Epiphany 5: A Day in the Life

Isaiah 42.21-31
Psalm 147.1-12, 20c
1 Corinthians 9.16-23
Mark 1.19-39

We’ve all seen on television one of those day-in-the-life, fly-on-the-wall documentaries? You know the type where we follow some famous personage throughout their day; where we get a behind-the-scenes look at their fabulousness; where get a glimpse at how they balance their public persona with their private self; where we perhaps get a hint as to the secret of their success in maintaining a genuine sense of self in the face of the expectations and projections from their fans and admirers. What we hope to capture in these programmes is a microcosm of the person’s life. By looking at an ordinary day in their life we hope to discover not so much what their life is like, but rather what their life is about. This morning’s passage from the Gospel of Mark, taken together with last week’s gospel, reads rather like one of those day-in-the-life documentaries. In last week’s gospel Jesus went with his friends to the synagogue on a Saturday morning. There he taught and cast out an unclean spirit. Today’s gospel continues the story. After the synagogue, he went to Simon’s house and healed Simon’s mother-in-law and had something to eat. By sundown Simon’s front yard is crowded with people looking for Jesus. Jesus meets with them and apparently spent the night at Simon’s house. In the morning, before it is light, he goes out to pray, until his disciples find him; he then decides to leave Capernaum and go to the neighbouring towns to proclaim the message. There you have it, a day in the life. If we can read these verses from the gospel of Mark as a day-the-life programme, what do we learn about Jesus? What do we learn about how he manages the complexities of who he is in himself and the demands made of him, the expectations placed on him? And if we are his followers, as we confess we are, what can we learn from the way he does it? What then is the secret of Jesus’ success as we see it in the Gospel of Mark?

It seems the first aspect of that secret is his friends. Apart from the times when Jesus goes off to pray in private, he is always has his friends close to him. He worships with them and he stays at their house. Not only in Mark, but throughout the gospels, Jesus’ close friends are his constant companions. We all need friends who know us well to keep our feet firmly on the ground with regards to who we are and what we are about. We need friends with whom we can be ourselves completely, in whose company we can rest so that we are nourished to continue the work in which we are involved, whatever that work may be. For too long we have had an image of a completely self-sufficient Jesus, who calls his disciples simply so that he can teach them and so that they will spread the message of the kingdom. However, a self-sufficient Jesus is not a human Jesus; and perhaps we can understand Jesus not so much calling disciples, but as making friends. Together, they created a community of mutual interdependence, a community (as the gospels tell in various places) more important than that of blood relations, and which would eventually effect into being the kingdom Jesus preached. It is one of the secrets of Jesus’ success, that he had good friends; that he had people in his life with whom he could be himself; that he had people in his life with whom he could escape the demands and projections of the crowd.

At the same time, Jesus had respect for people and for their needs. Those who came to him came with genuine concerns and with real problems; and Jesus takes their condition seriously, and because he takes it seriously he is able to really address it. Last week we heard of the man who was liberated from an unclean spirit. If you remember Jesus does this by speaking directly to the condition. In no uncertain terms he orders the demon to leave the man. “Be silent and come out of him”, Jesus says. His popularity and authority does not make him deaf to the needs of others, in fact it is his openness to others and his willingness to to engage with them that gives him that authority. When the people crowded around Simon’s door it seems unlikely that Jesus did less for them than he did for the man possessed of that demon. He listened to them, engaged them individually and was able to release them from whatever it was oppressed them. To Jesus the crowds were never just a crowd, but a group of individuals – each with particular personalities, needs and voices. That is perhaps the reason that he is able to feel one person’s touch in a particular way in the midst of a great throng of people, if you remember the story of the woman with haemorrhage who touches the hem of Jesus’ robe. In his rising popularity Jesus never forgot the preciousness of each person and uniqueness of their story, and he made time to listen to those who came his way.

Finally, Jesus never forgets what he is about. Riding the crest of fame and popular acclaim, he could have bought the tales of his own fabulousness. He could have lost his direction and become simply one of the many miracle-workers known to have wandered throughout the ancient near-east. Jesus could have been driven off the course of his ideals and seduced by the power of it all. How many times have we heard of or known people who begin careers in politics, law or even the Church with noble ideals, but quickly lose them or distort them as they become more and more a part of a system which promises fame, power and wealth if they just play along and don’t rock the boat too much. The temptation is great and Jesus knows that. So, he finds a quiet place to pray before it is light, before others are up. He goes to listen to the will of his Father. He goes off on his own to get a perspective on the previous day and to discern what he should do next. And when his disciples come looking for him, expecting Jesus to continue the healing and miracle-working – because after all, Jesus’ public is calling him: “Everyone is searching for you”, they tell him – when his friends comte to him expecting more of the same, Jesus simply says to them, “Let us go on to the neighbouring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came to do.” (Mark 1.38) Jesus’ mission is to proclaim the message which he began to proclaim shortly after his baptism: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1.15) The miracles are important, but only in so far as they are signs of the coming kingdom. When people begin to see them as ends in and of themselves, then Jesus knows that he must move on. He knows the proclamation of the kingdom to be his real mission and he does not allow either the acclaim of the crowds or the lure of popularity to distort his own self-understanding or what he came to do.

The Jesus we encounter in Mark’s “Day-in-the-Life” production is a human and humane Jesus; one who has the need for the companionship and support of good friends, and who deals with people as individuals. We encounter a Jesus who faces the same challenges and temptations which we face, not least of which the temptation to sell out on our ideals for the sake of popularity or an easy ride. In placing this in the very first chapter of his gospel the author of Mark sets the tone for the rest of the work. The author shows us what kind of person Jesus is: a person of commitment – commitment to his friends, to those in need, to his mission of the kingdom; a person of integrity who measures his external actions by his own internal ideals. Jesus is a person who is clear about what he came to do, his mission is his guiding principle. These three – friendship, the honouring of each person, and clear-headed integrity – seem the cornerstones of Jesus’ life as portrayed by Gospel of Mark. They are, one might say, the secret of his success. This day-in-the-life with which the author of Mark presents us is a perfect way to reflect on these qualities, not only so we can come to a deeper knowledge of Jesus, but also so we might imitate and follow him more closely, so that we might allow his own life and priorities to challenge and shape our own. Amen.

Epiphany 4: The Litmus Test of Authority

Deuteronomy 18:5-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

The nature of authority looms high in the readings this morning, but also some of the inherent problems with discerning genuine authority. The western paradigm has ever been – and only relatively recently challenged – that all authority comes from God. And in the Hebrew Scriptures we find that God shares that divine authority, the divine power, firstly with prophets. So God grants authority to Moses, and the writer of Deuteronomy says of him that “never since has there arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face”. (Deuteronomy 34:10) In fact, Moses is considered by Jews, Christians and Muslims the greatest of the prophets. At the same time, the prophet is also the one through whom God’s power and authority is mediated and passed on to others, and we see also recorded in Deuteronomy at Moses’ death how “Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him.” (Deuteronomy 34:9) Equally in the second book of Kings, when the departure of Elijah is imminent, his servant Elisha asks to “inherit a double share of [Elijah’s] spirit”. (2 Kings 2:10) As Elijah is taken into the heavens his mantle is literally taken up by Elisha, and on meeting a company of prophets they declare “the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha”. (2 Kings 2:13, 15) It is through the prophets also that God’s authority is passed on to kings. Samuel the prophet is the one who anoints Saul the first king of Israel, (1 Samuel 10:1) and all subsequent kings are in the same way anointed. By the first century, after the period of kings and prophets, authority among the Jews is exercised by the official teachers of the law. Jesus hints at this in the Gospel of Matthew when he is quoted as saying: “The scribes and Pharisees”, he says, “sit on Moses’ seat’. (Matthew 23:2) Each of these would at some time been the disciple of an older, more experienced teacher who would have passed to him their knowledge, and thus bestowing on him authority.

And so, divine authority – the only real authority which has been understood as such through most of history – has been understood as passed down in succession from one generation to another, and only to a select group of people by a select group of people. However, the very exclusivity of such a system can encourage those commissioned with authority all too quickly to get into bed with the powers-that-be, if they do not become the powers-that-be themselves. And now that spirit and voice of God which they are meant to deliver, becomes simply the spirit of the age or the voice unquestioningly in support of kings, princes and their policies. Such a situation is a recurring theme in the Old Testament: prophets who are simply mouth-pieces of a particular ruler. The possibilities of this was envisioned from the start, and the writer of Deuteronomy warns of the end of such people: “any prophet…who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak – that prophet shall die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

But what is to be the litmus test? How are the people to know the genuine prophet from the false? Certainly, in part, by the integrity of their lives, but also the extent to which they align themselves with the powerful or the powerless, the extent to which invest themselves in the status quo or in the margins of society. The genuine prophet can be recognised as she or he speaks up for the most neglected, for the powerless, for the poor and dejected. The genuine prophet can be recognised as he or she speaks up for a renewed society of peace with justice, of freedom and transparency. So, it is not surprising then, how the people flocked to John the Baptist. The Gospel of Mark records that “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people from Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him,…confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:5) Neither is the people’s astonishment at Jesus surprising, nor their observation that his “was a new teaching with authority”. (Mark 1:28) The people had come to realise how unreliable is the authority of the those with or close to power; and by the teaching, preaching and manner life they saw in John and Jesus, they recognised the genuine spirit of God at work, recognised them both as bearing God’s authority, recognised them both as prophets. John tells the people that God is at work in the world, and that the renewal of all things is imminent: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”. (Mark 1:3b) That certainly a reality hardly to be welcomed by those in power. By his ministry, Jesus proclaims the same reality, indeed demonstrates not that the kingdom is coming, but that it has already arrived and is growing, making its presence known in Jesus’ liberating acts. One commentator in considering the narrative of today’s Gospel writes: “The liberation of the demoniac is a miniature and proof of the coming liberation of the cosmos.” The nature of both John’s and Jesus’ prophetic activity, the nature of their prophetic identity and the nature of their authority, are marked by their being outsiders who speak up for the outsider, pointing people to a coming reality beyond the status quo, beyond the self-interest of kings, princes and even of religious leaders. Their authority comes not from a long line of succession handed down to them directly from another, but from their own encounter with reality, from their own careful reflection on the traditions of Israel, and from their own walk with God. They test their ministry by the critique of scripture, most particular by the record of the prophets recognised as authentic by the tradition. The authority of both John and Jesus finds its authenticity in its compatibility with the prophetic vision of a renewed creation and they act on that vision. In the case of Jesus particularly, the people recognise that his authority is manifested and vindicated in that act of casting out demons which is “a miniature and proof of the coming liberation of the cosmos”: “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ ” (Mark 1:27)

We often speak of the authority of the Church or the authority of the Scriptures, and we can certainly see how the Church has in some ways modelled her own practice on ancient ideas of passing on authority – ordination by laying on hands, and the tradition of bishops consecrated in apostolic succession. All that is certainly important, and I would even argue necessary marks of an authentic Church. However, the Church compromises her authority and credibility in the world when she forgets another aspect of the authority which Jesus himself confers on her and which his own contemporaries recognised in him, chiefly his ministry of liberation and his commitment to God’s vision of a renewed creation, as expressed most perfectly in the prophetic tradition. Sometimes the Church’s self-understanding gets bogged down in how she transmits her authority, most notably this can be evidenced by the vicious wrangling in the Anglican Communion over the ordination of women to the priesthood, and their consecration to the episcopate. Yet, first and foremost, the Church should ground her authority in the life and mission of Jesus as revealed in the gospels, expressing her authenticity in aligning herself not with the powers-that-be but with victims of that power; not with the status quo but with its casualties. Certainly, the Church bears in the world God’s own authority, but it can only be revealed as such in the world when it is experienced as truly liberating and unencumbered by facile allegiance to power structures which undermine the Church’s message and ministry. When the Church exercises her authority in this way, then people certainly recognise it as authentic. That is the challenge presented to the Church in every age, but most especially in the present, when people have become keenly aware that authority must display itself in integrity, in short that people and instititions make their authority legitimate when they practice what they preach. Simply saying that we have our authority handed to us by God is no longer sufficient, if it ever was. As a Church, ours must be an authority which resolves itself in the proclamation of liberation from whatever keeps people bound, and in speaking up for the world’s renewal along the lines of God’s justice and love. Like Jesus’ authority, the Church’s own authority must be different from the kind of authority exercised in the world at large, in order that her authority can be recognised as authentic beyond the simple boundaries of the instutional Church, so that what what people observed of Jesus ministry may be said of ours too – “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” (Mark 1:28) As the Church, may we ever be worthy of such a proclamation.

Epiphany 3: The Mirror of Folk Tales

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:6-14
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

The story of the Jonah is one that has firmly ensconced itself into our collective consciousness. Even people who have only a passing familiarity with the biblical narratives know this story of the prophet swallowed by a whale. In large part this may be because, while Jonah is called a prophet and the book is included among the other prophets, its narrative has more the feel of a folk tale, even a morality tale, and like all such stories its fantastic elements help to impress it on our minds. Looking at the book objectively, we can see that is unlike any other of the prophetic books. As Lawrence Boadt observes in his introductory work to the Old Testament, “[the book] contains no oracles at all, except the report of Jonah’s words to Nineveh – [‘Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown’. Rather,] it is the story about a prophet, and right from the beginning we are warned to take the prophet with a grain of salt. The author has a great sense of literary style, full of abrupt changes of direction in thought, humorous touches, and unexpected twists in the plot….[T]he author…knew that his audience would enjoy the story and not be forced to choose whether it could actually have happened or not.” Indeed, the book which bears his name is far removed from the historical figure of the prophet Jonah who was active in the eighth century and mentioned in the second book of Kings,. The Book of Jonah rather was written some 400 years later, and after the Jews’ return from exile in Babylon and once they had begun rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem.

While the historical prophet Jonah is concerned with the power of kings and kingdoms, prophesying that the king of Israel would regain some lost territory, the Book of Jonah is concerned with more universal themes, most especially God care for those considered beyond the pale. As I mentioned, most scholars concur that its composition dates from the period after the Babylonian Captivity when the Jews having returned to the “promised land” and looking to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple have become almost obsessed with racial purity. Indeed, to such an extent that men who had married foreign wives were forced to send them away, together with their children. Out of this institutionalized xenophobia arose dissenting voices that reminded people to look outwards, and beyond simple borders of Jewish identity. In the Holy Scriptures these dissenting voices find their expression in two folk tales, the story of Ruth and the story of Jonah. I noted earlier that perhaps the best way to classify the Book of Jonah is as a folk tale, and one of the cultural purposes folk tales serve is to hold up to us a mirror, a mirror to our own foibles and pettiness, as individuals and as communities. And so like all folk tales, Ruth and Jonah hold up a mirror to the community around them to highlight their exclusivist outlook. In the book of Ruth the reader is reminded how the greatness of Israel and of the city of Jerusalem itself finds its origin in a “mixed marriage”; after all, Ruth, King David’s great-grandmother, was a Moabite, a foreigner. In the book of Jonah the theme is more forcibly brought home and universalized as God is depicted caring for the inhabitants of Nineveh simply – it seems – because they exist, because they are part of the created order. At the same time, the writer turns the role of the prophet on its head as Jonah, as a character, represents not God’s vision, but the conventional social prejudice against the foreigner. In fact, Jonah initially refuses to deliver to Nineveh God’s invitation to repent, and when he does deliver it and they do repent, he sulks and becomes angry, “angry enough”, he says, “to die”. (Jonah 4:9)

Anger is an interesting reaction to generosity and I cannot help but be reminded of Jesus’ parable in which all the laborers no matter when they began their labors are paid the same, and when the ones who have worked the longest complain, the master responds: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:15). Are you envious because I am generous. Not too different a sentiment is expressed in the last verse of the book of Jonah when God says: “And should I not be concerned with Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:11)

Now, it is easy here to simply observe that the book of Jonah presents us with what has in recent years become a seemingly repetitive, albeit certainly necessary trope, that is, the issue of God’s inclusive love. However, there is something more here than simply that. We are challenged by Jonah’s anger itself. It is not enough that he does not want to include the Ninevites nor desires for them salvation and right relationship, but he is angry that God does, and that is an interesting dynamic to consider indeed. It resolves itself in more than simply an unwillingness to include, but a positive desire to exclude. While we all to some degree tend to make God in our own image, making the divine to bear our own prejudices, the story of Jonah reveals an entirely different dynamic; here Jonah knows God’s intentions and purposes, and yet is livid, angry enough to die, because God does not and will not see things his way, because God will not be as angry, violent and even blood-thirsty as Jonah would like God to be, or as he himself would be (we can assume) if he only had the power. The word petty comes to mind.

If folk tales hold up mirrors to their readers, the Book of Jonah challenges us to see ourselves in Jonah's petty anger, in his unwillingness to allow God to be God. As we look into the mirror of the narrative we may find, exaggerated but no less there, our own unwillingness to participate in a vision wider than what we have been taught or come to expect. As we look into the mirror of Jonah's hyperbolic anger, we may just find hints of our own hidden anger and obstinacy at God’s or even at others’ generosity. In the end, that is not only the purpose of folk tales but indeed of the Scriptures themselves – to allow us to see ourselves critically in its words and images, in its narratives and characters. Perhaps that is why so many of its stories have become so much a part of our cultural consciousness, whether people specifically identify as Christian or not.

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.

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.

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.