourfold. Between 1947 and 2006 the proportion of Australians declaring they had
no religion rose from less than one percent to nineteen percent. In the last
census one quarter of those under 15 declared, they had no religion. These
teenage respondents were twice as likely, as those people who were middle aged
or older to declare they had no religion. That result does not present a
promising future for the churches.
Some atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher
Hitchens have achieved celebrity status in part through their public
proclamation of an atheist perspective. One of Hitchens' book is entitled
God Is
Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
Now I do not want to be misunderstood. I think the public
debate in which prominent atheists engage with spokespersons for one or more of
the world's major religions is a good thing. The celebrity atheists offer many
telling criticisms of Christianity and Islam.
All I am saying is that views that conflict with Christianity
are in the mainstream of public communication and attracting more interest than
ever before. This is one indicator of the decline in the stature and
significance of Christianity, particularly in the west. Historically, we have
moved from a time when it was virtually impossible not to believe in God to one
in which it is increasingly difficult to believe in God. Yes, it may be cool in
the current climate to declare yourself an atheist well before you attain
adulthood.
That said, I do not think for a moment that the free fall in
support for many mainline churches, including our own, witnessed in recent
decades can be attributed to any great degree to atheists such as Christopher
Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.
There is a well-established connection between the level of
affluence in a society and support for organized religion: the greater the
affluence the lesser the support. This was true during the reign of King
Solomon – a time of exceptional affluence in Hebrew society- and it has been
true in Australia since World War 11. We have experienced a period of
unprecedented affluence and it is probably in part responsible for the marked
decline in support for the churches. It has made it financially feasible to
participate in a wide range of relatively expensive recreational activities.
Affluence engenders the conviction, "I don't need God I can
do it on my own, I will be master of my own destiny". The confidence, sometimes
arrogance, often disappears when things go seriously wrong. Then many people
return to the churches. This happened during the depression. It is happening at
present in those areas of the USA hit by severe tornados.
Participation in church life has also been greatly influenced
by the large- scale participation of married women in the paid workforce,
particularly since the 1970s. In the 1950s, it was exceptional for a married
woman to engage in paid work, today most do. This reduces the time available for
church work or attendance at worship. Sunday often becomes the only day a parent
can get all the family together for an outing and it is highly unlikely all
members of the family will view going to church as a "good outing".
Sunday has been secularized. For many people it has gone from
being the most boring day in the week to being the best day for leisure
activities including retail therapy. Yes, shopping plazas open, the cinemas
open, as are a seemingly endless array of places to eat. Major sporting events
now occur on a Sunday.
Possibly the single, greatest cause of a decline in church
attendance since the late 1950's has been the inception and popularity of
television. Across Australia, it wiped out the Sunday night church service. But
also impacting significantly on the church as a worship and social centre has
been the appearance of youth oriented dance clubs, nightclubs, and an increase
in variety of sporting activities for the young.
Most of the present weekend leisure opportunities were not
available in the time in which most of us grew up. The church culture of that
time was also very different from the church culture of today. In numerous
church going families Sunday was declared a Holy day. I realize that I lived in
a more puritanical family environment than probably most, but it was far from
unique. No snakes and ladders in my home on a Sunday. I was allowed to play
hymns or classical music on the piano but pop songs were strictly forbidden. My
mother cried when she discovered I had sneaked off with some mates for a swim in
the local watering hole on a Sunday, even though we attended Sunday School
before sinning.
Our society has changed profoundly and the culture of our
society has swept into the church. Now I am not saying this is a bad thing. All
I am doing is drawing attention to the fact that such changes contribute in a
significant way to the absence of many children and adults from the life of the
church, and to the growth in the conviction among regular worshippers that
Sunday church activities are optional rather than obligatory.
It is not possible to return to a time when there was little
weekend employment, the shops closed from midday Saturday, the cinemas did not
open on a Sunday, there were no Sunday morning competitive sporting activities
for children, the clubs and pubs were closed, and large sporting fixtures were
not scheduled for Sundays. There is certainly no returning to a time when there
was no television or when going to church on a Sunday could put zip into an
otherwise boring day. Weekend leisure activities have become too varied and
sophisticated for the church to compete in the entertainment stakes.
Nor can we return to a time when going to church won approval
in many quarters of our society rather than attracting disapproval in at least
some quarters.
We cannot control the macro processes that have contributed
to decline in the institutional church. We should not beat ourselves up for the
decline of support for the church generally. Nor should we beat ourselves up for
the decline in support for our church. Almost all the Uniting Church
congregations I know of first hand, or through the reports of fellow ministers,
or laity, are struggling. The majority of UCA congregations are similar in size
to ours or smaller.
I have tried, both last week and this week, to illustrate
that the marked decline in the level of active participation in church life has
multiple causes. As I said last week, there is no silver bullet for the problem.
However, I will make this rather obvious generalization: the smaller, and the
more age-homogeneous a congregation the more vulnerable it is to the forces of
change. Alas, ours is small and fairly age homogenous.
In a recent interview, Dr. Muriel Porter, a leading Anglican
writer said, no one knows what to do to solve the problem. We do not know how to
rejuvenate the life of the church. So, what do I think about the future? All I
can do today is open up the issue. I will try to play futurologist for a couple
of minutes. However, bear in mind that futurologists are probably more likely to
get it wrong that right.
I believe that in most congregations of the Uniting Church we
are looking at the last generation of churchgoers. In the great majority of
cases, both their children's generation and their grandchildren's generation are
not present in sufficient numbers to ensure a viable future for the
congregation. Viability requires more than sufficient people to ensure Sunday
worship occurs. In any local church, there is a large administrative load for
people to bear, especially when a congregation is a part of a large corporate
structure like the Uniting Church.
I know of two congregations that closed in the last year
notwithstanding that they still had a weekly attendance of about 60. They closed
not because they were short of funds, or the property was in disarray, but
because the key lay-leaders were tired and no longer willing to shoulder the
load. In neither church, were there people willing or able to take over the
essential tasks. Both congregations voted to shut down.
Now let us turn to St. Stephens. We have a wonderful
community here. People want to come together; they enjoy being together. You
only have to listen to the buzz and watch the level of mixing in the meeting
room after the Sunday service to know that this is so. Come along to a Eucalypt
tea or a Parma night, and witness the community enjoying itself. The members of
this community take an interest in each other, support one another, and come to
the aid of anyone experiencing significant difficulties. Yes, this congregation
works well and one is rewarded for participating in its life. However, we at St
Stephens are not in a demographically favourable position. Also bearing in mind
the rapidity with which a congregation can move from being viable to having to
close its doors, we should not take our future for granted. AMEN
*Main source used in
preparation of this reflection, Gary D Bouma, 'Religions in Australia in the 21st
Century ' in Hinnells, WORLD’S LIVING RELIGIONS, 2010
Top of page
'Jesus the Face of
God' *
Today is Trinity Sunday. It is a feast day in honour of the Triune God. I always
flinch when I see Trinity Sunday on the church calendar. It calls on us to
celebrate a doctrine. It is hard to turn any doctrine into an interesting
Reflection. It is especially challenging to do so with the doctrine of the
Trinity because it is so complex, controversial and many people say,
incomprehensible. My doctor said to me last week, I don't understand the
doctrine of the Trinity but I do not see any need to question it. His minister
must love him.
The word Trinity does not appear in the Bible. It is true that there are places
where there is reference to The Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit in the same
sentence or two. We heard two of these in today's lectionary readings. Yet, in
neither the Pauline nor Matthew reading, or anywhere else in the Bible, is there
an account of the complex character of the relation between Jesus the Son and
God the Father. For example, the scriptures do not declare if Jesus is God's
equal, or a lesser divine being.
The Nicene Creed does explore the relationships among the three persons.
However, it is anything but a successful exercise in communication, particularly
to a 21st century gathering of Christians. Let me read for you one of the more
critical sections of this creed to illustrate the point I am making.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, (that’s straight
forward but now we come to the tricky bit) the only Son eternally begotten of
the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten,
not made, of one substance with the Father.
What does that mean you are probably asking yourself? What does the expression
begotten not made mean? Marcus Borg says, there is much about the Doctrine of
the Trinity he does not pretend to understand. Well, where does that leave the
rest of us?
Doctrine can be such a problem. Christianity is the most doctrinally driven of
all of the world's major religions; more doctrinally driven than Islam or
Judaism. Karen Armstrong describes Judaism as a religion of doing rather than
believing. I recently heard a Jewish Rabbi say that you can believe virtually
anything and be accepted in the synagogue, provided you behave decently. By
contrast, Christians have made doctrinal correctness the touchstone of their
religion. Christianity is a religion which, to use Karen Armstrong's words,
requires you to accept twenty impossible theological propositions before
breakfast. One of those impossible propositions is the Doctrine of the Trinity.
Christians have taken doctrines and doctrinal correctness so seriously they have
sometimes killed some of their own for challenging their validity. The notion of
a Triune God has always provoked dissent. As recently as the 1930's, my father's
professor of theology, Samuel Angus, was tried for heresy by the Presbyterian
Church for declaring that Jesus was a lesser divine than God.
Given that the notion of a Triune God is so troublesome, how did it become a
foundational doctrine of Christianity? To answer this question we must start
with our Jewish roots. Christianity commenced life as a sect within Judaism.
Early in their history, like other Semitic tribes, the Hebrews probably
worshipped a number of Gods. They slowly moved to worshipping only one God.
Their God Yahweh undertook to sustain and protect them on the understanding
that they worshipped him exclusively. At the same time, they acknowledged that
there were many other Gods worshipped by other peoples. However, the Israelites
eventually came to believe that there was only one God in the universe, and that
God was Yahweh. They saw themselves as the most fortunate of people because they
were Yahweh's chosen people. They believed he put their interests before those
of all other peoples.
The first Christians faced a dilemma and it arose because they wanted to claim
Jesus was divine and at the same time hold onto their Jewish notion that there
was only one God. However, it was blasphemous for a Jew to claim that anyone but
Yahweh was divine. So why declare Jesus divine? Because, in the period after his
death, the early Christians, "Continued to know him as a figure of the present,
and not simply as a figure from the past" (Borg, Jesus, p. 276). They
saw Jesus they heard him speak. In their visions, Jesus was no longer a figure
of flesh and blood, confined in time and space but a reality who could enter
locked rooms, journey with followers without being recognized, vanish in the
moment of recognition, and be with his followers always (Borg and Crossan,
p.204).
The followers reasoned that in order for Jesus to accomplish such miracles, he
must be divine. Not all early Christians came to this conclusion. There were
those who said he stood on the human side rather than the divine side of the
great divide. These followers revered Jesus as a great prophet, as a human
messiah but not as a divine person.
Controversy over the status of Jesus dominated the life of the early church.
Does Jesus belong to the human domain or to God’s domain? Eventually the view
that gained the widest support among members of the Christian community was that
Jesus belonged on the divine side of the great divide.
That conviction still left them with an unresolved question: what kind of divine
person is Jesus? Is he on the same level as God? Is he a lesser divine than
God? The dispute persisted into the 4th century CE. The chief protagonists were
two brilliant theologians – Arius and Athanasius. Arius argued that Jesus was a
lesser divine than God, because God had created Jesus, as he had all living
things. Subsequently, God elevated him to the status of a divine. Athanasius
said, Jesus was not created by God but had been with God from the beginning and
shared with God in the creation of the universe and of all life.
Consequently, Jesus was not God’s subordinate but his
equal. Hence the expression in the creed: "true God from true God, begotten,
not made, of one substance with the Father".
By the time of this dispute, Christianity had become the established religion of
the
Roman Empire.
Emperor Constantine convened an ecumenical council to
resolve the dispute because, like
modern day politicians, the Emperor knew internal wrangling was death. To
preserve the unity of his widely dispersed empire the Emperor pressured the two
quarrelsome factions to come to a solution. Most of the bishops held a view
somewhere between Arius and Athanasius. Athanasius, backed by the Emperor,
brow-beat most of them into signing off on the creedal formula he devised: an
earlier version of the present Nicene Creed.
However, the council meeting did not end the dispute. The bishops went on
teaching what they had taught before the council. The dispute did get very
nasty. When one side got the support of an Emperor they would have their
opponents driven off into exile. When those in exile gained the support of a
successive Emperor, they would do the same to their enemies. Athanasius was sent
into exile five times. Yet, his point of view won the day because it is
enshrined in the current version of the Nicene Creed. When we recite the creed,
we say, in effect, that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, and is the
second person of the Trinity.
Notwithstanding that the Church has persistently used its power and authority to
uphold the Trinitarian doctrine, and often punished those who criticized it, in
every generation there have been Christians sufficiently courageous to stand up
to the church and challenge the validity of the notion of one God in three
persons. At present, the dissidents seem to be growing in number.
Why does the church persist with the contentious doctrinal claim that we worship
one God in three persons? Because it wants to hold onto two seemingly
contradictory notions: On the one hand, the notion that there is only one God
and, on the other hand, the notion that Jesus is a divine being. Some critics
might say the church persists in trying to square the circle.
However, in defense of the doctrine, I want to stress that it looks somewhat
worse than it needs to because of a semantic problem. At the time the doctrine
was formulated in the 4th and 5th centuries, what the word person meant in Greek
and Latin is not what the word person means in today's English. For us the word
person means a separate being. However, in the ancient texts the word "person"
did not mean a separate being but a mask. The purpose of a mask was not to
conceal an identity but stand for a role that an individual played. From this
perspective, if we speak of one God and three persons, we are saying we know God
in three roles: as Father, as Son, as Holy Spirit. Another way of expressing
this belief is to say God is one, yet known to us in three ways. One of these
ways is Jesus. Jesus is the image of God, or if you prefer, the face of God. He
is not, however, the only face of God. The Father is also the face of God and so
is the Holy Spirit.
You may or may not find this decoding of the doctrine helpful but as far as the
Muslims and Jews are concerned, it does not get us out of the woods. They say
Christians are not monotheists but worshippers of more than one God. It is also
true that, at this time, the ranks of those Christians seriously questioning or
openly challenging the truth of the doctrine are growing in number. ** In her
recently released book – The World According to Jesus -- a leading
Progressive figure, Lorraine Parkinson, says that many members of the younger
generation are expressing their rejection of Christianity's doctrinal approach
by voting with their feet.
In the May issue of Crosslight, Dr. Parkinson says that for the church to
be reinvigorated "we must release the teachings of Jesus [Sermon on Mount,
parables etc] from beneath the dusty coverings of Christological church dogma."
In her book, she makes it clear she believes the Doctrines of the Trinity and
the Divinity of Jesus must go. Jesus' teaching must become the focus of
Christian worship, and serve as the guide for our discipleship. Dr. Parkinson
is, in effect, expounding the view that faith is not principally about belief
but about practice.
Unsurprisingly, leading church figures who subscribe to a traditional theology
reject Dr. Parkinson's views. One of these, Wes Campbell, takes her to task in
the June Issue of Crosslight for saying that the church's dogma is
responsible for the decline in the church. He counters with the claim that the
church will fall if it acts on her advice and discards its foundational dogmas:
the doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus. He is saying faith is
more about what we believe than about practice. A fellow minister put this
perspective most forcibly to me when he said, "If a minister does not believe in
the Incarnation, he is not a Christian and should resign from the ministry
immediately."
Yes, the conflict over Trinity and other core doctrines of the church persists
into the 21st century. Belief and practice are important to both sides,
however, the Progressives are saying faith is more about what we do than what we
believe, and the traditionalists are saying faith is more about what we believe
than what we do.
The historical origins of the point of view of both sides to this debate are
evident in the story of the evolution of the doctrine of the Trinity. The
Trinity's story is essentially the story of how we got from Jesus a Jewish man,
working as a healer and teacher, in the insignificant province of Galilee, to
the Christ figure that church councils declared is Judge and Lord of the
Universe. One side choose Jesus the teacher to provide the foundation for a
viable Christianity, the other side choose the Christ of the creeds.
To end on a positive note: Notwithstanding their differences both parties to
this debate still affirm that Jesus shows what a life filled with God is like.
Yes, Jesus provides an invaluable insight into God's nature as love. Whilst on
earth, Jesus showed his fellows the power of God to liberate human beings. In
his parables about the kingdom, such as the parables of the Prodigal and the
Good Samaritan, Jesus shows us that the religious life is not principally about
either fulfilling a set of doctrinal or a set of behavioural requirements, but
about relationships. It is about establishing a relationship with a God, who
loves, and establishing relationships among humans that are just, forgiving and
loving. Amen
* Sources consulted in production of
this reflection are as follows: Letters and Conversations pages of May and June
2011 editions of Crosslight; Karen Armstrong, A History of God and
The Spiral Staircase; Marcus Borg, Jesus, and The God We Never
Knew ; Marcus Borg and John Dominic Cross, The Last Week; Lorraine
Parkinson, The World According to Jesus,
** It also invites the response, why
restrict the ways of knowing God to three? Are there not many other ways of
knowing God? Surely, what we have learned from living along side people of other
religious traditions is that God has many faces. The church, has historically,
been unwilling to admit there are other ways, because of its conviction that
Jesus is the only valid way to know God.
2301 words including endnotes .
Top of page
'Misreading God'
Samuel completes the genocide. In
God's presence Samuel cuts the King of the Amalekites to pieces. God is
merciless. Saul loses his kingdom and soon after his life. The historians would
tell you that Saul was corrupt and an ineffectual leader. It was, in fact, time
for a regime change at the palace. God has already chosen David, the son of
Jesse as Saul's successor. Saul had to go.
** Reported by John F Harris, Washington Post,
September 14 2001, cited by J.D. Crossan, God and Empire, p. 71.
*** J.D. Crossan, God and
Empire, p.73.
**** J.D. Crossan, God and Empire, p. 95
Top of page
Jesus Heals*
You may be surprised to hear what Jesus gave most of his
time to during his work hours as he traipsed up and down the hills and
valleys of Galilee. According to the gospel writers, his main concern was
not preaching and recounting parables, but healing the sick and exorcising
demons.
If you are surprised that he spent most of his time
performing miracles of this nature it may be because such activities are alien
to us. I know there are many faith healers in Australia, and also some clerics
who regularly exorcise demons from people who are convinced that they are under
their spell. Probably most of us believe that any person who claims he or she
is possessed by an evil spirit, or by the devil is delusional, no matter how
real to them is the experience.
So what about Jesus, did he believe in demons? He certainly
did, as did the great majority of his fellow Israelites. Belief in demons had a
taken for granted quality in Israelite society. Jesus believed demons were
often responsible for people's physical and mental maladies.
The first three gospels present many stories of Jesus
practicing exorcism. For instance, today's gospel reading tells of a boy who is
possessed by an evil spirit that dashes him to the ground and causes him to foam
at the mouth, grind his teeth and paralyses him. Jesus addresses the evil
spirit possessing the boy. He says, "I command you, come out of him, and never
enter him again." The spirit cries out, convulses the boy, leaving him as though
he is a corpse. The onlookers say, "He's dead!" Jesus takes him by the hand,
lifts him up and he is able to stand.
There was a hunger for healing in Jesus' time. There were
doctors and physicians in Israel, but they were few in number, they knew little
medicine, and the poor could not afford to consult them. Instead, the poor made
use of witchdoctors and sin diviners, as well as exorcists. Jesus was just one
of many healers and exorcists. He did minister principally to the poor of
Galilee.
We members of a western society can empathize with the hunger
for healing the first century poor of Galilee experienced. We are anxious to
maintain as good as health as possible and to live as long as possible. We take
ourselves off to the G.P. at the proverbial 'drop of a hat'. We are ready to
submit ourselves to a variety of expensive medical tests, which often lead to
more tests in a search for certainty on the health front.
We are turning in increasing numbers to alternative forms of
therapy: osteopaths, practitioners of Chinese medicine, homeopaths, and natural
therapists.
We want more than relief from physical ailments. We are keen
for relief from depression and other deeply troubling mental and emotional
problems. Consequently, our use of psychiatrists and psychologists has rapidly
grown in recent years. Yes, we want peace of mind, inner strength and a sense
of wholeness.
If the medical profession, or the alternative sources of
therapy are unable to cure a life threatening disease or provide us with
significant relief from a physical or mental problem we may even seek the help
of a faith healer. Faith healing is in demand just about everywhere. Catholic
shrines believed to have healing powers, such as Lourdes and Fatima, attract
100,000s of people from across the globe desperate for relief from some form of
suffering.
The South African Dominican priest, Albert Nolan, says that
faith healing is an integral part of daily life on the African continent.
Churches offering healing are growing their congregation exponentially. They
grow dramatically, not because they necessarily have a high success rate with
the faith healing they offer, but because of the desperate hunger for healing
among African peoples.
In the Australian context, many of the people who habitually
make use of alternative forms of therapy are expressing a need for something
more: for what is called holistic healing: a healing of body, mind and soul. For
some, the healing they seek transcends the individual: they look for a healing
of community, of society.
Jesus was a holistic healer. He went so far as to seek to
heal his entire society. That is what the bringing of the kingdom was seeking to
achieve. He also restored wholeness to its broken members: wholeness of mind
and spirit and possibly of body.
The first three gospels contain thirteen narratives of
particular physical healings. The conditions Jesus healed include paralysis,
withered hand, leprosy, hemorrhage, deafness, dumbness, blindness, severed ear,
dropsy. It is quite a list.
Marcus Borg says that in the gospel stories of healing Jesus
creates a vivid picture of a charismatic person at work. That was evident in
today's gospel reading. We could add that this and other healing stories create
a picture of a caring therapist at work.
By the manner that he related to people, he demonstrated he
accepted each person as a child of God, an invaluable human being. More often
than not Jesus made some kind of physical contact with the sick person he sought
to heal. This was no small thing. In fact, by doing so he was usually breaking
the purity laws of his society. These were based on the premise that many forms
of disease rendered you unclean in the eyes of God and therefore a creature who
must be shunned by God's people. For example, in Israelite society someone with
psoriasis was a social threat not because of the risk of physical contagion but
because he symbolically constituted a threat to the identity and security of
Jewish society.
There is not time now to explain fully why this was so.
However, I will say this much. It was in large measure because Israel was a
society whose borders were repeatedly encroached by foreign powers. The leaders
were pre-occupied with the danger of being absorbed by a more powerful culture:
losing their distinctive identity. When a society is in such a situation, its
authorities often become pre-occupied with what enters and leaves the human
body's standard openings; its orifices. The body biological comes to symbolize
the body politic. That is why all the rules the Israelite people were
subjected to a demanding set of rules about cleanliness of the body and what
food could and could not enter the body.
In summary, the person suffering some bodily contagion
awakened fears of the threat of the culture of foreign peoples to their culture
and the authorities respond by socially excluding the person who causes the
anxiety. The thirteenth chapter of Leviticus offers this instruction. 'The
person who has leprous disease (this included many skin complaints) shall wear
torn clothes … and he shall cry out, "Unclean, unclean" (so that people can
avoid contact with him). He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the
camp.'
The person with psoriasis, or with one of many other
afflictions was quite dead in the eyes of other members of the society. It was
an inhumane system. If you watched the ABC programme on Thursday on the 10th
anniversary of the children overboard incident you would have heard it argued
that we dehumanized the asylum seekers who came on boats by describing them as
potential terrorists and locking them up in isolated internment camps in places
such as Port Headland and Nauru.
We could forget them because they were out of sight. By
treating them inhumanely we caused many of them irreparable mental and emotional
damage. Why did our leaders of both parties do this then and continue to do it
today? In part, because the presence of the asylum seekers heightens our anxiety
by reminding us our open borders make us vulnerable to the intrusion of unwanted
people. Their arrival on leaky boats reminds us that there is no way we can
protect our 35.000 kilometres of shoreline.
Jesus did the unthinkable: he sought to restore the
dehumanized, social rejects of his society by touching them and accepting them
socially, and by accepting them into his community of followers. This is what we
should do for our asylum seekers. Tear down the detention centres.
To understand Jesus' healing ministry we have to keep in mind
the fact that Jesus was moved by compassion for all in need. When Jesus saw the
sick, he did not say these people have sinned against God and God has visited
this sickness upon them. That is what their fellow countrymen were saying. He
did not blame those who were lost, or fearful, for their state. What he saw were
people in need of help and healing, and their plight moved him to act
compassionately.
Now it is impossible to explain in a scientifically
satisfactory manner how these healings or cures occurred. Some commentators
argue that these cures were the outcome of faith: either the sick person's faith
or the faith of some other person, such as a parent. It is true that Jesus
often said to the person whom he cured "Your faith has cured you”. What Jesus
was saying is, that it is not he, Jesus, who has healed the sick person, but the
person's faith that he or she will be healed.
In our own society, there is sound research evidence in
regard to some afflictions that shows if you have the conviction that you will
get better it significantly increases the likelihood that you do get better.
So, it is possible that there is a psycho-somatic explanation for the success of
some of Jesus' healing and exorcising activities. I think this was probably so
in the case of the boy fitting we heard about in the gospel reading.
One cannot be definite, of course, because we do not have the
evidence to be conclusive. It is also the case that not all of the successful
outcomes of Jesus' intervention the gospels report could have a psycho- somatic
explanation because in a number of instances there is no mention of faith
playing a part.
So how do we increase our understanding of what may have
happened when Jesus performed seemingly miraculous events? I believe we can
improve our understanding by introducing into our discussion the medical
anthropological distinction between disease and illness. For the sake of
brevity, I put the distinction simplistically. A disease has a physical cause
and an illness a social cause. A disease is cured by a successful intervention
in the physical world, and an illness healed by a successful intervention in the
social world of the person.
I will use Aids to illustrate the point. There is no cure
for Aids, however, getting Aids leads to a stigmatized status and probably
social rejection. These in turn induce isolation, and a number of debilitating
painful psychological conditions such as a strong sense of guilt, and a
diminished sense of personal worth. Together these social and psychological
outcomes constitute the illness of Aids.
Yet, the illness may be healed, even though the disease is
not cured. For the illness to be healed the appropriate care and social
acceptance needs to flow to the sick person from people in their immediate
circle. The goal is to restore the social functioning of the person as fully as
possible. This requires that many of those closest to them refuse to go along
with their social ostracism, and empathize with their suffering and extend them
respect and love (Crossan).
There are many people in our society, besides Aids victims,
who experience the negative social effects of serious disease or physical
handicap and degenerative processes of various kinds. How many of those people
who are paralysed, or confined to a nursing home, receive the respect, love and
social inclusion that would help heal them although there is no physical cure
for their disease?
What then was Jesus doing when he performed a healing
miracle? Was he curing the disease by successfully intervening in the physical
world, or was he healing the illness by intervening in the social world? I
cannot rule out a successful intervention by Jesus in the physical world of the
sufferer but want I think is more likely is that Jesus successfully intervened
in the sufferer's social world. Jesus healed people by refusing to accept their
ostracised status; by showing them respect and love, by empathizing with their
suffering.
Yes, Jesus that extraordinary healer from Galilee shows all
of us how to respond to human need, human desperation in whatever form it
presents itself to us, and whoever is the victim. AMEN
* I am indebted to the following authors for some of the
material used in the preparation of this reflection. Marcus Borg, Jesus;
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus, A Revolutionary Biography, and Albert
Nolan, Jesus Today. 2132 words
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'Doubting yet
committing' 1
It is so hard in the 21st Century for many men and
women to believe in God’s providential care, or even to believe that there is
'someone' out there. In striking contrast to the present time, in Biblical times
it was virtually impossible not to believe in God. The world of Abraham and
Moses was a world in which God caused everything. If it rained, it was because
God had decided that it rain. If an earthquake killed a thousand people then
God wanted them dead. What other explanation could there be? These people had
no knowledge of the laws of nature, nor did they have scientific knowledge of
the causes of disease.
God was the cause of everything that mattered: both the
blessings and the curses that fell upon human beings. Because God had chosen the
Hebrews as his special people, they expected the blessings to outnumber the
curses. He confirmed this expectation when, for example, He fed them manna in
the desert, and He destroyed those tribes who blocked their entrance to the
Promised Land.
Mind you, in giving of himself to the Hebrews God also kept
his distance. He did not go so far as to show his face to any man or woman. He
said to Moses, “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live”.
However, he did show his back to Moses and he talked to Moses, and, he told
Abraham to offer his beloved son as a burnt sacrifice to Himself: that is to
God. He, in fact, talked to all manner of people.
There is also much evidence of God talking to and acting for
his people in the New Testament. In God’s name, Jesus performed miraculous
events and so did his disciples. Jesus calmed the chaotic sea by stilling the
storm and walking on the water (Matt 8:23-27; 14:22-23). He fed five
thousand people with a handful of fishes and loaves.
The question that poses itself is this: If God was so ready
to communicate directly with people in Biblical times, why does he not
communicate directly now; why does he not help us overcome our doubts, and give
us a sense of certainty that he is active in the world, that he is here for us?
I cannot offer compelling answers to the searching questions
people ask about God's apparent absence from our affairs. I do, however, want
to put it to you that if you are a serious doubter you should not allow your
doubts to prevent you committing to following Jesus.
The first thing I want so say is that the sense of God
remaining hidden when needed is not a new one. It was very much present in
Biblical times. Whilst the Hebrews may not have experienced much difficulty in
believing in God’s existence, His frequent failure to declare his presence in a
way they could recognize distressed them.
Listen to the Psalmist: “How long, O Lord … will you hide
your face from me?” (Ps 13:1). In a second Psalm, you hear this heart
rendering plea: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you
so far from helping me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry
out by day but you do not answer; and by night but I find no rest” (Ps. 22).
Nor are the central characters of the New Testament doubt
free. All the disciples doubted God had raised Jesus from the dead and some
disbelieved. Thomas insisted on Jesus showing his flesh before he would believe.
What about Jesus himself? Did he have his doubts? He
certainly did. On the cross, Jesus cries out the plea of the psalmist, "My God,
My God, why have you forsaken me? Prior to his trial and death, he begged God
repeatedly to let him off the terrible ordeal awaiting him. He seriously
doubted it was necessary.
The problem of uncertainty, of serious doubt to the point of
disbelief, of a sense of being unable to find God, or to know him, has
characterized every period of human history. Luther spoke of God refusing to
appear, as hidden in everyday life.
Theologian Val Webb says, the idea that God
stays hidden provides little comfort for ordinary folk, like us. Surely God can
give us some tangible indication that he is around, and around for us. Webb
says: “If the almighty was so anxious to communicate with humanity, why has the
communication been so unsuccessful, so vague: the One who is billed as
unconditionally loving and aware of my every need, why does he hide himself from
me?” Webb asks.
Yes, the absence of God is so painful for many people. I have
an acquaintance who often says, "if only God would write in the sky what he
wants me to do. I would jump to and do it but I am left agonizing over the
question: Am what I am doing with my life what God wants me to do with my life".
Webb says we are uncomfortable with the idea that God might
be hiding or deaf. What especially worries us is that God may not be there at
all. Alas, the truth for many people is that God is not there. He is absent,
and he is absent notwithstanding any attempts they have made to find him and to
commune with him.
This may be an unsettling thing for you to hear but the
reality is that many church people have no sense of communion with God, and/or,
no sense of certainty that God is out there. Yet the liturgy, the hymns sung,
the scriptures read all assume God is, and that he is there for us, and much of
what is said or sung, assumes we are in communion with Him. Maybe some of us
are among those who have an alarming sense of being alone, although externally
we appear to be a part of what is happening; we join in the responses, recite
the creeds, sing the hymns that speak of God’s redeeming love but inside we feel
quite alienated from much of it, and perhaps from all of it.
When a churchgoer gets up the nerve to voice her or his
doubts in the way Webb has, well- meaning people often offer explanations that
are wide of the mark, and often come down to blaming the victim for not finding
God. “Perhaps you do not have enough faith”, is the explanation often given.
"Pray more, ask God to assure you that you are right with him".
If you say, you have done this and you still are very
doubtful about God then the one who has the answers may say something of this
nature to you. “I am afraid you must be doing something wrong in God's sight –
something that is standing between you and God. Do you know what that might be?
If you give up what is offensive to God I am confident that your doubts will
disappear and you will know that you are right with God."
If you are the one who is on the receiving end of such advice
you may well go looking for the flaws in yourself. You say, “I’m to blame: I am
the reason I cannot believe as others do”. If you do doubt do not blame
yourself. You are probably not the problem. Rather bear in mind, that Jesus did
not condemn those who questioned or doubted. Jesus treated Thomas’ request to
see his wounded flesh with respect. Jesus actually marveled at those who
believed without seeing with their own eyes.
Doubters are not lesser human beings, or poorer Christians
than those who profess certainty.
A claim that we should all reject is the claim that if you
cannot believe in, or find God, it must be because God, for his own good reason,
is not providing you with the grace to believe. Such comments always raise the
specter of the doctrine of election or predestination, which says something like
this: at the dawn of time, God chose a few to comprise the ranks of the faithful
but He rejected most of the human race. Ask yourself this question: “Could a
loving God behave like that?” “Would I want to know a God who behaved so
unfairly?”
The next point I want to stress is that humans vary in their
capacity to believe intellectually in God’s existence and in their capacity to
experience communion with God. We all know about individual differences in the
various stages in children’s development. Human beings differ in their ability
to play a musical instrument well, to do math, and yes, play football.
Similarly, the ability to believe in something, or someone,
whose existence we cannot prove by the evidence of one’s senses varies from
individual to individual. It varies with temperament, and especially with a
person's capacity to imagine what cannot be seen, touched, smelt, or heard. The
disciple Thomas was one person unable to believe until Jesus presented him with
the evidence his senses could assimilate.
As I have said before, faith is not primarily about giving
intellectual assent to God’s existence, or about signing off on the numerous
doctrinal statements the church has issued about God and His Son during the many
centuries that have elapsed since Jesus tramped the roads of Galilee.
Faith is principally a matter of the heart: it is about
deciding what you will give your heart to. Faith is about making a commitment
notwithstanding the absence of proof there is a God who cares personally about
us. If we demand certainty of the kind Thomas demanded we will never commit
because doubt always remains.
Yet, we seek certainty and prize it because we hate living
with the insecurity of uncertainty. Yet, does certainty make for a rich and
rewarding life? Charles Birch, an internationally renowned biologist, says the
Christian must not live by certainties but by visions, risks, and passions.
Commit to the vision of a worthwhile life Jesus Christ presents in his life and
teaching.
Commit to the values he served: love, peace, justice, and
human dignity. Notwithstanding your doubt venture forth in faith. Do not count
the cost. Live the adventure with passion, feeling with your heart. Do these
things and you will live a rich and worthwhile life: one of integrity because
you will not be pretending to believe what you do not believe, or pretending to
be what you are not. Birch says it will be, “a life saved by hope”. AMEN
[1]
In preparing this sermon, I have made use of the following books: Marcus Borg,
Speaking Christian, Val Webb, In Defence of Doubt and Like
Catching Water in a Net.
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Discerning the voice of Jesus
Why Preach in Parables?
In the first part of today's sermon I will put before you
what Matthew says is Jesus' explanation for switching from teaching the Jewish
crowd in an open accessible manner to using parables to hide rather than reveal
the truth to them. Then I will argue that much that Matthew attributes to Jesus
is not congruent with how Jesus usually behaved. Nor is it compatible with the
content of most of his teaching and preaching. As I have already intimated
Matthew does not offer us an historical report of what Jesus said and did, nor
what his disciples, or his opponents said or did, but a gospel that is part
history, part interpretation and part fiction.
Let us begin with Matthew's account of what Jesus said and
did. Yes, we hear Jesus speaking but it is really Matthew shaping what he says.
As Jesus travels through Galilee healing and preaching, larger and larger crowds
are attracted to him. On the occasion that Jesus delivered the scriptural
passage we heard this morning, he is by the lake. The crowd that gathers to hear
him is so large he takes refuge in a fishing boat, and standing in the boat, he
preaches to the crowd standing on the shore.
To the casual observer it looks as though Jesus is getting
his message across. However, Matthew's Jesus assesses the situation
differently. He sees no evidence that the Jewish crowd is taking seriously his
call to "Repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near." The people listen
but do not really hear, they drift away rather than commit to joining Jesus
journeying on the way.
According to Matthew, at this stage in his ministry, Jesus
changes radically his approach to communicating his message about the kingdom.
He switches from preaching to the Jewish crowd in an open and easily understood
way to preaching in an enigmatic way. He will now tell them parables which they
will fail to comprehend. Why does he do this? Is not the point of preaching to
communicate, not hide one's message?
Jesus' move worries his disciples. They come to him and put
this question to him: "Why do you speak to them (that is the crowd) in
parables?" Jesus answers, "I preach this way so that although they listen and
hear they will not understand what I am saying". What a seemingly crazy way for
a teacher to behave.
In his protracted response to the disciples' question, Jesus
reveals that there is another dimension to his relationship with the Jewish
crowd, who symbolize the Jewish nation. He makes it clear that long ago God
determined that these people would not understand his, that is Jesus' message.
For example, Jesus says that Isaiah who lived some five to six hundred years
earlier had foretold that the Jewish people would hear but not understand the
news that he Jesus is now transmitting. When a prophet foretells an event, he is
saying in so many words that God is pulling the strings. The outcome is a done
deal irrespective of the efforts of those participating in the event. Those
participating may appear to be calling the shots, but they are not. There is no
exercise of free will here.
Matthew's Jesus also declares that God is controlling the
action when he says to the disciples, "You have been chosen (that is by God) to
hear the secrets of the kingdom but they (the Jewish people) have not been
chosen." The crowd has no say in it. God has determined the outcome.
So, in this passage we have a further example of the Biblical
doctrine of election that I talked about a couple of weeks ago. God elects some
for salvation and he determines that the rest miss out. Nothing any non-elected
person does to become one of the elect will be to any avail. They may listen,
but try as they may, they will never understand. What is more, according to
Matthew's theology, it is not possible for them to understand because
"Understanding is not a human accomplishment but a gift of God" (Boring, p.
304). God has chosen not to gift these people the understanding of Jesus'
message. Only the disciples are gifted this understanding.
If Jesus did actually deliver this message to his disciples,
they would have been shocked. It would mean to them that Jesus is declaring
that God had discarded his chosen people, the old Israel, and has made a fresh
choice. He has now chosen a new Israel comprised of those who accept Jesus'
Messiah-ship. Yes, the disciples will know the secrets of the kingdom, because
they are now the elect: the chosen ones.
If God has determined that the Jewish people will not
understand the secrets of the kingdom, it seems a cruel and deceptive jest for
Jesus to continue to preach to them. It is doubly cruel to preach to them in an
enigmatic way, for to do so may encourage them to believe that if they try hard
enough they will comprehend the message. But, that cannot possibly happen
because God has willed otherwise. It seems Jesus is a party to dividing the
human race, once more, into insiders and outsiders: the accepted and rejected.
God has put a new set of insiders in place and the old insiders – the Jewish
people -- are now the outsiders.
Surely, Jesus' alleged treatment of his fellow Jews cannot be
reconciled with the character of a man who advocates turning the other cheek
when someone offends you and not doing something to another person you would
hate them to do to you?
So, here are three questions to consider:
-
Firstly, do you
think Jesus told parables in order to hide the truth from most of the Jewish
people, especially his avowed enemies the scribes and Pharisees?
-
Secondly, is
such action consistent with the Sermon on the Mount, in which, scholars
generally believe, we hear the voice of Jesus?
-
Thirdly, given
our understanding of Jesus' character, and given that we believe he shows us
what a life filled with God is like, can we accept that God pre-determines who
will be saved, and who will be rejected?
Many scholars do not think that Jesus divided people into
chosen and rejected, and insiders and outsiders. Many scholars think to do so
would be contrary to the main thrust of Jesus' ministry that was inclusive
rather than exclusive. Nor do most scholars believe Jesus told parables to hide
the truth. Rather he told parables to communicate the truth.
The notion in today's reading that God chooses only the
disciples to understand the secrets of the kingdom is the creation of Mark, from
whom Matthew borrowed this material. Both Mark and Matthew put the message into
Jesus' mouth.
Why would the gospel writers have put such a message into
Jesus' mouth? They did so in large measure because of the political and
religious situation in which their congregations found themselves. I will
illustrate this point by telling you something about the situation of Matthew's
congregation.
In the Mid-80s of the first century, that is some fifty years
after the death of Jesus, Matthew's congregation was living in a hostile Jewish
community. This community was probably located in a town or city in present day
Syria – possibly Antioch. At that time, Christianity was one of a number of
Jewish sects. It had still to emerge as a separate religion. It would have been
the practice for Matthew's congregation to attend worship at the local Jewish
synagogue each Sabbath.
At this time, Judaism itself was in a precarious and
desperate situation. A decade earlier, the Romans destroyed the temple in
Jerusalem. When the temple went so did the priests and the long tradition of
offering sacrifices to God. Following the destruction of the temple, the
Pharisees who had been minor players in Jewish politics, became the main
players.
Because the Pharisees believed religious pluralism eroded
Jewish identity they moved against Jewish sects that they considered were not
being faithful to the Jewish tradition. The Jewish Christian sect was one they
turned against. They ejected the Christians from the synagogues and eventually
persecuted them.
This development produced a crisis in the early Christian
movement, including in Matthew's church. The members were demoralized and
confused. They could not understand why most of their Jewish brothers and
sisters had turned against them and had failed to recognize Jesus as the long
awaited Messiah. They thought that maybe it was God's doing. Maybe God had
hardened their hearts so they could not understand. The passage read this
morning transmitted this message. It said, "These people's heart has grown
dull, and (consequently) their ears are hard of hearing."
It is not surprising that because they were caught up in such
a threatening and destructive situation, many members of Matthew's church
wavered in their commitment. Some renounced their faith in Jesus and made their
way back to the synagogue.
Matthew identifies true Israel with the disciples of his
church, and encourages them to see themselves as Jesus' disciples. He presses
them to stick with their commitment. "Do this and you will be numbered among the
faithful when the kingdom comes to full fruition". Matthew puts his message into
Jesus' mouth, because he believed it would be more persuasive coming from Jesus.
Jesus offers the disciples in Matthew's congregation these comforting words:
"But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear".
In summary, in today's passage, we mainly hear the voice of
Matthew rather than Jesus' voice. WeHHHHhhhhhhhhhhee
can understand why Matthew had Jesus speak harshly about the Jewish people
generally for some of their leaders were persecuting his congregation; and why
Matthew reached the point where he declared old Israel was no longer God's
chosen people.
We can also see why Matthew has Jesus speak in an encouraging
way to his inner circle of disciples. Matthew wants the faithful members of his
congregation to resist the temptation to discard Jesus and return to the
synagogue.
We may be able to discern some parallels between the problems
of Matthew's church and the problems of contemporary churches. These church
typically have shrinking ageing congregations situated in the midst of
communities comprised chiefly of people who are completely indifferent or
hostile to Christianity. In today's Australia, one can invite ridicule if you
declare that you are an active member of a church community. "Why would you
bother, surely you cannot believe the fairy tales they tell?"
That said, some parts of the message of Matthew to his church
under siege, is a message for us too. We should not lose heart in difficult
circumstances. The story of Matthew encouraging his disciples to sustain their
commitment encourages us to employ our ears to hear and make our hearts
receptive to receive the message that in Jesus, God's kingdom has come among
us.
Have we not the evidence of our own experience: have we not
found that following Jesus works for us? Do you know a better way to live? I do
not.
Yes, Jesus is normative for us. Surely, we have learnt that
we feel better when we forgive and accept rather than hold grudges and reject.
Have we not learnt that the flaws we denounce in others occur in us as well?
Have we not learnt that life works best when we implement the golden rule: to do
to others what we would have them to do to us?
Yes, Jesus is right when he calls on us to think first about
the kingdom of God, for in the kingdom love prevails over enmity, understanding
over intolerance and acceptance over rejection. AMEN
Reference: M. Eugene Boring, 'The Gospel
of Matthew' in (Leander E. Keck et. al editors) The New Interpreter's Bible,
Vol. VIII. 1995
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need
time alone. Jesus discovered that truth, and so have millions of other people.
In his book called Solitude, the psychiatrist Anthony Storr says that it is a
mistake to search for happiness and fulfillment exclusively in relationships.
There are limits to the benefits love and friendship can deliver. Ultimately, we
have to take personal responsibility for ourselves. Each of us has to be our own
best friend.