Friday, 12 May 2006
Easter 5 Year B
Acts 8: 26-40 NRSV text
Psalm 22: 25-31 NRSV text
Exodus 19: 1-6 NRSV text
1 John 4: 7-21 NRSV text
John 15: 1-8 NRSV text
Apologies for the late posting! I shall try and post Sunday/Monday next week to ensure I don't lose my writing window. Please bear with me and come back early next week!
Vines, branches, fruit and pruning – and “abiding”. This is one of those “purple passages” from John’s gospel that most of us know well. It’s a time to expound parables of grafting, pruning, getting rid of excess foliage so the grapes are plentiful and fat … and stuff about “abiding” that hovers constantly on the edge of twee and a bit precious. Any tendency towards twee and precious should cause us to pause. It’s Christian Aid Week this week and we dare not forget that this world is a brutal, death-dealing place. Most inhabitants of this planet live below the breadline. The scale of global poverty is staggering; the magnitude of starvation is terrifyingly obscene. What makes the statistics significant is not simply the scale. The scale is tragic. Yet if it was inevitable and unpreventable, that is all we could call it. It is the fact that it is preventable that is significant. The world has never been globally richer, not has it ever
produced more food. Global poverty is not an accident but a deliberate human creation. It is deliberate not in the sense that we set out to cause starvation, but in that we build a global economy that give those of us in the west a particular standard of living that necessarily means that two thirds of the planet live in abject poverty. And “we” – the people with the power and decision-making ability – reckon that is an acceptable cost. That is what makes the global statistics so obscene.
We’re talking about John’s gospel, and my point is this: even were John writing about other-wordly, beautiful soul-thoughts in which we could lose ourselves in mawkish sentimentality, the state of the world would demand that we leave the gospel alone in favour of other passages that speak more directly, compellingly and challengingly to the world we inhabit. There simply isn’t time to do anything else. People are dying, and in a world of disease, despair and death, sentimentality is a luxury. More than that, it is a deadly distraction. Stanley Hauerwas was asked
what he thought is the greatest danger facing the Church today, and replied, “Sentimentality!” He went on to explain that sentimentality allows Christians to substitute fluffy feeling and token action for the sort of sacrificial, transformative engagement with the world that the situation demands and that discipleship of the crucified Jesus requires.
Incarnation and mission
However, John’s gospel is not that sort of opiate. It has certainly been read in that way. And it is possible to read it through dualistic spectacles that see ultimate reality as “somewhere else” and non-corporeal. Reading this passage in Christian Aid Week requires that we consciously adopt a reading strategy that is deeply true to John’s own writings and intentions, and equally deeply engaged with the world. It seems to me that one of the mistakes that allows us to read John dualistically is that we ignore the fact that John is the theologian of the Incarnation. Incarnation is about heaven coming down to earth and taking concrete shape in human living. Truth is not “apprehended” or “thought”: it is born and lives. Eternal life – the gift of God – is to be seen and touched, heard and followed in Jesus Christ. The abundant life that is God’s intention for the world is for the here and now. To “believe” (as John tirelessly exhorts us to do) is not about escape from this world, but to echo the motto of Christian Aid: “We believe in life before death!”
The poetic language of John’s gospel is premised upon an incarnational view of truth. It is hard-edged and challenging. This is no more clearly articulated than in this passage about vines and branches. Look at what John has Jesus say: “I am not interested in braches that do not bear fruit. God is at work in the world, transforming it. That is God’s purpose. It is to save the world – this world! If you want to be part of me, you are necessarily part of that mission. And unless you get stuck in, you are of no use. You are sapping time and energy and resources. You are a distraction. You are a problem. You are of no use and you will be pruned ruthlessly and burned with all the other rubbish! (vv 1-6)” On the other hand, “If you are doing what you ought, and are overwhelmed by the scale of the task, all you have to do is ask for what you need and God will supply it! God will ensure that you are equipped. That will be evident – and people will be given a glimpse of God! (vv 8-9)”
Jesus goes on: “Make no mistake: the sort of love I am talking about issues in obedience. I have called you for a reason: to make love real! Your task is the same as mine: to bring heaven down to earth. When life for the world is abundant, you will sense my joy and share it. You will find greater joy in this than any you might have previously believed possible! (vv 10-11). Although these are not part of the lectionary passage, they nevertheless make clear what Jesus is driving at and steer us away from “soft” readings of the passage. This is Good News for the world as we have made it.
Vines, braches and the Image of God
Vines and braches is also about the deep connections between ourselves and Jesus – connections that run deeper than action and following. It’s about what it means to be human: to be connected to God as God’s children (an image John uses elsewhere). In other words, the image of vines and braches belongs to human beings as made in the image of God. Jesus the man is the “icon” of God. He shares that in common with us – or rather, we share it in common with him.
“Image” is multidimensional. Firstly, it tells us that we may not treat anyone else as less than a person in God’s image. If we treat anyone as less important than we and ours are, we do violence not only to them but to the God in
whose image they are made. That is why John urges us in the epistle to “love one another”. If there is an integral relationship between our relationship with other people and with God, we cannot claim to love God and hate our brother or sister (v21). Truth is what is seen on the ground. If we say, “God is ok – it’s people that I can’t abide! But God’s different!”, then John tells us we have misunderstood God. To see others is to see God. God is not “different” in the way we imagine God to be. Persecution, oppression, global poverty, indifference to the AIDS crisis or other human rights issue all depend on being able to see others as less than human – less in the image of God than we are.
Secondly, the image of God is about our own transformation. It’s about what people “see” in us – the picture we give to the world. Discipleship of Jesus – “loving” and “believing” in John’s terms – is about becoming more and more visibly like Jesus. That obviously isn’t about physical appearance, but it is no less physical. It’s about actions. If God is saving the world in Jesus (John 3: 16-17), then people will see God in our actions to make the world a place of Life and hope. And we will be changed in the process. That is part of what John means by “God abiding in us” (1 John 4: 13-16). It isn’t some theological theory: it is something we are supposed to be able to see and recognise as true because the changes in us ought to be observable!
It’s communal …
We live in a very individualistic age and culture. Spiritually, this often presents as though Christian faith was about “me and Jesus” – as though all that God has done and is doing in Jesus is just for “me”. That sort of individualism would be incomprehensible in the world of the Bible. It is not only alien, but hostile to the communal nature of faith and salvation. Jesus and John speak to the disciples as a group. The images of Church are communal. The disciples of Jesus are to be a new community. When Jesus speaks of love as the defining characteristic of that new community, he speaks communally.
Similarly, when Yahweh calls a new community into being at Sinaii (Exodus 19: 1-6), they are to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation”. Is there any theological significance to this communal understanding of faith beyond its cultural shaping? Yes! The point is that the new community is not just about changed individuals, but is a sign of a transformed world. And isn’t that precisely what we so desperately need salvation to be? It isn’t enough just to make a few individuals better – or rescue them from reality. If salvation is to be life for the world, as God intends and promises, then it has to be able to deal with the questions and dynamics that shape human history and existence in this world.
It has to be that because resurrection says that rescue from this world is not God’s intention nor is it an option. If it were, God would have wrapped human history up after the crucifixion and given up on the world as a bad job! But God raised Jesus from the dead. That means that God hasn’t finished with the world – in fact, there’s a sense in which, on Easter Sunday, God was just starting!
The hard edge
Vines, branches, pruning, love, abiding … these are hard-edged words. They are Good News at the onset of Christian Aid Week. They depend on Jesus, who is God become human. “Word here becomes flesh, sovereignty becomes compassion, weakness becomes strength, foolishness becomes wisdom, suffering becomes hope, vulnerability becomes energy, death becomes life”! (Walter Brueggemann).
Amen.
14:40 Posted in 1 John , Acts , Exodus , John , Psalms , Year B | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Bible Study
Monday, 13 March 2006
Lent 3 Year B
Exodus 20: 1-17 NRSV text
Psalm 19 NRSV text
1 Corinthians 1: 18-25 NRSV text
John 2: 13-22 NRSV text
I can remember clearly the picture we were given in Sunday School to colour in of Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple. There was an angry Jesus in flowing robes, with a rope whip in his hands. The table was in the process of falling, spilling scales and coins. Sheep and oxen were milling around. The picture and the lesson that day were clear: God’s house should be a place of quiet prayer and spirituality – not a market place! Economics has nothing to do with prayer and faith!
Interestingly, nothing disturbed that picture for many, many years. And why should it? I lived in a country (Rhodesia) in which politics and economics were one thing, and faith was something entirely different – individual, private and interior. Ironically, it wasn’t until I was about 26, living in Durham during the miners’ strike, and being faced with some destitute families begging outside the church door as we worshippers all emerged, wrapped against the biting wind and clearly well-breakfasted, that I began to be uneasy and to wonder whether there wasn’t something desperately wrong with a gospel that had nothing to say to real human need. Having had my world cracked open just a fraction meant that I began to read the Bible through different eyes. Old stories suddenly took on disturbing, startling new contours. And I began to “get” Jesus for the first time.
The notion that Jesus is trying to clear economics out of the temple is as wrong-headed as it’s possible to be. That is utterly alien to biblical piety. Psalm 19 is a psalm that moves from a celebration of creation to a celebration of the Law. The two are intrinsically linked. Yahweh has created the universe for the good of its inhabitants and for Yahweh’s own joy (hence the wedding imagery in vv 4bff). The psalmist launches directly from this into a hymn of praise for Yahweh’s Law, because “in keeping them there is great reward” (v11). The primary context of “reward” isn’t legal, but has to do with life. Life lived in obedience to the Law is rich and full. It is “sweeter than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb” (v10) – infinitely desirable.
To be “innocent of transgression” is important in itself, because Yahweh is the judge of human hearts and actions. But more importantly, it means to be living life as Yahweh intends to experience its fullness and gift. It means to experience life with God.
In other words, the universe belongs to God, who intends good for the creation. All of reality and all of living is embraced by Yahweh’s intentions for good. The Law is not intended primarily to provide a legal framework for society (although it does so by extension) but to reveal Yahweh’s character. The Law (which is given in the account we have this week in Exodus 20: 1-17) does not establish Yahweh as the great legal eagle in the sky. Rather it explains the Exodus! It explains grace! This is the kind of life Yahweh intends for people – that is why Yahweh heard their cries in the slave pits and delivered them out of Egypt! To be Yahweh’s people is not so much a case of being given laws to live by but Yahweh’s fellowship – hence the primacy of the first commandment. It is Yahweh’s self-gift. And it therefore follows that the same sorts of attitudes and character should begin to take root in Yahweh’s people – rather in the manner that owners become more and more like their dogs! One of the most important aspects about the 10 commandments is that they embrace all of life – religious, social, political and economic.
It follows, therefore, that true worship of the true God does not exempt any area of human existence from the reign of God. That is what it means to confess God as Lord. It is also what Jesus means when he talks about the kingdom of God – not some other-worldly, spiritual reality or place, but human existence lived in the company of God.
Let us return to the cleansing of the temple for a moment. Jesus is not angry because there are animals fouling God’s house, or money-changers changing coinage from all over the realm into the temple currency. That business is necessary if the temple is to fulfil its function – be a place for all peoples and enable them to make sacrifices in worship. The problem, in Jesus’ eyes, is what it had become – a corrupt system that had its own dynamic that was “exempt” from the laws of God. What had started out to facilitate worship had become an exploitative economic system in its own right.
It is the Synoptic Gospels, rather than John’s, that emphasise the corruption of the system and the way in which it militated against the poorest people. Jesus’ problem was not that it made sacrifice possible, but that it made increasingly impossible for the poorest! It made access to God dependent on economic circumstances – and God’s grace and compassion was, in fact extended to the neediest first. This is what drives Jesus as he drives the traders from the temple.
Of course, in John’s gospel, the cleansing is also tied up with John’s theology of the signs. It follows immediately on the heels of the wedding at Cana – the first of the signs that reveal to Jesus’ disciples who their Master is. Significantly, the signs are usually in the Galilee – the disciples’ territory. This section is interestingly full of Jesus trafficking between Jerusalem and Capernaum. The significance is that the cleansing is also a “sign”. In John’s hands, it points forward to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection – a sign to be seen and understood by those who are sincerely looking. The Jews – Jesus opponents – fail totally to comprehend what is being taught. The disciples are watching – and remembering. It is a sign that will make sense to them after the resurrection (v22). But this is a strange sign!
A crucified Messiah is an anathema! Who can take seriously someone who is crucified? More importantly, if crucifixion was reserved for the lowest of the low in the criminal world, and pointed to the crucified one as god-forsaken as well as forsaken by the rest of humanity, how can the cross be disclosive of God’s love and salvation/ That is pure nonsense!
This is precisely Paul’s point in calling the preaching of the cross “foolishness” in the first letter to the Corinthians. It is divine folly – madness, rather than simply “ridiculous”! It cannot be a “sign” of anything, or demonstration of any sort of compelling wisdom (cf 1 Corinthians 1: 22). Its wisdom and power are seen in the fact that it brings Life – in John’s terms, “life in all its incredible fullness” (John 10:10).
So we are back to the all-embracing nature of God’s presence with us and our world. Back, in other words, to the economics of it all (in the case of the temple cleansing). Jesus was aware of how economic systems take on a life of their own, and benefit some at the expense of others. That is why it is so appropriate that Fair Trade fortnight falls in Lent. Here we are, looking at the cleansing of the temple – a conflict which points beyond itself. This conflict between Jesus and the temple authorities will grow ever more deadly. Here, at the outset of the gospel, John sets an incident that brings the shadow of the cross and the promise of resurrection into the gospel story. It is an economic conflict – and a conflict about the very nature of God. This will be a conflict that will cost Jesus his life – because those who benefit from the system will not be able to face it being challenged.
Fair Trade is all about recognising the economic systems we create, and their destructive powers. Discipleship of Jesus requires that we don’t exempt our economic lives from faith and worship. We are well aware of the ways in which the global economy links us all. What I choose to buy here in England determines how others will live in the Third World. I eat shop and live at the expense of others. I am therefore stuck. I cannot carry on doing what I do now that I know, but neither can I effect the changes I want to in order to eat, shop and live faithfully. The global economy is the only game in town – on the planet, in fact! Yet within that, there are small opportunities for doing things differently – spaces of integrity, like Fair Trade. I can begin to make a difference. And, small though they are, they are signs of something bigger.
The point about “signs” in John’s gospel is that they share in the reality they point to. In other words, they are not just empty gestures, but infused with the truth they point to. It’s the same thing with Fair Trade: shopping fairly, however small and insignificant it may seem, actually does make a difference. It changes lives. And here’s the promise: God is the God of mustard seeds. Small things can make a difference far out of proportion to their size. The global economy, like the temple, may seem impregnable. But the incident in John’s gospel reminds us both of the impregnability and fragility of huge systems (v20). The temple had been around for people’s lifetimes – and was still being built. Yet by the time of the gospel’s writing, it had been utterly destroyed. The global economy may seem as impregnable and durable as Apartheid, the Berlin Wall or Communism. Yet we have seen all of these toppled in our life times. Make Poverty History has made a huge difference to world debt. So will Fair Trade. Because, at this point in our Lenten journey, John reminds us, we are not just in the shadow of the cross but in the first faint glow of resurrection.
Amen.
21:38 Posted in 1 Corinthians , Exodus , John , Psalms , Year B | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this | Tags: Bible Study