Wednesday, 07 June 2006
Trinity Year B
Moving!!!
If you've got here via a search engine query, you might like to know that this site will only be operational here for this week and next. I have already moved it HERE, where the layout is better. I shall cancel my subscription to blogSpirit. I'm duplicating the blog here for the moment while the search engines learn the new site. That may take time, though, and they won't pick it up for a while. So if you find this helpful, bookmark the new site. Best wishes, Lawrence.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Isaiah 6: 1-8 NRSV text
Psalm 29 NRSV text
Romans 8: 12-17 NRSV text
John 3: 1-17 NRSV text
Nuns on the Run is the story of two small-time crooks (played by Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle) who are on the run both from the Police and the Triads. They hide out in a convent, disguised as nuns, where Eric Idle finds himself scheduled to teach the A-level Religious Education class. He’s horrified. Robbie Coltrane, a lapsed Catholic, tries to reassure him by telling him how easy it will be. What’s your first lesson on?” he asks. “The Trinity!” Robbie’s face falls. “The Trinity! Now that’s a bugger!”
Most ministers and preachers appear to experience a similar sinking sensation when Trinity Sunday comes round. Far from a sense of excitement and awe at a service focused very specifically on God, the overwhelming sense is one of dismay – how to explain the inexplicable! “Trinity” means pulling out illustrations of shamrocks and sun, sunlight and warmth. For me, it conjures up the memories of trying to get my head around Barth’s “Revealer, Revelation and Revealedness”, or of listening to Nicholas Lash expound his (helpful) notion of the Trinity as “speaking of God in three ways”.
Having worked for a couple of years in local government with a Shi’ite Muslim, it also conjures up memories of heated debates, Shabir demanding that I explain how I can possibly call myself a monotheist when I clearly believe in three Gods! And in parenthesis, I must say that one of the most helpful things I have discovered on the doctrine of the Trinity is Moltmann’s insistence that to be Trinitarian is what it means to be Christian, and to be neither a monotheist nor a polytheist.
The drama of salvation
But all of this is to miss the point that our texts make so clearly this week: the “doctrine of God” is not a matter for academic debate or catechesis, but the outcome of our experience of God in Jesus Christ. The Trinity is a necessary corollary of salvation. Jesus, in this famous chapter from John’s gospel, talks of having descended from heaven, being the only-begotten Son of the Father (who loves the world and has sent him to save it) and of the Spirit who blows like the wind, bringing new life/birth. The Trinity, in other words. And if our response is, “Yes, but I’ve always thought that this is a great “gospel” passage”, then the response is, “Precisely!” Let me put this as forcefully as I can: the fundamental point to be made on Trinity Sunday is that the doctrine of the Trinity means nothing less or other than rehearsing the story of salvation! And if we do something other than that in the pulpit this Sunday, we are taking a drama and turning it into a conundrum – and that is neither faithful to the Scripture nor is it the place of preaching! The Trinity is the story of God’s passionate determination to be present with the world. It’s the reminder that God’s primary disposition towards the world is of love, not judgement. It is about the fact that the saving God is the God of resurrection and recreation, giving new birth and Life to human beings. And it is the reminder (in the person of Nicodemus) that none of this makes sense or fits easily into good religious schemes about reward and punishment, or stringent holiness movements, because God is a God of grace!
The Trinity, in other words, doesn’t just tell us who God is, but about what God does and what God is like! This is the day to get into the pulpit and tell again the wonderful, joyful story of who God is and how passionately, uncontrollably, inexplicably and inescapably this world is loved. It’s the Sunday to re-awaken a sense of wonder and to renew faith, because it is Gospel Sunday!
The “Three-in-One” stuff
If the Trinity is about the drama of salvation – about rehearsing the gospel story – what’s the point of all the stuff we usually think of in connection with the Trinity? What about the “Three-in-One” stuff? The doctrine of the Trinity attempts to safeguard our thinking and talking about God. It helps us to “get it right” – not in the sense of “explaining” God, but in the sense that we don’t create an idol in place of the Living God whom we worship in Jesus Christ and through the Spirit. I want to pick up on three aspects of the gospel story of God that the “Three-in-One” formula enshrines and protects: the fact that relationship is fundamental to the life of God; that the Spirit draws human beings into the very life of God through resurrection and adoption; and that it is appropriate to worship both Jesus and the Spirit because they are divine.
Three Persons: Love and relationship in God
The “Three Persons in One Godhead” stuff (Triunity: three in one) isn’t a cleverly-devised formula to keep Christians (and everyone else!) scratching their heads for millennia, or for keeping theologians in business! Again, it belongs to the drama of salvation. Look at the gospel passage. There is the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Three Persons. Not one Person. The story of salvation in Jesus Christ teaches us that it doesn’t do simply to talk about God only in singular terms. God may – indeed must – be One, but there is relationship within God. Three Persons in dynamic relationship. And the “cement” holding them together is love. There is a dynamic unity of love and will which means that God sends Jesus into the world to be its saviour, which will necessitate death. But Jesus is no unwilling sacrificial lamb! Jesus is a volunteer! In John’s gospel, Jesus’ high priestly prayer does what the Gethsemane account does in the Synoptic Gospels – it establishes that there is a unity of divine will! The love of God for the world is matched by the love of the Son in going to the cross. The loving self-sacrifice of the Son is matched by the love (not anger!) of the Father, who abandons himself to the loss of the Son. Which constantly makes me wonder, by the way: why does so much Christian preaching lead people to suppose that Jesus loves the world, but has to appease God who is angry with it?
The Spirit is sent in the same way as the Son is sent. In John’s gospel, the Spirit is “Another Christ”. Paul picks up on this, as we have seen in recent weeks, when he insists that anyone who has the Spirit belongs to Christ because the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (as well as the Spirit of God). In John’s gospel, the role of the Spirit is to “lead the disciples into all truth” (14:26, 15:26). Jesus makes the Father known to them. He does so as the Word made flesh– the one who has come from the bosom of the Father (1:18). As such, the disciples can trust absolutely what they know of God through Jesus. To see Jesus is as good as seeing the Father.
That is why the disciples preach Jesus! Jesus came (in John’s gospel) to make the Father known. However, he was rejected and crucified. The rejection of Jesus was also the rejection of the God whom he called Father. Yet God does not allow the crucifixion to stand as the last word. Unknown to those crucifying him, Jesus is the Lamb of God, whose death takes away the sin of the world (John 1: 29). This means that the disciples preach Jesus. They don’t just repeat his message: now they have a further story to tell – the story of God walking among us in Jesus and saving us though his death and resurrection. They can tell this story because it is God’s story! The Jesus story is not simply the story of God acting through a man: it is the story of God as a man! Jesus is the act of God.
“Three on one” therefore insists that we have first and always to speak about God in terms of relationality. To be God is to be in relationship. The relationship between God and the world flows out of the relationship of love that exists between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It means that Jesus is not just a man of God, but God as a man! And if Jesus shows us not only what God is like, but what it means to be human, then we come to understand that to be truly, fully and freely human – to have “Life in all its abundance” – is to be related in love to God and to one another.
The Spirit of Resurrection and Adoption: being drawn into the life of the Triune God (Romans 8: 12-17)
Jesus (particularly in John’s gospel) comes to reveal the Father. This revelation is not “facts about God”: it is to draw us into the very Life of God, so that we become in reality what we are intended to be through creation – children of the Living God. The risen Jesus does this through the Spirit.
The primary role of the Spirit in Romans 8 is resurrection. This is the Spirit of Life who liberates us from death (8:2). To have the Spirit dwelling in us is to belong to Christ (8:9). We saw this last week. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Yet look at 8:10, and what Paul says: he has just finished explaining that if the Spirit of Christ indwells us, we belong to Christ. Then he says, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness”. Note that, in Paul’s, eyes, having the Spirit is the same thing as having Christ. This is not because Jesus and the Spirit are the same. They are distinct persons. Rather, it is the Spirit of resurrection who raised Jesus from the dead and now dwells in us, so that we undergo death to the old life and resurrection to the new. What happened to Jesus at Easter happens to us through faith in Christ: we immediately pass through death and resurrection, so that we are already on the other side of our own death! That is why Paul can talk as he does about there being no more condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus (which is how he has begun the chapter and concludes it in vv31ff).
But this means that the Spirit is also the Spirit of Adoption. Not only are we raised from the dead, as Jesus was, but we are drawn into Jesus’ life as child of the God whom he addresses as Father (v15). Isn’t it curious how much time and energy we often spend worrying about what will happen to us when we die? It’s as though the answer to that question has yet to be settled – when Paul goes to extraordinary lengths to explain that it has already been answered! The only person whose death was open to question in this way was Jesus himself – and God raised him through the Spirit! Now we who have the Spirit have Christ. We have already died with him and been raised with him – and we shall be glorified with him. That is already settled. We have been incorporated into the life of the Triune God! That is what “Life in all its abundance” means! We are incorporated into God’s family life. That is why one of the most ancient formulas of salvation was, “He (Jesus) became a man, that we might become divine”. And that is exactly right! How about that for a message for Trinity Sunday, eh? We share in the life of God!
The Oneness of God: Love and worship
I have suggested that the Trinitarian formula of “One God in Three Persons” is made necessary because of salvation. We encounter God in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And yet Judaeo-Christian faith has always insisted that God is One. There is only One who is worthy of worship, and that is God. There cannot be more than one God, because that could be potentially conflictual! What if one God wanted one thing and another God another? Where would we poor humans be? How would we decide what to do? We have already seen that we talk about Three Persons as a way of expressing the unity of will between Father, Son and Spirit – the unity of love. This unity of will and purpose means that we have to do with three Persons, not three gods! The statement “God so loved the world …” is an expression of the love of the divine family for the world. We cannot preach or believe as though there is a difference in attitude towards the world among the three Persons – particularly between Father and Son.
I remember hearing a sermon by Rowan Williams in which he said – almost as an aside – that “We must not preach the cross as though there is a difference of attitude between Father and Son”. Suddenly, all the unease I had felt about the gospel as I had heard it preached came into focus. I had heard it as, “God is holy and we are very sinful. God is angry with our sin. By rights, God should judge us. Yet the sinless Jesus gave his life for us voluntarily. Jesus took the punishment from God that was ours by right, so that, if we have accepted Christ as our personal saviour, God looks at us and sees the righteous Jesus and accepts us”. There was a sense there – no matter how often and forcefully I heard John 3:16 quoted – that the Father is basically itching to let fly with some thunderbolts, but Jesus (who is the “nice guy” in the godhead) deflects all that anger on to himself, so that God’s thirst for judgement is satisfied and we’re okay. Now I know that that’s to caricature things – but actually, it is to do so only slightly and far less so than we fondly imagine we are doing! Grace is as much the Father’s idea as the Son’s! There isn’t a “playing off” of holiness against mercy within the godhead. We are loved by God – Father, Son and Spirit – with the same saving love. And our response to that grace ought to be love: to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength.
Love issues in worship. What set earliest Christianity apart from other messianic Jewish sects was the insistence that it was appropriate to worship Jesus. Now, if worship belongs only to God, then this was a very serious error … unless Jesus is as divine as the Father. That is what John tries tirelessly to tell us in his gospel. His is the story of Jesus that is constantly presenting us with the divinity of Jesus and the outrage that it caused. Jesus’ claim to divinity in John’s gospel is unequivocal: “Before Abraham was, I AM!” It is in John’s gospel that Thomas confesses Jesus as “My Lord and my God”. This is the faith of the Church. But it is not about playing metaphysical games, or rehearsing ancient controversies. It is saying something fundamental to everything we are and do as churches: we love Jesus and worship him as God. So Trinity Sunday ought to be the Sunday when we worship as on no other day! It’s a day for renewing our love and celebrating God’s story in worship.
God with us – the foundation of Word and Sacrament (Isaiah 6: 1-5/Psalm 29)
Poor old Isaiah! He’s in real trouble – and he knows it! He’s in the temple, and he sees the Lord, glorious and lifted up. That is not good news! He knows he is in mortal danger. To see Yahweh is to die, because Yahweh’s majesty and holiness is awful. Yahweh’s voice can smash mighty cedar trees, uproot cities, flash forth flames of fire, shake the wilderness, send huge oak tress skittering and strip the forest of its leaves (Psalm 29: 5-9). Yahweh is no tame god! So Isaiah’s first response is “Woe is me! I am lost!” (Isaiah 6: 5). That’s a very polite version of what he’s effectively saying!
Isaiah 6 and Psalm 29 belong to a venerable tradition of the threat of Yahweh’s presence. Yahweh has no business being on earth – it’s far too dangerous for human beings. It’s dangerous for two reasons. The first one is moral: Yahweh is holy, and we are not. Yahweh’s holiness is a “consuming fire”. The second reason is one that is less dominant in the Bible but strong in the classical Greek tradition: God is God and Spirit; we are creatures and mortal. That which is spirit has no place among the earthly. In fact, the aim of human living is to discover how to flee the earthly into the realm of the spirit.
Here in Isaiah 6 we have a moment of the same sort of grace that we will see in spades in the Incarnation: God’s presence doesn’t destroy, but cleanses, liberates and commissions. That Jesus is God incarnate is an affirmation that God is not the sort of god who cannot be present on earth. Nor is God restricted to the sterile environment of the Holy of Holies. In Jesus, God enters into the depth of human darkness and living. Neither the fact that God is creator nor God’s holiness can keep God out! The grace of love is too passionate – too driving a force. It is transgressive. It bursts through the boundaries of purity and divinity with startling, life-giving energy and power. It is a astounding because it is entirely inappropriate! We look around, and suddenly discover, in Jesus, that God is among us!
And isn’t this precisely what we mean by Word and Sacrament? “Sacrament” means that God can be present in created stuff. God can be present in bread and wine and water because God was present in a human being – Jesus! And because it is God’s incarnate presence in Jesus that is foundational, we know that God’s presence is a good thing! It is liberating, cleansing, forgiving and saving. It is grace, not judgement and destruction! It means that this world is a place where we can and do expect to encounter God.
Astonishingly, it also means that this world is the place where things happen to God! Now that is totally outside the rule book on How to be God! Things don’t happen to God. But things happen to the Triune God who walks among us in Jesus Christ! God took suffering and death into God’s self. In Jesus, God embraced human history. And as a result, God continues to be among us, present not only in Word and Sacrament, but in people and relationships. We meet God “in many a guise”. And we do to God in Jesus Christ. When we give a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty, we do it to Jesus. And when we do anything to the very least of our world, we do it to Jesus. When we are agents of grace (we children of God), people encounter God in and through us.
God’s mission and our mission (Isaiah 6: 6-8)
Isaiah is not consumed by the fire; he is cleansed by it. And the cleansed and renewed prophet is faced with Yahweh’s question: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” God is a missionary God. The earliest theological use of “mission” (meaning “sent”) referred not to sending missionaries, but to the sending of the Son by the Father and the sending of the Spirit by the Father (and the Son, depending on where you lived!). Mission is God’s idea, and God’s project. To be drawn into the life of the Triune God is to be drawn into God’s saving project of transforming the world into the kingdom. To be “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven” is not only to “sing God’s praise” but to live it out in involvement in the world.
What makes out involvement particularly special? After all, there are many other groups and people who are involved in transforming the world – often with more commitment and to greater effect! That is perfectly true, and it means, for a start, that Christians ought to be far more generous about recognising allies and fellow-workers, regardless of what faith (or none) they profess. According to the parable of the sheep and the goats, we ought to recognise them as brothers and sisters, because what we do is as significant as what we say. In other words, the disturbing challenge of mission is that it blurs our neatly-drawn boundaries of who’s in and who’s out. It means that Christians who oppose the transformation of unjust structures (in Palestine, for example) are enemies of the kingdom, opposed to God’s salvation, while humanists and communists who deride any faith in Jesus but who do his will are worshipping the Triune God!
What is Christianly distinctive about our involvement, though? It is because it is done in the name of the Son and in the power of the Spirit. That is not playing games with doctrinal formulations. All I have been saying implies that it means that our involvement in the world, its people and its transformation can never be separated from our faith in the missionary God we discover in
Jesus and through the Spirit. Being translated, that means we cannot extract our actions, activities, the deployment of our resources, our priorities and decisions from the gospel story of God in Jesus. Mission and Christian faith and proclamation go hand in hand – because mission is the making a reality of the Good News of what God has done in Jesus Christ to save this world.
That means that we might be no more effective than others (although we believe that God is able to take a mustard seed and grow a mighty tree from it, so that the effects of what we do can be totally disproportionate to their size). We might be less effective than other groups who may, for example, have a far better grasp on how structures work than we do. The point is, though, that we believe and proclaim that the transformation of the world into the place where peace and righteousness kiss is more than a human project. It is God’s project. The transformed world discloses the gracious God who walks among us in Jesus and is present in and with us through the Holy Spirit. This is the God who yearns to draw us into the divine Life itself. We cannot but continually set out the clear invitation: come and find Life! Come and love and worship the living God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to whom be glory in the world and in the Church forever!
Amen.
13:05 Posted in Isaiah , John , Psalms , Romans , Year B | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Trinity Year B, John 3: 1-17, Isiaiah 6: 1-8, Psalm 29, Romans8: 12-17, doctrine of the trinity, trinity as the story of salvation
Wednesday, 31 May 2006
Pentecost Year B
NIGHTMARE!!! BlogSpirit have totally ruined this! I've created a new site (better layout!) on WordPress. This same article is there and it's clear. The address is http://wolabcd.wordpress.com/ Please leave a comment to show you've managed to find it! Thanks. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ezekiel 37: 1-14 Psalm 104: 24-34; 35b Romans 8: 22-27 Acts 2: 1-21 John 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15 Well, folks, blogSpirit have done the dirty on me! They've made this a paying service. As an existing user, I don't have to upgrade to a paid account. Surprisingly (NOT!) I chose not to. But they've taken away the formatting features - hyperlinks to texts, bold, italic, pictures etc. Can't even get into the HTML settings to code! There are no line breaks, so I've done the only thing I can do and demarcate the sections by lines. I'm so sorry. PLEASE GO TO THE NEW ADDRESS ABOVE!!! HERE IT IS AGAIN: http://wolabcd.wordpress.com/ __________________________________________________________________________________________________ “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16: 7). Hmmm. Jesus or the Spirit? Which would we rather have, I wonder? How would we feel if we heard those words? Comforted? Excited? Would our reaction be to say, “Okay, Jesus – you be getting along now. Hurry up – not that we want rid of you, you understand, but seeing as you’ll send the Spirit …” Personally, I don’t think so. I’d want to open negotiations: “Right, Jesus: that’s one option. Now if I understand you correctly, we can’t have both – so what about you staying and we do without the Spirit? Do we get another choice here?” I’d be unconvinced. Jesus wasn’t. He’s not spinning this one and trying to make the disciples feel better about something bad – his imminent departure to the Father. He’s quite genuinely clear here: “It’s to your advantage that I go away and the Spirit comes”. Why? __________________________________________________________________________________________________ The priority of Jesus’ mission One obvious reason is that Jesus’ priority is his mission, not about making deep personal friendships with the disciples. Let’s be clear: that is not the same thing as saying those personal relationships were unimportant for Jesus. Here in John’s gospel, in the farewell narrative, Jesus has talked constantly of his love for them. He has told them that they are no longer servants, but friends. He has prayed earnestly for them, focusing his entire attention on this very special group of people. So this isn’t about lack of affection – it’s about the priority of his mission that Jesus assumes his disciples share. And the clear implication in John’s gospel is that they do. Look at the preceding verses: “None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things, sorrow has filled your hearts”. The disciples, in other words, know both that Jesus is going to the Father and that he must. They don’t try to argue him out of it, or protest, or break down at the prospect. They have shared his life and love, and so they share his priority. They have learned to look at the world through Jesus’ eyes, and share his breadth of vision. They have already learned from Jesus that they have a task – to carry on what Jesus started with them. Only now, they move from being learners to centre stage. The next scene is theirs! They understand that. There is a widespread Christian spirituality that finds it incredibly difficult to move from the comfort and celebration of a personal relationship with Jesus to a shared passion for the world. It’s the “me and Jesus” theology of a great deal of evangelical piety. “Me and Jesus” is not a problem – in fact, it’s vital! One of the difficulties I have with a great deal of liberal theology and piety that is strong on involvement in the world is that it is woefully short on individual relating to God in Jesus Christ. God is embarrassingly intimate! That’s no clearer than in John’s gospel. While we might find it inappropriate to imagine that God would want to get as up close and personal as being concerned about each of us as individuals is concerned, the God revealed by Jesus has no such qualms. I find myself getting incredibly impatient and frustrated with the “either/or” choices forced on us by the classic liberal/evangelical divide. Why should it be that passion for the world should be separable from passionate relationship with God? And how can it be that passionate relating to God slips so easily into a privatised, individualised selfishness that shuts out the world and its crying out for salvation and transformation? Paul echoes the cry of the universe in Romans 8: 22: “The whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now”. He plays with two images: creation in bondage to decay, and as a mother in labour, straining to give birth to a new creation that is all God intends for it. God’s saving grace is a response to the world’s need. The scope of salvation is as great as creation – it is global! Just as the slaves “groaned” in the brick-pits of Egypt and their cry reached Yahweh’s ears, creation “groans” and God hears and responds. There is an aching at the heart of the universe for God, even when that aching finds no echo in rebellious human hearts. There are those lines in one of the hymns that are both true but dangerously open to misinterpretation: “Was it the nails, O Saviour/that bound Thee to the Tree?/Nay, ‘twas Thy love – Thy wondrous love/Thy love for me … for me!” That is true. Jesus loves each of us with that same passionate commitment. Karl Barth was asked near the end of his life what the greatest truth he had discovered was. The interviewer was expecting some typically Barthian profound piece of theology – and he got it! Barth answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know/for the Bible tells me so”! But Barth would never have bought into the notion that the whole scope and plan of salvation could be reduced to “me”. Jesus loves “me” because he loves the world. I am saved because salvation is for the whole world. And, Barth says, “I” am saved, not for my own personal enjoyment of salvation (important and wonderful though that is), but in order to become part of God’s mission of transforming all of created reality into the kingdom. That is why Jesus is able to say what he does to the disciples here in John’s gospel. The disciples have work to do, and they cannot do it without the Spirit. He knows that, and so do they. If they are to move from being disciples into their new role as apostles (cf John 15: 27, 16: 8-11). Unlike me, the disciples do not carp, complain or cajole. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ The triumph of the kingdom The second reason for Jesus saying that it is better if he goes and sends the Spirit has to do with the importance of the kingdom. This is not a category used by John, although it was undoubtedly Jesus’ primary category. In John, the Kingdom is transposed into something identical in meaning: the Reign of God. He doesn’t do this by talking about the Reign of God, but via the purpose of the cross. John, you remember, portrays the crucifixion as Jesus’ coronation and enthronement. His “lifting up” (complete with crown of thorns and declaration, “This is the King of the Jews” in all the known languages of the world) is the means by which Jesus “will draw all people to himself”. The crucified Christ is the visible sign of what Timothy Rees captures so beautifully eloquently in his hymn: “God is Love, so Love forever/o’er the universe must reign”! If Love is to reign over the universe, then the present powers and order must be defeated and destroyed. Jesus tells us what that order is: sin, righteousness and judgement (16: 8-11). The world is disordered because of sin. Human beings were created as children of the Light. The true Light has come into the world in Jesus, but “people love the darkness rather than the Light”. Sin cuts us off from our nature and heritage as children of God. The role of the Spirit is to bring the Light that exposes darkness for what it is, and to win and woo people into the Light where Life is to be found. The present order – the world as we have made it – is an order of retribution and deserts. There is no room for grace in it. The extravagant love of God that is shown in giving the Son for the world is seen through distorted eyes. Instead of being received joyfully as a gift, Jesus is crucified. In this sense, Jesus can define sin as “They did not believe in me” (v9). It is not a point about Christianity vs Islam (for example): it is about the wilful inability of sinful human beings to recognise God when God walks among us. Sin likewise distorts notions of righteousness. In a world of retribution and just deserts, grace is a major stumbling block – “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence”, as Paul puts it. On a “just deserts” reading, Jesus cannot be righteous. “Righteous” in John’s theological lexicon means “from God/God-like”. John presents Jesus as the one who makes God known because he has come from the Father. Look again at John’s programmatic 1:18: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known”. In other words, Jesus here is making a similar point about righteousness as he does about sin. If it is true that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father”, the challenge of Jesus is to look at him and to recognise, “God’s like that!” Or, as David Jenkins puts it, “God is. He is as he is in Jesus; therefore there is hope”. And how is God portrayed in Jesus? As grace! As Love! But the eyes distorted by sin see him on the cross as “stricken by God and accursed”. This cannot be righteousness! This cannot be what God is like! Hence Jesus says, “I am going to the Father” – in other words, God is vindicating Jesus’ claim to be the manifestation of God on earth. Jesus’ ascension is God’s testimony: “I am who I am in this man!” It is the work of the Spirit to cure blindness: to open people’s eyes to look at Jesus and see God as Love and Life. The sentence of death by crucifixion was judgement upon the so-called King of the Universe. However, it wasn’t the judgement that people thought they were passing! They thought they were passing judgement on Jesus. Ironically, they were lifting up the King of the Universe for all to see, and in so doing, passing judgement on the Pretender to the throne. The cross was Jesus’ coronation, and therefore the condemnation of the ruler of the world – the one to whom human beings have handed control. Here is John’s equivalent of Mark’s Jesus as the one who plunders the house of the Strong Man (Satan). The things that we put in place of God do not free us – they bind us. These are the things of darkness and death. The Spirit is the Spirit of resurrection – the power of God over death itself. She is the Spirit of Life. The condemnation of the ruler of the world makes possible the freedom to be found in the reign of the risen and glorified Jesus – Life in all its fullness. __________________________________________________________________________________________________ The first fruits of the new creation (Acts 2: 1-21/Romans 8: 22-27) The Spirit-fired apostles burst on the Jerusalem scene that first Pentecost with the startling announcement that the Good News is not just good news for the Jews. Their messianic hopes are exposed by the resurrection as hopelessly parochial and self-centred. The announcement is to be heard everywhere and by everyone. And they all hear it – in their own languages! The resurrection is a gigantic stone heaved by God into the world, and its ripples are beginning to spread “from Jerusalem, through Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost ends of the earth”. God isn’t just interested in sorting out the Jewish people’s problems – God is in the business of transforming the world! God is not the tribal God of a small, insignificant nation, but is God of all the nations. The God who broke the power of Pharaoh is the God who will smash all systems that enslave, oppress and kill. And how should we know this? Because the Spirit is being poured out … on all flesh. These are the Last Days. This is salvation time! Look at how the Spirit smashes boundaries. Sons, daughters, young people, old people, slaves, men and women: these are all ancient categories of divisions in society. Each had different worth in a hierarchical structure, with men at the top and female slaves at the very bottom. Resurrection is about a new world order. That’s the content of the “dreams and visions”! I’ve often heard it said that young men see visions because they look ahead to the future, whereas old men dream dreams because they look back to the past. Not so! Dreams and visions here are synonymous. Joel goes on to talk about “portents and signs” – apocalyptic language denoting an event of cosmic significance. “Turning the sun into darkness and the moon into blood” are symbolic of the death of the old order, which gives way to a new order of salvation in which “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2: 21). The pouring out of the Spirit is a sign of the universal salvation that God has brought about in Jesus. This is the Good News – the new creation! The Spirit is described by Paul as “the first fruits” of the new creation – creation liberated from bondage to decay and death (to futility). That is the content of hope and of “the glory that is about to be revealed to us” (v18). The Christian hope is not about escape from earth to “heaven”, but of a transformed earth – heaven on earth. Salvation is life for a world of death. Resurrection, personal salvation and a transformed creation all belong here together in Paul’s thinking, and the key is the Spirit. Look at vv 9-11. Whoever has the Spirit dwelling in them, says Paul, belongs to Christ, because the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. Furthermore, it is by the Spirit that God raised Jesus from the dead. Therefore be assured, says Paul: if this is the Spirit of Life who raised Christ from the dead, then you will have the very life of God in your mortal bodies! It is through the Spirit of Christ that we share in Jesus’ relationship to God as adopted children (vv 14ff). Our experience of the global order of sin and death is a personal reality. We experience it in our bodies. Resurrection and salvation are equally to be personal realities, experienced through our mortal bodies. Yet our experience, however personal and individual, is not unique. It is the experience of the whole of creation (19ff). The presence of the Spirit, therefore, is a sign – a “down-payment” or “first-fruit” of the promise that this world is to be transformed. That is important. It gives us reason to hope. It prevents the proclamation of a new world from being merely a utopian pipe-dream. The Good News of the salvation for the world that God has effected in Jesus is not just optimistic nonsense. God has started something in Jesus that God intends to bring to completion. But life’s a bitch! If we are honest, the evidence for a new world is not in our favour. It’s been 2,000 years since Paul wrote. We have never had global poverty, starvation and despair on the scale that we do today. Money, unaccountable power, sophisticated means of mass-slaughter and oppression have probably seldom been stronger. The shocking truth is that, for most people on this planet, life is a living hell, and we need to recognise that if it isn’t so for us, that has more to do with accidents of birth and geography than it has to do with the saving power of God! In the face of these kinds of odds and intractable realities, we are called to have faith and keep faith. Faith is different from certainty. We believe against the odds. We are called to have hope in the face of apparent hopelessness – not because Christians are meant to be incurable optimists, but because God raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit, and the Spirit is afoot! __________________________________________________________________________________________________ New life for dead, dry bones (Ezekiel 37: 1-14/Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b) The Spirit is the breath of God’s life, breathed into all creation. Everything that lives does so because of God’s Spirit. That is what the psalmist says in this psalm of praise to God as creator and provider : “When you send forth your Spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground” (Psalm 104: 30). The link between the Spirit and renewed life for dead things is made in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones. The historical context is that of Judah’s exile and this is a vision in startling language of homecoming. It is a beautiful Old Testament parallel to Pentecost with its resonances of wind (breath), new life and resurrection, isn’t it? Yet I want to focus on its historical context, rather than to make it into an Old Testament version of a New Testament theme. Although the image is of resurrected bodies, it is about the promise of return from exile, not a passage about resurrection! Perhaps surprisingly, most Old Testament scholars agree that the belief in resurrection came very late in the Old Testament period, and that only two passages in the entire Old Testament speak explicitly about resurrection: Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2! Why focus on this difference, you night ask? The point here is that this is a passage that speaks not about life that endures beyond death, but about life that resumes in the midst of death. Exile was experienced as a living death. The prophetic promise here is that the exile has a time limit: the people’s destiny is to return to the land. That will feel like being dead and living again. And that is an important emphasis for the Church in our postmodern world. Commentators like Brueggemann have accurately cast the Church situation today in terms of exile. We’re a shrinking, aging community whose best years are in the past. We’re no longer at “home” in the world – and that’s not meant positively! We feel lost. The things we once knew have disappeared. The old answers do not work any more. Vibrancy and confidence are ebbing away. The Church is alive – but it feels as though we are living in an alien land and, in many ways, as though we’re the “living dead”. Ask most young people today what they think of the Church and they’ll describe it in precisely those same terms: “the living dead”. We’re seen as an institution past its sell-by date, inhabited by people equally past their sell-by date. Our buildings, hymns and practices are monuments to a past that has long gone: we just haven’t realised it! Pentecost is a word of prophecy and promise to the Church in a postmodern age. The Church lives by the Spirit, and the Spirit is irrepressibly the source of Life and renewal. If we are in exile, that exile has a time limit. It is time actively to reconnect with God’s Spirit. The message of hope – the Good News of what God has done in Jesus to save the world – still needs to be heard. It has no sell-by date! The message of a world that needs transforming is as fresh and needed as ever it was – perhaps more so than at any time in living or recent memory. There is still a missionary task to be completed, and that means that God still has need of a faithful community of witnesses. Yet to be effective, we need to let go of the past and find new ways. Just as the exile forced the people to rethink their faith from the ground up, so our own exile requires a similar, courageous and faithful act of re-imagination. That sort of re-imagination is impossible without the Spirit. And it is exceedingly possible through the Spirit! It is time to heed God’s words to Ezekiel: these dead, dry bones can live! We are the people into whom the Spirit can breathe new life. We can live again – now! We need to ask ourselves, though, what our dreams and visions are about. If they are simply a hankering after the past, and dreams about a Church “restored to former glory”, we can forget it! The world has changed, and we are in exile because we have not changed along with it. We are an irrelevance at present – and deservedly so. The world has got the measure of the powerful possibilities of change and of a new future (however much we might want to criticise the content of that vision). The Church, meanwhile, behaves as all venerable human institutions do: it changes only by being dragged kicking and screaming into a new reality, and always remains reactionary and several years out of date. Perhaps the greatest challenge we still face is of finding the courage and resources to let go of our obsession with making the world in our own image. When our “visions” and “dreams” become something other than “getting in large crowds to make them like us”, then we will have begun dreaming God’s dreams! We are not creaking and dying on our feet for lack of people: we have fewer and fewer people because we are dead and dry. Exile didn’t create the dead dryness: exile happened because of it! It’s time we faced up to our situation as God’s judgement on what we had become long before we started declining and decaying. God’s judgement, however, isn’t meant as a sentence of death. It’s a time of preparation – of pruning, and paring down to the point where we are prepared to take the risk of calling on the Spirit to come and breathe new life into us – however scary, unfamiliar and uncomfortable that might be. But that’s where Life is to be found. That’s our Pentecost. Amen.
23:25 Posted in Acts , Ezekiel , John , Psalms , Romans , Year A | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Pentecost Year B, Ezekiel 37: 1-14, Psalm 104: 24-34; 35b, Romans 8: 22-27, Acts 2: 1-21, John 15: 26-27; 16:4b-15, the Advocate
Monday, 06 March 2006
Lent 2 Year B
Genesis 17: 1-7, 15-16 NRSV text
Romans 4: 13-25 NRSV text
Mark 8: 31-38 NRSV text
Mark brings us to the midpoint of his narrative at a key moment in the structure of his gospel. It is a deeply significant transition point. The key is not in this week’s passage, but in the immediately preceding pericope. The narrative, like Jesus, changes direction. From a series of “journeys” in the Galilee with narrative sites of sea, boat and wilderness, centred upon his home in Capernaum, Jesus begins a new journey. It is a journey from the margins of Palestine to its centre. Starting in the far north of Mark’s narrative “world” (Caesarea Philippi), he slowly winds his way south, back down through Galilee (making one last stop at Capernaum, 9:33) and on into Judea (10:1). Yet it is not until the third cycle of the book that Mark reveals the destination: Jerusalem (10:32).
Why bother with geography? The answer is because Mark doesn’t just give us an outline of Jesus’ missionary itinerary! Mark’s gospel is a story about discipleship – about following Jesus. Like Luke, he uses the artificial narrative construction of a journey. Places and journeys are important because they indicate direction and purpose. The first half of the story is set around the Galilee – on the margins. Here we find an eager receptiveness to Jesus and his message (albeit with opposition, but this comes from the “outside” – particularly from Jerusalem and the Temple). Now Jesus is changing direction and focus. He is beginning a new journey whose destination is Jerusalem. The journey towards Jerusalem is the narrative symbol for the new emphasis – the way of the cross. In 8:27b Mark tells us that they were “on the way” (en te hodo) – the way to Jerusalem and the way of the cross.
The phrase introduces an “edge” to the narrative. This narrative journey will disclose increasingly who Jesus is (the one who must suffer) and intensifying conflict and direct confrontation with the powers ranged against him. Yet the focus is on the disciples. How will they react to “the way”? Will they understand? Will they “see” and “hear” what Jesus is telling them? Most importantly, will they follow, or will the way of the cross prove (literally) a step too far?
There is a clear narrative pattern to “the way”. It occurs again in 9:31 and 10: 32-34, and in each case – as here – the pattern is repeated: Jesus tells the disciples that “the way” is the way of suffering and death; the disciples resist this; Jesus then teaches them further about discipleship and what it means to follow him.
That is why the change of direction results immediately in Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” This is not only the midpoint of the story, but also the narrative fulcrum around which the whole gospel pivots. Who do you believe Jesus is? Which Jesus will you follow – the Jesus who travels the way of the cross, or the glorious, triumphant Jesus the disciples desperately want him to be? Or will it be a Jesus of your own making?
If you want to become my followers …
Peter’s confession – “You are the Messiah” – is followed immediately by the first of the passion predictions. “It is necessary (dei) for the Son of Man to undergo great suffering … etc”, says Jesus. The stress here is on the inevitability of what will happen. Jesus is not talking here about predestination. This is not a story about Jesus following a divine “script”, in which he, the Romans and the Jewish authorities are actors whose lines are already mapped out for them. It is a divine script only on the sense that the message of God’s kingdom must provoke the opposition of the powers – those whose final ability to coerce and maintain privilege resides in their power to kill. Jesus is saying, “I want you to have your eyes wide open. This is not about a messianic gravy train for which you have special seats! This is going to end in blood and tears – mine and yours (if you choose to take this particular ride)”.
This is not what the disciples want to hear! Peter’s immediate reaction is to rebuke Jesus. He’s saying, in effect, “Listen, Jesus, when I said ‘Messiah’, this is not what I meant! Being the Messiah has nothing to do with failure, suffering and death! It’s about being the king – about success and power and sovereignty. So let’s have no more of this talk about suffering and death. Stick with us, Jesus – we’ll show you the way!”
Now it’s Jesus’ turn to rebuke Peter. And he could not be more shockingly harsh. “Get behind me, Satan!” We’re immediately back in the wilderness of temptation, where Jesus has wrestled with Satan and the wild beasts. Although Mark does not detail the temptations, it is clear from this exchange that their substance has always been the same: to abandon the way of the kingdom that is good news for the poor and bad news for the powerful, and follow another “way” – a way that will bring glory to Jesus and one which the powers can absorb, contain and control. That this alternative exercised the strongest pull on Jesus, and had to be resisted with every ounce of his strength, becomes clear in the Gethsemane narrative.
Mark makes one thing absolutely clear in his gospel: Jesus has a deep, abiding horror of the way of the cross. There is a dangerous tendency in Christian theology and spirituality to think that it was somehow less horrific than it really was. After all (the reasoning goes), if Jesus was divine, well, it must have been a lot easier for him than for us mere human beings! Mark tells us the opposite. Jesus’ relationship to his Father was not a comfort to him as far as the cross was concerned. It made things worse. It threatened his whole sense of identity as Son. That is why he pleads with his Father as a child in Gethsemane for another Way, and dies screaming in bewildered despair to the God he believed had abandoned him.
Nor was resurrection any comfort. Although he tells the disciples “openly” and repeatedly that the Son of Man must suffer, die and on the third day rise again, there is no sense that Jesus drew sustenance from that. In fact, the clear implication seems to be that Jesus did not himself understand quite what rising from the dead might mean – because if he did, he would not have experienced the cross as abandonment by God, but as a necessary step along the “way” to resurrection.
Jesus goes on to spell out what the way of the cross means for any would-be followers. It requires three things: denying self, taking up the cross, and following. There is no other way. If the Lenten journey means anything, it means discovering what this entails – just as it did for the disciples. It is not about giving something that we like up, or coping with a difficult situation at work, home or at church. That is to spiritualise and trivialise Jesus’ call. The gospel was written for a community that understood at first hand what persecution meant. It meant being hauled up before the courts and, like Peter, being asked, “Aren’t you one of his disciples?” The temptation is to deny Jesus in order to save our own lives. Jesus tells the disciples, “If you confess me, you deny yourself – because you will be put to death for it! And yet that is actually the way to find (save) your life!”
To “take up the cross” means literally that! The journey Jesus has just begun is the journey of political confrontation. Ched Meyers suggests that the phrase “Take up your cross!” was in all likelihood a recruitment slogan for revolutionary groups – effectively “suicide squads” who were being asked to risk almost certain capture and crucifixion. There is nothing spiritualised or trivialised about Jesus’ call to discipleship here. The message of the kingdom that he proclaims is necessarily the way of the cross because it is the promise and announcement and enactment of a new world order – God’s.
Note that this is a new call. In 1:16ff Jesus calls the first disciples, saying simply, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people”. In other words, there are people who want to hear Jesus’ message, and he invites them to follow and be part of spreading good news that is eagerly received. Now the direction changes. This is a new journey – a journey of confrontation. It bears a deadly cost. And as Jesus enters this new phase of his ministry, he does not say, “Follow me”, but warns the disciples about what is entailed and gives them the opportunity to back out . Lent is about facing the seriousness of discipleship, and wrestling seriously with the question about whether or not we are “up for it”.
The disciples, of course, don’t back out. Instead they decide to keep going – not to discover the way of the cross, not to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow, but to manipulate Jesus! They reckon that sheer weight of numbers (apart from anything else) and good sense will prevail: there is another way, and they will make sure Jesus follows their way – not vice versa!
Abraham – the example of faith (Genesis 17: 1-7/Romans 4: 13-25)
Romans 4 is Paul’s midrash on the Abraham story. He reflects on the narrative in Genesis 17 when God promised Abraham descendants. He does so in the context of defending himself against the charge by Jewish Christian opponents that his success among Gentiles is that he has made it too easy for them to become Christians, because he does not insist on them becoming Jews and obeying the Law. His doctrine of justification by faith, rather than through covenantal faithfulness, is cheap grace.
Not so, says Paul. It has always been about faith! And to make his point, he goes back to Abraham – Abraham, the towering figure who, in Judaism, was traditionally venerated for his mighty deeds and endurance when tested. Paul offers a different reading about the significance of Abraham. What is fundamental, he says, is that Abraham was the one to whom God made promises – promises which were unconditional and which Abraham believed. Abraham believed God, says Paul – and that was reckoned to him as righteousness (4:3).
In other words, faith as response to the unconditional promises of God precedes covenant. Grace precedes Law. It is faith that lies at the heart of the response to God, rather than covenantal conditional obedience. Furthermore, argues Paul, Abraham was to be the father of many nations – a promise Paul saw fulfilled in the universalising of the gospel message and the inclusion of the Gentiles.
Now, if faith, which justifies, precedes law-keeping, it also deconstructs what is meant by terms like “righteousness” and “justification”. These terms belong in the context – the semantic range – of Law. They are legal terms. Paul’s opponents understand by “righteousness” a legal status, either achieved through covenantal faithfulness (“works of the Law”) or imputed by God to the unrighteous. That is also how much Christian exegesis of this key Pauline term has proceeded. But Paul is doing something very subtle here. If free promise precedes Law, and faith is the appropriate response, then the “righteousness” of God must be something different from something akin to the legal system! The New Testament scholar Ernst Kasemann argues that Paul understands “righteousness” in a new way – as “the triumphant saving faithfulness of God”. This is what it has always meant if Abraham was “justified” by faith! The “righteousness” of God is actually the Spirit-life – the saving Life – of God in Jesus Christ.
"This makes it possible for Paul to put both Jews and non-Jews on the same level. Ultimately what matters for both is this faith. In our passage he links it to belief that God can do what seems impossible. In Abraham's case it was about whether his aged wife could become pregnant. In the case of Gentiles it is whether people who are not part of Israel can be elevated to become God's people. In the case of Jesus it is whether a dead Jesus can be raised to life. In the case of creation it whether something can be created out of nothing. By linking all these together as he does in our passage Paul is making the claim that the basis of faith is the belief that God can do the seeming impossible. God the creator makes all these things possible. In relation to the issue at hand for Paul: God can elevate Gentiles to become the people of God - as long as they have this kind of faith. It is a way of speaking of God's love. God can love the seeming unlovable and love them back to life." (William Loader)
So much for Paul’s argument in Romans. How are we to read this and the story of Abraham in the context of this week’s lectionary readings? Firstly, we need to note that “faith in the God who can do impossible things” is not the same as saying, “I believe in miracles”! Fundamentalists will insist that literal belief in miracles is essential for true faith. That is not what Paul is arguing. In each case, the “impossible” works of God are about bringing life where no life is possible! In the case of Abraham and Sarah, this is emphasises by the fact that Abraham twice falls on his face – once in worship, and the second time in hysterical laughter at the ridiculousness of the promise (Genesis 17:3, 17)! In other words, the promises, covenant and miracles are all linked to Yahweh’s passionate will to bring life and blessing.
We ought also to recognise the promise that is inherent in the call to discipleship. We stand on the resurrection side of Easter. Jesus, like Abraham, stood on the “not yet” side of God’s promises. Abraham is a pioneer of faith for us because he believed God when he could neither see nor imagine how the promises might be fulfilled! Jesus is the pioneer for our faith because he went through with the cross, without the comfort and assurance that God was with him! Despite the horror and the terror, Jesus did not look for another Way.
And we ought to note that, just as for Jesus – his identity (being Son) would be defined by the way of the cross, so Abram and Sarai have their identities changed by God’s promises – and are given new names to symbolise this. We, too, are encouraged to find our identities – our “lives” – in embracing the way of the cross.
As we stand poised on the first steps of the way of the cross this Lent, we are challenged to take Jesus on his terms, and to resist the determination and temptation to remake Jesus into what we want him to be – to plan another Way for him that we find acceptable and controllable and which does not put our identity on the line. We are challenged to confront our own deep resistance to the way of the cross – and to the Jesus whom we profess to serve. We are faced with the awful possibility that the Jesus whom we follow is none other than a Jesus of our own construction and our own choosing – one who is comfortable, and who blesses out hopes and endeavours, our projects and our prejudices. This is the Jesus who follows after us – who has to deny who he is.
The Jesus we meet in Lent is the Jesus who refuses any way other than the cross. John 14 is John’s meditation upon these same events. Thomas asks the right question, which the disciples fail to see in Mark’s account: “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And Jesus replies, “I am the Way – and the Truth and the Life!” (john 14:6)
Amen.
15:56 Posted in Genesis , Mark , Romans , Year B | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this | Tags: Bible Study
Tuesday, 13 December 2005
Advent 4 Year B
2 Samuel 7: 1-11; 16 NRSV text
Psalm 89: 1-4; 19-26 NRSV text
Romans 16: 25-27 NRSV text
Luke 1: 26-38 NRSV text
It seems that Christmas and Easter are the two points in the Christian year where we are made most aware of the extent that we are prisoners of the Enlightenment! Resurrection and virgin birth – anyone would think that the key question to be asked is, “Do you believe in miracles, or don’t you?” It’s as though Christian faith suddenly boils down, not to issues of commitment and discipleship, but to how our heads work. Is there room for the supernatural or isn’t there? And, if you think I’m exaggerating, note just how many Christian groups within the Church require assent to bodily resurrection and virgin birth as tenets of faith and whether or not one can belong to them. Then, on the other “side” of the debate, look at how much time and energy and ink and thought is devoted to explaining how it is possible to hold to the historic creeds which affirm both of these, while not being required to commit what appears to be intellectual suicide. And lastly, look at how many ministers dread Easter and Christmas – because it apparently means entering the lions’ den of “did it happen?” and therefore requires incredible wisdom and care to find a form of words that is both sufficiently faithful and sufficiently non-committal to avoid offence!
The point is that the question of the historicity of miracles is a question that is shared by both sides of the argument. The “ground rules” are the same – it’s only the answers that differ. And those are the ground rules laid down by our post-enlightenment views of fact and truth. I am thankful in the extreme that both post-liberal and post-evangelical exegesis has broken out of the sterility of the old historical-critical paradigm and found new vistas. They challenge us with the important questions that have been marginalised for so long: not so much “What happened?” but “What does it mean?” Advent is, above all, a time of waiting on the latter answer: “What is the Truth of what happens at Christmas?”
This week in Advent we enter into Mary’s time of waiting. It is hardly a peaceful time! The curtain opens on Mary, who is waiting to be married. She is a virgin. Let’s be clear: however we might legitimately translate the word “parthenon” as “young woman” (or even take it to refer to a widowed woman who had not remarried) Luke intends us to understand that Mary is a virgin. This, like Matthew’s, is a story of virgin birth. But the point is not to give us biological facts about Jesus: it is to explain the significance of this one who is to be born – and the fact that he is greater than his cousin, John the Baptist (whose birth is also miraculous). She is told that she is about to conceive a son, whom she (rather than her husband-to-be) is to name Jesus – and do so now, during her time of waiting.
We need to understand that virginity, in her culture, was not something to be prized – certainly not to be perpetuated. Human beings were meant to breed – and do so fast enough to ensure the survival of the human race in the face of war, famine, disease and death. Virginity was therefore a sign of a waste of good breeding stock; it was valuable only to ensure that women weren’t “shop-soiled” before marriage, so that a man could be absolutely sure that any child was his and not someone else’s. What Mary is faced with is the choice of saying “yes” to a God who is doing something at least as shocking and offensive as it is miraculous: she is being asked to place herself in the most extreme place of social and economic vulnerability. This is a “yes” with an enormously high price tag! She is being asked to put her and her illegitimate child’s future on the line.
Let me say that I find convincing the arguments of the scholars who find in all the gospels clear traces of a widespread question mark over Jesus’ parentage. If I’m asked what I think actually happened, it seems to me clear that Jesus was Mary’s son and not Joseph’s. That, of course, is true on any reading of the infancy narratives (unless we are to think of Jesus as Joseph’s son, about whom theological stories are told): Jesus is a bastard. But what is the Truth of this angelic proposal? The truth is twofold, and ties in with two of Luke’s important emphases. The first is that all that God is doing in Jesus happens on the margins. The Galilee is not the centre of events: Jerusalem, - and particularly the temple – is the centre. Jerusalem is the centre both of Jewish religious power and also the epicentre of Roman occupational power in the region. Now, in Nazareth, the birth of a king is announced, whose power, authority, message and kingdom will challenge the existing powers. But it is happening in political, religious, social and geographical obscurity. And it is certainly happening on the margins of respectability! The friend of sinners has much common cause with those whom he chooses as table companions!
The second is the vulnerability of God, which parallels the vulnerability of Mary. The question running through Luke’s narrative here at the beginning is, “Where will God find room in our world?” It is answered at the end, where Jesus is rejected and crucified. In Luke’s gospel there is no one to shout for him when Pilate is faced with calls for his murder. He asks, “What then shall I do with Jesus?” and they answer with a single voice: “Crucify him!” The way of Jesus Christ is the way of a God who is given no room in the world. That is what Jesus tells a would-be follower in Luke 9:58: “Even foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to call home”. The story of Jesus is of the God who comes to us but finds no room and no welcome, save on the margins of society and among those who are despised and rejected as sinners. No room – save in Mary’s womb. That is what Mary’s “Yes” means: “I will give you room, God!”
The lectionary passages link Gabriel’s announcement about the royal status of the child with the Old Testament passages about the Davidic covenant. David is promised an enduring dynasty and perpetual kingdom, with his ancestors ruling from Jerusalem (2 Samuel 9: 9ff). Moreover, David and his descendants are called (derivatively), “sons of God” (v14). The Davidic dynasty lasted some 400 years, and then disappeared. In time, the longed for restoration of the Davidic monarchy became part of Israel’s hope and messianic expectation (cf Psalm 89).
What are we to learn to wait for in the coming messiah, Jesus, who is the king in David’s line and who will rule forever? Obviously, Luke (and the lectionary!) is reminding us that “one greater than David” is here. Jesus is not great because of his Davidic lineage: David is great because he is the ancestor of Jesus! This is why, when Jesus is questioned about the source of his authority (Luke 20: 2ff) he challenges them to recognise that he is greater than David because David worships Jesus (20:41-44). Jesus turns the significance of the relationship with David on its head: it is not that he should be regarded as David’s son, but as David’s lord (20:44).
Less obviously, we need to recognise the intensely politically charged implications of Gabriel’s announcement. If Jesus is the king who will rule from Jerusalem, what about the existing powers there – the powers of Herod, king of the Jews, and Rome? In other words, in the opening verses of the Jesus story, Luke highlights an element of his story that will be developed more fully and very carefully throughout the gospel: the way of Jesus Christ is a path that will lead to direct confrontation with the vested powers in Jerusalem. That is why he constructs his gospel using the device of the Lukan Travel Narrative (from 9:51 onwards). Jesus’ person and message of the kingdom is one that sets him on an inevitable collision course with the powers of his day, because his kingdom will prevail forever and ever. Both the impregnability of Roman power and the endurance of Jerusalem are myths that will be shattered in the near future. Jesus’ kingdom requires conflict with the powers because it is not a privatised, individualised, spiritualised and psychologised message of inner peace and private relationship with God: it is about a transformed world. And it is a transformation that begins with Good News to the very least (cf Luke 4: 16-21), just as it has begun in an obscure hamlet in the Galilee, heard first by a soon-to-be unmarried mother and then later by shepherds near Bethlehem.
I want to return to the Truth about Jesus that the story of the virgin birth tells us in closing. It is clear that Luke intends his story to tell us two things: firstly, that Jesus of Nazareth was fully a human being! Luke traces his ancestry back to Adam, and has him (presumably) recorded in the census. This is no phantom, or heavenly apparition who appears in human guise as an “adult” messenger (as the biblical stories tell), but who spends the first 9 months of his life in the womb. He has a human history from conception to death.
Yet is tells us something further. This human being, alone of any other, is to be offered worship. However special any other human being’s relationship is to God; whatever marvellous things God has done through any other human being, it is Jesus alone who can be appropriately worshipped. The Jesus for whom we wait with Mary, and prepare him heart room as Mary gave him womb space, is not just a man of God. He is not just the son of God derivatively. He is the Son of God – God as a man – to be worshipped, adored and followed. He is the Lord – David’s Lord and ours.
Amen.
15:40 Posted in 2 Samuel , Luke , Psalms , Romans , Year B | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Monday, 21 November 2005
Advent 1 Year B
Isaiah 64: 1-9 NRSV text
Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19 NRSV text
1 Corinthians 1: 3-9 NRSV text
Mark 13: 24-37 NRSV text
Advent is about waiting. Note how the first Advent readings pick up on recent themes. Psalm 80 follows on from Ezekiel’s depiction last week of Yahweh as the Shepherd of Israel. The gospel passage, dubbed by scholars the Little Apocalypse, is the Markan parallel to Matthew’s gospel reading for Pentecost 25. It is the theme of waiting that links the lectionary passages as we move into Advent. That is a different emphasis from the previous weeks. Waiting, longing, need and expectation – these are what characterise the communities of Israel in the Old Testament readings, the Christian community of Mark’s gospel, and the Corinthian church. There is a clear sense of standing on the brink of something – something that God is about to do. “Summer is near”; Yahweh’s redemption is at hand; Jesus Christ is about to be revealed. It’s not only therefore about the yearning of God’s people, but also about the promises of God that permeate the readings and summon the sense of expectation. God’s people wait – in exile, in persecution, in hope – for God’s promised coming.
Exile and New Exodus: it is not surprising that the Isaiah reading has been chosen. Judah is in exile. “Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation (Isaiah 64:11)”. The people are in exile and mourning. Exile is the crisis of the Old Testament. It is as hard to re-imagine ourselves into the mindset of the exiles this side of the return as it would be to imagine how the disciples felt on Easter Saturday. It is the death of all their dreams, all their hopes, of any future. And therefore it is the death of all the past, too. That’s the problem with a crisis like the exile or the crucifixion of Jesus: it makes a nonsense not only of the future but of the past, too. All the hopes and expectations of the past appear destroyed. The meaning with which life was invested is left hollow and empty.
For the exiles, it meant that their belief in being a covenant people – their fundamental identity, in other words - was in tatters. It made mockery of their faith in Yahweh as a God who made promises that endured. Exile was ultimately destructive because it robbed the people not only of a future but of their whole past, too. If they had been wrong about Yahweh after all, then the way in which they interpreted their lives until then was simply a ghastly mistake. Nothing meant what it had appeared to. For the disciples, too, the crucifixion did the same. It didn’t just take away their anticipated future with Jesus: it robbed them of the past. What price all his stuff about the coming kingdom? What had all the sacrifices been for? Why had they “left father, mother and children” to follow? What a waste of the past three years! And what gullible fools they appeared to be!
Unless we make the imaginative effort to begin to conceive of how desperately soul-destroying these experiences were, we will not understand what waiting in the Advent sense means. We won’t understand the longing, hunger and desperation that characterises Christian prayer and anticipation of the coming of Christ into the world, and will therefore miss out on the enormity and joy of Christmas. For me, the hymn, “O come, O come, Immanuel” gets closest to Advent waiting. Mourning, loneliness, lostness, misery, gloom, darkness, and shadow – this is the experience of “exile”.
One way of preparing seriously for Advent is to take seriously just what a mess the Church is in. The Christian Church – at least in the hi-tech, consumerist west – has had its day. Its best years are in the past. The old answers no longer work. The gospel appears to have little or nothing to say that sounds as Good News to the increasing millions who have either had nothing to do with Christian faith or who have quite deliberately voted with their feet and left. A look at trends and statistics shows that Christian faith is something for old people, so that ministry appears increasingly to be about hospice care. People are turning not to Christianity, but to other faiths and spiritualities for answers. And those churches that buck the trends are increasingly simply the exceptions that prove the rule. Church has had its day. It is more and more a museum piece, showcasing a past that is bathed in the golden light of nostalgia. That is why people who come back to Church at significant times in their lives – births, marriages, deaths, national events – want Church to be church as they remember it.
We need to be realistic and work to kill off residual optimism. Unless we do, we will not take seriously enough the crisis we are in and will be unable to respond appropriately. I am not saying that there aren’t signs of hope. I am not saying that this is the story of every church. Yet, if we look beyond the immediate borders of our own localities, we cannot avoid the fact that there is a clear, alarming pattern. We recognise the global village in every other aspect of post modern life: the same is true of Church. However good our immediate situation may be, we do not and cannot live in glorious isolation from what is happening to the Christian Church more widely. Church as we know it – and spend huge amounts of money, time, commitment and energy – is dying. Whether it is right in the forefront of our consciousness or not, most of church life in the west is about survival. And that is not what we’re here for!
Let me say something clearly: I have no doubt that, in twenty years time, church as we know it will be alive and well. We will still be singing the same sorts of hymns, having services and activities that we have now, and living as we always have. The crucial difference, though, is that we will be a tiny, shrinking minority – a sort of “Christian train spotters” society. In other words, we will be one of those tiny, harmless groups of consenting adults (one difference between then and now is that we’ll have virtually no children at all) whom society indulges, leaving us to get on and do our thing because we don’t disturb or hurt anyone. And that is not Church. The Church is here to make a difference to the world. We might talk loudly and often about being salt and light and yeast in the world, yet if that is not a reality, we are deceiving ourselves and God. We are playing at being faithful.
Walter Brueggemann is one of the scholars who has actively embraced the notion of exile to describe twenty-first century church life in the west. In other words, Advent is not just a particular time in the church calendar when we think about exile and longing: it characterises all church time! We are a group who lives with our past in ruins, with no clear future, with many of the things of “home” gone or broken.
That is the point at which God can do something with us! If we have nothing other than our hope in the God of resurrection, return and new beginnings, we are in the best possible place. When we have got to the point when we have let everything go – or become prepared to – because there is nothing worth holding on to anymore, then we are waiting properly, because God is able to do something radically new with us and through us.
The New Testament scholar NT (Tom) Wright believes that we ought to read Jesus’ whole ministry and the proclamation of the kingdom in terms of exile and new exodus. Jesus, he says, casts his ministry and message in these terms. The journey to Jerusalem is the journey of Jesus to accomplish a new return from exile. The old things are going. This is the significance of the fact that Jesus’ sermon in Mark 13 takes place immediately outside the temple. This is the old order – and it is going. “Not one stone will be left upon another!” says Jesus (13:2). As the deliverance cycle in the Moses narrative ends with the Hebrews looking at the Egyptian dead on the seashore – the complete and utter destruction of the old slave system – so Jesus’ hearers will look at the utter destruction of the present system, centred in the temple, which is life in exile. Exile is about to end. What will appear cataclysmic and destructive is actually redemptive.
Jesus recalls the lesson of the fig tree (v28). Some scholars view the leafing of the fig tree in this passage as a counterpoint to its withering in Mark 11:20. There, Jesus curses the fig tree – and then cleanses the temple. In other words, the fig tree represents the temple and its unfruitfulness. Jesus, in a prophetic symbolic action, predicts its destruction, and with it, the end of the order it represents. This is nothing less than the destruction of the known universe – hence the apocalyptic language of vv 24-5. This is not language to be taken literally (predicting nuclear annihilation, for example, as some fundamentalist exegetes have read it) but symbolically: it is language that tries to convey not the event itself, but its significance. Its significance is nothing less than the end of the world as it was known.
Now in chapter 13, Jesus promises that this unparalleled disaster contains within it the seed and promise of hope: it means that summer is around the corner! There is a new order in view – the kingdom. Confidence in the old order is misplaced. It is not a sign of hope in exile, but part of what needs to be swept away in order for God to bring in the kingdom. Waiting on God –Advent waiting – is about waiting in faith and hope. Isaiah recognises just how much is wrong with the nation. Yet the hope is in the image of Judah as the clay to Yahweh’s potter (v8). Yahweh may indeed be justifiably angry; Judah has been resistant to the shaping of the potter. Yet Judah is Yahweh’s clay – Yahweh’s possession and the object of Yahweh’s care and moulding. Because Yahweh is the God of exodus, the very desolation of Jerusalem contains the promise of salvation, even as it also casts doubt over Yahweh’s covenant fidelity!
Advent is about watchful waiting and anticipation. We do not know when the master of the house will come (v35) but we do not doubt that he will come. But life in “exile” is also Gethsemane life. That is what the stress on “keeping awake” (vv33; 35ff) is about. In the very next chapter, Jesus goes with his disciples to Gethsemane to pray (14:32ff). Look at how central the theme of “sleeping” is, and the loneliness of Jesus! Three times Jesus, like the master in 13:36, comes and finds them sleeping.
If the destruction of the temple is the sign that summer is around the corner, then the hour of deepest darkness is the hour just before the dawn. Preparing for the arrival of Immanuel is about living through Gethsemane – and this time keeping awake! If we are as alive to the darkness as we ought to be, we will be “tuned in” to the places and situations in the world which experience life as unrelieved, stupefying darkness. If we are alive to the darkness as we ought to be, we will be “tuned in” to the awful aridity of the Church’s exile and longing for home. And because God is the God of the exodus and resurrection, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the waiting becomes purposeful and hopeful. It is not about languishing helplessly and hopelessly in the dark. Neither is it about frenetic activity. There may well be nothing we can do at present about the Church. But it is about patient, faithful and hopeful “sitting it out”. These are the last few hours of darkness. The Light of Christ will soon be seen. Immanuel will come!
Amen.
13:30 Posted in 1 Corinthians , Isaiah , Mark , Romans , Year B | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Wednesday, 31 August 2005
Pentecost 17
11 September 2005
(You will find a Jesus & Peter dialogue, suitable for family worship, on my mustard seeds blog. Email me for a copy)
Romans 14: 1-12 NRSV text
Matthew 18: 21-35 NRSV text
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus uses a parable about debt to talk about forgiveness? In one sense, the point of the parable is as obvious as all the Sunday School lessons we’ve ever sat through on it: “Imagine sin as a huge debt, and forgiveness as wiping the slate clean. That’s how God deals with all the bad things we do. And that’s how we ought to treat others!” Jesus uses hyperbole to contrast the graciousness of the king with the gracelessness of the servant: a talent was worth more than 15 years’ wages for a labourer, whereas a denarius was equal to a day’s wages. The unforgiving servant owes 150 years’ worth of wages – more than many lifetimes of servitude. It is ridiculous even to contemplate paying such an amount back. Certainly the king’s original plan – selling the slave, his wife, children and all possessions – won’t even make a dent in the amount. The whole system of imprisonment for debt in the parable is, in any case, ridiculous: how is someone supposed to repay a debt while languishing in jail? All of which just goes to emphasise the fact that slavery to debt is a far more binding form of imprisonment than slavery to a king! Notice how the debt incurred by the second slave makes him not only the slave of the king (as he is in the first place) but a slave to the second, unforgiving servant. The more we probe this parable, the deeper we are drawn into the world of finance. It becomes more and more difficult to extricate the “spiritual application” of this parable – forgiveness for sin – from its financial framework. And this is exactly how it should be! This parable ought to change how we think, believe and preach about sin!