Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Advent 4: What Are You Here For?

Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26
Romans 16:25-27
Luke 1:26-38

To a lesser or greater extent we have all grown up, I think, with the idea that God has a single, distinct plan for each of us – individualised, pre-packaged, pre-planned and, barring our absolute refusal, inevitable. We use words and phrases like “destiny”, “meant to be” and “God’s will” to express our confidence in its inevitability. All this because, perhaps, more pressing and more urgent than the quintessential philosophical question, “what is the meaning of life?” is the deeply personal question, “what is the the meaning of my life?”; in other words, “What am I here for?” This morning’s readings seem replete with the resonances of inevitable destiny: David’s sense of purpose to build a house for the Lord (cf. 2 Samuel 7:1-3), the prophetic utterance that David’s “house and… kingdom shall be made sure forever…[and his] throne…established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16), and, of course, the story of the Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the announcement of God’s plan for salvation and Mary’s seemingly pre-determined role in it. As a child, I was always taught that Mary was destined – indeed pre-destined – chosen by God to be the Mother of our Lord. Certainly, the title of the feast itself – the Annunciation – alludes to the angel’s telling Mary what was going to happen, and thus positioning Mary purely as recipient and object of the divine news and action. However, a closer reading of the narrative in Luke (the only Gospel in which it appears) clearly highlights Mary’s choice to cooperate. It highlights the reality and requirement of response as our Lady says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38); and this response challenges that model of pre-determined destiny which still seems to prevail within the minds and lives of many people, even many Christians, and which can sometimes work to absolve us of our responsibility to choose. It is not simply God’s pre-determined plan which effects the incarnation as we know it, but also – and perhaps, equally – Mary’s response to the invitation, a response derived from her own self-understanding of who she desires to be in the world and in relationship to the divine.

What are you here for? That’s the question, but also the challenge. If you believe that there is one pre-planned and pre-determined destiny for you in this world, then it is just a matter of finding out what that is and directing all your attention towards it. But it also means that one wrong decision, one false move will alter it inexorably, and divert you eternally from that destiny. While the black-and-white nature of such a scenario may present a degree of straightforward certainty, at the same time, it leaves little place for creativity, not to mention for mistakes and wrong turnings. But what if there is no definitive purpose, apart from simply and ultimately sharing fully in the life of God? What if God has no predetermined plan for us, per se, but only makes to us various invitations? What if the process of our salvation – our wholeness and purpose (for lack of a better word) – is one marked most especially by cooperation with God, rather than a simple walk down a single path towards one prescribed end? What if we discover what we are here for along the way, as our lives are informed by the experiences we encounter and the decisions we make? What if, as Paul writes to the Philippians, you must “work our your own salvation with fear and trembling”? (Philippians 2:12) Granted, Paul does acknowledge that “God…is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for [God’s] good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), but this hardly seems directive, only supportive. Again, what if the question, “What are you here for?” is less about finding one definitive answer, and instead about responding to an invitation, indeed responding to various invitations made throughout our lives; and knowing that with each response we are affecting and effecting who we are becoming, even determining what we are here for; that each response shapes us into a particular kind of person, moves us in a particular direction?

Instead, of asking “what am I here for” – a question about definitions and linear goals – why not ask how my decisions might be shaping and molding me right now? Instead of thinking of one particular path, end or destination, why not consider effect and direction? Why not explore “what am I becoming”, and whether it is consistent with what I say I believe? Does my response to a particular invitation or event draw me closer into an encounter with reality, or reinforce my own fantasies, my own desire for facile safety? Do I take the path of least resistance, because it will give me what I think I want or fulfill some pre-decided destiny I have come to accept, or do I allow myself to explore my deepest desires, what I need and what the world needs of me, even without completely understanding all the ramifications. Think once again of Our Lady who somehow decided that her underlying narrative would be one of openness to God. That openness brought her, undoubtedly, social opprobrium and isolation as an unwed mother; and while, the Church may now focus on her joy and blessedness, her decision also brought her, as Simeon prophesied at the Presentation, a sword which pierced her soul. (cf. Luke 2:35) None of it was her destiny, pre-determined, pre-ordained, but rather some of the consequences of being open to God. She did not ask “what I am here for?”, but rather “who do I want to be in the world, regardless of the consequences”.

I only recently – and to my great surprise – realized I had never seen the film The Bells of St Mary with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. So, I gave a myself a treat and watched it. In it Bergman plays the mother superior at a church school and Crosby the new parish priest. Not surprisingly, the two are at odds as to the school’s administration and direction, but don’t worry they come to appreciate each other in the end. In any case, at one point Fr O’Malley is encouraging a student who is having to write an essay on the five senses, and suggests she think outside the box in order to impress Sr Mary Benedict. He contemplates a sixth sense beyond the physical – the sense of being – and elucidates, “to be glad you’re alive; to be grateful because people are kind to you; to be able to see some of nature’s great wonders, the budding of the flowers in spring and the changing of the leaves in the autumn; to be able to appreciate beautiful music; to be conscious of the beauty of tasting, feeling and hearing only the things that are good for you; to be aware of why you’re here”. Interesting that last one, because it only comes at the end of a series of experiences which have nothing to do with an ultimate pre-determined destination, but rather about a person being formed and shaped through conscious awareness of the world around them, and by the decisions they make in encountering that world. Could it be that perhaps, we only – if ever – discover what we are here for or even why we are here, in the context of the choices we make, the directions in which we take ourselves, the responses we make to the invitations offered; that if there is any answer at all to what I am here for, it just might be only learned not in looking forward, but only in retrospect? Maybe, maybe.

“What are you here for?” Don’t worry about it, there are so many possibilities to make the question almost meaningless. Think rather of decisions, choices and responses guided by a particular direction. Explore and create an underlying narrative of who you want to be in the world; treat the world as friendly and trust. Trust that God is able to strengthen you as you grow more deeply into who you want to be. Trust that while there is no one, definitive answer to what you are specifically here top do, still “God…is [nonetheless] at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13) Trust that somehow that is enough, and remain open.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Advent 3: What Are You Looking For?

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Psalm 126
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

The eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew records a story about the time John the Baptist was imprisoned and hearing all that Jesus was doing, sent a message via his own disciples to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:3). Jesus sent word back, saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” (Matthew 11:4-5) He offers his ministry – what he is actually doing – as his credentials. He asks John’s disciples to look at what is going on and to make a judgment. And he does it using language evocative of this morning’s passage from Isaiah which looks to that time when through his Anointed One, God will proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the devastations of many generations will be built up, raised up and repaired.” (cf. Isaiah 61:4) John’s question is about identity – “are you the one?” – but Jesus’ response has to do with action; not about who people think he is or is supposed to be, but of the significance of what is doing, about the reality which people are witnessing. A not dissimilar situation is recorded in today’s Gospel when priests and Levites are sent from Jerusalem to ask John himself “Who are you?” He answers with words directly from the prophet Isaiah: “I am the voice of of one crying out in the wilderness.” (John 1:23) Both Jesus and John respond to questions about identity with a challenge, a challenge for people to open their eyes, both physically and spiritually, and look at what is before them. They try to take the issue beyond the realm of the purely intellectual – if I know who someone is then I know how to fit them into my world-view – and ask people to look with fresh eyes at what is really in front of them. And so the question for this week arises: “What are you looking for.”

In John’s asking of Jesus’ identity and the priests’ and Levites’ asking of John’s, they are trying examine their respective subjects closely, to get the “skinny” on them, and yet only to validate what they already believe They are looking for something, but only for the present situations to affirm their already held convictions. It was believed by many Jews that the coming of Messiah would be preceeded first by the return of Elijah, and then of the prophet, the last forerunner of the Messiah; and John with his apocalyptic leanings, believed that at his arrival the Messiah would quickly and dramatically usher in the reign of God, subduing God’s enemies. However, in each investigation what is offered is a bigger picture: the renewal of all things with reference to something far older, far more traditional, far more radical and far more challenging – the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures. John reminds those who have been sent from Jerusalem to see not with the eyes of what they already think they know – the esoteric pattern of forerunners – but to hear simply the words of Isaiah afresh. He asks them to see him not within the context of some receieved construct, but rather to allow him to point them to the larger reality of God’s call. He is only the voice crying in the wilderness. In his turn, Jesus says to John “I know what you are looking for, what you are expecting, that God will come down and run things personally, but isn’t what’s going on now actually what that prophet spoke about as ushering in the kingdom, that the “blind [would] receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers…[are] cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead…[are] raised, and the poor have good news brought to them?” What are you looking for, and is your vision wide enough to discern it even when it comes in way unexpected?

As we find ourselves halfway through Advent, the period of waiting and expectation, do we really have a sense of what we are looking for? In English, “look” can have a variety of nuanced meanings, but it generally is more than simply seeing something. It can have the sense of searching for something, while at the same time the sense of scrutiny or careful inspection. We look at something usually with a desire to understand it. We can see something, but only by looking can we come to the deeper reality of its possible meaning and resonance. We can see something, but we usually only come to the truth of it by looking at it. Also, only by really coming to the awareness of what we are looking for ultimately can we ever hope to identify it, especially if it comes in the form of a surprise. Those who came to John and John himself – at least at the start – were all looking for God’s vindication of the promises made, but they could not look at what they were seeing in any other way than within their received construct. They weren’t examining enough what they were seeing, and hence missing the very thing they ultimately looked for; and ironically enough, while it was beginning to be fulfilled among them.

What are you looking for, and are you willing to forsake your pre-conceived patterns and notions about it in order to come into its true reality. We too may say that we are looking in the end for God’s kingdom to come in its fullness, but can we be open to the fact that it may not happen exactly they way we expect it, or that it might not look exactly how we had envisioned? After all, it’s God’s kingdom, not ours. We are only subjects, and by God’s grace inheritors. We may all look forward to the coming of the Messiah, but can we look for it even when it is not happening according to our pre-conceived ideas? After all, the consistent pattern in the Scriptures when it comes to God’s actions is one of unexpected surprise. Are you looking to be surprised? Are we willing to see the present and look for its meaning with regards God’s purposes and vision?

Up until well into the 18th century medical science held that within each sperm was contained an entire embryo which under the right conditions would develop into a full human being. Like a seed planted in the ground, the sperm was planted in the womb and there it developed. The woman supplied nothing more than a conducive environment, the oven for the bun, as it were. With the discovery of the microscope, it became possible to have a closer look; and what did scientists record as they examined under its magnifying powers the sperm of various mammals? Well, when they examined elephant sperm they saw tiny little elephants, when the examined lion sperm they registered seeing tiny little lions, and so on. Truly a case of believing is seeing. They saw what they were looking for, with the limited construct of what they already knew, but also with a deep commitment to it. Their commitment to that limited construct kept them from contemplating a larger one, even when the possibility was right before their eyes. They did not look, they only saw what they already expected to find, and thus they missed the mark altogether. They all, of course, would claim they were looking for a better understanding of the natural world, but they obviously could not get beyond their pre-conceived ideas in order to discern it.

What are you looking for? And what contructs – what hard-held notions of what it should be like – keep you from really discovering it? Certainly that is the a question for Advent, as we look to celebrate one of God’s most unexpected and least understood actions – the coming to earth as an infant human being. Indeed, it has taken us over 2000 years to really look at; and if we are honest we must admit that even now we have not fully discerned its meaning. Our context is still not large enough. Whatever you are looking for, know that if you are not willing to settle it will look little like what you expected. Whatever you are looking for, if you are open to God, open to truth, give yourself enough room to be surprised.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Advent 2: What Are You Listening For?

Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

A man and his grandson are walking through the busy city with all its sounds and distractions. He stops, turns his ear slightly and says to the young boy: “Can you hear that?” The boy says, “No, what? I can’t hear anything.” The grandfather says it is the sound of a cricket, and the boy is perplexed. He doesn’t hear anything at all, and by the look of the bystanders and passersby, neither can anyone one else. He says, “How can you hear that?” The old man quietly takes some coins and drops them on the pavement, and immediately all heads turn towards their subtle, clinking sound. “You see,” said the old man to the young boy, “it all depends what you are listening for?” It all depends on what you are listening for.

Today’s readings are replete with voices, cries and proclamations as God calls out to his people through the prophet Isaiah “to prepare the way of the LORD, [to] make straight in the desert a highway for…God” (Isaiah 40:3, and those voices and that call echoes in the witness and ministry of John the Baptist. The Scriptures call us to listen, listen to words of comfort tenderly spoken: “Comfort, comfort my people” (Isaiah 40:1); but listen also to the words of radical transformation: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain…for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:4, 5) Yes, they call us to listen, they call us to pay attention, to hone are senses; and as we do we may begin to ask ourselves, “What am I listening for?”

It was during my training as a counsellor that I really began to appreciate what a complicated and subtle process listening can be; and that more often that not we need to listen to what is unsaid than to what is said. Listening is a focused exercise, which takes more than just our ears, but rather our entire faculties of discernment; because in real listening we try to hear what the person may be saying which even they themselves do not yet know as true. Listening must go beyond hearing the words – the sounds the other is making, but rather trusting that the entire person is speaking and conveying their knowledge and feeling in their demeanor, in what they leave unsaid, in what they take for granted. Listening is about entering into the mystery being presented to us. It is at the heart of our relationship with God, and at the heart of our relationship with ourselves. It is at the heart of any relationship we want to call loving and real, because it demands we go beyond the surface of things presented, and listen to the underlying and sometimes seemingly hidden truth.

As we approach Christmas, its attendant social noises draw our attention, but they do not encourage us to listen. Rather, they hope – knowingly or not – that by bombarding our ears with incessant advertisements, “holiday” music, the comercially-driven “Merry Christmas” we will be sufficiently distracted and confused by those surface sounds, forget what we might be really listening for. Indeed, it has come to the point that we have no cultural period of expectation – of listening – at all when it comes to Christmas, only a rushed, hurried and noisy sort of impatient waiting as the days are counted down to the “big one”. What passes for the sounds of Christmas rob us of the opportunity for deeper relationship, and for those who are more nuanced, bring them face to face again with the question: “What are you listening for?”

Through the voices and sounds of the crowds, through the cacophony of tinned and tinny holiday music, through even the cry of the prophet and of the Baptist, what are you listening for? The prophecy of Isaiah speaks of comfort, but are we listening to the all the echoes and resonances of comfort? Are we listening for all the places where there is no comfort, or are we listening only for our own? The prophet too declares the levelling of mountains, the raising up the plains; indeed, a total re-shaping of the landscape – social, political, religious. Are we listening for the suggestions of what this will mean for all people, or only for ourselves? In the prophet’s cry and in the invitation of the Baptist, are we just listening for what we want to hear, avoiding the relationship with the reality below the surface noises? Are we attempting to attune ourselvses to all that may be contained in what is being presented to us, beyond simply the immediately discernible and the familiar? Are we listening for what is not always spoken, but which is being presented nonetheless? Are you attending to the mystery beneath the surface and patient enough to allow it to manifest itself to you?

What are you listening for? What are you expecting to hear? At the end of the day, what is that catches and holds your attention? The enterprise of listeneing begins in openness and silence – openness to the person, event or words before us – and silence enough to encounter them in their fulness. The author and teacher Marilyn McEntyre writes: “Only in silence can the ‘listening into’ take place – the pausing over words, meanings, implications, associations – and the waiting – for the Spirit to speak, for the right response to surface.” As we learn to listen well, we learn to wait patiently for all the possible resonances to arise; as we learn to listen well we learn to listen for the sound of the cricket in the bustle of the city, the cry of a new-born baby amisdt the chaos and confusion of a town busy with a government census, the unspoken cry of pain in the ecnounter with a friend or colleague. As we learn to listen well, we learn to engage the mystery beyond the surface noises, and really to pay attention to what is important, what is at the core of any encounter.

The prophet calls, the Baptist cries, and crickets chirp everywhere. Are you listening? As we move through Advent, what are you listening for. Beyond the distractions, beyond the surface noises, and are you engaged enough, listening subtly enough to attend to it?

Advent 1: What are you Longing for?

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

As Advent begins we are confronted with the book of the prophet Isaiah. These scriptures open us up to a world of failed hope and disappointment: “We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us way” (Isaiah 64:8) and confront us with a radical acceptance of God’s sovereignty: “we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hands”. (Isaiah (64:8) The entire book of Isaish actually evidences three distinct authors from three distinct periods. Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55) specifically, was written during the Babylonian exile, while Third Isaiah (chapters 56-66 and from which today’s reading is drawn) was written in the period after the Jews’ return from the Babylonian captivity, and as they looked towards the restoration of the Temple. Both writers write within the context of disappointment, with a longing for God to make good on disappointment – the disappointment of exile in one, and the disappointment attendant on the return from exile in the other. Second Isaiah longs in hope for restoration, a longing with a message full of comfort and vindicaton – “Comfort, O comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” (Isaiah 40:1-2) On the other hand, Third Isaiah expresses a “deep pessimism and sense of disappointment”; and while still presenting a vision of hope in parts, it also confronts the reality that the return from exile has not ushered in the promises made nor fulfilled the hopes expressed during the exile. The Temple been yet rebuilt, and the covenant still oftentimes goes unheed, particularly its demands of for justice towards the poor and most vulnerable. Third Isaiah extends for contemplation the possibility that perhaps longing for a return to the way things were is never as satisfactory as we imagined, that our longings need to be for more than simply a return. Indeed, the return itself disappointed. Third Isaiah longs for an utter re-shaping of the national, theological, even cosmological landscape; longs for God to do something truly new: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as we fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil.” (Isaiah 64:1-2a).

As we appropriate for ourselves this reading, and the contexts of the writers of Second and Third Isaiah, as well as how the writers express their sense of longing, we challenge ourselves with the question: “What are you longing for?” Isn’t longing at heart of Advent? In fact, without longing there is no Advent; and if we have no longing, then we do not need Christmas, either. Longing always comes out of crisis and disappointment, it comes of dissatisfaction and even distress; the kind of crises often encountered in exile and alienation, the kind of disappointment encountered in shattered dreams and failed hopes. In reaction to crisis and disappointmnet, we find ourselves longing for a future that is redeemed, in which our own personal brokeness and that of the world can somehow be made good on. Look at the psalm; how graphically the psalmist describes the pain and sorrow of Israel: they are “fed with the bread of tears”…they are given “bowls of tears to drink”; they are made “the derision of [their] neighbors” and their “enemies laugh [them] to scorn.” To discover what we truly long for, then we must get in touch with our sorrows, with our disappoinments, with our pain. This is difficult, and while the temptation may be to numb ourselves to all these, doing so leaves us half-dead, passionless, and longing is always about passion.

However, the question is more than simply what one longs for, but how one longs for it. Second and Third Isaiah represent two different ways in which to long. Second Isaiah longs with a view to the past, a return to the land and to how things were. Third Isaiah longs for something far more radical, for something subtantially new. The perspectives of Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah represent the difference between starting over and a new beginning. Allow me to unpack that bit. “Starting over” implies that we can return to some point in the past and start things up again, hoping that with new information we may do things differently, things may go differently. A “new beginning” implies rather, beginning from where we are, but in ways that are fresh and profoundly contexted in the “now”. This doesn’t mean that the new beginning is not informed by the past, but that its face is turned to the future, towards something new. In discerning what we long for, we must also ask ourselves if our longing is for simply a return so that we can start over – usually on our own terms, or if it is for something really new, which usually means something surprising and maybe even a little uncomfortable, something which may take some getting used to, something that if we are not careful we may miss altogether, say, perhaps God entering into history as a baby.

So what are you longing for, and to discover it are you willing to enter into the pain of your disappointments, the brokeness of your sorrows? Are you willing to be alive to them in order that your longing may be passionate? Are you willing to long for something more than a return to what you know, and brave the possibility of something completely new even if you may not fully discern it? As we long for the redemption of our disappointments and sorrows, can we trust that God will enter into our lives and situations in new ways? Indeed will we expect and allow God to do so? This is the kind of longing at the heart of Advent, and which finds its satisfaction in the surprising birth of the infant Jesus who is God incarnate. The theologian Dorothee Sölle once wrote “Theology originates in pain...Its locus is in suffering.” The same can be said of longing and desire, and as we become more in touch with our feelings of sorrow and disappointment we discern more closely what we long for, we can shape our hopes and voice them, and trust that even within them God will reveal to us their redemption and our own. Amen.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Last Sunday after Pentecost: Justice, Kindness and Humility

Ezekiel 34.11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95.1-7a
Ephesians 1.15-23
Matthew 25.31-46

I mentioned last week that we are coming to the end of things. Today is the last Sunday of the Church’s year. The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew’s Gospel are full of Jesus’ stories of warning, his parables about readiness, his reminder to his followers to stay awake and be prepared. Each of the parables or discourses in these two chapters ends with the same admonition: “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming….Therefore you…must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (Matthew 24:42, 44) “Keep awake…for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13) But, what will happen when he comes? That is the tale for today. That the author of Matthew’s culmination of all the parables of those two chapters. Now, all the synoptic gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – have in them some description of the end time, and all of them are fairly similar. For example, the Gospel of Mark (as representative) says: “But in those days…the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in clouds” with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:24-27) The writer of Matthew, using Mark as a source, relates this “little apocalypse”, as it has been called, in a very similar way. Yet, Matthew’s author goes further then simply a fantastic description of the end; and it is only in the Gospel of Matthew that we have today’s all too familiar story. It is a story which, notwithstanding its uniqueness among the Gospel stories, has impressed itself deeply on the western consciousness, both spiritually and culturally. Any metaphorical reference to sheep and goats can be traced back directly to this story. Yet, more importantly for us today, it is the only story we have which offers us any description of the last judgement.

It is no accident that this story appears in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew’s overriding theme is that of Jesus, not as starting something new apart from Judaism, but rather casts him as one who interprets the Law and traditions of Judaism authoritatively and authentically. Perhaps one of the most important verses in Matthew (which appears only in Matthew) is the one in which Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” (Matthew 5:17) Therefore, in the Gospel of Matthew when Jesus argues with his opponents, he consistently argues from the Scriptures, from the Law and the Prophets. In the face of his opponents’ challenges and their interpretation of the Torah, Jesus makes his own. It can hardly be contested that much of institutionalised Judaism had become mired and fossilised in legalism and the Temple cult. It had lost the dynamic vision of the prophets with their concern that “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5.24) It had also compromised on the overriding theme of compassion and hospitality which marks the Torah, the Jewish law.

For Matthew, Jesus is the one who, as a child of Israel, reminds the children of Israel of their authentic traditions and who speaks with an authoritative voice. When Jesus is accused of breaking table ethics and eating with sinners and tax collectors, he rebukes his accusers by referencing the prophets, more specifically, Hosea 6.6: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ ” (Matthew 9.13) When Jesus’ disciples are criticised by the Jewish teachers for on the Sabbath plucking heads of grain to eat (since this was considered to be work), Jesus defends them by again referencing Scripture, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests?” (Matthew 12.3-4) On being questioned whether it was lawful to cure on the Sabbath (cf Matthew 9.10), Jesus responds “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?” (Matthew 9.11) Now, the Pharisees in their interpretation of the Law permitted the rescue of an animal on the Sabbath. Jesus goes on to say, “How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.” (Matthew 12.12) For Jesus, the law is fulfilled in right and righteous actions, manifested particularly in deeds of solidarity and compassion.

In light of all this, one commentator says that this story of the judgement “is a fitting climax to the patterns of thought which can be traced all through [the] gospel [of Matthew]” The writer of the Gospel of Matthew wants to convey that for Jesus, and therefore his followers, loyalty to the Law must surpass that of merely an observance of minutiae and detail, and that that same covenant-loyalty must be manifest in deeds: “Thus you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:20) In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is keen to stress that it is in acts of compassion and solidarity that the Law is most authentically fulfilled. It is only the Gospel of Matthew in which we find “the Golden Rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12a) And then Jesus adds, “for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 1:12b) Here, the entire Torah is interpreted into one commandment of righteous action. While of course Matthew, along with all the synoptics, has the passage about loving God and loving one’s neighbour as one’s self, the injunction to do to others as you would have them to do you appears only in Matthew. It is therefore this emphasis on righteous deeds which informs the picture of the last judgement with which we are presented today.

Well, I have spoken a lot about the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, how the writer’s depiction of the last judgement carries through themes in the work. I have spoken of the religious and social conditions under which Jesus carried out his ministry. I have even made some distinctions between Matthew and the other synoptic writers. But, does any of this have anything to say to us here and now? Well, I think that it does. Because, you see, we are not so very different from those who opposed Jesus. We too, both as individuals as communities, tend to keep all the rules, but break the promise. And perhaps the message we need to hear today is: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you, for this is and this alone is the gospel.” (cf Matthew 7.12a) The message which Matthew conveys in the depiction of the last judgement is a message that we still have not learned. We have not really taken in the reality of the questions asked on that awesome day “when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, [and] he will sit [himself] on the throne of his glory.” (Matthew 25.31) From the story which Matthew records we will none of us be asked how many times we went to Church. Neither will we be asked why or why not we decided to remarry after a divorce, or even why we lived with a partner before or instead of marrying. There will be no questions on the theology of ordination, whether of women or of men. No questions will be made of our sexuality. We will not be asked to which denomination or religion we adhered. We will not be asked whether we had any faith at all. Deanery, diocesan and even general conventions and all their legislations will fade in importance. No questions at all about the complex web of rules and regulations which we have created, guard so tenaciously and take oh so seriously. Instead, there we will be confronted with the real questions: “Did you feed the hungry? Did you show compassion to the destitute? Did you welcome the stranger? Did you stand in active solidarity with the oppressed? Did you visit the sick? Did you in everything do to others as you would have had them do to you?” This and this alone will be the criteria by which our fidelity to Jesus and to his Gospel will be judged. It is important to ask ourselves how we measure up.

Jesus did not preach anything new. God’s demand for righteous actions in compassion are more than evident throughout the Law and the Prophets. Jesus preached against the very human inclination to make religious rules and regulations more important than the divine injunctions of love, kindness, relationship. And we Christians too have been far too guilty of that. So we too need to listen afresh to the voice of God. In the Book of the prophet Micah, the prophet himself asks of God how he shall be righteous before the Lord: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6.6-7) And the response he received was this: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6.8) All of it, all of it, it really is as simple as that: do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Pentecost 22: The Urgency of Risk

Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Psalm 90:1-8, 12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

We are coming to the end of things, and today’s parable presents us with a recurring theme in the Gospels, that of “the departing and returning master”; a theme which, as the members of the Jesus Seminar observed, “was dear to the early Christian community because it was analogous to Jesus’ departure and expected return.” A slightly different version of the parable appears also in Luke, and there are intimations of it in the Gospel of Mark also. Many of us may remember this parable as one of the first we felt we could really get a handle on, even as children. This is, in part, because of the double meaning of the word “talent” in English. In the New Testament world a “talent” was a unit of measurement, but also of money. The conservative estimate gives them the modern value of $6,000 each, and one lone talent would represent 20 years wages for a common laborer. It is in the Middle Ages that the word came into the meaning we usually associate with it today, namely a special, natural ability or aptitude. In fact, this arose out of the communal encounter with this text in Matthew. Talents came to be understood not as money, but as the unique gifts God gives to each person. As a child at parochial school, I remember reading this parable and being asked by the sisters whether I was making the best of my talents – that is, my abilities.

Now, while that may be a wonderful reading of the parable for children, it does not take into account the sense of utter urgency the parable seeks to convey, both in its words and its place in the Gospel of Matthew itself. It is grouped with several other parables centred round Jesus’ eventual return and the consummation of the present age. And it precedes directly the beginning of the passion narrative: one final prediction by Jesus of his crucifixion, Judas’ betrayal and it all begins to unravel from there. We are indeed coming to the end of things. We are coming to the crunch. The parable’s urgency is emphasised by the large amounts of money considered, but perhaps more so by Jesus’ harsh words and the sentence meted out to the slave who played it safe: “Take the talent from [this worthless slave] and give to the one with ten talents….[Then] throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30) We can see, that what the parable attempts to highlight is something far more serious than simply, say a young woman who goes into banking instead of making a career of a natural talent for the piano. Rather, it presents us with the sobering, disturbing and even frightening thought, that “safety” is not a Gospel virtue.

Sit with that for a moment; that the hope of joy and fulfilment promised by the Good News can rarely be realised – if at all – when we hedge our bets, play it safe, when our decisions are based merely on fear of loss, when we act out of desperation in order to preserve a particular status quo or self-image. The entire sweep of salvation history seems to be grounded in this deep, deep truth. Even in the beginning, God could have merrily gone on with a literally divine existence, but instead risked the creation and risked the making of human beings in God’s own image and with free will. In just a few weeks we will again be celebrating Christmas, that great event of divine risk-taking when God goes so far as to empty God’s own self and take “the form of slave”, (cf. Philippians 26-8) as Paul writes to the Philippians. And for those first Christians, and for many still today, to become a Christian was an act fraught with risk. At the very least it could mean being ostracised from one’s family and accustomed social circle; for many it meant death. But they had internalized the reality that any profit that can come without risk is no profit at all: “For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?” (Matthew 16:26) And Jesus’ enigmatic words in today's parable, words which disturb our sense of fairness and justice – “to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29) – these words speak to the truth that those who risk nothing, end up with less than they bargained for, even less than they started with.

All this talk of risk, yet we mustn’t confuse risk with recklessness, neither with impetuous actions or a cavalier attitude. Instead the sort of risk enjoined is one which dislodges fear and disturbs complacency. Indeed, no enterprise loses its luster more quickly than when it is governed by fear – fear of loss, fear of disappointment, always with an eye to an unimaginative bottom line; no enterprise loses its energy more quickly than when it becomes complacent – complacent with a limited vision, complacent with good enough, complacent with safe fellowship, complacent – as the prophet Zephaniah alludes – with merely the dregs (cf. Zephaniah 1:2) Genuine risk is at that the heart of anything really worth having, it is at the heart of all creative enterprises and of all change for the good, as uncomfortable or scary as that may be. It’s not that the first two slaves made a return on their master’s money that earns for them the accolade of “trustworthy”, it is that they thought creatively about the possibilities and they took a risk; while their fellow did the least creative thing he could have done. He put his master’s talent in a hole. His fear prevented him from taking even the most minimal of actions, as the master subsequently pointed out: “You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.” (Matthew 25:27) The slave acted out of fear and desperation, and whenever we do that we blind ourselves to possibility and always sell ourselves short.

When the crunch-times come in our lives, the response should never really be safety, but risk. And in one sense, as Paul reminds the Thessalonians, it is always crunch-time: “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” (1 Thessalonians 2:1-2) The crunch-time is the ever present reality and we live always in its shadow. It is ever distant, yet ever nigh. And therefore, there should be an urgency to our lives, an urgency that asks some serious questions: What am I risking today, right now? Has my faith, my Christianity, my life become a mere exercise in measured complacency? When the master comes to settle accounts what will I offer as evidence of joyful, faithful risk? Or will he find me safely and fearfully tucked in, my talent in hole?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

All Saints' Sunday: Community and Relationship Forged in Love

Ecclessiasticus 2:1-11
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:27-36

We gather today to celebrate a great mystery, and like so much of Christian mystery and theology we come to grips with it by means of symbols and story, and by discerning the ways the mystery’s truth plays itself out in our lives and experiences. Today we celebrate what we mean when we say, “We believe in the communion of saints.” At the same time, we celebrate the truth of the resurrection in a particular and distinctive way, as well as the truth of God’s providential care. In so doing, we touch on a crucial aspect of what it means to be authentically human. The language and symbols, the inherited traditions of this feast, have a kind of depth which can be almost endlessly explored.

Along with Easter, the early Church saw the feast of All Saints as a very appropriate time for baptisms. Baptism, which marks a person’s becoming a Christian and member of the body of Christ, also points to the reality that in being joined to Christ in his life, death and resurrection, we are also joined to each other. We are brought into full communion with Christ and with his saints, that is, the holy people of God. For the early Church the title saint was not reserved for only those who had died and only afterward been canonised, indeed no such concept existed. For the early Church, as we find witnessed in the letters of the New Testament, “saints” meant all those who were Christians; those who had been called to be a holy people by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. As the author of the first letter of Peter writes: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” (1 Peter 2.9) So Paul writes his letters to “the saints” in a particular place; he sends the greeting of “the saints” in one place to “the saints” in another; and he talks about collections for ‘the saints’ in less prosperous communities. As “the saints”, the holy people of God and members of the body of Christ, they were connected one to another; and nothing, certainly not death, could sever that connection. In baptism we have a share in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we have a share in his victory over death, and through that we are joined to each other. Therefore, as Christ’s people we cannot ultimately be separated one from another, we are all joined together in him; and because of his victory over death, not even death can sever that connection. That is what we are talking about when we say “I believe in the communion of saints.”

In affirming this belief, we also speak to a defining aspect of our humanity. To be an authentic human being means to be a being in relationship. It is relationship that we long for not only from the very start of life, but which we seem to need for our continuing survival. I am told that an infant, while it may receive all the physical nourishment it needs, will most probably still die if it does not receive human touch and affection, if it is not allowed to enter into relationship. The doctrine of the communion of saints highlights the essental truth that our humanity requires relationship; we need to love and be loved, we need to touch and be touched. We need to open ourselves up to others in vulnerability and allow our encounters together to mould and inform our own person. To be the people that we were created to be we need friendship and connection. The doctrine of the communion of saints refuses to believe that what is built up in that process is completely destroyed because those with whom we are in relationship are far away or have died. Were that to be true, then each separation would diminish us as human beings. And yet – the famous words of John Donne notwithstanding – it does not. Yes, we may miss the friend far away, we may mourn the friend who has died, but both those reactions call us more deeply into our humanity. Were we to do neither we would be less human, indeed some might even call us “inhuman.” The very fact that we do miss and mourn, speaks to the fact that we are still connected. We need the mystery of the communion of saints, with its sense of connection and relationship to be human.

If community and relationship are so essential to our authentic humanity, then God’s providential and saving power has to be understood within the context of community and relationship if that power is to be consistent with God’s abiding love for humanity. It seems that if we are to be saved at all, we are saved in community and for community. The kind of individualistic, Jesus-as-my-personal-Lord-and-Saviour theology is not the traditional Christian understanding of salvation. While better known and used for its apocalyptic elements, the Book of Revelation actually graphically portrays this truth of communal salvation: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” (Revelation 7.9) If to be human means to be in relationship and community, then if we are to be saved as humans we must be saved in relationship and community. To be saved alone is no salvation at all. The images which the writer of the Book of Revelation presents are the images of a people saved in communion with each other and with their God. But too, the promise of resurrection is a promise of new life into community. Note how in the post-resurrection accounts of Jesus, he does the very things which we would consider as central to building relationship and community: he spends time in conversation with his friends, he eats with them, he shares who he is with them, and he builds bridges repairing past hurts. In short, he continues to care for them. Not only in the Book of Revelation and in post-resurrection gospel accounts, in many other places in the scriptures and the tradition are used the language of symbol and story to shed light on the meaning of Christian wholeness, human wholeness and they do so by pointing to community.

At the bottom line what we celebrate today is the abiding mystery that nothing, nothing can break asunder community and relationship which has been forged in love; but also that our wholeness as human beings, our salvation if you will (it means the same thing), is dependent on the communion of saints, on that great mystery of community and relationship. Paul writes to the saints in Rome “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8.38-39) If we believe that in our baptism we have been incorporated into the body of Christ and that we are in fact the body of Christ, then Paul’s conviction of our unity with Christ is also about our unity with each other, with all the saints living and departed. God’s creative love which has forged us into a people, is the same power working in us to form deep and abiding bonds between each other, not only so that the power of love may be made manifest in the world, but that we may grow more fully into the genuine humanity for which we were created.

Pentecost 20: When There is No Peace

Micah 3:5-12
Psalm 43
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12

The beginning of the book of the prophet Micah tells as he was from Moresheth and that the “word of the Lord” came to him in the days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah (cf. Micah 1:1). Moresheth’s exact location is uncertain, except we know it was somewhere in southwestern Judah. We know rather more about the time in which Micah lived, and prophesied. The “days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah” covered the years 740-687 BC. Historians of the period tell us these years were marked by Judah’s general decline, as the power of the neighboring Assyrian empire increased, conquering areas dangerously close: Damascus fell to it in 732 BC, Samaria in 722 and in 701 Jerusalem herself was besieged. For those in the area, it was a period of upheaval, crisis and insecuirty; and we all know what happens in such times, the average person looks after his or her own interests. Those who do not, stand out as exceptional; and this was no less true in the ancient world. About those perilous times one bibilical historian writes, “Danger was not only external. Prophets, priests, and judges accepted bribes; merchants cheated; Cannannite cults were used alongside Yahwistic ones”.

At the same time – as in all periods of crisis and upheaval – the thought on everyone’s mind, the word on every politician’s lips was “peace”. Peace. Peace, however, is a slippery thing and its pursuit is rarely unsullied by self-interest. In many cases, all that peace means is that my life, or the life of my family, or the life of my community, or the life of my country continues undisturbed regardless of the consequences on others outside those narrow spheres. For most of us, peace means our bellies are full. As Micah himself records: “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry ‘Peace’ when they have something to eat.” (Micah 3:5). At best, for most of us, peace is the cessation of obvious conflict even if the parties in the conflict are not exacly reconciled, even if there is no friendship between them. This kind of peace is usually purchased at a high cost: the complete and utter subjugation – even humilation – of an enemy, the silencing of internal opponents, the costly and constant watch for potential eruptions of violence or retribution, without and within the state. This is the kind of peace which was the norm for the great empires of the ancient world (and of the modern world, as well); and is best exemplified in the Pax Romana, the peace so highy vaunted by the Roman Empire. The Romans controlled all the known world and for many years did so effectively, but ruthlessly. Jesus was one of the casualties of the Pax Romana, as were many of the early Christians: Alban, Cecilia, Peter, Agnes among them, and many others unknown by name. But also casualties were ten of thousands of people captured and enslaved, the many hundreds of thousands who lived in abject poverty and at the whim of social superiors, the scores of tribes and nations conquered and kept in check by occupying forces of Roman troops. Yes, what passed for peace – and what still may pass for peace today – looks very different from the bottom of the pile.

The prophetic tradition of Judaism presents a very different image of peace, the foundation of which is right relations between peoples, and between people and God. Peace in this tradition – shalom – has many resonances and can mean something as simple as a curteous greeting (as it is still used today in modern Hebrew), but it also has profound social dimensions and is associated “with righteousness, law, judgement, and the actions of public officials.” At the same time, in the tradition of ancient Judaism, God and God alone is the creator and source of this kind of peace and it is God and God alone who gives shalom.* To work for peace – shalom – in one’s life and in the world is to align one’s self with God and what God wills and desires in creation. To work against peace is more than just perpetuating hostility or making war, it is to live in darkness, “without vision…without revelation”. (Micah 3:6) Shalom is more than peace in the narrow way in which we usually have come to understand and experience it, it is rather an entire framework and pattern for God’s world. It is not something which exists merely by our creation, purely between human beings or even between nations, but it is a reality meant to encompas the entire cosmos; a pattern that ideally should dictate all our dealings with creation, with others, with ourselves. The source of its disruption is most usually not the outside forces which menace and threaten, but the internal forces which undermine and corrupt human society and relationships. In speaking about the the lack of peace, Micah does not speak about the hostility of the Assyrians or the threat it poses. He speaks of the internal decay of rightousness and of basic human decency in Judah: “Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob…who abhor justice
and pervert all equity, [you]…give judgment for a bribe, [your] priests teach for a price, [your] prophets give oracles for money.” (Micah 5:9, 11) And so, often the prophets still speak up for shalom in periods where there is no apparent hostility, sometimes most especially in periods of prosperity; for example as when the prophet Amos writes in the name of the Lord, “I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21, 23-24). God’s vision of peace – of shalom – is not about making nice, but about making justice; and the latter is in many ways far tougher and more nuanced than the former because it calls for serious self-examination both of individuals, communities and nations. Shalom challenges us by unmasking the very causes of the hostility between peoples and nations which lead to violence – injustice, prejudice, greed, pride. These can not easily be overcome with a simple, concordat, agreement or summit. They can only be overcome with conversion of spirit, conversion life, both personal and communal. They can only be overcome by genuinely aligning ourselves to God and God’s gracious plan for creation.

God’s plan, God’s vision of peace is costly. And its price must be our dying to privilege and facile stability, it must never be the suffering or subjugation of another. Shalom creates no casualties. Even should a nation not be at war, if hundreds of thousands within its cities and towns live in poverty there is no peace. Even if a people can congratulate itself by proclaiming how free are its citizens, if a section of that citizenry cannot participate in the fruits of that freedom due to poor educational provision or lack of dignified employment, then there is no peace. Even when a nation can take due pride in its scientific and medical advances, if large sections of its population have little to no access to those advances then there is no peace. When people’s sense of justice is still an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, then there is no peace. Living shalom means we take the risk to envision the world as God might see it, and to unmask injustice and its subtle violence, even when the powers that be tell us everything is alright, that things are peaceful, because as Christians we know that peace – real peace – is much, much more, and that ultimately no earthly power can provide it. All that we as people and as a nation can do is speak up for it and accept no cheap substitutes, no matter how comfortable they may make us feel. All we can do align ourselves to it by allowing justice to roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Then and only then can we truly come to call ourselves followers of the Prince of Peace.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Pentecost 18: "We are No Longer Children..."

Isaiah 45.1-7
Psalm 96
1 Thessalonians 1.1-10
Matthew 22.15-22

The enigmatic nature of the Jesus’ statement, “Give…to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22.21) is matched only by its versatility. Historically, the verse has been used both to support allegiance to the government, as well as to claim a license for revolution. The Church herself has used it to argue her superiority over the state, and therefore the state’s subordination to ecclesiastical power, while governments have used it to remind the Church that there are limits to her power, in short to tell her to mind her own business. The very ambiguity of the verse has left its readers, as I am sure it did its original hearers, wondering still where the lines are to be drawn between our duties to God and our duties to the state. Yet, this kind of ambiguous response is characteristic of the person of Jesus. A vast majority of the kinds of scholars I refered to last week believe that these specific words of the Gospel Jesus, can be traced to the historical Jesus. Not only do these words appear exactly the same in all three of the Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Matthew and Luke – but they also appear in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, a collection of Jesus’ sayings which, like the canonical Gospels, was written somewhere between AD 70 and AD 100. One scholar writes with regards to this verse: “[Jesus] responds to the question without answering it; he turns the question back on his interrogators, just as he often does in telling a parable without a conclusion. His audience is supposed to supply the answer themselves.”

“His audience is supposed to supply the answer themselves.” You see, that is what was and is so frustrating about our encounter with Jesus, our encounter with the gopels. So much of his sayings and teaching simply leave his audience, and not only his immediate audience, “to supply the answer themselves.” How much easier it would have been, and clearer too, if Jesus had not spoken in open-ended parables or in enigmatic one-liners, but rather set up clear-cut and readily understandable rules and regulations. Yet he didn’t. Although Christians in the years after him have worked almost desperately to fill in the gaps with a host of rules and regulations, we must always come back to the reality that the Jesus presented to us in the gospel narratives is not a person of very many rules. And when pressed to make a ruling on this or that, he more often than not responded with a parable. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan? It was prompted by someone asking Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10.29) At the end of the story Jesus presents the questioner with a question himself: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” (Luke 10.36) When asked by one of his disciples how many times to forgive, he returns with the cryptic answer: “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven times.” (Matthew 18.22) Jesus’ consistent teaching method was to allow those around him to make their own decisions, come to their own conclusions. He never forced an interpretation on those who came to hear him speak, and only twice in the gospels is he recorded as actually explaining the meaning of a parable. What is most commonly recorded at the end of a parable or discourse are the words “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”(Mark 4.24, et al) “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes that “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Corinthians 5.19) But, it can be argued that in Christ – in Jesus –God was telling the world to grow up. You see, so long as we live by rules and regulations because they are rules and regulations, so long as we consistently look to others to supply for us the answers to life’s questions and the resolutions to our own dilemmas, so long as we follow uncreatively and unimaginatively the instructions of any teacher, we carry out our lives in a childish existence unworthy of a people created in the image of God. The problem is that we human beings are not comfortable with uncertainty, we are not comfortable with the grey areas of life. We want someone not only to guide us through them, but to define them for us. We want simple, clear-cut, black and white answers: “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matthew 22.17) How many times exactly must I forgive the one who sins against me? (cf Matthew 22.16) Tell me now, who is my neighbour? (cf. Luke 10.29) It is for this reason that fundamentalist religion, whether Christian or otherwise, is so appealing to people. They do offer black and white answers. They do give to their followers clear-cut interpretations of reality, and seemingly dispense with the grey areas of human experience. The problem is that that way of doing things is not true to human experience. More often than not the issues in our lives and in our world dwell in the grey areas, and not in clearly defined black and white landscapes; and while a series of clearly-defined rules and regulations may make us feel safe, they will never encourage us to grow up.

No doubt, Jesus could have offered those who gathered around him precise and succinct answers to their questions. He could have offered black and white rulings on any number of issues. But he did not. Jesus asks of people more than mere acquiescence, more than an obedience to a system of rules, but rather he asks them to think for themselves according to particular principles – love, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, justice. Jesus knows that simply to supply answers does not encourage real growth, development or maturity among those who ask the questions. Any good teacher or parent knows that. From the gospel accounts it seems clear that Jesus did not want groupies or mere disciples who simply hung on his every word. He wanted mature individuals to share in his ministry. The gospels record that even during his lifetime he sent out many of his disciples to proclaim the Good News of God’s reign, and in his final dialogues in the Gospel of John he says, “I do not call you servants any longer, but I [call] you friends.” (John 15.15) Part of the process of enabling people into maturity and autonomy is allowing them to come to their own conclusions, indeed encouraging them to come to their own conclusions, and thereby to discover their own centre of authority. At the expense of dressing Jesus up in the garb of a respectable member of the Anglican Communion, we might say that, like a good Anglican, he trusts human reason and the ability of human reason to discern the right, the true, the good, the just, the beautiful.

Again, looking at Paul, we find he writes to the Ephesians, “The gifts [Jesus] gave were… for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to…maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children…But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4.11-15) The world of black and white, clear-cut answers is the world of the child. This is not meant pejoratively, but it is the simple fact. Children rarely have the deliberative skill or the insight of enough experience to give them any real understanding into the complexities of human life; and they only grow and develop emotionally and morally as they gain more and more ability in discerning life for themselves. Yes, they need guidance, support, encouragement; but they do not need to be told what to think or believe, have all their questions answered and all their experiences mediated by another, if they are ultimately to become responsible, individuated adults.

The gospel accounts tell us that those who asked Jesus the question about the tax were trying to trip him up, but whether they were or not it is highly unlikely Jesus would have offered a different answer. He would not have offered a different answer, because he wanted people to come to their own decisions. He wanted people to grow into the full stature of adult responsibility. Simply handing down rules and regulations cannot do that, neither can supplying all the answers. A great part of according human dignity is allowing human beings to think for themselves. Jesus seems to do this consistently.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Pentecost 17: Encounter with Scripture

Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14

Anyway you look at it Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet as related in Matthew leaves us feeling a little unnerved. And while many of us who have been taught the parable in the past were made to focus on the indiscriminate invitation of the king, it is unnerving to recognise the violence at the parable’s center: the violent ingratitude of some of those invited, as well as the king’s equally violent reprisal; moreover, that when the wedding feast is finally in full swing – after the king’s slaves have brought in all kinds of people from the streets – still we are not allowed a satisfying conclusion, but rather confronted with a disturbing one. The king on seeing the guests is apparently dissatisfied with the one of them who is not properly attired, and has him not only thrown out of the party, but bound both hand and foot and thrown “into the utter darknesss”. (Matthew 22:13) It seems cruel and unfair, especially since this fellow was not even prepared for the feast. He was dragged in from the street, after all!

What are we to do with such a passage? Well, we could begin by learning the Gospel of Luke presents another form of the parable in which is contained neither the violence or vindictiveness of Matthew’s version. In it, guests are invited, they decline with excuses and so the host has his slaves go into the streets and invite all whom they meet, then the host simply says “For…none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.” (Luke 14:23) Scholars agree that the Luke’s version is the older, closer to what the historical Jesus might have said. So, one way to escape the apparent meanness of the Matthean version is simply to realise that its more violent and exclusionary elements were a later accretion, and since older is better – closer to the source – we can conveniently ignore the parts of the parable that confuse us or which we find a little uncomfortable, the part that does not square with our pre-conceived ideas. There is also the argument of historical and social context: the world of the ancient near east in which the Gospels were written is so dissimilar from that of our own that there are parts of Scriptures we cannot really apply to our own time and society. Again, we are given permission to ignore the uncomfortable passages.

Now certainly such scholarly findings will and should inform our encounter with the Scriptures, but they can never be used to dismiss parts of them altogether simply because we may find parts unpleasant. There is a distinction between the academic study of biblical texts and a living encounter with the Scriptures. For example, an academic study can discern passages in the gospels which with reasonable accuracy can be traced to the historical Jesus and those which with equal accuracy can be traced to a later voice, usually that of the compiler and/or writer. Thus, such academic study can arrive at some factual data as to the pedigree of certain passages. However, coming to an encounter with the Scriptures is a rather a different process, because as St Paul writes in his second letter to Timothy “all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. (2 Timothy 3:16). Equally, as reads the collect for the Sunday closest to 16 November: “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning…” Encountering the Scriptures as the Church, we come to them in their totality, led by the Holy Spirit and with confidence that their creation, composition and compilation are not exactly accidental, and that through them God most definitely communicates something of the divine will and purposes to the Church. However, this does not mean that we simply accept the literal interpretation of the texts, but that we struggle to find appropriate meaning for those texts in our present lives and contexts. In doing this we return to the roots of our faith. Jewish biblical interpretation works from the premise that every word and every jot in the Hebrew has meaning, and that meaning is discerned within the context of the community’s reading, and arises out of discussion, sometimes heated discussion and even argument. At the same time, the partners never cease to speak with each other, rather they continue to struggle with each other and the text; and so any meaning that arises from the text arises from within that honest struggle. This is a good model for Christian engagement with the Scriptures, and indeed was the model for most of the Church’s history. Only until very recently have some Christians become obsessed with the fundamentalism of supposed literal interpretation. Perhaps the best image for encountering the Scriptures is drawn from the Scriptures themselves in the narrative of Jacob wrestling with the man who attacks him as he sleeps. The writer of Genesis tells us Jacob wrestled with him all the night long and towards the end, as the man asked for release, Jacob said to him, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26b) Jacob leaves the encounter limping, but he leaves with a new name, he leaves with a blessing, he leaves with a new meaning.

Think for a moment what it would mean to say to a difficult piece of Scripture, indeed to any piece, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me”. It may mean we carry a text with us for long time, even years as we continually turn it over in our heart and mind, as it passes with us through the contexts and experiences of our lives, even as its meanings shift with those contexts and experiences. At the same time, it would assume that the Scriptures in their totality are Good News and that every passage, every word, contains the possibility of blessing so long as we are willing to remain with it, struggle with it. Committing one’s self to hanging on until a blessing is discerned will also mean that we carry on that struggle chiefly within the context of the Christian community, and that that struggle may be ongoing. Having said that, as Christians we know we struggle in the trust that our strugglings are also within the context of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit who Jesus promises will lead us into all truth (cf. John 6:13). And because we do not have to get it all right, we can struggle in humility recognising that we may be wrong in part or in whole, and certainly that possibility is part of the struggle. Understood in this way then, our encounter with Scripture becomes so much more than “reading the Bible” or even studying the Bible in any detatched way. It is nothing less than an encounter with the living record of God’s Word, an experiential encounter that is always ongoing, always contextual, always vibrant, often raw, and we are always in the posture of trust, trust that the encounter will yield a blessing.

So what about the difficult passage from Matthew? Well, personally, I will admit that I like Luke’s version more, and yet that is why I must particularly spend time with Matthew’s Luke’s says what I like to hear and offers for me little struggle. Matthew’s engages me into a struggle and leads me into asking some soul-searching questions about what I believe as to God’s nature, who God is and how God works. It makes me ask questions of myself, as to where I see myself in the story. For example, if I am the one sent out into the “utter darknes”, what might that exactly be for? What is missing in my Christian clothing, my Christian habit that prevents me from participating fully in God’s generous banquet, in God’s gracious invitations, indeed that gets me thrown out? As we considered last week, how does this passage accuse me? Equally, what litmus tests have I created to keep people in or out of the Church? Struggling with the passage in dialogue with other Christians, questions and challenges can be encountered at a group level, for example, “What litmus tests has the community created in order to determine who is within and who is without?” In such a way I enter into dialogue with the text and with others which is immediate and present, a dialogue which hopefully takes us beyond the comfortable and self-congratulatory, which iniates the entire community into a journey of exploration and self-assesment, sometimes very difficult indeed.

In the Letter to the Hebrews the writer tells his or her readers: “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Embracing that truth is at heart of the encounter with the Scriptures.

Pentecost 16: Creator, Created and Gift

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-14
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

It seems second nature, undoubtedly because so many of us were taught it from any early age, to understand the Scriptural passages read and proclaimed this morning as supersessionary, that is, as representing that Christianity supersedes or replaces Judaism. And certainly, it has been a prevalent theological stance through much of Christian history to understand the Church as the new Israel, that is “a people who produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Matthew 21:43), and the covenant made with the Children of Israel on Mt Sinai as superseded, even invalidated by the “new” covenant inaugurated by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In short, we are the Chosen People, the “winners”, as it were. Very convenient, very comforting…very smug. I have to come accept it as a rule of thumb that whenever my encounter with any part of Scripture or of the Tradition leaves me feeling righteous or self-satisfied, I have probably missed its point. Genuine encounters with Scripture should un-nerve us more than a little. They should accuse, and to some degree even shame us, and it is only when we face the accusation square in the face and shoulder the shame, that the texts can yield for us anything truly meaningful or be life-giving in any real way.

If we believe Scripture to be a living thing, a living presence in the Church, then the prophet’s cry for justice and Jesus’ disgust at hypocrisy and pretended self-sufficiency are directed not exclusively to their original audience, but to us who are the Church. Only if and when we understand that, can the power of the Scriptures transform us. Any other stance allows us to stop our ears and deflect their challenge. And what is that challenge? It is the challenge to see ourselves not in those commended in the narratives, but in those reproved; to see ourselves as the careless whose indifference yields wild grapes, as those whose greed and violence gains for us a reprimand and loses for us our inheritance. Taking an honest look at the text and at ourselves, the Scriptures today accuse us. They accuse us of sloth, ingratitude and a distorted sense of entitlement which resolves itself in murderous violence. They also should and do shame us; shame us with God’s kindness and generosity, with God’s trusting forbearance. They beg the questions: “How well do I take care of what has been entrusted to me – note, ‘entrusted’, not ‘given’?” “How acute is my sense of entitlement?” “How much of what comes my way do I delude myself into believing really is mine?” These are hard questions which can strike at the core of one’s beliefs and values, yet in encountering them with integrity is held out the possibility of change, the possibility of growth, the possibility of transformation.

The premise in both the passages from Isaiah and from the Gospel of Matthew is that all things are really God’s , including ourselves and the good things that come our way. Isaiah depicts the vineyard as provided, tended and cared for by God and as representing the people of Judah who unthankfully rebelled, pretending themselves to be their own with a right to produce and to do whatever they liked. Jesus’ parable also depicts a landowner as the one who plants a vineyard and who provides all which is necessary for its successful operation: a fence, a winepress, a watchtower; and he entrusts it to tenants for his own and their mutual benefit. The tenants will get a share of what they produce, but he rightly expects his share. It is his vineyard, after all. The tenants, however, somehow get it into their heads that they are entitled to all it produces, they fancy themselves the landowner and stop at nothing to make sure that world-view is undisturbed, even to the point of murder. In both cases, the landowner – God – in the end asserts his control over what is his, and the images used by Isaiah and Jesus are pretty graphic. They leave little room for speculation on the landowner’s feelings. The passages highlight the reality to which we usually only give lip service: Everything is God’s, and ultimately all we have is provided or made possible by God.

Yes, to those who have ears to listen, as Jesus so often says in the Gospels, these two texts about landowners and vineyards confront us with some very difficult questions, and they seem disturbingly appropriate as we begin our stewardship campaign. It is certainly the rector’s duty to speak at least annually about stewardship. But more than the nuts and bolts of it, it is his or her duty to give a rationale for it, to enable the community to examine attitudes more than actions; to make, through the Scriptures, an invitation to transformation whose effects will go far beyond a pledge, while striking at the heart of our relationship with God and what God has entrusted to us. It is the rector’s duty, through the Scriptures and the Tradition, to invite people into the struggle with difficult questions. At the end of the day, stewardship is about whose world you really think this is, whose you think you are, what you perceive you are entitled to. The Scriptures tell us clearly that the world is God’s, it was created and is ultimately sustained by God. Like the tenants in Jesus’ parable, we have been entrusted with its care. It is safe to say we have been pretty poor stewards. The Scriptures tell us clearly that we are God’s. Not only were we created by God, but in his image; and through the prophet Isaiah we are reminded: “Thus says the Lord, he who created you,…he who formed you…:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1) Yet, how often are our decisions and choices utterly self-determinative, with only a pretended interest in the bigger picture of God’s will and purposes? How often have we chosen to grow wild grapes? How often do we take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually as if we really are God’s? The Scriptures are clear as to what ultimately belongs to us in terms of physical possessions – absolutely nothing: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) All that we have or may have is gift. Yet, when all we have is ultimately from God and usually undeserved, how often do we make demands for our “rights”, stand on some kind of pretended entitlement, make the argument that we somehow “earned” our good fortune? To what extent do we continue amassing goods, in the sub-sonscious hope of erasing the reality of our ontological nakedness? When we engage with the difficult questions of of Scripture and the Tradition, we may find ourselves wanting.

I am not here to tell you how much you should pledge, or how to exercise your own ministry of stewardship. I am hoping that the honest and challenging encounter with the Scriptures and the Tradition will enable for us all a daily transformation shaped by the difficult questions and images offered by them; marked by three profoundly biblical truths: the world is God’s, you are God’s, all is gift. Stewardship is more than simply what one gives in church or how one supports the church. It is about an attitude which is informed chiefly by the reality of who God is as creator and source, and who we are as God’s creation. Stewardship, like so much of the Christian life is ultimately about a relationship, a right relationship, a transforming relationship with God, creation, each other and ourselves.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Pentecost 15: The Same Mind in Christ

Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Psalm 25:1-9
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

In some ways Paul’s letter to the Philippians stands out among his other correspondence in the New Testament. As one commentator writes: the letter “seems to have been written simply because Paul is fond of his Philippians….In the letter he opens his heart to them, and tells them of his joy and his sufferings”. Paul’s special relationship with the Philippians may have stemmed from the fact that they seem to have been the only Christian community from which Paul accepted financial assistance. It is more than likey for this reason that the image and language of partnership appears so often in this epistle. In the ancient world, partnerships were created on the basis of verbal agreements. The parties shared common goals, and – as the majority of these partnerships were commercial – the parties shared equally in the rewards or profits. Now, such “partnerships lasted only as long as the original parties were agreed about their common purpose and as long as all the original parties were alive, when these conditions ceased to exist, the partnership was dissolved.”

As we read the letter, it appears that it was within this social construct of partnership that Paul understood the relationship that existed between himself and the Christians in Philippi. In the epistle’s fourth chapter he makes this explicit: “You Philippians know that…no church shared with me in the matter of giving a receiving…Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account” (Philippians 4:15, 17) – giving, receiving, profits, account, all the language of the a commercial enterprise. Moreover, Paul was in prison at the time of writing and there was a possibility of his death, so he is keen to encourage a common purpose among the Philippians in order that work of the partnership they have created will continue to prosper. So, as we heard last week, he writes at the very start of the letter, “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,..standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel.” (Philippians 1:27)

Paul’s emphasis on common purpose, as well as his partnership-resonant language would not have been surprising or unusual to the first-century residents of Philippi. However, as we hear today, he takes the elements of this contemporary social and commercial relationship, and places it within a new and deeper context – that of the relationship of the Church with Christ; and certainly, that is not a partnership that can be dissolved by Paul’s death, as the writer of 2 Timothy suggests: “if we are faithless, [Christ] remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13) So, Paul exhorts the Philippians first by alluding to the rewards and profits of this partnership: love, a sharing in the Spirit, compassion, sympathy; imploring them that if they have found any consolation in these, that is any spiritual rewards, benefits, dividends, as it were, then they should continue faithful to the partnership, they should continue in a common purpose, a common mind: “be of the same mind, having the same love,….Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2: 2, 5)

What is the mind of Christ? At its heart is a kind of humility that does not need to insist on its own way, but can be patient with others in charity; even accommodating one’s self to the needs and brokenness of the other in love. Paul urges the Philippians to have the mind of Christ; to do “nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others better than yourselves;…[to] look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others”. (Philippians 2:3-4) In order to highlight this point he quotes a primitive Christian hymn which pre-dates the letter, and with which most probably the Philippians would have been familiar, and might even have known by heart. In using the hymn, Paul wants to highlight that if anyone had the right to insist on his own way it was Christ who was himself “in the form of God” (Philippians 2:6). But Christ did not. He did not regard his “equality with God as something to be exploited” (Philippians 2:6), rather he humbled and accommodated himself to the mind of the Father and “become obedient to the point of death”. (Philippians 2:8) The partnership between Christ and the Father was everything, and so Christ deferred himself to the common mind of the partnership in which he and the Father were engaged.

When was the last time you deferred to someone, not just because the person was necessarily right, or simply to keep the peace, but because it was right; it was the right thing to do, because it served the common purpose, the common mind? To many of us today this idea of deferring to another, humbling ourselves in accommodation, may seem ridiculous and even self-defeating. It may seem to go against everything our culture tells us about the importance of our personal identity, the importance of the individual, the modern sense of our right and entitlements. And there is no arguing that simplistic ideas of humility and accommodation have been mis-used and abused, even in the Church, to keep certain groups of people down, women most notably. But the humility of Christ which we are called to imitate has nothing to do with that sort of self-abasement, but instead arises out of the partnership we have forged with him as a people, out of a desire to have with him a common mind of service and care for the other, out a desire to do the best for the Church and the world.

When I was practicing as a therapist I was working with a particular woman. She was a Christian whose mother, also a Christian, was domineering and expected her daughter to care for her exclusively. The mother dissuaded her marrying, even to point of frightening off potential partners or convincing her daughter of their unsuitability. This woman saw it as her duty in Christ to accommodate her mother and humble herself to the mother’s needs and desires. In the end, when the mother died the daughter was left friendless and dis-orientated. Does this scenario fulfill Paul’s plea for Christians to “look not to [their] own ineterests, but to the ineterests of others”? Does this partnership constitute a meeting of minds for mutual joy and benefit? Of course not! In fact, by accomodating the mother in such a way the women was not looking to the mother’s interests, but instead allowing the mother to indulge her self-centredness and self-importance. In the end, what the daughter realised was that her actions were more to keep the peace, than out of pure Christian humility. She came to the painful realisation that in her mis-guided idea of Christian humility and service she had done a dis-service both to herself and to her mother. Humility and service have nothing to do with being a doormat, but rather with the reality of striving for the interests of others because we know that in their well-being is our own. Our partnership as Christians, and even as human beings points to that. For this reason Paul stresses the importance of a common mind first, before we enter into the serious partnership of humility and service: “Let this mind be in you, that was in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5)

As Christians we are all in partnership with each other and with God in Christ. That means we should always strive for a common mind. It does not mean we all have to think the same, but it does mean that that in humility we can sacrifice for one another and the world. It means that more than we usually do, we allow ourselves to be guided by the interests and well-being of others and not our immediate and private concerns. It means we sometimes defer to one another for the well-being of the whole, even if it challenges our own conclusions or personal tastes or temperament. But, at the same time, it also means that we are never alone. It means that others are doing the same for us, and that we can happily drop out of the rat-race of looking out for “number one”. It means we come to share in the benefits – the dividends, if you will – of the partnership: consolation, love, compassion, sympathy among them, and ultimately with Christ to share in the glory of God the Father in this world and in the next.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Pentecost 20: The Gracious Generosity of God.

Jonah 3.10-4.11
Psalm 145.1-8
Philippians 1.21-30
Matthew 20.1-16

Driving down Caldwell towards Visalia, I was reminded that we are beginning the grape harvest, and so today’s gospel seems particularly appropriate. The vintage season in the Holy Land – a period from July to August – coincides with our own; and those we see working in the vineyards surrounding our city are not fundamentally different from the workers Jesus describes in his parable: days labourers who may only work as and when there is need. For us, here in Central Valley the resonances between what we see in the week and what we have heard this morning are almost palpable. At the same time, there is also something in this parable which touches on the finality of all things, the final reckoning, the reminder that in the end “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20.16) This is the last parable Jesus tells in the Gospel of Matthew before he and his friends enter Jerusalem for the final time. Indeed the verses directly after this parable – verses 17-19 – are Jesus telling his friends about the fate he is sure awaits him in Jerusalem: “See, we are going to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.” (Matthew 20.18–19) And what theme does the writer of the Gospel of Matthew place on Jesus’ lips as the story turns towards his death? The theme of God’s generosity. Last week’s parable of the unmerciful servant and today’s parable of the labourers in the vineyard, both highlight the generous nature of God and both demand of their listeners – that’s you and me – a response.

As the images in today’s parable are not far from our experience – we who live so close to the “Raisin Capital of the World” – so neither are the themes drawn out in the parables, both in this week’s and last’s. They speak to us not only by what they say in and of themselves, but also by where they are placed in the Gospel of Matthew – the only Gospel in which they appear, by the way. Of course, the theme of God’s generosity to which I have already alluded is clear. Yet, in last week’s parable it would seem that the generosity of God is dependent upon our own. The lord writes off the slave’s huge debt, but, on discovering that this same slave did not forgive a much smaller debt owed by a fellow-slave, retracts the write-off and places the slave in prison until he should pay the debt. The story is rounded off by Jesus’ words: “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18.35) While this may seem to make God petty, with a rather quid pro quo attitude, that is not, I think, what the writer means to express. But rather, that this is the economy of the universe, as it were. Jesus expresses this in other parts of the Gospels: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Luke 6.37-38) In short, “what goes around comes around”. The world we live in is a generous world, a gracious world, created by a generous and gracious God; and to partake most fully in that generosity and graciousness, we must be willing to make a response in the same generous and gracious spirit. When we make that response we open ourselves up to receiving the fullest measure of God’s generosity.

Today’s parable seems to be about making that response, and about how little God’s generosity relates to any quid pro quo, tit for tat arrangements. All who participated in the work of the vintage season, in the work of the kingdom, share equally in the gracious generosity of the landowner. I say “the work of the kingdom”, because that is what we can understand the work in the vineyard as representing: the work of the kingdom, our participation in the generous and gracious spirit of God. The work of the kingdom is our responding in generosity and graciousness to God’s own generosity and graciousness. At the same time the parable expresses that God’s generosity is a surprising generosity; that God’s graciousness is an unexpected graciousness. Like the generosity of the landowner it may even seem unfair because it is indiscriminate. And many of us may very well identify with those workers who, realising that the late-comers were receiving the same wages as they, “grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ”(Matthew 20.12) But, fair or unfair, there it is nonetheless. It seems that we want generosity when applied to ourselves, but fairness when it comes to others. Yet, somehow the generosity of God is not measured out in accordance to our labours; part of our participating fully in it is accepting that reality, even celebrating it. If we are really to be generous and gracious people then we must be willing to affirm graciousness and generosity wherever, wherever it presents itself, wherever it is made manifest. For some reason that is not always an easy thing for us human beings, and Jesus in the gospels is aware of that. The landowner says to the disgruntled labourers: “Are you envious because I am generous?”(Matthew 20.15b) Or, more literally, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” It is not dissimilar to the response which the father makes to the disgruntled brother in the parable of the prodigal son: “Son,” he says “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15.31–32) The first step to responding to the great generosity of God, the graciousness of the universe, is simply to allow it to happen and to celebrate it whenever it does happen. The beginnings of the response is simply to not begrudge the good, the beautiful, the lovely, the tender and compassionate wherever it occurs.

Such an attitude renews our mind and converts our spirit so that we can participate even more fully in the gracious and generous work of God. It allows us to see the world through a lens of generosity, to interpret the world with a hermeneutics of graciousness, and when we do that our entire viewpoint shifts. When we do that we are changed into more generous and gracious people. When we do that we are moved to do more and more acts of gracious generosity, to do more and more the work of the kingdom. We are transformed more and more to be the images of Christ in world; Christ, who lived an exemplary life of generosity and graciousness, who believed to the core that the God in whom he trusted was a God of grace and generosity, who had created a gracious and generous world. For that reason he looked for the best in people. He lived the message of forgiveness with abandon. He welcomed all who came to him, regardless of what society might think of them or of him. Even in the face of his impending death, he was able to still proclaim the good news of generosity. Even on the cross he was willing, in graciousness, to give people the benefit of the doubt: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23.34); and in generosity to affirm the goodness of God to his fellow human beings: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23.43)
Yes, we are in the midst of the harvest season, and the abundance with which we are afforded physically and spiritually should draw our minds to the graciousness and generosity of God. The abudance with which are afforded invites us into the economy of the universe preached and lived by Jesus in which what goes around comes around and in which the grace and goodness of God are for everyone; and whether we think they deserve it or not is completely and utterly immaterial.