Epiphany 6

William Loader

Epiphany 6: 12 February Mark 1:40-45

A leper! People would immediately draw back out of fear. Societies did not know what to do with them. Better to isolate them. Healing or remission was possible. Leviticus 13-14 set out in considerable detail the isolation as well as the tests for re-entry along with the accompanying rituals.

Hanson’s disease, modern ‘leprosy’, is not highly contagious. I recently visited the Leprosy Mission Hospital during a stay in Calcutta. Much of the work is reconstructive surgery where tendons are remade so that fingers are able to bend again, feet move and eyes close. Anaesthesia in extremities is a huge problem, leading to ulcers and often the need for amputation. The disease seems to be passed on through nasal discharges, according to one commonly held theory. Few people are susceptible to it.

Modern and ancient ‘leprosy’ are not identical, but they have much in common: dread, stigma, alienation. So it comes as a shock that Jesus is faced with a leper – a real test. Even more of a shock is the leper’s blatant disregard for the biblical rules: he approaches Jesus. He should have remained at a distance and called out, ‘Unclean, unclean’ (Leviticus 13:45). Codex Bezae and a few early Latin manuscripts even report Jesus’ initial response as anger. The man had defied the barriers which are needed for the protection of others. The balance of the evidence favours an opposite reaction: Jesus was moved with compassion. Jesus touched him and declared him healed. Touching a leper does not give you leprosy, but touching a ritually unclean person – and a leper was that – meant contracting uncleanness, not a huge problem. Contracting uncleanness was part of everyday life and there were straightforward ways of dealing with it. It should be avoided where possible. The story does not reflect on this as a problem, probably assuming that there was enough holiness borne by Jesus to reverse the direction: Jesus decontaminated the leper rather than his contaminating Jesus.

Something of anger is still there, however, in Jesus’ response. He sternly (perhaps even angrily) tells the man to follow the biblical procedures, to do what the ancient health department laid down for rehabilitation of lepers. The priests need to see the evidence before the man can be let loose in the community. The Greek words can be read as indicating that the man is to ‘bear witness’ to the priests, as if he is to tell his personal testimony, but that, to my mind, misreads the text. Jesus is simply telling the man to do what the Law requires. A healing does not become less spiritual because it engages ‘hospital authorities’ and normal medical practice, which was one of the temple’s roles. Jesus’ respect for Torah in this episode is an interesting foil for the disputes which immediately follow in 2:1 – 3:6. There people charge him with disrespect for Torah!

In Mark 1:40-45 the focus is on Jesus’ power to heal. Leprosy was seen as one of the hardest nuts to crack. This is miracle, a work of the Spirit through Jesus. However we understand such healing, we need to hear what is said within Mark’s frame of reference. The kingdom means freedom also for lepers. They are not the last group to be ostracised because of their illness. Most people who live with a disability can tell stories about being ostracised, especially if that disability is to be seen. People with AIDS carry a similar stigma.

One further detail calls for comment. Jesus told the man to keep the healing to himself, passing up an excellent PR opportunity. 1:45 tells us that the leper was still rebellious; he ‘knew’ Jesus needed better PR, so he blabbed. The result was that too many people came and Jesus had to stay out of town. The man was a wonderful advertisement. Advertising healings is not always the way to go. At worst it puts the institutions’ need for promotion ahead of the needs of the healed. The man really was annoying in his behaviour, which is why many scholars are inclined to side with Codex Bezae: he was maddening from the start. Some people who need help are maddening like that. Try being a leper!

The other neat shift in the narrative is that we find Jesus back in the wilderness, where he had been in the beginning and where he was in 1:35. In this way Mark reminds us of the beginning. We are being kept in touch with the bigger picture. Jesus is not being drawn off the rails by the odd and not so odd demands of those who follow him or are healed by him.

Epistle: Epiphany 6: 12 February 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Epiphany 5

William Loader

Epiphany 5: 5 February Mark 1:29-39

A day in the life of JC! Mark begins his account of Jesus’ public ministry with a first day. Last week we had the first journal entry. Here we have two more plus the first event of the following day. Mark does not lose his hearers in detail. In 1:29 he mentions Simon and Andrew, James and John. This recalls 1:16-20, the account of their calling. Mark will have envisaged hearers listening to the whole story and making such connections rather than the way we read his gospel in small bites.

You could surmise that Mark is making a point here by having the kingdom start at home. That may not be Mark’s intention, but its truth stands nevertheless. Home would be a complex house where extended family lived, including Peter’s mother-in-law. So Peter was married and Paul in 1 Cor 9 seems to confirm this. It is a pity we hear nothing of his spouse, but this was a world in which in men’s stories women are mostly invisible if they are not either a source of trouble or delight. Here is an exception. Even if unnamed, we have a woman. She matters. Jesus cares about her. He heals her. Her temperature drops. She serves them. Let us not romanticise Mark. He is a man of his time as are those who passed on to him the story. The woman remains unnamed. She is healed to do what women stereotypically did: look after the men. It is spinning a yarn to make too much out of the word, ‘serve’, here, as if she is the first deacon. We can espouse such values without fiddling the text. On the other hand, note that Mark tells us in 15:40-41 that many women from Galilee followed Jesus and they were there at the end when the men fled.

Observance of sabbath law rather than climate is reflected in the fact that people waited till the evening to bring their sick and deranged to Jesus. The sabbath ended at sunset, so such work was acceptable in the evening. 1:32-34 is a short summary through which Mark tells us that the two kinds of activities, exorcism and healing, which he has recounted as events on the first day were typical. They were repeated in the evening and on following days. Notice how Mark carefully builds links to what has gone before and what follows. Crowds at the door – we shall find that happening again in 2:2. Demons who knew him – this recalls the incident in the synagogue, but also recalls what they knew, namely the truth set forth in the baptism.

Altogether, 1:29-34 tells us why the kingdom is good news: people are healed and set free. One strong form of future hope among the prophets and later Jewish writings is that God will bring liberation and healing. We find it in Isaiah 61:1; 35:5-6; 29:18-19 and elsewhere. Here in Jesus’ ministry it is happening. So the events are important both in themselves and in what they symbolise.

Our reading ends with the morning after the night before (1:35-39). The ‘hangover’ of yesterday evening’s work sends Jesus back where he started: the wilderness and prayer. This is not only a neat touch on Mark’s part, because it takes us back there. It is also one of those small hints about Jesus’ need to care for himself and regain strength and energy. How could Jesus do this, when there were so many people in need! Simon and co press the point.

Jesus did not have the need to respond to every need. I have always found it odd that people imagine Jesus met every need. When Jesus was in Capernaum, he was not in Bethsaida! People in Bethsaida could have been healed. When he was in the wilderness, people back in town were suffering. Jesus might have met the needs of one or two per cent of the needy in Palestine of the day, but even that is probably far too high a guess. Coming to terms with our human limitations in time and space and energy is crucial if we are to survive in ministry and Jesus was no exception. Jesus did not exercise his ministry on the basis of his need to be needed, but on the basis of what he could do as a bearer of the Spirit, nothing more. That is always enough – and never enough to meet all needs. Failure to acknowledge our limitations often leads to denial of the immensity of human need, because we are afraid of not being in control.

Many locals will have been deeply disappointed when Jesus decided to go off to other regions of Galilee. One can imagine the recriminations: I brought my dying mother here. How can you pass her by? One way to cope is to be callous and hardened: the ‘strategic plan’ is numerical growth; to hell with people! But Mark is not portraying Jesus that way. He is interested here in describing the impact of Jesus’ ministry, but also the problems which it caused – not just in congestion in front of doorways. Crowds often dictate agendas; success spawns its own rules. Mark shows Jesus acting deliberately in ways which will maximise the impact of the good news, but Jesus will not be dictated to by the rules of the game. In some sense they also belong to the powers from which he must liberate people.

1:38-39 return us to Jesus’ sense of mission. We are on track. He is preaching in their synagogues and exorcising, as he did in 1:21-28. Well meaning disciples did not succeed in getting in the road. He knew a response to pain which avoided the alternatives of needing to meet every need or of coping by denying it. In other respects he models ‘best management practice’: he knew what he was about and never lost sight of it, and that was a ‘big picture’ understanding of people and what the reign of God could mean for them.

Epistle: Epiphany 5: 5 February 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Epiphany 4

William Loader

Epiphany 4: 29 January Mark 1:21-28

This passage takes the shape of a sandwich, a familiar pattern in Mark. It begins and ends with comments about Jesus’ authority as a teacher (1:21-22 and 1:27-28). In between is an exorcism (1:23-26). Already this simple structure tells us a lot. We are meant to find a connection between Jesus, the teacher and Jesus, the exorcist. More than that, this is the first episode in Jesus’ ministry which Mark recounts after the call of the disciples. Following the conventions of ancient writing we would expect the passage to hold important clues about what is to come. Authority is also the first main theme in the collection of controversy stories in 2:1 - 3:6, the authority to declare to people God's compassion in forgiving their sins (2:10). "New" also features at the heart of that collection in the sayings about new wine and new garments (2:21-22)

In 1:21-22 the first point to note is that Jesus enters the synagogue on the sabbath. He is at home in his own religious tradition among his own people. Mark tells us more: he teaches. So he is not only at home there; he takes on a responsibility within that tradition: he teaches. After the powerful introduction of 1:1-15, we might wonder what this Jesus is going to do. Here we have an answer: he teaches. By implication that will also be a role for the fishworkers who follow him, right through to today. It is a little odd that in so many parts of the church teaching must be defended or reawakened – sometimes desperately when we realise how lack of teaching has created such a gap between clergy and lay people.

The people are amazed not that he teaches, but at the authority with which he teaches. What did they mean? Did he rant and rave? Did he shout? Was he ‘so sincere’, a quaint blessing bestowed on earnestness by people baffled by intensity? Was he clever with rhetoric, an adept story teller? He may have done all of those things or none of them. The context forces us to guess what Jesus must have taught. It does not get much better for chapters to come, because even in Mark 4, where we get parables, they are all about the effects of his teaching, rather than the teaching itself.

Our best guess is to look back at 1:14-15. He taught about the kingdom. Our next guess is to note the sandwich structure: it must be about forcefulness or, at least, it must have been disempowering of oppressiveness, i.e.. liberating. ‘And not as the scribes’ in 1:22 is an important clue. How did they teach? From Mark’s gospel we would have to conclude that much of their teaching was concerned with fine points of interpretation of the Law. And from the rest of the gospel we would have to conclude that Jesus’ teaching must have focused on central themes like God’s compassion.

In Mark and elsewhere we find Jesus often teaching with a directness which drew on common life experience rather than derivatively by interpreting scripture. This had the effect of shifting the power base of knowledge from the experts (in scripture, scribes) to the common people, who all knew about common life experience. It was a different way of doing theology, which democratised the process. This may have been in Mark’s mind. From the perspective of the New Testament as a whole it makes a lot of sense.

Mark interrupts our thought by the account of the exorcism but will lead us back to the theme – wiser – in 1:27-28. I don’t think Mark means us to see the synagogue as a gathering place for demons and the demonic, as though this is a not very subtle besmirching of Judaism. Rather Jesus is, if you like, claiming the space and belonging to it. The confrontation is described simply but powerfully. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ could translate the first sentence. It will be echoed in the words of the Gerasene demoniac in 5:7. It is desperately confrontative, because the demon recognised that Jesus could destroy its power. ‘The holy one of God’ says what it means. Peter will acclaim Jesus in these terms in John 6:69. It may have no particular technical background. It certainly recalls all that was said of Jesus at his baptism and must mean something similar to ‘the Son of God’ which we find on the lips of other demons (3:11; 5:7; cf. also 1:34). Through it Jesus becomes a way of defining holiness – worth remembering!

Claiming knowledge was a power game then among demons – as it is now! Naming is supposed to allow one to control what or who is named – just watch the way names are used in interviews! The demoniac gets his christology right! He will not be the first to think that getting the theology right is a fine way to silence Jesus.

Jesus silences the demon and demands he depart. The demon does so, but not without yelling at the top of his voice. The exorcism is achieved. The demoniac has been liberated. For those of us brought up with strict scientific methods such accounts of exorcism call for more informed explanations. They feel so strange that we may want to avoid them altogether. It is then very hard to appreciate Mark who has made them so central. There are ways of slipping the awkwardness we feel. The trouble is we may end up slipping past the message of Mark. However we understand exorcisms, those reported from the ancient world or from present day cultures unlike our own, something real is happening. People are being set free. Physical contortions and hugely dramatic moments will occur in many different therapies, whether the frame of thought is demonology or modern psychotherapy.

The important thing is liberation, setting people free. This is an essential component of the "good news" of God's reign. It is a demonstration of what is meant when John predicts that Jesus will baptise with the Spirit. For Mark exorcising unclean spirits is a primary function of the Holy Spirit and the key element one should recognise in what Jesus is doing (see 3:28-29 and remarkably according to Matt 12:32 even more important than getting one's christology right!).

In 1:27-28 Mark returns us to the theme of authority and teaching. Now we know that he is writing about the kind of teaching which liberates, which discerns the demonic powers which oppress people (whatever the intellectual framework used to identify them) and seeks to bring about new beginnings. We must not slide too quickly into a kind of liberation theology which then uses such exorcisms only as a symbol and sums up Jesus’ or Mark’s gospel as a programme to combat political oppression. That is certainly an implication, although the social analysis it presupposes is a product of modern thought and not to be read back into Mark or Jesus. Their ancient social analysis used the language of apocalyptic as its sphere of discourse and rarely saw beyond it.

We are sometimes closer to Mark’s account of the exorcism when we are doing pastoral care, although wisdom teaches us that we are mostly not competent to handle such situations and should seek appropriate resources. The kingdom of God in Mark is good news because it brings liberation at a number of levels. The central thing is enabling people to be how God made them to be. That must involve addressing powers and gods that enslave. The more we understand how they work, the richer our understanding of redemption. We cannot be satisfied with ancient spheres of discourse, but nor should we imagine our own have constructed reality without remainder or that somehow by intellectually docetic magic Jesus thought just like us. What we can say is that Mark leaves us in no doubt about what constituted good news in his world, what the kingdom means, what happens when the Spirit ‘baptises’ people. The last thing Mark wants is for us or our congregations to be left behind when we encounter his opening scene. One of the skills of the pastor is to create the space, the ‘synagogue’, where our madness can come face to face with the holiness of Jesus. That also means coming to terms with our own madness.

Epistle: Epiphany 4: 29 January 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Epiphany 3

William Loader

Epiphany 3: 22 January Mark 1:16-20

It would have been possible for Mark to have proceeded straight from 1:15 to 1:21, namely, straight from Jesus’ announcement of God’s reign to an illustration of that reign in action, the expulsion of the demonic power from the man in the synagogue. Instead Mark reports the call of two sets of disciples, Simon (Peter) and Andrew and James and John. This is surely no accident. Jesus was not a solo act, according to Mark. The ‘good news of the kingdom’ is about what happens to people and it is also about people, about community.

This does not stop Mark from exploiting the human frailty of the disciples to the limit as he uses them to expose value systems which conflict with those of Jesus (see, for instance, 9:33-34; 10:35-45). Nevertheless, the good news includes disciples. It is not just about Jesus. It includes in the broadest sense the Church. The Church performs about as well as the disciples in Mark, but it is still part of the breaking in of God’s reign or can be. That is why Mark tells his story the way he does.

When we look ahead through Mark’s gospel, we see how Mark makes special use of the disciples to add a framework to his narrative. It is as though he wants to keep reminding us that disciples are needed. We belong! First he recalls this episode beside the sea when he recounts the call of Levi in 2:13-14, but the next major focus on the disciples is really 3:13-19, when Jesus goes up a high mountain and appoints the twelve. One can scarcely miss the allusions to Israel and Sinai. After that the next major focus in 6:7-13 where he sends out the twelve. He sends them out to do what he, himself, had been doing. We can scarcely miss the point here, too. Jesus is not a solo act!

‘Follow me and I will make you become fishers of people’ (1:17). The image of fishing often carries negative tones. Jeremiah uses it to speak of God catching people in order to bring them to judgement (16:16). Amos speaks of people being caught and taken off with fishhooks (4:20). What does Jesus mean? There have been many answers. After all, this is a favourite verse for describing Christian mission. At its crudest, such ‘fishing’ is akin to scalp hunting: getting as many people to join the movement as possible, with a focus on quantity. Where such thinking prevails, people too easily become the statistics of success and caring becomes movement centred rather than people centred. The context does not suggest that the disciples went out in search of numbers, any more than Jesus did.

The clue to Jesus’ meaning, at least in Mark, must be Mark’s Jesus. It will mean reaching out and touching people, bringing healing, liberation, renewal. It will mean joining Jesus’ ‘act’. The immediate context would lead one to suspect this anyway: the good news of the kingdom is going to include the disciples. They are to be involved. This is why their calling comes precisely here in Mark’s story. The word, ‘evangelism’, is unfortunate, because it too easily sounds like making people into objects, fish to be hooked, rather than persons to be loved. But loving will also include caring for people at the level where they make major changes in life direction and ‘evangelism’ in the best sense at least includes that.

One of the problems of this passage is that people can access it only by treating it symbolically. In that sense we are all called ‘to follow’ Jesus and to become fishworkers. But the story, itself, should not be shorn too quickly of its literalness. It doubtless reflects the historical situation in Jesus’ ministry in which only some were called in this way. By far the majority who believed in Jesus’ message stayed at home. He asked only a small number to join him on his meanderings. Theirs became a particular role and they were being given a particular formation. They were not better than the rest, but simply given a special calling. They are the beginnings of a particular order of ministry which later all too often saw itself as superior. But whether in ‘ordered’ ministry of this kind or belonging to the order of ministry living in local reality, the challenge to all is to be part of the kingdom.

We don’t need to put Zebedee down! Someone still needs to mend the nets and people will still need fish! It is interesting that Zebedee is even an employer with hired staff. Sometimes we idealise Jesus' world and imagine his entourage is made up of destitute people. That is subtly comfortable to contemplate and makes us spectators. Instead, the movement was diverse, and as in most movements for change, it is often those who identify with the poor, but who have enough to eat and enough education to take initiatives, who exercise leadership. This will have been the case with many in the first movement and it remains the challenge for all who have resources today.

The calling of James and John and Simon and Andrew and such other callings to leave all and follow function as a protest not against life at home, but more generally against societal structures which simply perpetuate the past and trap people into the service of the status quo and its gods. But Jesus’ socially disruptive call upset the system not only for those called but also for those left behind. It called for a new way of looking at life, wherever you are. There is a new set of priorities. This means changed values, but it is more than that. It means a new god, or better, a return to the God of compassion and justice. That will make a huge difference wherever we are.

Epistle: Epiphany 3: 22 January 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Epiphany 2

William Loader

Epiphany 2: 15 January John 1:43-51

John’s account of the call of the disciples is simple and different from that of the first three gospels – enough to worry people who cannot contemplate differences within their Bible. It is even possible that John freely rewrote what he remembered from them. We can certainly recognise common traditions, such as Peter’s naming, back in 1:42. The other gospels tell us next to nothing about Philip and Nathanael. Nathanael is a very Jewish name; Philip, like Andrew, reflects the long standing influence of Hellenistic fashions in Palestine. We may assume they are Jews; Bethsaida is just over the border from Capernaum in Philip the tetrarch’s territory which included many Gentile cities. Perhaps this is why he is later the go-between when ‘Greeks’ want to see Jesus (12:20-21).

The major focus of the passage falls however on Nathanael. He not only has the Jewish name; he is an image of true Israel. John the Baptist had explained that his ministry was designed to help reveal Jesus to Israel (1:31). Nathanael is now representing Israel. Israel was the name given to Jacob. We find two references to Jacob in the passage: Nathanael has no guile – so he certainly beats Jacob on that score! And Nathanael is to have a vision reminiscent of Jacob’s at Bethel in Gen 28.

He is also something of a snob in relation to Nazareth. Did he know something we do not? Like, that Nazareth housed bandits? Snobbery about Galilee was not uncommon, but this is more specific. Welcome to the ranks of the prejudiced, Nathanael! But at least he was willing to change his mind.

A mini-miracle persuades him. Jesus saw him sitting under the fig tree before Philip called him. Here, too, symbolic overtones abound. The posture recalls the image of the ideal Israelite in utopia, probably sitting studying the Law. Nathanael’s question: ‘Whence do you know me?’ belongs to a regular pattern of questions in John which play on where Jesus is coming from, because that is really the secret of his ministry.

As a model of Israel Nathanael makes the model response: ‘You are the son of God, you are the king of Israel’ (1:49). Notice the association of the two royal messianic terms: ‘son of God and king of Israel.’ ‘King of the Jews’ will be written as mockery over his slumped body on the cross. Like much of John’s narrative and especially the responses to Jesus, Nathanael’s acclamation, too, bristles with ambiguity. Jesus will refuse such acclamation in 6:14-15 after the feeding of the 5000. Soon, too, Nicodemus will acclaim that Jesus must be a teacher come from God because no one can do these miracles which he is doing unless God is with him (3:2). But, for all that, Nicodemus does not really see and must be born anew (3:3), like those who ‘believed in his name’ in 2:23-25, to whom Jesus would not entrust himself.

Doubtless Nathanael’s confession is to be taken positively, but notice the immediate qualification: ‘Because I said I saw you under the fig tree you believe? You shall see greater things than these’ (1:50). Then Jesus explains enigmatically to Nathanael (and to everyone else – ‘you’ is plural): ‘You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man’ (1:51). These greater things are not bigger and better miracles. They are about what is to happen to Jesus, what we will see, especially at his death. Such contrasts are common in John. Jesus will scold Nicodemus for not seeing what he is doing on earth and then asks: ‘How are you going to believe if I tell you heavenly things?’ (3:12). He then goes on to speak of the lifting up of the Son of Man, his ascension (3;13-14). And after the extensive discussion which follows the feeding of the 5000 Jesus makes much the same point. You have problems with what I am claiming to be now: ‘What if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?’ (6:61-62). Here, as in 3:13, 1:51 and elsewhere, John has Jesus speak of himself as Son of Man when he announces his future exaltation, glorification, ascension, and return to the Father. These all refer to the one single complex event which take place at Jesus’ death.

John consistently has Jesus make the point that people miss the point about him if they do not see him in the light of this great event. Why? Because only then does he achieve atonement by offering himself as a sacrifice? That is not John’s focus. For him life is in the relationship with Jesus and is there even before his death. Rather the great event to come will have the effect of revealing who Jesus is and what he is now about. He comes and goes from the heart of God and he sends and summons from the heart of God. The last discourses, in particular, explain that when he goes he will send the Spirit and he will send the disciples. 14:12 even uses the same kind of language: ‘The works which I am doing you will do and greater things than these will you do because I go to the Father’. These works are not miracles, as though the disciples will even outshine Jesus as wonder workers, but refer to doing what Jesus was sent to do: to make the Father known, to build relationships of love with God and among those who believe.

Nathanael is promised that he will see Jesus one day as the focus of angelic adoration. John leaves aside other details of Jacob’s dream, like the ladder. If anything, Jesus is to be envisaged atop the ladder. John might have made something of Jesus and his ministry as a ladder between heaven and earth, but he does not. His focus is on the great event to come which has at its heart the glorification and exaltation of the Son of Man after his death. When it occurs, then Nathanael will really know who Jesus is (see John 8:28 for the same thought). Then he will really know what Jesus has done and what he wants Nathanael to be and do.

Then messianic acclamations will only make sense if they are transposed into a new key where the tune they play is about the Son who came to make the Father known, to offer light and life and truth and build a community of love. That is the melody which keeps repeating itself in John and is the essence of John’s critical theology of spirituality. Acclamations only mean something when they mean this. The rest may be fervent devotion but it is blind, even if it cites biblical prophecy and speaks the right words. Jesus doesn’t want the big crowds running after him. Or, at least, he wants to lead them, as he led Nathanael, beyond amazement at miracles (which he is quite happy to affirm) to wonder at what they symbolise, the life he offered and now made universally available (so much ‘greater’ in scope) through the witness of the community of faith and its action. That’s where we are! Or are we still where Nathanael was – and Nicodemus and the crowds and ‘the believers’?

Epistle: Epiphany 2: 15 January 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The Baptism of Jesus

William Loader

Baptism of Jesus: 8 January Mark 1:4-11

‘O that you would rend the heavens and come down!’ These words of Isaiah 64:1 may have influenced Mark’s choice of language here: Jesus ‘saw the heavens rent open’ (1:10). This is a very graphic way of doing christology. In Jesus there is a meeting of the God sphere and the human sphere. I sometimes think it is helpful to turn the whole scene upside down: in Jesus God surfaces from the depths in a special way! Mark offers little explanation. Nothing he says diminishes God’s "godness" or Jesus’ humanity. He simply reports Jesus’ baptism vision in a way that makes unmistakably clear that the story which follows is about God’s activity, the good news of God (1:14) and this is inextricably bound up with the activity of Jesus over the months that follow.

We need to move forwards and backwards from this heaven rending vision to be able to weigh its significance. Backwards, we find Jesus immersed by John in the Jordan, taking his place among John’s hearers as one who responds to the call to be ready for God’s future, ready to be immersed in it. That future is the focus rather than human cult heroes, so Mark has no worries portraying Jesus as submitting to John’s novel rite (usually you immersed yourself!). Preoccupation with power and status will find the scene embarrassing and need to drop John down a peg or two.

Back further (1:7-8) we find John asserting clearly that the one to come is his superior and will baptise with Spirit, as he baptised with water. Reading forwards we expect some news about this one who will baptise with the Spirit and the baptismal scene provides it. Here is both the person of whom John spoke and the Spirit with which he will baptise, descending like a dove (a symbol of gods? of the hovering Spirit of Genesis? certainly gentle). If we did not know Luke’s writings and his report in Acts of the day of Pentecost, we would expect that this immersing in the Spirit is about to take place. Doubtless this is Mark’s meaning. Jesus is about to baptise in the Spirit; he is about to commence his ministry which is the good news of God.

Though the word, Spirit, occurs infrequently in Mark, it comes at key points which confirm that Mark sees John’s prophecy being fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry. The Spirit takes Jesus away into the wilderness (1:12). In 3:28-30 Jesus describes his exorcisms, in particular, as works of the Spirit. Baptising with the Spirit, according to Mark, is being a bearer of the Spirit to people in a way that brings release and freedom. It is sad that such a rich image has been reduced in some circles to a description of a ‘second high’ in spiritual, emotional experience. It is profoundly spiritual and profoundly earthed, is repeatable (unlike John’s baptism) and has to do with being set free so, in turn, to become good news for others.

1:7-8 also focus on the person of Jesus. He is stronger. He is more worthy. Again the baptismal scene tells us why. He is the bearer of the Spirit; we are enabled to see that. Then we hear: ‘You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.’ In these words there is a flood of allusions. We might think of Abraham’s ‘beloved son’, Isaac (Gen 22). I doubt that all the associated imagery of sacrifice is meant here, because the focus is on the actions of ministry through the Spirit. Or does the rent heaven already point forward to the rent curtain of the temple at Jesus’ death? Possibly, possibly not.

There is, however, a clear allusion to Isaiah 42:1, ‘You are my servant in whom I am well pleased’, which links Jesus to the prophetic calling often associated with the Spirit (also in Isaiah 42:1; see also Isaiah 61:1). But even here there is not a direct quotation; rather the words are; ‘You are my beloved son’. Perhaps in the tradition before Mark, Greek and Aramaic words which meant both servant and child facilitated the change, but in Mark clearly Jesus is addressed as ‘Son’, as he will be, again, at the transfiguration (9:9).

Perhaps the adoption formula employed at royal coronations and preserved in Psalm 2:7 (‘You are my son; today I have made you my son/given birth to you’) has influenced the wording. It was very probably applied also in speculation about the coming future anointed (messiah/Christ) king of Israel. Such an anointed one was to be anointed with the Spirit (Isaiah 11:2). Certainly for Mark Jesus is the fulfilment of that messianic hope, but he is also more than Israel’s messiah, a ‘son of David’ (see Mark 12:35-37). Mark is telling us that Jesus stands in a special relationship to God, such that God can address him as his beloved (almost ‘chosen’, ‘only’) Son. Mark can do this without apparently knowing of or espousing the kind of christology which portrays Jesus as existing in the heavens as God’s son long before his birth, or, in Mark’s case, ministry, such as we find in John and also in its early stages in Paul. The sequence of passing through water and then into the wilderness may also be suggesting that Jesus is representative of God’s people, God’s children, Israel.

It is likely that all these threads come together in the weave. Jesus is God’s beloved son, who, as the parable of the wicked tenants expounds (12:1-12), has come in the succession of the prophets, seeking the fruits of the harvest. Preoccupation with possession and power on the part of the tenants will kill him. They will not find him pleasing at all!

Back further still (1:4-6) we find the first instalment of God’s new initiative: the coming of John, calling people to change and providing a novel rite through which people could appropriate forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins and the novel rite are not abandoned when Jesus comes, but form a continuing part of the message (although during his ministry we hear nothing of baptism). Indeed some people become so preoccupied with them that they would describe the gospel only in terms of forgiveness of sins, missing out all that Jesus adds!

Looking forward beyond 1:9-11 will also interpret the text and belongs to the coming Sundays. Stopping at 1:9-11 might have been enough to found a cult. But Mark wants us to see the good news rather in terms of dynamic action which flows from the Spirit and the special relation of Jesus to God, a model also for what it means to be Christian and to be Christian community.

Epistle: Baptism of Jesus: 8 January Acts 19:1-7

New Year's Day

William Loader

Christ the King: 20 November Matthew 25:31-46

This is the climax of the Church's year. It is also the climax of Jesus' teaching ministry in Matthew. Ancient writers were very conscious of the importance of such a position within a narrative. Here we can expect matters of central significance for Matthew and this is what we find. It is the judgement day. Jesus is present in a semi-parable as the Son of Man. It is still a parable of sorts as the animal images suggest, but it is just as much a vision of the judgement day. In that sense it is fairly close to the kind of visions we hear described in Daniel, 1 Enoch and Revelation.

'His glorious throne' (literally, 'the throne of his glory') is language which also occurs in the Enoch literature in 1 Enoch 37-71, the central section which, though absent from the fragments of 1 Enoch found in the caves of the Dead Sea, nevertheless probably stems from early times, many would suggest at least the time of Matthew.

It is a vision of the judgement of all the nations. This is important since it makes it clear that this is universal judgement. It is not just a judgement of Israel or of the church. Ultimately such status, one way or other, counts for nothing. What counts is attitude and performance. 'The least of these' to whom caring is shown or not shown could refer to Christians, since Matthew's community appears to have called itself the community of the little ones and they are Jesus' family. A large number of manuscripts add the words, 'my brothers', which would strengthen the reference to believers.

It would be striking to find that the criterion on the judgement day will be how people have treated Christians. Reinforcing such an interpretation is the fact that Jesus identifies himself with these least ones. They are his church. The same thought would be operating here as in Acts where the risen Jesus on the Damascus Road confronts Paul with why he was persecuting him (Jesus), because to persecute Christians is to persecute Jesus. An interpretation like this might be seen to introduce a new element, not foreshadowed elsewhere. This would be unusual in such a closing piece. On the other hand, the whole chapter is focusing on believers and is addressed to disciples. Certainly it at least includes response to Christians, but the focus of the response is less their status and more their need.

There is a logic in Matthew's thinking which makes us think more universally, especially Matthew's denial of privilege both to children of Abraham, and to the church. Just as there is no distinction when it comes to the criterion of caring, whether one is a child of Abraham, a Christian or nothing, so there is no distinction to be made among who should be the recipient of love. Seen in that light, the vision is highlighting typically Matthean themes and echoes the Sermon on the Mount. Judgement will be by our fruit. What matters is not our status or achievements, but our continuing willingness to let the life of God be lived through us, concretely: our love for people.

Matthew is not saying: pretend Jesus is in people and that will enable you to love them. Rather the sheep loved people because of who they were as people. The notion that in doing so they were also loving Jesus came to them as a surprise. The loving was real, not a means to enhance their relationship with Jesus. Please love me because I am me, not because you imagine I am someone I am not. Seeing Christ in others and in the needy, especially, need not, of course, be as abusive as that. It has been for many a helpful notion which has in no way diminished their love for the person in question. But that kind of piety easily lends itself to a distraction from person centred care.

Ultimately only love matters and Matthew's faith says love is never anonymous. Love is always a participation in Christ's love whether we label it so or not. Again Matthew is down to earth. This simple insight cuts across claims to privilege and all the religious disqualifications which accompany them. It even invites us to identify the love of God when it is active beyond our territory, to use last week's imagery, to see the harvest where Christian hands have not sown. Matthew levels all religious privilege in the name of loving and understanding God as loving.

It is remarkable that such insight can also stand beside Matthew's constant strategy of motivation by threat of punishment. The persistence with this strategy always threatens to uproot the seed being sown. It breeds fear and fear tends to bury love in the ground. This is the phenomenon of the Scriptures which offer us old and new, life and sometimes death. Engaging it confronts us nevertheless with God's word. On this day of 'Christ, the king,' we might see in this the different models of Christ's kingship which persist. The image which strives against the norms of all societies is not the imperial lord but the broken servant bearing a crown of thorns.

It has been very hard trying to resist the tendency to treat Easter as a reversal of all that Jesus was instead of an affirmation of all that he was. Jesus was not an exception in the life of God, but the rule. His subversive summons to a new understanding of human greatness is not to be abandoned after Easter by projecting our imperious will to power into an image of Christ enthroned in military splendour. What we do to him we do to ourselves; little wonder we have sanctioned such power in church and society. The will to destroy our enemies finds its ultimate sanction in a theology that has God do the same; the one sanctions the other. We should not then be surprised to find Christians advocating capital punishment and handling conflicts in ways that abandon the path of reconciliation. Yet Matthew's parable also offers an alternative vision: of one who is ever to be found in loving and being loved, in change and confrontation and hope.

Epistle: Christ the King: 20 November Ephesians 1:15-23

Advent 4

William Loader

Advent 4: 18 December Luke 1:26-38

In one of the most beautiful scenes of Luke’s infancy narratives a heavenly angel meets a young woman, Mary. It almost calls for music and ballet. The ancient world is celebrating not so much a birth as a life, but in doing so transposes the mystery and wonder of that life into its first moments. The Christmas stories are not really about a baby; they are about the person of Christ. To miss that is to miss their point.

Modern minds, schooled in the mechanisms of reproduction, must suspend their disbelief and enter the fantasy of the story. A virgin girl conceives, is overshadowed by an angel. The miracle begins. In this life God is to be found. She will receive the seed and bear the child. Undiluted divinity will flow through his life. We are light years away from talk of chromosomes and genetics, but we are celebrating the immanence of the God whom we, too, may meet in our moments of intimacy.

There is no need – and no firm historical warrant – for inverting later anti-Christian propaganda to the effect that a Roman soldier had raped Mary. We don’t need to rape the story to express solidarity with the violated, much as it would create a rich and powerful myth of Christ’s beginnings. Nor should the unreality disturb us of imagining the credibility of teenagers explaining pregnancy by angelic encounters today. In the story we are dealing with narrative artistry’s way of telling profound truth.

It is also a distortion to read the passage as disparaging human sexuality, as though virginity is somehow purer than a life fully engaged in sexual intimacy. There are angels around in moments of ecstasy and the divine Spirit is regularly linked in biblical tradition to conception and birth. Even the language used here contains echoes of such stories, especially later in the Magnificat which recalls Hannah’s prayer (1 Sam 2:1-10). The caring lover or mother can be as immaculate as any virgin.

Luke sets the story amid the cries of the Jewish people for liberation from Rome’s oppression, Rome’s forced ‘peace’. In Isaiah 7:14, ‘A young woman shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us’, Isaiah in his day offered a sign of deliverance for Judah from the threatening alliance of its northern compatriots of Israel with the Syrians. Here the sign has been recycled to point to coming liberation from the Romans. The Greek, which uses ‘parthenos’, ‘virgin’, either fits the story well or gave rise to it.

The world of Luke’s infancy narratives is consistently one of faithful people crying out, often in nationalist terms, for liberation, awaiting a Messiah. A ‘son of the highest’ who would ascend David’s throne, was a hope which featured strongly among the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere. Mostly, Christian interpreters gloss over Luke’s use of these aspirations or spiritualise them, so that in Jesus’ ministry we are told to see their complete fulfilment. There is some truth is this; the one who in Luke 4:16-20 will announce his mandate using Isaiah 61:1 does bring a new kind of peace. But the yearning for liberation is not thereby dulled. On the Emmaus road the hope remains alive and is not negated (Luke 24:21). In Acts 1:6 it achieves prominence in resurrection dialogue: ‘Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ Jesus’ response does not rubbish the yearning, but cautions only about its timing. According to Luke, Jesus’ vision of the kingdom includes the good news of liberation from oppression: freedom! It remains the vision and sets the agenda.

The romance of the story becomes water in the sand if we cannot connect it with the yearning of all people everywhere who cry out for justice. It becomes, indeed, too often a comforting indulgence for the oppressors, a story to supplement our excesses. In the eyes of Mary we need to see the innocence and vulnerability of a twelve year old girl caught in a web of poverty and deprivation. We may catch a glimpse of her in TV reports from the ‘two thirds world’. We may think of village girls forced into urban prostitution, to survive maybe 10 – 15 years with AIDS rather than die of starvation at home, or catch the hapless glance of the child labourer looking up, numbed, amid the glue fumes of the shoe workhouse.

When Matthew’s community transformed ‘Blessed are the poor (the destitute)’ (Luke 6:20) into ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matthew 5:3), it might have been a first step in avoidance of reality, as it frequently became. More likely it arose from the realisation that the meaning of participating in God’s reign for everyone is to have a mind and heart that can enter into solidarity with the cries of the poor. Then Mary’s response becomes a profoundly spiritual litany for living: ‘Behold, the Lord’s maid; let it happen to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).

The familiar – for us who are now so used to the Christmas stories – is the unfamiliar: the ‘servant of the Lord’ is not a male hero, but a woman, just a poor girl. Divine grace cuts through prejudice to uphold the dignity of the least and expendable. It meets us in our vulnerability and our humanity, when we know we cannot be the world’s Messiah but can simply be what we are. Then there is room for pain and there is room for joy. Then we can enter fully into the fantasy of the Christmas story and know its profound reality.

Epistle: Advent 4: 18 December Romans 16:25-27

Advent 3

William Loader

Advent 3: 11 December John 1:6-8,19-28

This week we are again with John the Baptist, but this time we have the version of the fourth gospel. The first three verses pop up suddenly in the prologue which celebrates Jesus as the Word. Jesus is the Word, the Logos.

The preamble to John’s gospel, 1:1-18, uses the ancient Jewish image of Wisdom, pictured as a person with God from the beginning and seeking to entice Israel to the ways of wisdom and away from the enticements of evil. In depicting both enticements female imagery is used. People transformed the image when they began to say: Jesus is the real wisdom which makes sense of this world; he is its ‘logic’, its logos. In Jesus we encountered that logic in flesh and blood. Like wisdom – or better: as wisdom – he was there with God in the beginning. He is God’s communication, God’s representative, and so the one who brings life and light.

When we hear in 1:6 that there was ‘a man sent from God’, we might at first think that it is speaking about Jesus, especially if we are familiar with the favourite terms of the fourth gospel. For among them is the image of Jesus as the one sent from God. But 1:6 is about John the Baptist, as are 1:7-8. The other reference to John in the preamble is 1:15 (not part of the lectionary selection); its content reappears in 1:27. Many believe that the preamble to John’s gospel, often called the prologue, existed once independent of the gospel and reflects an earlier Christian tradition about Jesus as the Logos. Certainly that image does not appear anywhere else in the gospel. It may well be that the author adapted it to make it the introduction of the gospel and it is possible that in doing so he added the verses about John which would then make the transition easier to what followed.

It becomes clear when we look at the lectionary passage as a whole that John the Baptist was important to the writer and to at least some of his hearers. It is also clear that there were dangers in overemphasising that importance. The gospel writer is so focused on Jesus that he has no interest in John’s own contribution beyond that he pointed to Jesus. There should be no mistake about this as his chief role. 1:20 makes it monotonously clear: ‘And he confessed and did not deny and he confessed, "I am not the Christ"’. That is double underlining! Elsewhere we read of followers of John the Baptist (Acts 19:1-6) and traditions preserved by the later Mandean sect suggest that some saw in him a saviour. This might explain why the author almost falls over backwards to play down John’s role.

The alternatives, Christ (Messiah), Elijah, prophet, in 1:20-25, remind us of Mark 8:27-29, where the same options are mentioned in Jesus’ conversation with his disciples about what people were saying about him. They appear earlier in Mark 6:14-16. This may have inspired the author to frame this scene. There was an expectation that at the climax of history a prophet like Moses would appear (based on Deut 18:15-18). There was also the widespread belief that Elijah would reappear (based on Malachi 3:1 and 4:5). Some people thought Jesus was crying for Elijah on the cross (Mark 15:34-36). Both figures appear with Jesus in the vision on the mount of transfiguration (Mark 9:2-8). On the way down from the mountain Jesus explains that John equates to Elijah (Mark 9:11-13). People identified ‘the messenger’ in ‘I will send my messenger to prepare the way before me’ Malachi 3:1 with Elijah who is mentioned in Malachi 4:5. The writer of the fourth gospel may echo that tradition in 3:28. But here he sets aside all such honours for John. He cites Isaiah 40:3, as did Mark in 1:3, as a prediction of John’s preaching in the wilderness.

The common tradition shared with Mark reappears also in 1:26-27. It includes: ‘I baptise with water’ but we have to wait until 1:33 for the second half of the saying (according to Mark 1:8), the reference to Jesus’ baptising with the Spirit. The author’s concern appears to be to put John in his place, not too significant but also not too insignificant. John the Baptist’s chief role is to bear testimony to Jesus. It is also the chief role of the Bible (the Old Testament) in John. All the focus is on Jesus.

Nevertheless it is striking that so much that is said of Jesus is also said of John in the fourth gospel. Both are sent from God. The chief role of both is to bear witness. Later John will also be described as a bringer of light (5:35). In that sense both are pointing beyond themselves to someone else. The difference is that John is a human being, whereas Jesus is the divine Word. His humanity is just as real as John’s, but in this humanity the eternal Word communicates as never before. The light and life that is God’s are now made accessible through this Jesus.

The ‘logic’ of the universe, the Logos, the Wisdom which makes sense of it is in him. John the Baptist and the scriptures are now set in this perspective; they are seen as pointing to this single reality. They do not compete; they serve this central focus. Like the use of the image of wisdom, so the use of the traditions about John and of the scriptures serves a single function. This is a radical simplification characteristic of the fourth gospel. Even the traditional sayings and stories of Jesus are made to serve this single theme. He is life and light and truth. This is a way of doing theology and valuing religious tradition which reads beneath religious language a grammar about a relationship with God and centres this on Christ. It is capable of wider application, including the appreciation of quite different religious traditions.

Yet in no way does Jesus compete with God, any more than John the Baptist is allowed to compete with Jesus. Ultimately God is the central focus. This is reflected in the fact that the author uses the same language of Jesus as he does of John: being sent, bearing witness, etc. This characterises the so-called spirituality of the fourth gospel in which everything, including the earthly Jesus, is enveloped in central symbols which speak of light and life, water and bread, sourced ultimately in God alone.

In the Advent season such a reading encourages our focus on that centre, to look where John is looking (especially 1:29) and to know the one whom Jesus has made known (1:18). Ultimately it is about a spirituality which makes sense of life or doesn’t make sense at all.

Epistle: Advent 3: 11 December 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

Advent 2

William Loader

Advent 2: 4 December Mark 1:1-8

From last week, where we began the season of Advent and the liturgical year with the last words of Jesus’ ministry according to Mark, we swing back this week to the beginning of his gospel. Last week came from the setting of Mark’s hearers, concerned with what was going on in the world, especially the disaster befalling Jerusalem. This week’s passage is from the same general setting. What is going on in the world!?

It begins with the claim that there is ‘good news’ for what is going on in the world. What can be ‘good news’ for what is going on in the world, Mark’s or ours? It is a big claim to say you have something that is ‘good news’ in any world! So Mark sets the agenda: how Jesus was good news and brought good news and how we can be good news. For people familiar with Roman propaganda the claim to "good news" might even sound subversive. There was only one son of God, bearer of good news, bringer of peace and ruler of the empire/kingdom (basileia) and that was not an obscure Galilean! "The good news", however, might have very different associations for those who longed for change. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the one bearing good news to Israel and announcing God's coming kingdom (Isaiah 52:7)! The Spirit anointed the prophet to proclaim good news to the poor and that meant liberation (Isaiah 61:1)! The cries of the poor and the acclamations of the emperor still compete in our ears.

But 1:1-8 is not yet the good news. It is setting the scene for it. In 1:2-3 Mark makes a connection with hope. He cites the Old Testament, loosely, naming "Isaiah". In fact it is Isa 40:3 introduced by Exodus 23:20 (which is also very similar to Malachi 3:1). The Exodus passage originally refers to the angel who would go before Israel in the wilderness. Here it refers to John the Baptist. Malachi 3:1 speaks of a messenger whom God would send. These allusions combine well with the prophecy of Isaiah about a voice crying out that people should get ready for the Lord’s coming. The people who wrote the Community Rule of the Dead Sea Scrolls had already used this verse to explain their identity. They used the Hebrew text which speaks of preparing in the wilderness the way of the Lord. Mark uses the Greek text which has swapped ‘in the wilderness’ so that it now describes where the voice is crying. That fits John better.

The upshot of Mark’s opening sentences is that the good news which will come with Jesus follows God’s intention expressed both in biblical prophecy and in God’s action of inspiring John the Baptist. A sense of continuity is important for a community of faith: what happened in Jesus did not leave the past behind; it continued it. The God of Jesus is the God already known in actions of the past. This God means well; this God delivers.

The links with such memory and such hope are also present in the echo of Israel’s liberation from Egypt and especially of the time in the wilderness. Wilderness, in Australia, ‘outback’, was the place of waiting and preparation before big events. We know that many groups who aspired to liberating Judea from the Romans started in the wilderness, from the sectarians of the Dead Sea to the revolutionaries reported in Acts 5:36-37 and Josephus. Wilderness was a symbol loaded with hope. It evoked the response: what good news is this? What liberation is on offer? Mark is setting the scene for Jesus.

The drama is intense as Mark reports the strength of the response to John. For Mark, John has little to say beyond pointing to Jesus. In Q’s account, preserved in Matthew and Luke, we hear of the preacher threatening judgement and fire. Mark probably assumes this, but the focus falls on baptism for the forgiveness of sins. This was an act of preparation. John was calling people of all kinds and all levels of society down to the water as a sign of their commitment to turn to God’s ways and away from sin. It was dramatic. John, himself, plunged them beneath the water and earned for that the nickname, the baptiser or baptist, because water rites, including immersion, were usually self administered. Submitting to John symbolised submitting to God, the God who freely cleanses away sin.

It was not that before John no one knew about forgiveness. One only needs to read the psalms which are full of God’s mercy and compassion. It was not forgiveness so much as the dramatic once for all conversion which John’s baptism symbolised which was new. Forgiveness is fundamental and essential for change. It is very odd that some people want to reduce the message of Jesus to forgiveness of sins as if it had not been there before. Clearly the good news must include forgiveness of sins, but it includes much, much more, as Mark will show.

The Bible already had a system for handling sin: the temple. We can understand that its priests were not altogether comfortable with John’s new dramatic rite. It was daring. Could it get out of control? One can imagine the temple setting up a commission to worry about it. Jesus would be an even bigger worry. It was untidy; such concern can easily become oppressive. Yet there was something neat about John’s waterside drama: everyone was at the same level. It was inclusive and confronting. It was simple. No room for pretence.

The simplicity appears to have been a feature also of John’s lifestyle. Clad in the basic attire of a prophet he lived from the good food nature provided (some people really liked locusts!). John lived what according to Matthew and Luke Jesus later preached: live simply; consider the flowers, the birds, how they feed. His lifestyle was in stark contrast to that of the wealthy and those who aspired to wealth; it was confronting of that lifestyle.

There is therefore a lot of good news already in John. Catch up with where John can take you - conversion, forgiveness, inclusiveness and a simple lifestyle - and you are well on the way to being good news for the world. Mark does not ‘hog’ all the good news for Jesus. The good news of Jesus presupposes the good news of John. That is why we still have water baptism. But John points to another baptism: the baptism of the Spirit. That is the good news Mark is about to recount; it is about to be initiated through Jesus.

John’s prediction of a great baptism to come probably referred originally to the wind or spirit and fire expected at the day of judgement, as his fiery preaching shows. For all his fervour John’s predictions did not quite happen as he expected. We find indications of this in the question he sent to Jesus from prison, reported in Matt 11:1-6 and Luke 7:18-23. So people rethought his prediction. Luke saw the prediction fulfilled at the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:4-5). Mark sees it fulfilled in Jesus’ ministry. The good news of the kingdom is that Jesus will bring liberation through the power of the Spirit. Mark goes on immediately after reporting the prediction of baptism with the Spirit to tell how the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism and drove him on (1:9-13). His ministry will be a baptism of this Spirit.

Advent preparation is preparation for life. We need at least to make it to where John takes us - John is a very good roadbuilder.

Epistle: Advent 2: 4 December 2 Peter 3:8-15a

Christ the King

William Loader

Christ the King: 20 November Matthew 25:31-46

Epistle: Christ the King: 20 November Ephesians 1:15-23

Pentecost 22

William Loader

Pentecost 22: 13 November Matthew 25:14-30

Talents! Talent quests! This passage has left its mark on our language and culture in a big way. It will have formed part of the Q collection, but has undergone significant change. Luke's version of the parable is in 19:12-27. There each servant is given 10 minas. A mina was worth about 100 denarii and a denarius about a day's living wage. Only Matthew's version speaks of talents. A talent was around 6000 denarii. So the first servant was given 30000 denarii. That is a hefty sum! What would it convert to in terms of a day's wage times 30000 today? $5m? Matthew - spinning a yarn! - but seriously.

Talent has so much become part of our vocabulary as a term for natural abilities, that we usually miss the point that the parable is talking about money and what you can do with it. The ancient world did not have our complex finance markets, but it knew about investments and profit. Many of Jesus' parables reflect economic practices of the day and how they affected people. People would know what you could do with such a sum. Money was powerful then, too.

The first parable used the image of oil to light lamps. This parable uses the image of money and what it can achieve. Just as in the first parable the oil comes close to being a description for the Spirit, so here the money is an image for what is potent in the kingdom and for the kingdom. It may also be seen as a way of talking about the Spirit or at least about the life of God within us. It is slightly missing the point to think it is talking about how we use our various natural abilities (talents in the modern sense). It has more to do with how we allow the life of God to flow through us - because it is powerful- like money!

There is a sting in the tail of the parable. The person who refused to let the money work identifies his fears. The owner reaps where he has not sown and gathers harvest that was not originally his. A pretty good description of hard business practice in any age. Fear of being abandoned seems to motivate burying the talents. Matthew's community might think of the controversy over the expansion of the gospel into the Gentile world and the refusal of some Jews to accept that the doors should be flung open so recklessly. God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure. In typically Matthean style the text promises only damnation for such lack of trust.

The parable challenges us not to sit on the life of God in us. That is a variant on the Matthean theme of keeping the oil in supply, living from the life of God and not sitting back in complacency on the basis of status or, here, not snuffing out the flame because our narrow values will not allow us to keep up with God's generosity.

If the modern use of talents has any relation to the text, it is at the level of allowing God's life do its adventures with us and putting our talents (our natural abilities) at God's disposal. The talents of the parable are really about God's life and power, not about our natural abilities. But the appropriate response is to allow God's investing hand to employ our abilities.

The tragedy is that many people are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God. Matthew wants his hearers to share God's adventure of inclusiveness. God is bigger than our religious industry. Sometimes we find God is pulling in great profits in areas which we had deemed beyond God's interests. It is a fascinating thing to have God compared to the entrepreneurial multimillionaire. "God's mercy never ends" is a way of saying grace has capital, love is rich. We need to encourage people to stop putting God under the mattress. As we begin to trust allowing God to move through us, our lives change as individuals and our communities have a better chance of change. There are rich pickings, so to speak, and the harvest is ripe.

Epistle: Pentecost 22: 13 November 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Pentecost 21

William Loader

Pentecost 21: 6 November Matthew 25:1-13

If you are choosing to use the 'All Saints' reading from Matthew 5:1-12, please see the comments for Epiphany 4.
Epiphany 4: Matthew 5:1-12. For the Epistle reading see the thoughts offered in Easter 3: 1 John 3:1-7

Matthew 24 has Matthew's version of Jesus' prediction of the devastation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. It draws upon and expands Mark 13. The transition from the charges in Matthew 23 to the prediction of judgement in Matthew 24, heightened by the omission of Mark's passage just before Mark 13 of the widow's gift, is a telling sequence. Judgement will fall on Jerusalem and its people for its rejection of Christ and the gospel. But, as we saw last week, Matthew will not countenance smugness and elitism. Matthew 24 ends with warnings to church leaders to be faithful servants (24:45-51) or to find they suffer the same fate as 'the hypocrites' (24:51).

Matthew 25 continues the challenge to Christians. The image of the wedding recalls the parable of the wedding feast. This is the imagery of celebration, an expression of the joy of the kingdom to come. This remains the focus. The girls have a role to play in greeting the bridegroom when he comes. They need to stock up on supplies and be ready to have their lamps burning brightly on the occasion. The familiar cultural image becomes in Matthew a kind of nightmare. The details should not be pressed - a bit mean of the girls who had supplies not sharing?

The point is readiness. This is not about 2000 years of trying to whip up expectations that Jesus just might come very soon. It is about sustaining the life of faith. It is another version of Matthew's theme of elitism. Having had lamps in hand which burned well once is no guarantee they will burn in future. Having the status of being Christian, even being a light bearer, means nothing if it is not a continuing part of our being. Many who were first will be last (20:1-16). Matthew is interested in enabling people to live in a relationship with God which has continuing significance and continuing life.

The image of the closed door is harsh. It recalls similar imagery in the sermon on the mount and doubtless its use there informs its use here (7:21-23). Those who are disowned at the door there are none other than Christians who claim so much in the Lord's name, including miracles. Matthew bursts the balloons of religious enthusiasm and waffle. Not in touch with love? Then not in touch with love! Much that masqueraded in all sincerity as Christian faith then as now is what Paul would call just a clanging noise, even it had chalked up spiritual successes (see 1 Corinthians 13). In their different ways both Matthew and Paul put the emphasis on love as the fruit which matters.

The traditional association of oil with anointing and thus with the Spirit allows us to use the language of walking in the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit, and bearing the fruit of the Spirit. It is appropriate where such Spirit language is in vogue to note that it is precisely in such areas that Matthew's issue arises. The language and wonders of the Spirit can lead people to be carried away into forms of religion which are full of effervescence but have little to do with the gospel. Paul addresses these dangers in 1 Corinthians 12-14. Matthew addresses them here and in 7:15-23. In Mark a similar slant away from such preoccupations is evident in the way he emphasises the pathway of lowliness and suffering rather than that of wonders and success. John's gospel has Jesus make the same point over against those who followed him primarily because of his wonders (2:23-25). Nicodemus is their spokesperson. They need to be born again to be able to see what Jesus is really about (3:1-3). Religion is frequently a distraction if not an escape from reality. Matthew keeps bringing us down to earth and will continue to do so in the passages which follow.

Epistle: Pentecost 21: 6 November 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Pentecost 20

William Loader

Pentecost 20: 30 October Matthew 23:1-12

This is the chapter of woes. It represents a massive expansion of what Mark brings in 12:37-40. Mark 12 then ends with the account of the widow and her generous meagre offering to the temple. She stands in contrast to the scribes and Pharisees against whom the woes have been spoken and who rip off widows and the vulnerable. Matthew omits the story of the widow. The result is that the woes against the scribes and Pharisees in chapter 23 lead directly to the prediction of God's judgement on the temple and Jerusalem in chapter 24. In the chapter of woes Matthew has expanded Mark with a large block of material drawn from Q (found also in Luke 11:39-52). Matthew's rule of exposition is that there is no room for smugness. Each of these charges may be just as applicable to the Christian community at some stage and history supports him.

It begins with an extraordinary statement about the scribes and Pharisees. They 'sit on Moses' seat' (23:2). That means they exercise authority for the administration of the Law in the broader social context where Matthew and his communities live, somewhere probably in the area of Galilee or southern Syria. There were not many places where this would have been the case, but it was so here in the late first century and the dominant group in Judaism by that time were the Pharisees. Galilee became their power base not long after the destruction of the temple and from there their influence spread. So Matthew's own situation is being reflected in this opening verse. A few other things are worth noting. The authority of Moses is not doubted; the Law, enshrined in Scripture, abides. Matthew and his community believe that, really, they should be the ones sitting there, but, until that is the case, the Law and its interpreters is to be respected.

A distinction then emerges in relation to the authority of those sitting on Moses' seat. Do what they say, not what they do (23:3) . People may need to say this of us at times, but here more blatant hypocrisy is envisaged. There is then another distinction which emerges. These interpreters of scripture also impose unrealistic burdens on people and offer no help to them to fulfil them (23:4). This appears to contradict the exhortation that one should do whatever they say, but the distinction being made is probably in relation to finer points. It is the difference between: here is the Law and this is what it should mean for you in detail. Matthew disputes the latter.

Matthew's whole approach to scripture is to interpret it on the basis of the love commands. Compassion and love dictate the way Scripture should apply, not a kind of legalistic bureaucracy which assumes God is a control freak. When God is our big ego writ large, then people will be abused in the name of purity or holiness or obedience. In every generation we can find examples of destructiveness done in the name of Scripture or even by means of Scripture. The challenges of chapter 23 have a way of coming home to roost.

Verses 5-7 take up the charges found in Mark 12:37-39. People bent on power surround themselves with the trappings of power, which are often designed to reinforce their claim. What we wear, where we sit, how we are greeted - these are elements of the persona we want people to see and respect. Behind it is often a frail yearning for love which has been met by such compensatory strategies. Abuse of others is frequently the result of exploiting others to meet our own stifled needs. The abuse may be as apparently harmless as captivating congregations with our preaching, framing our communities so that we are constantly affirmed, developing dependency on us among other needy people. Sometimes our garments (and what we do and where we sit) may serve the opposite: to remind ourselves and others that we are here to fulfil a task and are not pretending that we are doing it because we have arrived. If so, we will need to be straight about that. We are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread and occasionally it will help other beggars find the way if we wear a red cross, so to speak.

Matthew follows his principle of no elitism by directing similar warnings in 8-12 to the disciples. There is no place for either sitting back in smug judgement of others nor for imagining that being a follower of Jesus automatically protects us from falling into the very patterns we abhor in them. Matthew is very grounded. He hears the word of Jesus for his generation and it has abiding worth. So we, too, are to avoid playing games with titles. It appears that 'rabbi' first became a title of honour in the period when Matthew was writing, so the mention of 'rabbi' is particularly apt. 'Father' and 'teacher' are some of the options; we have plenty more.

If you are in ministry primarily to compensate for a low sense of your own importance, think again. Don't dive into depression and use the thought to put yourself down even further. Believe the importance God affirms in you. Consume it in the eucharist so it becomes part of your being. The more you do so and remain conscious of what you are doing and not doing, the less you will be fussed by the titles and all they symbolise and the less you will stand in succession to the kind of behaviour attacked here. The badges you might have to wear and titles you might have to carry will, like the vestments, be able to serve their true purpose: aids, if needed, to recognising roles and functions.

It is simply not so that Matthew is kidding the disciples that there is no self interest involved in leadership and so fostering the big lie that goes for piety according to which there is no self interest in what we do - a lie which often has disastrous consequences, especially when we are left with our real self interest ignored which is therefore likely to make itself felt subversively. Matthew's Jesus invites the disciples to think about greatness and what it mean to be lifted up. That is the clear motivation in 23:11-12. We want to be great; we want to do well. We want to be what God made us to be. We want to do what God wants us to do. We want to be so connected with God that what we want and what God wants become one. God wants us to be great. God wants us to rise up.

When we move towards seeing God's interests and our best interests and the best interests of others, when we get in touch with God's being as love, when we see that this is not a distraction from life but being truly in touch with life and the life giver, then we will take a big breath and dive. Let us be great in love. The magic is that here true self interest, God's interests, the world's best interests come together as one. It also means that we can stop playing games to conjure up alternative systems of worth where others are made to serve our distorted notion of self interest and where God and spirituality become a powerful weapon in our arsenal. Perhaps seeing all this first in a setting of ministry - the way Matthew leads us - will help us see that the same kinds of issues confront our hearers as much as ourselves as preachers.

Epistle: Pentecost 20: 30 October 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13

Pentecost 19

William Loader

Pentecost 19: 23 October Matthew 22:34-46

The passage includes the final two episodes of interchange between Jesus and his opponents in the temple. The first concerns the greatest commandment. Mark's version of the question about the greatest commandment of all is much more generous to the questioner, whom Jesus hails as not far from the kingdom (12:28-34). The man is genuine and ends up agreeing strongly with Jesus and mouthing basic tenets of Mark's theology: it is not sacrifice and offering that matters, but mercy and compassion, except that Mark would say the former do not matter at all.

Matthew twice uses Hosea 6:6 which expresses a similar thought: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice', adding it into stories he drew from Mark (Matt 9:13; 12:7). Matthew does not see this as an either-or and is careful never to give the impression that Jesus attacks the temple as such and its system. For that would entail an attack on parts of scripture. Matthew disapproved of Christians doing so and always revised Mark whenever he either seemed to, or actually did, set aside Scripture. This he does here, leaving out the comparison with sacrifices and also removing all the positive traits about the questioner. It is a little sad that Matthew lacks Mark's generosity and that the inner Jewish conflict had made it hard for him to acknowledge others' strengths.

Matthew does however add something: 'on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets' (22:40). They recall what Matthew said in 7:12, 'Therefore all that you want people to do for you, do likewise for them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.' Jesus, according to Matthew, has come not to set aside the Law and the Prophets but to uphold them, to fulfil them, to make sure they are understood and observed properly. The slightest deviance from this on the smallest detail (jot or tittle) warrants sharp condemnation (5:17-18). Hence Matthew's revision of Mark.

Matthew comes closest among the gospel writers to being fundamentalist, to use an anachronistic term. He certainly sounds like it. Every part stands; every jot and tittle remains. Yet it is revealing that he espouses a clear hierarchy within Scripture on the basis of these two commandments or thoughts similarly expressed (such as 7:12). He makes a similar point in 23:23 about tithing. More weighty than tithing herbs (which, he says, is not to be neglected!) are justice and mercy and faith. This is Matthew's emphasis throughout. He even makes a point of adding, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself' into Jesus' list of the commandments in response to the rich man in 19:19.

Perhaps Matthew was also uncomfortable with the way Mark's account contrasts the two commandments and the sacrificial system, as though they were alternatives. For most of his fellow Jews, loving God meant exactly that: loving God and keeping his commandments and these included many things including sacrifices. It made no sense to say that to love God was more important than offering sacrifices. Mark or his tradition had introduced a distinction which would be nonsense for anyone believing all of Scripture, including its ritual and cultic laws. Matthew's preference was to see love of God as encompassing everything, but within that 'everything' some things were more important than others.

The central tenets of love of God and love of neighbour stand here next to one another. Paul's reflections on the work of the Spirit help us make the connection between the two more dynamic. Loving God opens us to the Spirit who pours love from God into our lives and brings that love as a fruit of the Spirit to others (Gal 5; Rom 5; 8). It is good, however, to have these grounded calls to love which we find in gospel tradition. They keep the balance against the tendency among some in the pauline tradition to become so overwhelmed in the Spirit that conscious responsibility for attitudes and acts of love get lost (as evidenced at Corinth).

Matthew has made much of the acclamation of Jesus by the outcast and the outsiders as 'Son of David' (9:27; 15:22; 20:30,31; 21:9, 15). He is Israel's messiah. The genealogy made the same point. But just as the genealogy in some respects misses the vital link (Joseph is by passed!), so 'Son of David' is true but not the whole truth. David, believed by people of the time to have written the Psalms, is inspired to speak of Jesus as 'Lord', thus implying that he is a lot more than the messianic descendant of David. Beyond the genealogy he is the miraculously conceived and created Son of God.

The function of this tutorial in christology which Mark has included at the close of Jesus' public ministry was to break a mould which would have held Jesus within a limited form of expectation. It works the same way in Matthew, even more dramatically since he makes so much use of 'Son of David'. At one level it is a matter of christology. At another level it is a matter of culture. Matthew wants to claim for Jesus that he is more than Israel's Messiah. He follows Mark in flashing before the reader a glimpse of resurrection belief according to which this Jesus was exalted to sit at God's right hand.

The metaphor is drawn from Ps 110:1 and originally belongs to the scenery of royal coronation. But it projected an understanding of Jesus which broke traditional categories. To hail Jesus as 'Lord' was to hail him with a term frequently used for gods and used in the Greek Old Testament for God. To say in Christ we encounter God is a claim which can make sense way beyond Jewish tradition. It is as though both Mark and Matthew are reminding us of this. It leaves each generation with a new challenge: how do we speak about God in Christ in a way that communicates the essence of the good news to people in our culture? It is as though every generation needs a christological tutorial like this which will expose the inadequacy of culturally bound categories. Sometimes the church is a mortuary of such categories where no such issues are raised.

Epistle: Pentecost 19: 23 October 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Pentecost 18

William Loader

Pentecost 18: 16 October Matthew 22:15-22

The is one of the most famous of all anecdotes told about Jesus and one that is frequently misunderstood. It lends itself to being used to justify a separation of the affairs of religion and the affairs of commerce and government. This is why the church ought not to be involved in anything that has to do with politics, they say. Religion is for the private sphere. In the same way 'My kingdom is not of this world' (John 18:36) serves to bolster the view that the church is about getting to heaven, not about how things are run here. By appealing to such interpretations, some politicians resort to telling the church to get back into its box when it asks difficult questions.

I am sure Matthew would be astonished at such interpretation. He has just been giving a theological commentary on social and political events which had rocked his community, the sacking of Jerusalem. It was almost impossible to separate politics and religion in Israel, because the Old Testament sanctioned national interest and national institutions, not least the temple system. This was why the question made sense, mischievous as it was. It was a big issue. What do you do about Rome, the pagan power, which now controlled the promised land and in the eyes of many polluted it? Do you pay taxes to such a regime? Does that not sanction the power? Withholding taxes was one of the ploys advocated by devout rebels of the day. What is a person to do? What were Christians in Nazi Germany to do? What are we to do in the light of terrorist attacks in the present day?

The Pharisees were generally experts in knowing how to apply the Scriptures to everyday life so they knew this was a highly controversial issue which was likely to expose the naiveté of uneducated preachers. The link with the Herodians is interesting because it suggests collusion between at least some Pharisees and the supporters of the family and descendants of Herod who were puppet governors of Jewish territories: Herod Antipas in Galilee in the north and Perea across the Jordan from Jerusalem and Judea; and Philip further north in and beyond Galilee. They were encumbered with the task of quelling riots and dampening down resentment against Rome. A dangerous alliance was confronting Jesus. Mark says the same alliance plotted quite early against Jesus (3:6), but Matthew changed that, omitting mention of the Herodians. But they are here now and hearers of Matthew might have in mind the ugly story of Herod the Great and his murderous intent, played out in the story of the magi in chapter 2. Perhaps Matthew's community is still being administered by one of Herod's line (Agrippa II?).

Jesus' answer is clever, like many of his single responses. Often they take the form of two liners or two parts contrasted or setting each other off. Give the emperor what is the emperor's and to God what is God's. The assumption is that the coin bore an imperial inscription. Jesus' response does not advocate withholding taxes. He is prepared to pay taxes and to urge that his followers do so. This does not mean that such a response is always appropriate. It is impossible to generalise like that from a single anecdote. There will also be times when it is appropriate to throw tables over and drive out money changers.

The quick witted reply of Jesus bristles with ambiguity in its second part: and to God what is God's. It is like some of the parables which evoke penny-dropped experiences or pass over people's heads. One reading does indeed see Jesus dividing reality up; in one area we have one loyalty; in another area we have another. But it all depends on what we mean by 'what is God's'. Surely all things are God's! - almost by definition, if God is God and God is one. Then Jesus' reply is profoundly subversive. If everything is God's, then in all things I will seek God's will and that will entail measuring all things, including governments, by the vision Jesus has given us of God's rule or kingdom. God's compassion knows no bounds, so it will always be an irritant to regimes which stifle it and it will stand in conflict with oppressors, whoever and wherever they are.

This is why Christians of the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany challenged the Nazi ideology and its practices. Others justified keeping their vows to the state by using such texts to divide up reality into compartments. But there would not have been any Christian to tell the tale if the Confessing Christians had not exercised discretion in the way they resisted the government. Jesus was not stupid either, when confronted with the invitation to suicide for his cause, as here. Hence the deliberate ambiguity of his reply. Strategies for change in society require common sense. Jesus was not joining those who had reached such a point of religious despair that they saw the call to open conflict as the only option. Their ascendancy brought Israel down and devastated its heartland.

With this passage we must expose the fallacy of dividing reality into God's area and other areas. It invites us to reflect on this primarily in relation to big issues of the day. It also relates closely to individual spirituality: 'Seven whole days not one in seven...' Let the transforming love of God also affect my relationships, my budget, my planning; our family, our congregation, our community, our nation, our world! The words of the testers spoken in patronising sarcasm (22:16) were in fact correct; he teaches the way of God in truth!

Today's big issues are inseparably bound up with politics and for people of faith it is important to consider all aspects. Indeed as people of faith we are called to look beyond our own advantage or our own region or nation's advantage to the question: what is good for all? These days we cannot ignore the major issues which we face in climate change: our future and the future of generations to come is at stake. How can that not be spiritual and political? Deeds of terror which have set the agenda of recent years need to be set into a broader perspective. Why is world poverty less serious than headline catching terrorist attacks? There is a wider and deeper mourning which, while decrying acts of terror, also senses the less articulate pain which people suffer through poverty and the massive structural injustices of our world. We need to hold open the God-space for people so that they can make the journey through immediate pain, without falling to the slogans which reduce the issues to terror alone or to 'other religions'. Only so can we help stop the cycle of violence. Flip the coin: God's actually on both sides!

Epistle: Pentecost 18: 16 October 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Pentecost 17

William Loader

Pentecost 17: 9 October Matthew 22:1-14

This is the third parable in Jesus' reply to the question of his authority (21:23-27). The first (21:28-32) dealt with the rejection of John's ministry. The second (21:33-46) dealt with the rejection of his own ministry. This parable deals with the rejection of the ministry of the disciples and the dire consequences for Israel and Jerusalem.

Like many parables, this one has had varied applications before reaching Matthew. It is closely related to Luke 14:16-24, the Great Supper, which is probably, in turn, closer to the Q version. There is also a simple version in the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 64), touched up with Thomas type themes. Matthew's version consists of two parts, (i) the invitation and the alternative strategy to fill the number of guests after so many declined (22:1-10); and (ii) the badly dressed guest (22:11-14). Only the first part has parallels with Luke, Q and Thomas. None of those speaks of a wedding and none of them speaks of a king and his son, but only of a feast. Perhaps these features belonged to a separate story about a badly dressed guest, which Matthew has appended to the original parable. Perhaps it is Matthew's own creative imagination.

At the base of this tradition is a simple story which envisages village life. It worked like this. You announced you were having a party on a certain day. People would know you were getting it ready. When it was ready to roll, you sent word to those who had been invited. It would be very embarrassing if then hardly anyone turned up. This is what happened in the story. So the person throwing the party decided that the best thing would be just to invite anyone in the village whom they ran across. It worked. Like many of Jesus' parables, the experience would have rung bells for people. It was easy to relate to. What was Jesus saying? One can almost hear the response; 'Pretty flaming obvious, mate!' Jesus was annoyed about being turned down.

Heard in its broader perspective, this story contains echoes which allow us to see that this was anything but a Jesus ego-trip. Like the prophets before him (for instance, see Isa 25:6), Jesus often spoke of the kingdom of God as a great feast. People would come from north and south, east and west, and dine with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Matt 8:11). The call to respond to the good news of God's kingdom was an invitation to the feast. The invitation had gone out, the people had been summoned to come, but they refused. They made excuses. Too busy, too distracted to come to the party. So the invitation is extended to others. Jesus' pious compatriots refuse him; the sinners respond positively.

The alternative guests are a feature of the story which was bound in time to be linked not only with the irreligious, but also with all outcasts (in Luke, especially with people marginalised through disability and poverty) and eventually with Gentiles. The parable then became a story in which the church identified itself as those who had responded in contrast to those who refused the invitation. The story had been well worked over and served to help people come to terms with what had been happening.

Well worn stories are difficult to retell. They can become too bland and familiar. They end up serving the status quo. Matthew gets hold of the story, pushes and pulls it, and lays it out afresh in a version much better suited for TV! It is more dramatic; it is also deadly serious. The first modification is to abandon verisimilitude. Everyone knew it was a parable. It does not have to match reality, at least on the surface. It was OK to take some licence to play with the detail.

Transforming it into a story about a king offering a party for his son made the links with Jesus and God much clearer. In Matthew there are now two attempts to get those invited to come, reflecting doubtless not only Jesus' ministry but also the mission of the disciples. Having the king then send an army to destroy those who refused is 'over the top' for bland realism. How could you lay siege to a city, then invite other guests and run the party all on the same day! The destruction of the city is a direct reference to the sacking of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which Matthew saw as God's punishment for the rejection of Jesus' and the church's mission (see 23:34-36). Writing still as a Jew in a Jewish context with largely Jewish hearers this could hardly have been more pointed. Israel has failed again. Israel's temple has been destroyed again. Repent!

Just when hearers might have been tempted to retreat into a self-righteous sectarian huddle, bemoaning how evil the world is out there, Matthew expands the parable to bring the spotlight on those who turn up at the feast. 'Where's your suit and tie?' Whatever the expectation, someone came wrongly dressed. The breech of this cultural norm may mean little for those who know God looks on the heart (although it is fascinating how it persists in various forms today), but it serves Matthew as a vehicle for challenging his hearers about clothing one's life in righteousness, a familiar image. It is Matthew's theme (Jesus' theme, John the Baptist's theme) returning: no privilege on the basis of status, not even the status of having joined the Christian community. Only a life of transformed attitude and performance counts. Matthew undermines the 'them and us' approach. There can be no sectarian righteous elite.

As with last week's passage, we find here some of Matthew's fierce agenda with his fellow Jews. We may want to explain the debacle of 70 CE differently, although Jesus' way of challenging abusive power, had it won broad support, might have averted the disaster. It is not inappropriate to look critically at stories designed to bolster one's sense of identity. But Matthew pulls back from that kind of smugness. The challenge of the story lies both in the warning about refusals and in the richness of the image of salvation as a feast. The latter connects us with the eucharist as a vision and agenda of what is to come. Beyond the strategy to save the party at the story level is the much richer notion of God's generosity, not as an afterthought, but as God's enthusiastic being and delight in all people and pain at their refusal to share the life freely offered. A theology in retreat pictures a miffed god in retreat with a pretty violent temper, typical of a closed group of elites under siege. From Matthew you could take off along that track, but you need not. It was against such elitism that Jesus protested the universality of God's love and goodness. We feed on the brokenness of such love and nourish ourselves for celebration with a cup which was not withheld for an elite. Do we?

Epistle: Pentecost 17: 9 October Philippians 4:1-9

Pentecost 16

William Loader

Pentecost 16: 2 October Matthew 21:33-46

This is part two of Jesus' response in parables to being asked about his authority (21:23-27). Last week we considered the first parable which confronted the Pharisees with their rejection of John the Baptist (21:28-32). This week we look at Matthew's use of the parable which he originally found in Mark 12:1-12 as the sole parable which formed part of the response.

There are a few slight revisions which in part adjust the parable to align it more closely with the story of Jesus and his rejection. Instead of a series of individual messengers, as in Mark, Matthew reduces the parable to just three movements: two sets of servants (in the plural), followed by the son. This better fits the notion that Jesus stands in succession to the prophets (maybe to the Law and the Prophets). The image of Jesus as prophet is introduced explicitly in 21:45. This also helps the alignment with John who is also a prophet. The crowds have been thinking of Jesus as a prophet (21:11, 45). The hearers of Matthew's gospel know that he is much more than that; he is, as the parable implies, God's son. Matthew also tinkers with the detail about the killing of the son. Mark says he was killed and then thrown out of the vineyard. Matthew reverses this order to make it match Jesus' execution outside the city.

Matthew's version expands Mark's statement that the vineyard is to be given to others (Mark 12:9). Matthew adds: 'who will produce the fruit in its seasons', in case anyone missed the point about producing fruit, a favourite image for Matthew and central to both John's and Jesus' message (see 7:15-20; 3:10). He also repeats these implications in 21:43, stating that the kingdom of God will be taken away from the chief priests and elders (in 21:45, 'the Pharisees') and 'given to a people producing fruit from it'. The word, here, for people could suggest a Gentile people, although this is unlikely. It certainly means an alternative people. This 'people' will replace the chief priests and elders.

Mark's version of the story stands more directly in connection with the challenge to Jesus' authority, which, in turn, relates more directly to Jesus' action in the temple and the cursing of the fig tree which represents its destruction. For Mark a community which prays will replace the temple (11:23-26; see also 14:58). Here it will be built upon the foundation stone of Christ (12:10-12).

Matthew's focus is not a new temple, but certainly a new people or new leadership. To some extent the issue of leadership is central in both Mark's and Matthew's version of the parable. The parable's image of the vineyard is drawn from the famous song of the vineyard in Isaiah 5. There are subtle distinctions however. There the vineyard is Israel and the vineyard is blamed and destroyed for being unfruitful. In Jesus' parable the problem is not the vineyard, but those responsible for tending it, those in charge. That was also the problem with the temple. After all, the institution itself was based on scripture, indeed divine command, which is why Matthew especially wants to avoid any suggestion it is something of lesser value (just 'made with human hands', as Mark will say in 14:58). So the conflict is over who should run it, or, more broadly, who has responsibility for the kingdom. In an extraordinary statement Matthew has Jesus declare that the kingdom will be taken away from the Pharisees. That implies that in Matthew's view it was indeed in their hands. 23:13 implies much the same thing! They had failed and so now it passes into the hands of 'others'.

This is a claim to leadership of Israel and its religious tradition. Who is making the claim? One might expect Matthew and the Christian scribal leaders associated with him, but that is not what the text says. It declares that now a 'people' replaces Israel's leaders and carries responsibility for enabling Israel to bear fruit. It is not a new group of leaders but a community, the church, which is making this claim. It will now hold the keys of the kingdom. It will now carry responsibility for tending the vineyard. There is a new head of the corner. The rejected stone and his people will assume leadership. This is both a claim and a threat: large stones sometimes fall on people and crush them - so 21:44, a foretaste of what follows in the third parable.

The parable is immediately relevant for Matthew and his community because they have been struggling (without success) to position themselves as leaders of Israel's faith and are being increasingly driven to the margins by resurgent Pharisaism. Our connections with the parable are more oblique because our situation is different. We might, in more reflective mood, contemplate the image of fruitfulness as an image of the community, the congregation. We might reflect on the continuing challenge that we can be busy producing many things other than the fruit which God seeks. We might reflect on our much more subtle ways of beating up God's messengers who call us to become involved in the issues of the day. Loving is a challenge we often savage or sabotage, whether at a personal or a community level.

Interestingly the responsibility is no longer, for Matthew, placed on a select group of leaders but on a community. While that may have reflected a power struggle in Judaism of the 80s, there is a sense in which something of great insight remains. The church is a community and as a community carries the mandate of nurturing and caring for the vineyard. It is another way of defining the church's identity in terms of love. It is also a pattern of thought open to the kind of abusive developments which Matthew attacked in the temple leadership and history finds repeated all too often in the church. Despite what would happen in history Matthew is not abandoning Israel because of such abuses. All this should make it impossible for the church to be smug and superior. The divine part about the church is that we are in the place where we can learn and celebrate the life of God in the vineyard.

Epistle: Pentecost 16: 2 October Philippians 3:4b-14

Pentecost 15

William Loader

Pentecost 15: 25 September Matthew 21:23-32

The first part of this passage is based on Mark 11:27-33. The second part, 21:28-32, is found only in Matthew. Earlier in Matthew 21 Jesus had entered the city and then entered the temple where he drove out those who were buying and selling and overturned the tables of the money changers (21:12-13). Matthew has that all happen on the one day. Mark also has Jesus enter the temple on the first day (11:11), but the incident occurs the next day (11:15-19). Mark has Jesus curse the unfruitful fig tree on the way to entering the temple (11:12-14). Immediately following the account of the incident, he recounts the withering of the fig tree (11:20-26). The symbolism of judgement on the temple (ie. the temple leadership and system) because of its unfruitfulness could hardly be clearer. Mark is developing the theme that the Christian community is the new temple. This was not the path which Matthew wanted to follow. He undoes the way the cursing of the fig tree is a commentary on Jesus' action in the temple (21:12-13). Instead he recounts it separately and uses it to emphasise miraculous faith (21:18-22).

The confrontation with the chief priests and the elders over Jesus' authority (21:23-27) remains close to Mark's account. While in Matthew Jesus' behaviour towards the religious institutions and the Law, which undergirded them, is not as radical as it is in Mark, nevertheless there is a problem. What right did Jesus have to interfere with the way things were running? They are not the only religious leaders who 'get toey' about unauthorised interference!

It is not surprising that Jesus confronts them with the question of John's authority. John had been baptising people for the forgiveness of sins. Rituals for the forgiveness of sins were largely in the hands of the priests and the temple. That was one of its main functions. While there was technically nothing wrong with John's rather novel rite, in the eyes of those properly ordained to priestly tasks it amounted to something of a maverick enterprise. Very closely related is the controversy about Jesus' declaring God's forgiveness (see Mark 2:6-10). The issue would not have been blasphemy as Mark now suggests (2:7) but authority (so 2:9-10). Could someone like Jesus declare God's forgiveness, pronounce absolution? The answer was not that it was wrong, but it sailed close to the wind. Such 'charismatic' authority was outside the control of the order established by the Law, by Scripture. Power exercised in healing and exorcism was similarly a quandary if not a threat. It is altogether too easy for us to understand, who mainly belong to orders which claim a similar kind of permanent sanction and make it difficult for us sometimes to entertain alternatives. Both John and Jesus spoke of the Spirit. How do you balance such claims against the order received by inspired tradition?

Matthew would seem to have a clear answer on these issues. It is in terms of fruit, attitude and actions which cohere with Scripture when interpreted from the central themes of love and compassion. 'Anything goes' was not an option for Matthew, even when it is allegedly 'anything goes with the Spirit'. 7:21-23 makes that very clear. Matthew also has clear lines of authority and, as we have seen in recent weeks, is concerned that there is control and oversight in the community. But it is clear that Matthew refuses claims to authority based solely on status and succession. That is clear already in the words of John the Baptist about the claims to being children of Abraham. It is clear also in relation to Peter. Being called never means you cannot sink, as Peter well learned.

Having baffled the authorities by confronting them with the issue of John's authority, Jesus, in Mark, continues the defence by recounting the parable of the labourers in the vineyard who kill the owner's beloved Son (12:1-12). Matthew will also include this as part of the response of Jesus, but on either side of it he includes two new parables. Jesus' response now consists of three parables. The first speaks about people's response to John. It is the rest of today's reading (21:28-32). The second speaks of people's response to Jesus (21:33-46), as in Mark (12:1-12). The third speaks of people's response to the disciples and their mission (22:1-14). These latter will be the readings for the next two Sundays.

The first parable has a simple structure: 2 sons whose expression of willingness or unwillingness to work in the vineyard is reversed in practice. As in the next parable the vineyard is a standard image of Israel. The chief priest and elders are set in contrast to the prostitutes and tax collectors. The former engage in the rhetoric of obedience, but fail to do God's will. The latter disqualify themselves, but then turn to God. Note that all this is in response to the ministry of John the Baptist. For Matthew, of course, already John proclaimed the kingdom of God (3:2) in the same terms as Jesus (4:17) and the disciples (10:7). Indeed, as it says in 21:32, John came 'in the way of righteousness', another of Matthew's key terms, beside 'kingdom of God' (21:31). These are the terms that embrace the beatitudes (5:3,6,10).

Matthew has a way of cutting through the red tape and of by-passing the religious bureaucracy. There is no room for pretence or pretentiousness. The prostitutes and toll collectors, the lousy rich and the women they exploited, got the point, at least some of them. Is it because they allowed themselves to be vulnerable, to be moved, to let the word of compelling compassion address their deeper needs? Were the religious leaders so defensive in protecting their system - in the name of the people of God and the Scripture - that they suppressed their inner cries, stopped their ears? It is odd that we still find so many people inside the church who have a greater problem moving with compassion for change in society than many outside the church. They seem bent on protecting God.

Epistle: Pentecost 15: 25 September Philippians 2:1-13

Pentecost 14

William Loader

Pentecost 14: 18 September Matthew 20:1-16

Who really matters? Like other parables this one doubtless has a history. In Jesus' life setting it uses a familiar image: hiring people who wait about in the town centre for work. The image gets us in touch with the vulnerability of the local people and problem of unemployment. It is not an idyllic scene. These are among the poor for whom the kingdom of God would bring change. Beside the poverty the rawness of being at other people's whim is humiliating, being an expendable resource to be exploited. The farmer's gruffness in accosting these men for standing around all day doing nothing has its echo in stereotypes of dole bludgers or people unemployed because they are too lazy to seek a job. How could you preach on this without touching people among your hearers who live in similar vulnerability and how would you affect them if you simply ignored the issue?

The parable is a story with elements of exaggeration, a certain artificiality which, combined with the ordinariness of the setting, helps the story to work. So it is schematic: hirings at regular intervals right through from sunrise at three hour intervals to the ninth hour, mid afternoon. One might imagine a grape harvest where it became imperative to complete the task of harvesting that day - impending bad weather? All that is left to our imagination.

The casual labourers are called together at the end of the day and paid, beginning with the last hired. They receive a day's wage: a denarius, considered enough to live on for a day. But all the others receive the same amount, including those who had worked since early morning. There is no way that this is equitable. So there is outrage. Jesus has a way of using outrageous people in his stories. Consider the rogue steward in Luke 16:1-7. This is part of the shock tactics. It is subversive story telling which turns normal values upside down. The scene is now not only one of exploitation but also of arbitrariness and injustice.

Yet the story opens new vistas. The employer kept the contract he had made with the first hired but also gave the last hired what they needed to live. The last hired received their denarius, their living. Viewed from this perspective the practice comes close to what for us is a norm: unemployment benefit, making sure people have enough to live on. A different standard is applied: need, not earning rights. To view it in this way puts many things in a new perspective. It does not smooth out all the rough edges, but it is enough to open the door to a different way of thinking.

At what point does it connect with Jesus and his ministry? Probably at the point where many of Jesus' parables connected: at the point of controversy over Jesus' attitude towards the last and least in society. God's grace is there for those who had been righteous all their lives but also for those who had messed up their lives - equally. There is no distinction made in this respect between the prodigal son and the one who stayed with dad all his life and worked on the farm. Unfair! At one level this is true. At another there is a different set of values operating. People are being treated according to their needs, not according to their deserts.

The issue raises the matter of rights. These days it is common to ally the gospel with the demand for human rights. There is a sense in which this undersells the gospel. Our response to people is not to make sure they get their rights, but because they are people and that will often mean going beyond what, according to accepted norms, they have a right to claim. Love of this kind goes beyond human rights. It also assumes the worth of people, human dignity, need for shelter, sustenance, self determination and the like. Needs and rights are closely related and will often overlap, so affirming human rights belongs to caring for people according to their needs, but such caring does not stop there. The argument against human rights that we have no rights and deserve nothing from God sounds pious enough and has validity, but Jesus is trying to get us used to the idea that God is not playing the game of 'Look how good I am; you have no rights and I am generously giving you what you do not deserve! So worship me!' In Jesus we are learning that God is not working with a rights and deserts scale and making exceptions, but simply loving because that, not rights, is what is at the heart of God's being. If we persist in thinking of God in terms of God's rights, we will inevitably view all of life in terms of rights and miss the point of the gospel.

Matthew takes up the story from tradition and places it immediately after the instruction about riches and Jesus' encounter with the rich man (19:16-30). That ends, as it does in Mark (10:31), with the statement that many who are first will be last and many last, first. Its immediate sequel in Mark is Jesus' third prediction of his passion and the endeavour of James and John to have top status in the coming kingdom. Matthew follows the same sequence, but inserts the parable immediately after the statement about the first being last and the last being first. It is striking that he then repeats this saying in reverse order immediately after the parable (20:16). As a result the parable is framed by the reversal saying. The reversal saying connects in Matthew, as it does in Mark, to Jesus' teaching about leadership.

The result is that for Matthew the parable is less a defence of Jesus' practice of inclusion of outcasts and society's least, and more a warning to people in his community who imagine they are deserving of special honour because they have been in the community in leadership for a long time. This is typical of Matthew's tendency to take what Jesus applied to Jewish leadership of his time and apply it to leadership within his own church community. Try doing the same! In a sense John the Baptist was making the same point when he challenged the Pharisees and Sadducees that they should not lay too much weight on being sons of Abraham; it is performance and quality of obedience which counts. Try applying it to yourself. Entrenched in leadership, it is easy to lose touch with what is the heart of the gospel. We become accustomed to employing the rhetoric of radical love. In our very verbal faith, words easily become a substitute for reality. And there is an odd sense of satisfaction we can gain by seriously talking about issues such as poverty without ever doing anything about it - even preaching and being preached to about them.

The trouble with such challenges is that people take a dive into guilt and then try to compensate by being quite unrealistic about what they can or should do. And the trouble is also that preachers can unwittingly exploit that guilt. Some people like being given a hard time. We need to get real and help people to get real. We need to get off the band wagon of being deserving or undeserving. Our opportunity is to live within our finitude and be real and loving as we are. It is OK to be who I am. There is much that I can do and much that I cannot do. I need to live with the pain out there and live with the realisation that I am who I am and can do and be only what I can do and be. All else is a running away from reality. I am not going to do anyone any good by retreating into the 'comfort' of feeling guilty. Guilt is a useful place to be only because it is a place from which to move on; it is not a place to live. The generous love which includes us also wants us to be real about being alive and free. In such generous love and loving we can be real and really play our part in the world.

Epistle: Pentecost 14: 18 September Philippians 1:21-30

Pentecost 13

William Loader

Pentecost 13: 11 September Matthew 18:21-35

Grace has the last word. Last week we saw that the theme of chapter 18 is dealing with people who go astray. Matthew surrounds the traditional rules of conflict resolution with the message of compassion and forgiveness. Today's passage is particularly emphasising forgiveness.

The parable might come from everyday life. There are such rogues and doubtless such things occurred. However this is a story and contains the storyteller's exaggeration. The amount owed is huge, larger than the estimates of the value of whole economies. Try doing the arithmetic. A talent is around 6000 denarii; a denarius is a day's living wage. It is an absurd figure, so unreal, as to distract the hearer from the literal meaning to the point being made behind the story. God's forgiveness is also massive. 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors' is the literal translation of the standard Lord's Prayer as found in Matthew 6:12. Releasing debt was a common image for forgiveness. The rogue in Luke 16:1-7 who went out and forgave his master's debtors may be Jesus' parody on himself: he declared God's generosity and was declared a rogue servant who acted without recognised authority. The saying in 18:21-22 is also making its point by exaggeration: 77 times!

The image of debt is helpful in considering the meaning of forgiveness. When someone is in our debt we have power over them. To forgive is to give up power. Forgiving is a form of giving. We no longer hold something back in our relationship with someone. Notice that we use words like 'hold' in expressions like, 'hold resentment'. Holding back is destructive for others and for ourselves. The movement of the gospel reflects the being of God. God created: God gave. The giving is also seen in the coming of Christ. It is a giving that goes the whole journey, even to the cross. It is the losing of protected life, the refusal to be devoted to a false self which keeps people at bay. It is a generosity which sets the cat among the pigeons, because it defies the arithmetic of deserving.

Forgiveness in this sense is relational. Too often it is reduced to 'sorry' without restoration, without reconciliation. This is especially the case where the focus is on sins. The reduction of the gospel to forgiveness of sins misses the point of the gospel which is about making people whole. Forgiveness cannot be deserved as if we - or Christ for that matter - can balance the equation, make the arithmetic work and keep everything clinically balanced. Reduction of God's forgiveness to a kind of trick transaction in which he has his son pay off his debtors' debts is rather lame. The more the imagery is pressed the more God becomes a dealer who does not have the generosity to forgive but is just determined to get paid off one way or another. This is far from the God of Jesus in the gospel who actually wants to be generous and does not insist on getting his pound of flesh from somewhere. It is people who cannot cope with such generosity who have had to think up mechanisms that do not involve God in being as vulnerable as that.

Yet forgiveness is costly. It is costly to the one who forgives because it is giving up something. It is also costly to the one forgiven. It is costly because it entails acknowledging the need of forgiveness and that means turning away from the lies and the pretending. It means allowing oneself to be vulnerable, allowing oneself to be loved. It means facing up to oneself. That is why it is so healthy that Matthew's discussion takes place in the context of dealing with wrong and not sweeping it under the carpet. Some forgiveness demands a degree of restitution, not as the repayment for past wrongs, which can mostly never be repaid, but because injustice and loss is acknowledged.

Is it possible to commit wrong and then be rehabilitated? If it is not, then let us fear forgiveness! Let us resist facing ourselves! Too many people have experienced so little forgiveness that honesty (to themselves or to others) poses an enormous threat. The gentleness of the gospel may sometimes need to be whispered ever so tenderly to the souls of blatant, hardened, frightened people.

Forgiveness is therefore far from naive. It is facing realities and doing something which changes the equation. It disturbs the established values. Just look at the outcry it has created in Australia over reconciliation with Aboriginal people! People are afraid to be forgiven. Corporate guilt is so much more difficult to deal with because we cannot quantify responsibility; we are afraid of losing control. Forgiveness and being forgiven is about letting go of control, accepting that debts can never really be squared. We can change the equation but in most circumstances we cannot resolve it quantitatively. Grace given and received is the basis for reconciliation. People are also afraid to find a way to forgiveness and restoration. Just look at the cry for capital punishment! Just look at the lust for vengeance in the wake of 11 September! Circumstances warrant the cessation of love? What a terrible thought. It inspires both the avengers and those against whom the vengeance is sought who have abused the rights of others. Such lack of generosity invites the kind of fear which swirls into irrational hate which will seek to crucify the very love which seeks to address the pain and loneliness which is its source.

Epistle: Pentecost 13: 11 September Romans 14:1-12

Pentecost 12

William Loader

Pentecost 12: 4 September Matthew 18:15-20

What do you do when things go wrong in the church? This little 'rule' for handling wrongs is a fascinating insight into the running of a community. It is not distinctively Christian. The word, 'church' (ekklesia) could easily be translated congregation or assembly. It would fit just as well among the sectarian documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls or among other exclusive Jewish communities of the time. The ultimate punishment is to be treated like a Gentile or a tax collector. Now who is really speaking here? Are Gentiles not included in this community? And does not Jesus earn his reputation precisely because of his openness towards tax collectors?

This passage also meets us as we re-visit 11 September. Can it have anything to say to international conflict or the issues of terrorism? At one level the incidental assumption about how one treats "Gentiles" should alert us to latent and expressed xenophobia in our own day and the way groups are stigmatised. Jesus became known as one who embraced those from whom most felt repelled. Some of the principles of handling conflict remain the same, whether in the church or the international arena. When we fail to observe them we sow the seeds of our own violence and reap the whirlwind.

The passage reflects an application of justice which incorporates the biblical provision that charges must be supported by at least two witnesses (Deut 19:15). The authority given the community to engage in such a process (18:18) is the same as that given to Peter in 16:19 and shows that binding and loosing has to do with interpreting Law/scripture and its implications for passing judgement.

It is worth pondering this strange passage in its context. The next verses speak of the agreement of two or three on earth with regard to any request and to Jesus' presence in their midst. Agreement is especially agreement in verdict; the presence of Jesus is closely related to the practice of discipline. The passage is similar to those in the Jewish Mishnah which promise God's Shekinah where two or three gather to study Torah. Jesus takes Shekinah's role.

But of greater importance still is the wider context. 18:21-22 contain Peter's question about forgiveness and Jesus' reply that forgiveness is possible not just 7, but 77 times. In other words forgiveness is never to be abandoned. 18:23-35, the parable of the unforgiving servant, makes the same point. If this is not enough, the verses immediately preceding the disciplinary rule retell the parable of the lost sheep, only that it now applies it to the issue of what to do when a community member goes astray (18:12-14). Compassion seeks the lost. If we go back further to 18:6-10, we return to issues of discipline: abuses against God's little ones: children but also members of the community of little ones, the congregation. The whole chapter begins with the lesson about greatness: to humble oneself as a child.

In this wider context Matthew has set what may well have been a bit of sectarian traditional wisdom about how to deal with deviance. While its rough edges remain, it is now heavily qualified. Without revising it directly, Matthew has set it in a context where all the emphasis falls on compassion and forgiveness. Matthew is not abandoning the need to confront abuse. Matthew is not espousing the kind of phoney harmony which sweeps abuse under the carpet in the name of Christian peace. But it is clear that he is not prepared to abandon people to being treated like second class citizens: Gentiles and tax collectors, although this is what the tradition had said. If we really rub these conflicting statements together and try to make them fit, we might end up with something like: treat them like Gentiles and tax collectors, people who no longer belong, and then relate to them the way Jesus related to toll collectors and commissioned that we should relate to Gentiles: offer to them a relation of acceptance and forgiveness! Don't write them off!

Honesty in confronting issues often makes such restoration possible, whereas half dishonest failure to name things leaves untended wounds which fester and, even in apparent reconciliation, the pain will be disruptive and is frequently destructive for all. Unfortunately Christians have been particularly good at replacing honest open love with being nice.

The rule itself is worth pondering. It is first century conflict management. If you have a problem with someone's behaviour, go and see them and talk with them about it. By implication, don't go and gossip to someone else about it. Every community needs to learn this, every generation, regularly. Deal with the issue where it belongs. There may be occasions where this is not the preferred action in terms of creative handling of the conflict. Sometimes one must go directly to the police or the body skilled to handle the issue (such as sexual abuse complaints). Sometimes our role will be to refer people to such authorities. But it is never right to go to others just to turn them against someone, in self indulgent gossip, which does not give the other person a chance. It is never right to play the game of gaining friendship with one person by denigrating another and enjoying the fellowship of denigration, which is so common.

At an international level the most obvious application is: negotiate. Don't rush to sabre rattling. Talk and listen. Seek to achieve settlement by meeting and talking, by seeking to appreciate the reasons why this or that unacceptable response has arisen. It also means avoiding the naive, not pretending there is no danger. At whatever level, we are ultimately dealing with human beings who are to respected and honoured. Intervention by force to prevent violation of others is sometimes necessary, but should come as a last resort. Much more can be achieved through negotiation than is usually assumed.

The passage affords an opportunity to throw some gospel perspectives on the meaning of love and compassion in the handling of conflict in personal relations, in family, in church, in community, in international relations, because despite the complexities some principles remain and they are articulated here. Our strategies vary greatly whether we come at conflict from hate or love, whether we believe we must avoid conflict or not, whether we believe peace is niceness or responsible openness. Each of us has a story to tell. Talk to your panel of experts: they are sitting in the pews. We all share expertise in failure and success in these areas.

Epistle: Pentecost 12: 4 September Romans 13:8-14

Pentecost 11

William Loader

Pentecost 11: 28 August Matthew 16:21-28

For Matthew identity is about much more than status; it is about performance. In Mark this scene is part of a single passage which flows from Mark 8:27 to 9:1. In Matthew there is a break. Matthew has added, 'From that time,' at the beginning of 16:21. This has the effect of setting the next scene off from 16:13-20, which we considered last week. On the other hand, the one certainly affects the other. The empowered Peter fails, just as he did when invited to walk on water.

Jesus' announcement of his impending visit to Jerusalem, which will result in his suffering and then his resurrection (16:21), derives from Mark 8:31, where it forms the first of three such predictions which come in rapid succession. The other two are 9:31 and 10:33. Matthew also takes these up into his gospel, but more material intervenes so the effect is less dramatic. He refers to the prediction, then, a fourth time in 26:2. In Mark each of these predictions is set in contrast to failures on the part of the disciples to understand the path of suffering and, instead, to be preoccupied with their own power and status. In Matthew this is still there, at least with the first and the third, but it is less dominant in the context of the whole section of chapters 16-20.

The path of suffering set out in 16:21 is fundamental for Matthew. It is interesting that he has replaced 'Son of Man' (Mark 8:31) with the simple, 'I'. It is almost as though he has transferred it (by cut and paste!) up to 16:13! Jesus' suffering receives emphasis because it is part of his obedience and provides a model for faithfulness of the disciples and doubtless of Matthew's hearers who also face adversity. The focus is not his dying for their sins. This understanding of Jesus' death is also known to Matthew, but receives little emphasis.

The path of lowliness is an important commentary on the nature of the authority and leadership given to Peter and the church in the preceding verses. The bottom line is to be like Jesus in the exercise of leadership. He lived out what the beatitudes blessed. Matthew sharpens the focus on Peter in the verses which follow. In a play on Peter's name, Matthew adds that Peter has become a 'skandalon', a rock which trips people over. Peter has failed to understand Jesus' leadership and lowliness. He is espousing the common values of the time about power and worth and not espousing God's values. The lectionary selections from Matthew will not take us to the passages about the small child in the midst and the challenge to espouse a different understanding of greatness and power from that of those who throw it around in this world (see 18:1-5; 20:26-27). We need to bear them in mind. It is quite remarkable that Jesus addresses Peter in the same way he addressed the devil in the wilderness: 'Get behind me, Satan!' (4:10).

16:24-26 now apply these insights to the way of discipleship. The call is not to lose self identity and so abandon one's responsibility, but to abandon the agenda for living which pits self against the others. It is the creation and defence of a self image which will manipulate others to its own advantage, be preoccupied with its own power and with creating and defending its worth. It plays games to create and sustain good impressions. It is a false self because it denies that God loves us for who we are and assures us that we do not need to justify ourselves and can be free from all the business of the false self. We don't need facades. Denying oneself and taking up the cross is abandoning the project of the constructed self and allowing oneself to be real and vulnerable, to be loved and loving, also to the point of suffering and death. These texts are not calling us away from what it means to be a human being, but calling us to be truly human, to find our true selves in God, but abandoning our false selves.

Loss and gain is an issue. Clearly we are being encouraged to espouse what will be of gain. Sometimes these texts have been expounded in a way that has led people to expect that they should not value themselves and that has led to a kind of inverse hypocrisy, where one parades before oneself that one is of no value - usually a lie and certainly a denial of the gospel. The true nurture of the self is to love ourselves as God loves us. It is serving the false self that is selfishness. Caring for oneself as God cares for us means opening oneself to God's love as the life and energy of the soul. That love will expand in all directions: towards ourselves, towards others, towards God. When Christianity is perceived as teaching that we should ignore our own interests, there is deception and untruth. The gospel is an appeal to people to recognise what is good for them (in their self interest) - so here: what is gainful. The answer lies in a revolutionary thought. I find myself, we find ourselves, when we allow ourselves to be loved and to love and to abandon the effort to manipulate that love from others by playing games and exercising power.

Many, if not most people have their fair share of serving the false self. Sometimes it is because they have experienced so very little of love for themselves for who they are. So they have built up facades and hidden behind them for years. The structures now form such an integral part of their being that change is likely to be traumatic. It is important in preaching that we do not simply go on the attack against such structures. Some exposure of the issues is appropriate, but the focus needs to be on trying to let people see something of the light of God's love which might shine into the darkness through a crack and awaken them to new ways of being - gently. Sometimes the energy to save people by crashing through their barriers is the very abuse of power which Jesus confronts here. Threatened, shrivelled people hiding behind massive artifices which have enabled them to survive, need tenderness and understanding. They don't want to be told off for not letting themselves be loved. Sometimes any change will require extensive therapeutic help. It is never unhealthy to proclaim the gospel of God's compassion, .. compassionately!

Matthew has revised Mark 8:38 to bring out all the more clearly that ultimately we shall be judged not by our status nor even by whether we are 'Christian', but solely by the reality of our performance, a common Matthean theme which has a profoundly levelling effect (16:27). 16:28 may indicate that Matthew contemplates that history will reach its climax with the return of the Son of Man within a generation or so of his writing. It has been hard to sustain that urgency for 2000 years - but certain groups will get excited as we reach 2000. The transfiguration (17:1-8) is like the 'shorts' of a movie. It gives an advance showing of that day and brings us back to the figures who featured in 16:13. Whether in time or space, we are dealing in 16:21-28 with ultimate issues which affect the world of the individual as well as the world in which we all share. Love sets us free to love and to lead in serving and to find fulfilment in such giving which characterises the life of God and is revealed in the story of Jesus.

Epistle: Pentecost 11: 28 August Romans 12:9-21

Pentecost 10

William Loader

Pentecost 10: 21 August Matthew 16:13-20

This passage is about identity - of Jesus and of the church. One of the best known passages in the New Testament for all kinds of reasons, including arguments about the papacy, this reading is rich and has a rich history. It is an expansion and revision of what Mark brings us in Mark 8:27-30.

In Mark the passage has often been recognised as a turning point. For the first time these dull disciples get it right. Peter hails Jesus as the Messiah. The euphoria is short lived. Already 8:30 has Jesus warn the disciples not to tell anyone. What is the problem? Modesty? Hardly. The next verses expose it. Mark 8:31-33 has Jesus predict his pathway of suffering and rejection before being raised from the dead. Peter objects and is rebuked. What he meant by Messiah was different from what Jesus intended. Peter is by no means unique in this. What we mean when we say or sing acclamation to 'Christ' and 'God' may have little resemblance to what the gospel is about - history teaches us that - and our own experience? After Jesus' suffering the right understanding would dawn on the disciples. Mark 9:9 makes that explicit. Perhaps Caesarea Philippi is deliberately identified as representing the northern most part of Israel and a symbol of Roman imperial power. Mark would be setting Jesus' kingdom in contrast to that of the power of the day as well as in contrast to popular notions of messiahship which arose to oppose it.

Matthew retains the basic structure of Mark's story and its themes, including Peter's failure to understand correctly and the warning about waiting till they have experienced the full story. 16:13-20 does not include Jesus' prediction of his suffering and the rebuke of Peter; that comes in 16:21-28, next week. That passage still needs to be borne in mind, however, in interpreting 16:13-20, otherwise we may find ourselves giving the kind of impression which had been Peter's.

For Matthew the location is also Caesarea Philippi and perhaps the same shadows of imperial power or power through its local Jewish proteges of Herod's family are in mind. But in Matthew the passage is not such a turning point as it is in Mark. We saw two weeks back that they had all acclaimed him Son of God already (14:33). So Peter is reaffirming something rather than confessing for the first time. Matthew also changes Jesus' question from, 'Who do people say that I am?' (Mark 8:27) to 'Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?' (16:13). 'Son of Man' is a weighty title in Matthew. Matthew's Jesus assumes they have grasped all of that. So the focus of the passage lies elsewhere.

Matthew lists the same popular expectations: John the Baptist (recalling Herod Antipas's fears in 14:2), Elijah and one of the prophets. Both Elijah and a prophet like Moses were standard expectations, based on biblical predictions (Mal 4:5; Deut 18:15-20). At least such people are identifying a divine initiative in Jesus such as was promised for the climax of history. The tradition will have Jesus linked with both figures in the transfiguration vision (Mark 9:4; Matt 17:3). To these Matthew adds Jeremiah, the suffering prophet. How appropriate!

Peter gives the correct response: Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah). Matthew has expanded the tradition at this point adding: 'the son of the living God' (16:16). Jesus will be asked at his trial by Caiaphas if he is the Christ, the Son of God (26:63). While 'son of God' was a title which belonged to royalty, as Psalm 2:7 shows, in Matthew it carries richer associations of a unique relationship with God (11:27) and of Jesus' miraculous creation at conception. It is still the same as the confession of the disciples in 14:33. Peter reaffirms it.

The rest of the passages turns the attention from who Jesus is to who Peter is and this is the new emphasis which Matthew brings. Peter, Simon bar Jona (John 1:42 says, 'son of John'), can make this affirmation because of revelation from God. The passage is strikingly reminiscent of Paul's description of his call in Galatians 1:15. Not flesh and blood, but God revealed his Son to Paul. Was this a standard way of speaking of a call? Was it at some stage competitive between Peter and Paul? Were these both originally speaking about encounters with the risen Son of God (as in Paul)?

Certainly the focus is on Peter's calling and the tradition varies as to when that is described as happening: when Jesus summoned him and Andrew to be fishers of people (Mark and Matthew), after the miraculous catch of fish (at the beginning of his ministry - so Luke; after Easter: so John 21). Peter's prominence reflects doubtless his first encounter with the risen Christ (Mark 16:7; 2 Cor 15:3-5; Luke 24:34). Or was he already the leader during Jesus' earthly ministry? There is some fluidity on the issue of timing, but not about the fact of a call and its implications.

Matthew knows the tradition that Jesus gave Simon the name, 'Peter', Aramaic, 'Cephas', meaning rock. Mark had mentioned that Jesus gave Simon the name, Peter, but without explanation (3:16). The result in Matthew is a neat exchange. Peter says: You are the Christ, the son of the living God' (16:16). Jesus responds: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church (16:18). The church will be built on Peter and on all who join him in confessing Christ. The imagery of building was common for describing communities (holy temple, house of God, are other examples). The role description expands: the powers of death will not prevail against it. This may still be retaining the building metaphor and refer to the stability of the building founded on a rock (cf. 7:24-27!). Or it may have shifted to thinking of literally 'the gates' of Hades/death not holding out against the church. Certainly what is evoked is the encounter with the deep powers represented in the sea. Peter is being commissioned, the church is being commissioned to walk on water, to take the authority to exercise God's mission in the face of the powers of destruction and death in our world. 14:22-33 and 16:13-20 are closely linked (also by the confession as Son of God).

The focus on the church's role is continued in the word about the keys of the kingdom (16:19). There were traditionally in the hands of interpreters of the tradition. 23:13 accosts the scribes and Pharisees for using them to shut people out of the kingdom. Now there is to be a new body of scribes, who are to be inclusive. Binding and loosing reflects technical language and refers both to binding and releasing interpretations of law (scripture) and their consequences. We see how it might apply in particular cases in 18:15-18, where the local congregation is invested with the authority to deal with cases of discipline in the community.

So instead of the passage celebrating a turning point in recognising who Jesus is, as in Mark, it has become in Matthew a celebration of what the church is. Nothing suggests a dynasty where power is exclusively Peter's and his successors. Clearly 18:18 implies the same power is be taken and exercised by the congregation. Peter is representative, but it is significant that it is precisely Peter who represents. He was the first witness to the resurrection according to many traditions. He appears to have been chosen as a leader. He and the others are to be the church, the community, who walk on water, who bring God's compassion into confrontation with the destructive powers of life. That will sometimes mean having to say, no, having to exercise discipline within the church. The challenge to the scribes and Pharisees shows that it will be possible to abuse such authority. Next week's passage will show that it is possible for Peter to be a Satan to Christ and the gospel. History has many examples where Peter's success rate has been matched. Matthew is affirming the authority and waving in our face the dangers and the fallibility of leaders.

The foundation for such authority and confidence is that Jesus is the Christ and this cannot be appreciated until we know the whole story (16:20). The whole story portrays brokenness in compassion which God affirms by resurrection. Without the whole story (and without next week's passage) the dangers are enormous. The church has always been in danger of becoming one of the powers which we are called to confront. That reality is lived out in history - on a grand scale, but also in each of us. The will to power is very seductive, not least in ministry.

Epistle: Pentecost 10: 21 August Romans 12:1-8

Pentecost 9

William Loader

Pentecost 9: 14 August Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28

Today's reading is about boundaries and boundary crossing. The passage in brackets belongs to a larger section, 15:1-20, in which Matthew revises Mark 7:1-23. There Mark had used an anecdote about controversy over washing hands ritually before meals which had become a vehicle for a general attack on the validity of outward observances, such as washing and observation of food laws. This set aside not only tradition but significant portions of scripture itself (7:19). It was done in the name of a gospel that sought to be inclusive of Gentiles who were alienated by such practices. It reflects the position one might find in churches which had been under Paul's influence. There are aspects which go even further than Paul and imply ridicule of concern with such externals which 'cannot possibly' affect a person's purity.

Matthew is happy to take over the passage, but removes all elements of ridicule and especially the implication noted by Mark in 7:19 that Jesus effectively declared all foods clean. How could Matthew say such a thing in his strongly Jewish congregation and how could he say such a thing having affirmed that Jesus had not come to abolish even the slightest detail of God's Law in scripture? Thus Matthew reduces the controversy to one about the over punctiliousness of the practice of ritual handwashing before meals, not a command of scripture. 15:20b makes this clear where it reiterates the main point of the passage in these terms. Luke was also uncomfortable with Mark here and acted more drastically: he omitted it along with related material from the context, so that his story jumps immediately from the feeding of the 5000 to the episode at Caesarea, leaving out Mark 6:46 - 8:26!

In Mark the encounter with the Syrophoenician woman (7:24-30) illustrates the crossing of boundaries which the setting aside of food laws implies. Barriers to the inclusion of Gentiles are dropped. The feeding of the 4000 (8:1-10) will celebrate the inclusion of Gentiles and Mark has Jesus quiz the disciples to see if they pick up the matching symbolism in the feedings of first the 12 baskets and then the 7 baskets (8:16-21). In Matthew the transition to what becomes the encounter with the Canaanite woman is less significant. What precedes is no longer about removing barriers, so the episode no longer functions to illustrate what precedes. The story now serves to shame Israel for its poor response to Jesus in much the same way as Matthew had used the encounter with the centurion to the same end. This Gentile acclaims him, 'Son of David'! Calling her a Canaanite, the biblical pagans, serves to heighten the contrast. Matthew would have had difficulty portraying Jesus' actions at this stage as representing openness to Gentiles because that commission comes only after Easter (28:18-20) and Matthew preserves traditions which limit the mission, at least initially, to Israel, including Jesus' own mission during his ministry (10:5-6).

The story in Matthew is no less painful that Mark's. In Mark Jesus initially refuses to give his attention to the Gentile woman and her child. Israel are God's children; Gentiles are dogs. While the Greek word could mean 'puppies', it commonly meant dogs and here it is disparaging, hardly affectionate. It is after all ground for refusal, not a sentimental comment about pets. 'Let the children be fed first' (Mark 7:27). This first at least implies there will be something left over for the dogs. In Matthew this first receives fuller explanation: Jesus is not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (15:25). In Matthew she pesters Jesus three times. Jesus' initial response both in Mark and in Matthew is hardly tongue in cheek. Matthew's additions appear to have taken it seriously and offered a rationale.

Originally the anecdote innocently portrays Jesus expressing a racist stance only to abandon it when put under pressure. The abandonment of prejudice, the crossing of the traditional boundary, is the good news of the story and why it was told. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that Jesus, himself, had to make a transition, had to learn. His response was more typical of the rather conservative Judaism of the time. Is it embarrassing that Jesus was human, too? Does it make the gospel any less valid if the historical Jesus also had to struggle to come to terms with the negative in his upbringing? At least this is the assumption of the anecdote.

Matthew tailors Jesus' final response to the woman. He adds the words: 'O woman, great is your faith. Let what you wish for happen for you.' Similar words came from Jesus' lips when he addressed the centurion (8:13) and again when he addressed the woman suffering from vaginal bleeding (9:22). We should read the story from its end, not its beginning. At its beginning it is discriminatory. At its end it affirms the despised. Women and Gentiles - just as already in the genealogy. Seen from its end it becomes a celebration of inclusion of women and of Gentiles.

The anecdote was doubtless told in the first place as a story to live by. It was certainly a risky story, because it achieves its point at the expense of Jesus' past. Obviously this did not matter to the story teller whether it is history or fiction. Its redeeming feature is its redeeming feature. In Matthew it also celebrates radical inclusion, even if, unlike Mark, Matthew sees no need to set scripture aside to achieve this. What extraordinary power the woman exercises - over Jesus! But then Jesus came to enable us to learn from others and discern God's call and not to assume we can never learn or that we know it all.

Epistle: Pentecost 9: 14 August Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32

Pentecost 8

William Loader

Pentecost 8: 7 August Matthew 14:22-33

High drama! Here is another highly symbolic miracle which may have been attached to the feeding of the 5000 even before it came into Mark and John. Matthew's version is almost twice the length of Mark's because he has expanded it with Peter's walk (or sink) on the water.

The story recalls images of Yahweh walking over the waters in the Psalms and Job (Ps 77:19; Job 9:8). Most of the nature miracles - and a number of others besides - have been shaped by Old Testament images. The stilling of the storm is shaped by the affirmation in the Psalms that Yahweh rebuked and calmed the seas (Ps 106:9; 65:7; 89:9; 107:25-32) and by the account of Jonah asleep in the boat in the midst of the storm. People will debate the extent to which the Old Testament passages gave rise to the stories or whether the stories were secondarily coloured by the Old Testament passages. There is evidence elsewhere of both processes being at work (for instance, in the passion narratives with Psalm 22).

In all such miracles we face the credibility issue, which we also faced last week and which is not to be ignored. See the discussion there. Unfortunately the miracle is one-off, non repeatable. Again, I wish it were not so! As a one-off miracle it can fall prey to being used only as a proof of Jesus' divinity where it must compete with similar stories in the culture of the time and join the bidding war of wonders. Most New Testament writers are unhappy with that trend. Look at what Matthew has to say about claims based on wonders (7:21-23). Still, they had no qualms in affirming them, where we pursue truth with different presuppositions.

All that should not distract us (or our hearers) from the powerful symbolism of the story. The waters and the great sea were deemed a threat; Semitic culture was not a great surf culture! Revelation offers a vision of paradise where the sea will be no more (21:1)! The sea is traditionally the source of deep and threatening powers, dragons. It is linked to the abyss: that is why Jesus' exorcism at Gerasa drove the demons/pigs back into the abyss, the sea. Jung also makes much of the sea, not as negatively. In some ways its equivalent in Australia is the great inland, the feared desert. That is the mythological background; myth is usually very true when you hear what it is saying. Israel's epics also give colour to the picture. Crossing the sea, crossing the Jordan. These are moments of great transition, of liberation.

Matthew had already made much of the stilling of the storm. In one of the earliest redactional analyses of Matthew, Bornkamm showed that Matthew so told the story, linking it with Q material on discipleship, that the buffeted boat was made by Matthew to represent the church, buffeted by adversity (8:18-27). Walking on water symbolises authority over the powers that threaten. The scene affirms that Jesus is endowed with Yahweh's power. The Philippian hymn affirms that he has been given Yahweh's name ('Lord' 2:11). It is saying the same thing, speaking from a post resurrection perspective, which also informs the story here.

What does it mean to affirm, 'Jesus is Lord'? What are the powers that destroy? There will be people in your congregation who can tell you about the deep destructive powers in their souls who are now no longer afraid of the sea. There will be others who still yearn for deliverance and others, still, whose fear has become inarticulate, silenced even to themselves, and who stay on concrete paths and never touch the sea. Our role is not to drop people into it, push them overboard into their pain in some frenzy of therapeutic manipulation for which we are probably not qualified. But it is to point to the one who walks there and with what power. With what power? Alter-ego for parent, teacher, or priest? Bigger teller-off? Rather the one whose power is compassion and healing.

So we have a role to play, an awesome role, of helping people access that kind of power. That is Matthew's point when he has Peter invited to walk on water, too. He represents the disciples. This was their commission in chapter 10. It will find its echo in Jesus' words to Peter to be a rock, to be one who withstands the powers of hell (16:16-19). The image is different, the point the same.

The powers are much more than the inner demons Freud and his schools helped us to recognise in more sophisticated ways. For Matthew and his people they also included social and political and religious powers. They would find it hard to understand the ease with which moderns retreat into individualism and personal introspection, the private journey of the soul. There is also justice and peace, the establishment of God's way in a world of oppression and inequality.

The disciples get it! They acclaim Jesus, 'Son of God' (14:33). When Peter acclaims him Messiah at Caesarea Philippi (16:16), it is no longer the climax it was in Mark. They all do it here. They understand, in contrast to what we find in Mark's account where the passage ends with a damning indictment of their failure to understand (6:52). Matthew has more confidence in ministry, or, at least, is employing a different pedagogical technique. His disciples connect with us not through failure to understand, but through their understanding and then refusal to trust. That sinking feeling!

When Jesus says, 'It's me! Don't be afraid!' (14:27), the Greek could be translated: 'I am' and evoke Yahweh's self designation (at the burning bush and in Isa 43). It certainly is a moment of revelation: of who Jesus is and his doing a Yahweh activity. But one would expect use of the designation elsewhere in Matthew, if it were so, and we do not find it. In any case the identification (which may be present in John's account, 6:20) is not a simple one ('I am God'). But Jesus certainly is God's sent one in Matthew, carrying all the authority of the shaliach and divinely created through miraculous conception for the purpose. The interest is, however, less on explaining how this can be, than the fact that it is so. For the person facing the deep, what matters is that what we affirm of Jesus is a statement about God's power, God's love and forgiveness and healing and challenge.

For an imaginative reflection on the passage see the Dolphin of Gennesareth

Epistle: Pentecost 8 7 August Romans 10:5-15

Pentecost 7

William Loader

Pentecost 7: 31 July Matthew 14:13-21

Come to the feast! The feeding of the 5000 is a central symbol in the rich heritage of the Jesus tradition. It can be viewed from many angles and each is enriching. In Mark (6:30-44) it serves to celebrate the nourishment of salvation offered to Israel, just as the feeding of the 4000 (8:1-10) will celebrate the offer also to the Gentiles (see also 8:16-21). Matthew is not so happy to use the stories in this way. In his composition both feedings are nourishment of Israel, so he can remove the particular elements in the feeding of the 5000 which emphasised Israel. Gone is the description of the crowd being like sheep without a shepherd (Mark 6:34). Matthew used it in 9:36. The numbering of groups of 100's and 50's in Mark which evoked memories of Israel's formation in the wilderness has gone. The disciples are, as usual in Matthew, more polite. Instead, Matthew emphasises the miracle and Jesus' healing ministry on site, an element not present in Mark. It enables Matthew to have the two feedings match each other, since he will make the healings by the sea into the setting for the feeding of the 4000 (15:29-39; cf. Mark 7:31-37 and 8:1-10), now atop a mountain, also a common feature in Matthew. The miracle is even grander in Matthew. He tells us 5000 counted only the men; there were women and children as well!

What were 5000 men (and it says, literally, men, males) doing in wilderness battle formation in an isolated place? It sounds like the actions of others of the time who gathered armies in the wilderness in the hope of repeating the liberation of the land under Joshua of old. Is this a new Joshua (Jesus means Joshua)? John's gospel even suggests there was a military response of sorts when the people tried to make him king (6:14-15). Perhaps the tradition about Peter's confession once stood much closer to this story (as it does in John 6): he also had that kind of messiahship in mind (Mark 8:27-31). Was Jesus staging such a symbol of liberation? If so, did he have military intentions? Hardly, unless the material has been sanitised without trace. Certainly there are traces in the story which suggest that Jesus was acting within the tradition of liberation, but there were many forms of liberation hope. One was to yearn for the kingdom.

Was there an actual feeding, an actual miracle? The tradition says there was. It makes a link with the Elijah/Elisha stories. Elisha's multiplication of barley loaves brought to him by his lad (2 Kings 4:42-44) have helped shape John's version of the story. Some may say we cannot really know what happened as a good way of avoiding the embarrassment that such magic is in the story which we could do with urgently in areas of need. Unrepeatable wonders like this are a tease to poverty and destitution. Others suggest the authors never meant the story literally or just left out the bit about everyone opening their own lunches and sharing. Say nothing about the miraculous in the story and your hearers will frequently assume you swallow all that is claimed. In principle the miracle is defensible philosophically. Random realities are fashionable in scientific reflection these days. Not to address the miracle itself in preaching may be irresponsible. I, myself, would let pastoral concerns dictate how I would handle it. Mostly one can at least acknowledge that not everyone will believe the story literally. I really wish it were something we could still do!

Certainly the meal is invested with symbolic associations. It foreshadows the great feast when all nations will gather in peace and reconciliation (Isa 25). Inevitably hearers then and now make connections with other meals in Jesus' ministry and his regular use of meal imagery (e.g., the parable of the great feast, killing the fatted calf, etc). We naturally think of the eucharist. Just before this episode Matthew, like Mark before him, had recounted the black eucharist of Herod Antipas where John the Baptist's head was presented on a platter. (Only) Matthew has John's disciples come and tell Jesus of the execution. In Mark the return of the disciples from their mission intervened. But in Matthew that lay too far back. Instead Jesus' departure by boat to a lonely spot is portrayed as a direct response to John's execution, which, for Matthew, is one of a piece with the disciples and Jesus. The feeding, in that sense, is like a requiem mass for John, a comfort for Jesus and his disciples at John's death. Maybe.

The feeding miracle evokes the many images of food and drink with which Israel spoke of God's word or law. John 6 will bring this together in the celebration of Jesus as the bread of life and his body and blood as food of eternal life. The image is at the heart of Christian worship. Now highly stylised by tradition it still echoes the richness of the imagery. Too often its link to Jesus' death has led people to miss its broader context. The last supper makes sense in the light of all the other meals including this one and they make sense in the light of the vision of liberation and reconciliation which inspired them. To receive him in bread and wine is also to participate in the vision and nourishment which makes it possible. There are very rich connections here.

Epistle: Pentecost 7: 31 July Romans 9:1-5

Pentecost 6

William Loader

Pentecost 6: 24 July Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Jesus subverts the norms. In Matthew 13:31-32 Matthew returns to Mark 4, where Mark has his version of the parable of the mustard seed (4:30-32). As with the sending out of the 12 (Matt 10:1,5-15), so here, too, Matthew draws on a Q version of the tradition (see Luke 13:18-19). Matthew's version has features of both. Parables lend themselves to ever new interpretations and this is also the case with this one. There were more positive examples of plants which Jesus might have chosen. Instead he declares the kingdom of God is like what was often a weed! Leaven (13:33) and the image of 'fishing for people' (4:19) are also fairly negative and therefore shocking images. This was typical of Jesus. Today people would call such subversion post-modernism. Jesus subverts the normal expectations.

So it may not be only the smallness of the seed (storytellers' exaggeration to call it the smallest!), but also the weediness of the mustard plant which reflects on what many thought of Jesus and his preaching. In this sense the parable has much in common with the absurdity of the sowing in the parable of the sower. It is a defiantly assertive Jesus who proclaims the coming of the kingdom, nevertheless! The cross will be absurd. This is definitely alternative in emphasis. It becomes a symbol of the way of discipleship, the lowliness blessed in the beatitudes.

Mark says it grows to be the largest of plants. Q says it becomes a tree. Matthew says both! Mark's is more realistic because it becomes a large bush (not, in fact, the largest), hardly a tree. Birds can nest under it - providing that it has grown big enough at nesting season, if we want to press the detail! Tree imagery has Old Testament precedents (Ezekiel 17:22-24; 31:6; Daniel 4:10, 20; see also Psalm 104:12). Mostly it is negative, representing foreign powers, but Ezekiel 17 appears to use it positively of Israel and the nations. In the parable it now expresses the hope that the kingdom will also draw the birds, the Gentiles. This little embellishment about the birds may already have had that significance in Jesus' use of the parable. In any case it connects us to the great vision of the kingdom as a gathering of all people in peace and reconciliation, foreshadowed in the eucharistic feast. It is a value which collides with the xenophobia which appears to be driving current approaches to asylum seekers.

The parable of the leaven is equally provocative as that of the mustard 'tree'. Potentially poisonous stuff providing bread! 44-50 bring three further parables. The treasure and the pearl illustrate the total commitment which the kingdom elicits and its reward. The fishing net returns to the theme of judgement, echoing the parable of the weeds and its interpretation. It suits those who see the threat of judgement as a sound motivator, including Matthew, and needs to be brought into critical theological dialogue with other gospel streams which appeal to grace and hope and opportunity.

It is typically Matthean that 13:51 has the disciples understand what Jesus had been saying. 13:52 has Jesus go on to speak of the scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven. Just as Jesus taught with authority and not as their scribes, according to 7:29, so the disciples are to be better scribes, but scribes nevertheless (so also 23:34). The good scribe or interpreter is one who both draws on tradition (scripture) and draws on contemporary experience as a parable of God's reality in the world, thus on both old and new. This is one reason why these 'first thoughts' resources will never do as sermons! You need also to study the unique text presented to you in your hearers.

Epistle: Pentecost 6: 24 July Romans 8:26-39

Pentecost 5

William Loader

Pentecost 5: 17 July Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

The parable of the weeds appears only in Matthew's gospel. Matthew gives it similar treatment to the way Mark (and, following Mark, he) has treated the parable of the sower, which we considered last week. He first tells the parable (13:24-30; cf. 13:3-9) and then, after a space, has Jesus give the interpretation privately to the disciples (13:36-43; cf. 13:18-23). Matthew has omitted Mark's parable about the seed growing secretly (4:26-29). This parable has effectively replaced it.

Like the parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds may have functioned in various ways at different stages of its transmission. Some elements which receive emphasis in the parable, for instance, receive almost no emphasis in the interpretation. The interpretation is unlikely to have accompanied the parable from the beginning, but it testifies to creative use of the story.

The striking aspect of the parable is the skulduggery. The parable of the sower portrayed normal sowing operations and an abnormal harvest. This parable describes normal sowing but then an act of subversion. Such behaviour may have been known. Here in the parable it suggests all is not rosy with the kingdom of God. There is an enemy.

A sense that there is an enemy marks many societies, religious and otherwise. It is almost as though we need an enemy, an other, against whom to define ourselves. This need will sometimes sustain images of enemies, even create enemies for survival. What will happen to the stock exchange if the armaments industry folds! A mild paranoia keeps some people going and gives their lives meaning. There's 'them' and there's 'us'. The simpler, the better. This is the stuff of prejudice. Religion is exploited to hold the prejudices in place. This parable and its interpretation are well suited to serve such ends. Without some informed exposition they are bound to do so.

The obverse of such reflections is that we are equally naive if we view reality through rose tinted spectacles. A wishy-washy tolerance which can turn a blind eye to injustice and oppression, to exploitation and destructiveness, may sometimes masquerade as peace and harmony and its exponents become obsessed with inner stillness and survival, but this has just as little to do with the message Jesus preached. The compassion which is characteristic of the kingdom calls us to look injustice in the face and to feel the pain, to recognise the systems (the other kingdoms) which sustain inequality and exploitation, and to take a stand beside the marginalised. It does mean recognising what is the enemy of love. The ancient world personalised this and spoke of the devil and demons. The reality they spoke of is not to be passed by, even if for most of us it is no longer meaningful to employ the mythology which they used to describe it. That way of identifying evil has the disadvantage of identifying the reality at one remove from where it presents itself and can easily lead to the simplistic analyses mentioned above.

The other element which receives unusual attention in the parable is the issue of what to do with the weeds before the harvest. It is overlooked in the interpretation, but at some stage it must have been a key element in the parable and how it was being used. What is this weeding which should be avoided? It might refer to the weeding which racked many other Jewish movements of the time, where the holy pounced on the unholy in their ranks and developed strict boundaries with which to define holiness. Its effect was alienation. It was like the execution of judgement, at least the passing of sentence, before the time. In its extreme form it was violent and military, sanctioned by religious nationalist fervour, nourished by scriptural epics. Other times it was verbal and social abuse. Unfortunately Christian expositions often identified this as Jewish or Pharisaic (simplistic categories again!) and did the same to them with terrible consequences in history. There were such tendencies and they are certainly alive today in churches.

The parable appears to be making a statement against such attempts. Let God deal with the alleged weediness of others! Deal inclusively. This does not mean avoiding challenge and confrontation, but it does mean: never ceasing to have compassion, never writing people off. We see it in Matthew's approach throughout the gospel, which is very confronting. Even the advice on discipline in 18:15-18 is surrounded by the plea that the straying sheep not be abandoned (18:12-14) and that sins be forgiven 77 times (18:21-22). For very practical reasons we also acknowledge we cannot really know all that is going on in another human being. We have no right to act as if we do. 'Judge/condemn not!' (7:1).

The interpretation (13:36-43) is one of the best examples of allegorical interpretation in the New Testament, so much so that we can see in it a coded description of the judgement day as commonly understood in apocalyptic literature of the time. The imagery echoes John the Baptist's preaching (3:10). Matthew makes much of the judgement day and uses it to seek to motivate his hearers. Beyond the colourful imagery it declares that we will all be accountable before God. We need to be in touch with reality now and then. Matthew's message is that if we face up to reality now we will be able to face up to it in the future. In this sentence replace 'reality' with 'God' - and blur them into the identity they have!

Such pictures of judgement may also be the inspiration for preaching fear and threat. In such approaches an image of God emerges who is in the end unforgiving and vengeful. A certain logic follows: it is a matter only of timing. God's love and compassion is only interim. Really, in the end, God will write people off, cease loving. 'But he has to keep to his rules' becomes the rationale and a god emerges for whom rules matter more than people. Where only the timing is a factor and love is only temporary, then Jesus becomes an exception to God's true nature (or, at worst, a ploy to appease him by taking our punishment). It is then not surprising that timing is soon ignored and people feel justified already in the present in acts of righteous indignation, in burning and writing people off, even in physical, emotional and social abuse. It is why Christians, feeding on these aspects of their tradition, have perpetuated terrible atrocities and abuses, and why we find Christians prepared to call for capital punishment and measures against fellow citizens which ignore possibilities for change. Root out the weeds! They just want to be the way their god is. Christians, of course, have no monopoly on religious sanction of violence.

Whoever added the interpretation was making an important point about ultimate accountability, but also created the potential for the earlier point of the parable to be given less attention than it deserves: don't weed! Never uproot people in your mind or attitude by treating them as no longer of any worth!

Epistle: Pentecost 5: 17 July Romans 8:12-25

Pentecost 4

William Loader

Pentecost 4: 13 July Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

In Matthew 13 Matthew is returning to Mark's order. Matthew 13 uses and expands Mark's parable chapter (Mark 4). The immediately preceding episode in Mark is 3:31-35, where Jesus responds to his family by declaring his new family. Matthew has just used it at the end of chapter 12, which also included other material from Mark 3: the accusations that Jesus cast out demons by Beelzebul. So, as in Mark, the focus of the parables is on making sense of the responses to Jesus, the successes and failures of the mission.

The parable of the sower draws on very familiar earthy images which would have been part and parcel of every day life in the rich granary of Galilee. It appears to have been typical of Jesus that he saw sacred text in every day life. This made him different from the scribes who derived their expositions from scripture. The earliest material we have rarely shows Jesus using scripture in anything like a scribal way and it was noted: he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22). In preaching it is always salutary to remind ourselves that there is more than one text. Good preaching arises from a meeting of the text of scripture and revelatory text of common experience and reflection.

The image of sowing and reaping had always been part of every day life and is therefore also richly used in scripture. Many of Jesus' every day images are like that, so there is scriptural allusion present in many parables. It seems that if you approach scripture as a heritage of rich imagery and less as a sterile legal document, you can be more in touch with its play, its poetry and images, and more in touch with what (who) inspired it.

At the earliest level the parable on Jesus' lips may have been asserting that despite appearances - setbacks - God's kingdom would come and surprise us with its overwhelmingly rich harvest (at least, for those days). This is all the more dramatic if the practice of the day was still to sow on the unkempt field of dried out weeds and worn paths surviving since last summer and then to plough. To the uninformed it must have appeared stupid. Already there are two elements: faith in God, in the promise that the blessing for the poor and broken people will be realised; there will be such a harvest and it will be beyond our expectations. The second is: we hold onto this despite the apparent absurdity of the task (Paul's the foolishness of preaching, the folly of the cross), despite the setbacks; this also implies setbacks are normal, as they are in sowing and harvesting. The prospect of suffering is real; the prospect of failure is real. The parable asserts ultimate trust despite the misadventures of so many seeds. At this level the parable is almost autobiographical of Jesus. It is also paradigmatic.

Such an image invites reflection and this appears to have occurred very early. The interpretation placed on the lips of Jesus now displays the hallmarks of the early church, but would not have been impossible as a reflection already in the setting of Jesus' ministry, although normally he appears not to have offered such interpretations. Whatever the case, the interpretation exploits the detail about the different state of the soil or ground on which the seed fell. Perhaps it began as an expansion of the consoling aspect of the parable: I can come to terms with failure here and there; it is bound to happen. Always a helpful reflection, especially for perfectionists and would-be messiahs of ministry! Of course, it can also be a haven for avoiding poor performance. Perhaps my sermons are really dull and missing the mark not because it is inevitable, but because I need to give them more attention! On the other hand, I need to accept that my excellent work may fall on distracted hearers. There are no rewards in giving myself a hard time!

Different soils also opened the possibility of making a point not about the preachers but about the hearers. This is the main line of the interpretation in 13:18-23. It is probably good for us preachers not to skip over the application to preachers and focus on this feature too quickly - talking about 'them' is always easier. Matthew appears to put the emphasis here. This seems indicated by some of the revisions he has made of Mark. Mark was making much of the climax and contrast between the fate of the seeds and the huge harvest. His numbers go: 30, 60, 100! Wow! Matthew reverses this order. Mark's version of the parable spoke of one seed falling here, another there and then others (plural) falling on good ground - fairly optimistic. Matthew evens this out: some fell here, some fell there; some fell into good ground. Mark has Jesus scold the disciples for their failure to grasp what he was saying (4:13), even though they were insiders entrusted with the mystery (4:10-12). Matthew removes such harsh aspersions on the disciples. Their failure in Matthew is not at the level of grasping truth, but trusting it, living by it. Take your pick! These are hardly less applicable today.

Matthew puts great emphasis on understanding. He adds it in 13:19 and 23. His gospel illustrates the importance he attaches to teaching. The great commission highlights teaching (28:19). In 13:19 he expands Mark's 'the word' to 'the word of the kingdom'. Matthew is concerned about content. Faith with understanding will help combat the adverse conditions which threaten the harvest. That is why he has written his gospel of the kingdom. The particular dangers may each warrant attention and be a sermon in themselves.

The various versions of the sower parable preserve a sense of the mystery of God's working. In Mark, especially, the parable is a parable about parables and the way they work: creating penny dropped experiences for some; passing others by, almost reinforcing their inability to hear by using this medium. Matthew's focus moves somewhat away from such paradoxical reflections. 'Mystery' becomes 'mysteries' (ie. teachings) and failure to respond is explained rather than evoked by use of parables (see Matthew 13:10-17 in contrast to Mark 4:10-12). The disciples do now see and are thus blessed. The challenge is: do they trust what they believe and understand? If not, why not?

Epistle: Pentecost 4: 10 July Romans 8:1-11

Pentecost 3

William Loader

Pentecost 3: 3 July Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Matthew began his gospel by emphasising the continuity between John the Baptist and Jesus. A certain tension developed because John had foretold that Jesus would be the judge to come. He would come with fire and judgement (3:10-11). Matthew 11 begins with an account of John's pondering whether Jesus really is the one who is to come as judge (11:2-6). Why? Because he had not brought the judgement. Jesus replies in a way that reassures John yet also distinguishes himself from John's understanding. John is to understand Jesus' present role not just his future one. In Jesus not only is the kingdom announced; it is also coming to reality. Sometimes Matthew's emphasis on judgement to come is so strong we might wonder whether his theology is closer to John's, but then there are these passages which identify the kingdom breaking through into the present. What is awaited is not just judgement but hope of liberation and renewal. When we pray, 'Your kingdom come', we pray about the future but also open ourselves to the present. Something happens as a result - in the present!

The verses which follow (11:7-15) also both affirm John and distinguish John from Jesus and the disciples. In today's passage 11:16-19 include a similar twofold emphasis. Jesus identifies his mission with John's; yet they are different. The response of children (or it could equally be servants or slaves) to each other about dancing or wailing (11:16-17) is an image which serves to contrast John and Jesus and at the same time highlights the negative response to each. Does the dance image match Jesus and the mourning image match John? Both images would have been traditionally associated with special meals (wakes and weddings?).

John's austerity of not eating and drinking belongs to the period of waiting; the promise has yet to arrive. Jesus' celebratory lifestyle of eating and drinking belongs to the period of fulfilment. In Mark's story of controversy that John and his disciples fasted, but Jesus did not (2:18-20), we have a similar contrast. Jesus' response there is to claim that the wedding time had arrived. A celebratory lifestyle of eating and drinking would normally have brought one into bad company so it is not surprising to read the full accusation here: 'a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners' (11:19). Mark also has a story to illustrate that: associated with the call of Levi (2:13-17; of 'Matthew' in Matthew 9:9-13).

Such accusations may have been a standard denigration of people who failed to live up to the normal standards of restrained piety. Similar language appears in Deut 22:20 in speaking of recalcitrant children - who should be stoned! Jesus' celebratory lifestyle fitted his proclamation that God was already actively involved in the present bringing change. Sometimes we imagine he could have had joy only because he was seriously taking note of mission successes, as though natural joy at the presence of God is a kind of self indulgence. But that is not the picture. It is not a studied joy, a kind of guilty, restrained 'rejoicing' which can be forgiven because of great achievements. It is not so serious. It takes a light and fresh approach to tradition. Jesus' words, 'The sabbath was made for people not people for the sabbath' (Mark 2:27), for instance, probably had nothing to do with meeting the needs of desperately hungry disciples who just had to pluck ears of wheat to survive, but more to do with an affirmation of the enjoyment of a few casually plucked heads of grain for a chew. It was not flouting the Law; it was enjoying the day God had made.

This affirmation of joy is not naive indulgence. Jesus knows that he reaps the fury of those who take it all so seriously that they miss the point. The words, 'Wisdom is justified by her works' (11:19), is a typical stance of Jesus. He sees himself in the tradition of the sage who knows God's wisdom and seeks to live by it. In this Matthew may be evoking those traditions which had speculated about Wisdom (Greek: Sophia) as God's companion, almost marriage partner. Jesus represents and embodies this kind of wisdom, God's wisdom, life's wisdom. Meals celebrate this presence just as they foreshadow the great dream of all peoples coming together in reconciliation in a great feast at the end of the days. Jesus was not only fond of feasting; he also employed the image throughout his teaching. It became the location for his famous last act of self giving which gave rise to the tradition of the eucharist. 'Eucharist' ('eucharisteia') means thanksgiving and needs to retain the joy of thanksgiving which characterised Jesus' ministry, which then makes sense of his death.

The closing verses of the chapter (11:25-30) also appear to draw on wisdom traditions. As wisdom is close to God, sometimes God's daughter, and the wise person God's child, so Jesus affirms his unique closeness to God (11:27). The religious wise who seriously go about trying to protect God have missed the point. Jesus' deeds of mercy and compassion are the evidence of God's will. That was what Jesus had been conveying to John's messengers (11:2-6). That was what justified the claim of true wisdom (11:19). That is why it was so offensive that Chorazin and Bethsaida refused to respond (11:20-24). There is something more serious than the immorality of the feasts; it is the denial of the miracles of compassion. The seriously moral frequently live in places like that.

The invitation of Jesus in 11:28-30 is beautiful. It is the kind of thing which sages said. Something very similar occurs in Sirach 51:26-27. It is not a summons to idol worship of Jesus, but a call to learn a new way, especially a new way of interpreting and understanding God's will. That will, God's Law, God's word, was commonly portrayed as assuaging the thirst and feeding the hungry souls. Remember the woman on the street in Proverbs who invited people to her feast (Proverbs 8-9) and Isa 55:1 with its splendid call to share free food? This is the same tradition. It is not a call to heaviness, but a call to lightness of being. It contrasts with the serious calls of those who interpret scripture as demand and stricture.

It is not by chance that Matthew will proceed directly from here to his version of the controversy over the sabbath (12:1-8). In his own way he will reshape the story to portray Jesus as an interpreter of the Law who focuses on compassion and adds to his account the words of Hosea 6:6, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice'. The promise is not joy one day after strictures now, but joy now, embedded in the life of God and located in the midst of the world in its joy and pain - also in its hostility. With such a sense of rest we can turn our attention to what really matters, people, and turn aside from the busy hassles of religiosity with its industry of piety which continues to make of many churches its factories.

Epistle: Pentecost 3: 3 July Romans 7:15-25a

Pentecost 2

William Loader

Pentecost 2: 26 June Matthew 10:40-42

This is a very short gospel passage but plays a key role in relation to the chapter. In fact 10:40 is a major theological statement. 'The person receiving (or welcoming) you receives me and the person receiving me receives the one who sent me.' It recalls the instructions at the beginning of the chapter which sent the disciples out. 'Sent ones', envoys, in a non technical sense: 'apostles' (which means: 'sent ones') were of enormous importance in the ancient world in all cultures. Jews identified such a figure as a 'shaliach' (which also means 'sent one') and one tradition speaks of a man's shaliach being like the man, himself.

It is difficult for us to grasp the importance of envoys because we have telecommunication systems which enable immediate contact. They used letters - but not a postal system! Therefore they were dependent on travelling representatives who had to be authorised to act for their senders. They might carry letters from their senders, but they had to be able to represent the interests of the ones they served. This was a major factor in ancient civilisation. You needed authorised envoys, representatives. The envoy model had already been employed to explain the role of prophets. They were God's messengers. Interestingly the words for 'angels', in both Greek and Hebrew, come from this background; they are sent ones, people who are to announce (we see the root in the word for gospel: euangelion). Jesus is God's envoy. The commissioned disciples are Jesus' envoys. There is a line of authority here. It fits Matthew's understanding of ministry so well; we all share the same commission: Jesus and disciples.

In Q Jesus speaks of himself and his followers as envoys of God's wisdom (sophia) (Luke 11:49; Matt 11:16-19, as we shall see next week). In Paul's circles we see this being applied not just to Jesus' ministry, but to his life as a whole: he is God's Son whom God sent into the world (Gal 4:3; Rom 8:3). In the tradition of John's gospel this became so central that Jesus regularly refers to God as 'The one who sent me' and sending here refers to sending from the heavenly realm to become flesh and dwell among us. The envoy represents the sender, so that to respond to Jesus is to respond to God. In terms of an encounter he is effectively God, God's Word, although John never forgets that he is also separate from God and subordinate to God, carrying out the Father's will.

Do we extend the same sense of authority to the ones Jesus sent? That is certainly the logic of this verse and of this way of thinking. It can also lead us into our own home grown heresy when we forget that we are envoys and begin to think we are God. It is also the kind of model which invested the church's ministry with enormous prestige. It distorts our understanding of our ministry and the ministry of Jesus when we fail to see the lines of authority. This danger is one of the weaknesses of the envoy model. Your response to me is your response to God - who dares claim this? But wait...

10:41 sounds similar to 10:40, except that it specifies 'prophets' and 'righteous' (maybe a technical term in Matthew for a form of leadership?). In 23:34 Jesus speaks of sending 'prophets and sages and scribes'. 10:41 shifts the emphasis to receiving the reward of a prophet. It is a significant shift in focus and addresses a problem which doubtless many of Matthew's hearers would have felt and many face today. What if I am not an apostle or a prophet or out there in the front line? What if all my responsibilities which are important to me mean I simply cannot fulfil them and be carrying official church roles as well? At one level Matthew is saying: welcoming and supporting such people warrants the same reward.

Something is happening here which definitely undercuts a sense of hierarchy. Ordinary people get the same reward as the high flyers or the necessarily public functionaries, the envoys. Matthew uses the language of reward not to incite our consumer imagination, but to evoke an image of God's favour. Matthew wants us to believe that it is just as rewarding to be on the supporting side of these ministries as to be exercising them. We don't have to feel we have to do everything ourselves! Paul would say, it is OK to be part of the body; you don't have to be a foot if you are a hand.

10:42 takes us one step further. It speaks of 'little ones'. This appears to be a term with which members of the community described themselves. Caring within the community is also ministry. This trio of verses sets side by side: welcoming Christ, supporting ministry, and caring for one another. In the final speech of Jesus' ministry in Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats, which takes this to its widest conclusion 25:31-46). Your caring for people in need (and probably in that context not only those in your church community) stands on the same level as your response to Christ. Back to our question above: Your response to me is your response to God - who dares claim this? Here it finds a radical answer.

Many people could feel disenfranchised by all this talk about apostles and ministry in Matthew 10 until we reach these final verses. Here in these verses is an opportunity to address that feeling and affirm mutual ownership of the gift given to all of us to own and to exercise: allowing ourselves to be involved in God's life in the world. And what could be more natural than that and more inclusive!

Epistle: Pentecost 2: 26 June Romans 6:12-23

Trinity

William Loader

Trinity: 19 June Matthew 28:16-20

This is such an important text in the context of Matthew's gospel that there is a danger that its use on Trinity Sunday will lead to too much focus on its tenuous links with the Trinity, so I want to start with the passage itself. It has enormous significance as the climax of the gospel, drawing together major themes of the gospel.

Notice to begin with that the women have already encountered Jesus and worshipped (28:8-9) - and not doubted! The eleven worship, but some doubt (28:17). Is Matthew a feminist? The question is anachronistic, but the answer does seem to be that Matthew intends to highlight the fact that those who are discounted (and that certainly includes women) are frequently more in touch with God's doings than those who, in traditional terms, ought to know. Already the genealogy showed that and Matthew's passion narrative, unlike Mark's, does have the women faithful throughout in contrast to the male disciples.

The major focus is Jesus' words. 'All authority has been given to me'. Almost certainly this is a reference to the significance of his resurrection rather than to something which happened before his coming in his pre-existent state (which Matthew appears not to espouse) or the equipping for his ministry. The matter is slightly complicated by the use of the Q saying in 11:27, where Jesus declares that the Father had given all into his hands. There it must mean authorisation for his ministry. Here in 28:18 the 'all authority in heaven and on earth' refers not to authorisation for his earthly ministry but to authorisation in relation to all nations. 'All authority' and 'all nations' belong together. It is universal in scope and includes both heaven and earth. It is Matthew's version of what we find elsewhere as Jesus' exaltation to God's right hand at his resurrection, his enthronement, his being crowned Lord and given the all holy name of God.

The name which is above every name in Philippians 2:6-11 is Yahweh's name. To bear Yahweh's name is to become a second Yahweh, to be God's vice regent. There were rich and various traditions which expressed this kind of relation. Commonly they derive from coronation rituals, where the king or emperor assumed the status of a god, bore a god's name or, as in Israel, was adopted as God's son. Hence we find the coronation oracle of Israel's king, preserved in Psalm 2:7, applied by earliest Christians to Jesus at his resurrection; 'You are my Son; today I have begotten you,' a formula of adoption (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:4-6; see also Ps 89:27). Similarly the call to sit at God's right hand, found in Ps 110:1, became a standard description of the meaning of Easter and is echoed in the creed. The language of 28:18 appears also to echo Daniel 7:13 where the Ancient of Days gives the kingdom to 'one like a son of man'. That passage and the title Son of Man is a favourite in Matthew. Links between Jesus as Son of Man and his exaltation and glorification become a feature in John's gospel.

Alongside the court imagery, but often connected with it in Judaism, was the notion that the heavenly vice regent was God's wisdom or logos, so that Christians versed in such speculation would come to claim that Jesus has assumed that role, indeed, has become that one. From there it was not a major step to claim that he had always been so. These connections were made easy because some circles in Judaism portrayed wisdom or logos as God's child, first as a woman (close to being God's spouse), or a daughter, later as a son, and frequently linked with regal imagery (see Proverbs 8; Sirach 24; Wisdom 7; Hebrews 1:2-6). The same figure was thought to have been with God from eternity. How can God ever have been without wisdom! The merging of personification and myth in this stream of thought was a rich source for speculation about Jesus. Exalted to become God's deputy, he was, to those familiar with the wisdom-logos speculation, also in one sense returning to where he had always been: one with God from the beginning. In the New Testament this reaches its finest expression in the gospel of John and in Hebrews (see also Col 1:15-20). The doctrine of the Trinity attempts to trace these tangled threads without losing any one of them. The problem it addresses or, perhaps, better, holds in solution, was, in a sense, already present in Judaism as the image of wisdom came to be treated as a angel-like being in itself.

Matthew does not go so far. Like Q before it, Matthew certainly linked Jesus with God's wisdom, so that he has Jesus speak as God's wisdom (11:16-19), but we do not find the further developments which speak of a pre-existent Son. The Son is created by the miraculous conception in Matthew.

28:18 is, therefore, Matthew's version of the affirmation of Jesus' enthronement at God's right hand. What does it mean to say, 'Jesus is Lord'? What new order is thus constituted? Clearly the notion of authorisation is central. God authorised Jesus; therefore Jesus spoke with God's authority. The notion of Jesus as God's representative develops in some Christian circles into a full blown understanding of Jesus as God's apostle or envoy, as in John (earlier: Paul in Gal 4:4; Rom 8:3). Like the agent in Judaism, the 'shaliach', Jesus speaks and acts for God. In Matthew this is true without the wider speculation. Jesus is authorised and here Jesus authorises. Authorised for what and authorising for what? This is the crucial question.

The temptation narrative ended with the offer of one kind of authority which Jesus rejected (4:8-10). What the devil offered there we now hear has been given, but it is different in kind. Its real substance is defined both by what follows and by the totality of what precedes. In other words, in Matthew's account of Jesus' ministry we see what he was authorised to do and in the commission we see what he now authorises others to do: 'teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.' The two correspond, just as earlier Matthew could use the same summary to describe the preaching of John the Baptist (3:2), Jesus (4:17) and the disciples (10:7). It meshes together: the disciples are sent to teach what Jesus had taught them - all of it! That is their authorisation, their commission.

Teaching is so important in Matthew. It is not that he means teaching beliefs, but teaching about God's will, how to live in accordance with God's will, how to develop the righteousness which characterises the kingdom of heaven. And what is the teaching? Read the story! Hear the message of compassion, the challenge of judgement and accountability and observe the lowly servant. To that the disciples are authorised and authorised to authorise others. That is the church's agenda.

Were we not so familiar with it, mention of baptism might have struck us as unexpected. For Matthew's hearers it would recall Jesus' baptism and the Spirit which receives little mention but is the driving force of Jesus' ministry and the power by which he takes on the demonic world (12:28). 'The name of' is authority language again. While the so called trinitarian formula, 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,' sounds like a lift from our liturgy and may be from Matthew's, each part makes perfect sense in the Matthean frame of reference. The Father is the ultimate source of authority. The Son receives and passes on that authority. The Spirit enables it all to happen and is received in baptism.

The final promise of Jesus' abiding presence reminds many of Matthew's use of Isa 7:14 in the birth narratives, in which he identifies Jesus as the child to be called Emmanuel, 'God with us.' The match is not precise, because that refers to God's action through Jesus' work, whereas here we read of Jesus' own presence with his disciples. The link makes better sense when we recognise that what Matthew is saying of Jesus here was said of God's Shekinah, God's presence or glory, like wisdom, which was sometimes thought of as having an existence of its own and yet, like the persons in the Trinity, was also part of God. Matthew had echoed the image already in 18:20, where Jesus promises his presence among the two or three gathered in his name to interpret God's will. The Jewish Mishnah makes the same promise about Shekinah for those studying Torah. Judaism's incipient trinitarianism contributes to Matthew's store of images for connecting Jesus to God and for connecting us to Jesus and so to God.

This good news is worth sharing with all people (hardly all nations except Israel, as some have suggested). It is worth sharing not because we are obsessed with having everybody do things our way or because God has such an obsession, although at times one might think so in the light of some statements and practices of mission. Rather the compassionate and loving God is God and sets no limits to that love and will not collude with falsity and sin. The range is as broad as the passion is deep.

Epistle: Trinity: 19 June 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Pentecost

William Loader

Pentecost: 12 June John 20:19-23

‘Pentecost’ is the anglicised form of the Greek word for 50^th and refers to the 50^th day after Passover. Pentecost is the Jewish festival called, ‘The feast of Weeks’, originally marking the end of the grain harvest. It also acquired links with the giving the Law on Sinai. It is a very appropriate time to celebrate the Spirit’s coming to the early church. Luke has given a symbolic structure to the first weeks after Easter. The risen Jesus makes special appearances for 40 days after which he ascended. The Spirit comes on the 50^th day: Pentecost. 40 is a special figure linked with preparation (Israel was 40 years in the wilderness; Jesus was tempted 40 days in the wilderness). Luke is using the symbolism of numbers. He even has 120 people gathered in the upper room in Acts 1:15 (10 x 12!). Luke’s hearers would have appreciated the symbolism. The message is clear. We are to see the God of the Old Testament at work again. The coming of the Spirit is about harvest!

It is likely that Luke could create such a wonderful symbol with the numbers because he knew of a significant event which happened at the Pentecost festival. It is now retold in a way which echoes Jewish stories about Sinai according to which a flame came down from heaven, split into various tongues of fire, one for each of the nations of the world, but only Israel listened to the words. Luke’s symbolic narrative won the day and we now celebrate the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Good Friday.

Luke’s was not the only stream of storytelling about the Spirit. No other New Testament writer speaks of Pentecost in this way. Even Luke, himself, indicates that the scheme is a secondary structure, because he cannot hide the fact that the risen Lord also appeared to Paul - outside the 40 days! People thought about the resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Spirit in different ways. Usually they are very closely related. In most writers ‘ascension’ meant going up to be enthroned at God’s right hand and most saw that as happening at Jesus’ resurrection.

John’s gospel pictures Jesus ascending on the day of his resurrection (after meeting Mary! 20:17) but before he appears as the risen (ascended one) to his disciples (20:19-23). On that same day of the resurrection Jesus appears to his disciples and gives them the Spirit (19:22). What Luke describes as happening over 50 days John portrays as happening all on the same day! What really happened may be somewhere in between Luke and John, but it is likely to be closer to John’s account than to Luke’s. More important, however, than trying to work out what happened when, is the importance of what is being described and celebrated. John helps us to link resurrection and Pentecost in one single scene.

‘Peace’(Shalom) may be just, ‘Hello!’, but it probably includes much more than a greeting. It is the greeting that makes all the difference to them - and us! Its importance comes through what follows: having said, ‘Peace’, Jesus shows them his hands and side. This is not because they would not otherwise recognise him. Rather it is as the one who suffered that he presents himself. It is like saying: ‘Please don’t think I have left all that behind!’ From a broader perspective we might say that it reminds us that the resurrection is not about turning away from the life poured out in compassion to something else like reward, power and glory, but an assertion that this way of love and brokenness is the way, the truth and the life which leads us to God and reveals what God is also like.

The simple joy (and relief!) of the apostles hides something much deeper: the cross wasn’t a disaster, a symbol of hopelessness. At our deepest levels we make decisions about hopefulness and hopelessness. The killing of compassion, violence against the good, unrelenting suffering and oppression is devastating. Much of the time we pretend it is non existent or busy ourselves so as not to face its reality. If we allow ourselves to be confronted by the disaster of the cross and many cross-like experiences facing us in the world, we are thrown into the dilemma about hope: is there any? This story’s simple narrative of joy is an assertion of hope. That hope believes defiantly in the possibility of peace. Jesus’ second statement of peace is probably therefore also much more than, ‘Hello!’!

The meeting of hope and peace in the risen broken body is not about winning or triumph, as if it meant: ‘They thought they had won; but he won after all! Let’s join the winning side and reap the benefits!’ With an amazing consistency Jesus’ resurrection appearances end up being commissions (Paul’s is the best known example!). The life which meets us in brokenness meets us to engage us in itself! That means engagement is the same compassion and poured out love. In John that is simply put: ‘As my Father sent me, I send you’. As Christ was the bearer of light and life and truth, so we are to be the bearers of light and life and truth.

This must not be reduced to a programme, a mission statement to be obeyed, a strategy to be worked at, as if the focus now is task oriented activity alone. We will run out of steam! Or, all too easily, we will become frustrated or legalistic, with ourselves and with others. Instead, the one who invites our engagement in life acts creatively, recalling the wonderful account in Genesis of God breathing on shapes of clay to bring them to human life (Gen 2:7). The word for Spirit also means ‘breath’, so the symbolism is rich and evocative. This is John’s portrait of ‘Pentecost’. Engaging God’s life in compassion goes hand in hand with engaging God’s life in receiving compassion. The disciples are to live from this life - not just tell others about it. This is the promise of which Jesus had spoken so many times in his final address to the disciples (eg. 14:12-17,28;15:26;16:5-15).

Verse 23 goes one step further. It authorises the disciples to create an ordered community which faces up to itself, dealing with its own sin. John appears to be drawing on a tradition about church discipline at this point. It grounds flights of idealism which want to take off at the sound of the word, Spirit, bringing them back to accountability. We know that this was a struggle for many congregations, Corinth being the best example, but the problem was widespread (see, for instance, Matt 7:21-23). Perhaps John is addressing it when he consistently undermines faith which depends solely on sensational miracles and tells such people they must be born again (2:23-25; 3;1-5). The effectiveness of Christian community has a lot to do with the success with which it has learned to keep verses 22 and 23 together in a context of compassion. 13:34-35 remind us that community is inseparable from Christ’s mission. This also belongs to the message of 20:19-23.

Epistle: Pentecost: 12 June 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Epistle/Acts: Pentecost: 12 June Acts 2:1-21

Easter 7

William Loader

Easter 7: 5 June John 17:1-11

Like Jesus’ final words to his disciples, so also this account of his final prayer has to be understood against the background of common patterns of ‘biography’ of the time. For further detail on this see the comments for Easter 5. The main point is that it was customary in portraying someone’s life to seek to crystallise the essence of their message for future generations in the accounts of their last words and sometimes their final prayer. It is not that there was such a prayer which Jesus spoke in this distinctively Johannine way of which the rest of the tradition, reflected in the other gospels, had no knowledge. Rather in John’s story of Jesus’ life and importance he has creatively imagined what Jesus might have said and what would have been the issues for him in this final prayer.

At the same time, as elsewhere in the gospel, John will have drawn upon the older traditions known to him, many of them reaching back to Jesus, and been inspired by them. Many find in John 17 influence from the Lord’s Prayer. It has also been described as the ‘high priestly prayer’ of Jesus, a designation inspired by the portrait of Jesus in Hebrews and by the imagery of 17:19. While not a minuted prayer from the upper room in 30 AD, the prayer (like so much of John’s gospel) is an inspired and inspiring account of who Jesus is and what he has done which belongs to the treasury of faith. It is not a private prayer, but one written to be heard and reflected upon.

Following the model of the envoy commissioned for a task Jesus is making a report to the commissioner. The commission is variously described as glorifying the Father on earth (4), making God’s name known (6), and passing on God’s words (8). The commissioning is variously described as being given authority (2), being sent (3), being given work to do and bring to completion (4), being given what is the Father’s to pass it on (7-8), coming from and (again) being sent from the Father (8). The goal of the commission is variously described as the passing on of eternal life (2), thus enabling people to know God and Jesus Christ (3), to keep the word (6), to receive the words (8), to know and believe what the Son claims about his commission (8), to glorify the Son (10) and to become one (11). All that! - in the space of 11 verses.

But there is more. As the Father’s envoy Jesus not only reports that he has finished the task (4), but also requests reinstatement to his former status. That is, he asks that he may be glorified (1). This means: being brought back to the glory of the Father’s presence, which is where he started (5). The ‘hour’ (1) has in mind the events about to be unfolded in Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion. People will read those events as a hopeless failure. But people of faith will see that while at one level Jesus will be lifted up onto a cross, at another level he will be lifted up to glory. For John all these events come together as one, so that we are not to think of death without resurrection, exaltation, glorification, and ascension. It enables John to engage in much of irony: lifting up the Son of Man, for instance, is wonderfully ambiguous. Many sayings of the gospel find their echoes in this reference to ‘the hour’ (13:31-32; 12:23, 31-33; 8:28; 6:62; 3:13-15; 2:5).

What does all this mean? The imagery varies, like the instruments in an orchestral piece, but the same theme is being repeated throughout the gospel and its melody is clearly heard in this account of Jesus’ final prayer. The Son came to bring the offer of life. The life consists in being in a knowing relationship with God. The envoy model suggests the Son came to bring information, but in fact that, too, is imagery. What he brings is the offer of life in relationship. Hearing Jesus describe his own commission in this way helps us keep this focus. While John also knows and uses those traditions which place emphasis on Jesus’ death as a sacrifice for sins, that is not the dominant melody. The focus is the encounter with the Son already during his ministry which invited people into relationship with the Father. After his departure the Spirit through the disciples will take that offer of life to the whole world.

In verse 9 the prayer moves from reporting that the job has been done to making a request. While in the logic of the prayer it is God who is to hear this, in the context of the gospel story being read it is the hearers who are to hear it. John is telling them/us that Jesus is worried about something: disunity and division. He prays that the disciples will be one. Later he will extend this concern to all future disciples. Unity is not a strategy of convenience and economy here nor just a strategy for marketing (although this thought is not entirely absent as 17:21 and 23 and13:34-35 show!). It is not a cleverly ambiguous ecumenical declaration which papers over differences. It is rather an extension of John’s understanding of what eternal life (or salvation) means. It is not about a place or a gift or a certificate of acquittal so much as about a relationship.

That relationship is one of love, just like the relationship which exists between the Father and the Son (see 20-23 and 13:34-35). So it has to include such a relationship of love also among disciples; otherwise something is simply not being properly understood. If the focus in understanding salvation is not on this relationship, but, say, primarily on a place or a gift or a certificate of acquittal, then the horizontal dimension of mutual love is more likely to be the casualty, because the appeal there is too often just a variant of greed (getting something for me). Christianity has been plagued with the ‘thinging’ of eternal life and John’s gospel is an excellent antidote.

John helps us avoid the commodification of the gospel and invites to an understanding of being good news by being community in which love is lived out. Jesus had needs. It is not about pretending we do not have them and that the gospel does not address them. Jesus states that he wants the closest relationship with God possible. That is what he is asking for. It is OK to ask for that. But that is not a commodity. It is a hope for communion. John’s gospel is also pointing us to that as our hope. It does have a future - generously Jesus wants nothing less than that we share the same hope which awaits him (17:24-26). It has a future because it has a present in which already here and now we share and delight in the life of God who is always taking initiatives of compassion. The greatest antidote to greed is to want only the reward of being one with the God whose being is self giving love.

John’s gospel has a wonderful way of bringing it all together in focus and within the gospel John 17 does this especially. It can help us recognise what matters. Its distinctive model of christology helps make this possible, but also offers us a way of thinking of Jesus and his significance which works where John’s elaborate model is not assumed, such as in the earlier gospels and in the earliest traditions. Combined with their earthiness you can then see how what John is saying in abstract takes us into being a community of compassion which touches every area of life and challenges all systems and instances where it is absent.

First Reading: Easter 7: 5 June Acts 1:6-14
Epistle: Easter 7: 5 June 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11

Easter 6

William Loader

Easter 6: 29 May John 14:15-21

This passage belongs closely together with last week’s, John 14:1-14. It forms another segment of Jesus’ last words to his disciples. See last week for why that is important and the role it plays in John compared with the other gospels.

While the opening verse might be read as referring to a range of commandments given by Jesus, or even to the ten commandments and the way Jesus expounds some of them in the Sermon on the Mount and adds more, this is not the focus in John. Keeping Jesus’ commands also features in 14:21, which neatly rounds off our passage by bringing it back to the theme with which it started. It is also the theme in 14:23-24, which speaks of keeping Jesus’ ‘word’ or ‘words’. 15:10 returns to the theme of Jesus’ commands and 15:12 explains: ‘This is my command, that you love one another.’ It recalls the so-called ‘new commandment’ of 13:34, ‘that you love one another as I have loved you’. 15:10 even speaks of Jesus, in turn, keeping the Father’s commands.

What does all this mean? A detailed set of moral commands? We look in vain in John’s gospel for such detail. Instead we have basically one command: to go as we have been sent, just as Jesus came as he was sent, and to make the Father known. It is about sharing a message of love for the world and that also entails being a community of love, which appears to have been a major theme at the time when the final drafts of the gospel were being prepared (see last week). This is not surprising, given that 1 John tells us that the community had subsequently split apart.

Here in John 14 the focus is on doing the Father’s works, just as Jesus had done, and doing them in all the world (14:12). When the disciples love Christ and get on with the job, two important things will accompany them. John lists them in 14:16-17 and in 14:18-21. Jesus defines his own role in 14:16 as a ‘helper’ (parakletos). It is the word used for a support person, especially in court, and can also be translated ‘advocate’ or ‘counsel’ or ‘counsellor’. Mark 13:11 speaks of the Spirit playing this role when disciples are prosecuted. This idea has produced further reflection in John’s communities, which led to people identifying Jesus himself as having this role before God (as in 1 John 2:1; see also Romans 8:34 and Hebrews 7:25 for a similar idea). Here the focus is on the Spirit, as a second ‘paraclete’. The focus is less on help as disciples are arraigned before the courts and more on help to enable them to do their job. The legal language still shines through: they are to bear testimony to Jesus as witnesses (15:26). 16:5-15 even portrays the whole mission of the Spirit and the disciples as mounting a case to the world about the truth of Jesus and winning it.

At the simplest level, in14:16-17 Jesus is saying: my departure is distressing you; but, take heart, I am sending the Spirit to help you to continue my work. The same point is acted out in 20:19-23, where Jesus declares: ‘As my Father sent me, so I send you’, breathes on them and gives them the Spirit. That sound like saying: I’m not going to be around; instead of me you will have the Spirit. But John immediately corrects such an impression in 14:18. Jesus is not going to abandon them. He will come to them.

There are various possibilities here. He could be referring in 14:19 to the second coming and be indicating that he believes that that will happen ‘in just a little while’. Or he could be referring to the resurrection when Jesus will appear to his disciples (as he does in John 20-21). John clearly affirms both the second coming (as 14:3 shows) and the resurrection appearances. 14:21 shows, however, that he intends something more. Jesus will make himself known to the people engaged in his mission.

At this point we have another confused disciple, Judas (see last week and 13:36; 14:5; 14:8), who asks the naive question (14:22) which produces further clarification (14:23-24). In this answer Jesus states that both he and the Father will come and take up residence in disciples engaged in mission. John is somewhat playfully reworking 14:2-3. Instead of ‘dwelling places’ with the Father in the beyond and of Jesus’ second coming, we now read of ‘dwelling places’ in people and the second coming of the Father and the Son into the lives of individuals. Like Paul, John understands the Spirit as bringing the presence of both the Father and the Son to the believer. Little wonder that later generations articulated a doctrine of the Trinity!

While not abandoning traditional beliefs (for instance, in the second coming and judgement), John handles them in a way which relates them directly to the present. He can do this because the chief focus of his spirituality is not a place or a time, but a person and a set of relationships. The focus is not quantity, but quality. The focus is not bigger miracles or stricter commandments, but the expansion of the initiative of love which comes from God and seeks to fill the world. This is why John’s account of Jesus’ last words does not expound the Law, as do the patriarchs in their final instructions in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and as one might have expected in Matthew (see 28:18-20). It is also why for all John’s talk about the Spirit, the focus is not ecstasy or miracle, as one might expect in Luke and Acts, but presence. The focus is not mystical experiences. If mysticism applies at all to John, it is focused on relationship and resultant action, on communities of love which ‘speak for themselves’ (13:34-35).

The passage is framed by human anxiety about the absence of Jesus and ultimately about the absence of God (14:1; 14:27). It does not deny the anxiety and distress, but offers a promise of presence and sense of meaning embedded in sharing God’s life and participating in God’s action in the world, recognisable by its ‘Jesus-shape’. John composed these parting words with more than the immediate disciples in mind. Do they not still make sense and help people make sense of their tradition?

Epistle: Easter 6: 29 May 1 Peter 3:13-22

Easter 5

William Loader

Easter 5: 22 May John 14:1-14

This is one of those passages from Scripture which has established its credentials as holy by usage, quite apart from the authority it shares with its surrounding pages in the New Testament. It has comforted mourners at funerals, inspired billboards and car stickers asserting the Christian way, and it has raised expectations of success through prayer - at almost anything.

It does not stand alone in its context, but forms part of Jesus’ parting words to his disciples which began in 13:31. There Jesus announced his return to the Father’s glory (his glorification) and went on in 13:32 to explain that he was going somewhere where the disciples could not follow him (at least, not for now). This is the beginning of confusion on the part of the disciples. Peter, missing the point, insists he will follow (13:36) and will even lay down his life to do so (13:37). Jesus knows what Peter does not: one day he, too, will be killed (21:18). But for now Peter will fail and deny belonging to Jesus.

The conversation continues in chapter 14 where Jesus says more about his departure and the disciples take it in turn to ask rather naive questions, right through until the end of the chapter, where it seems at one stage an earlier draft of Jesus’ parting words ended (14:31), before it was supplemented with chapters 15-17 in the final drafts of the gospel.

Why so many drafts? Why so many versions of Jesus’ parting words in the gospels? In Mark the major focus of Jesus’ final address to the disciples is about the fate of the Jerusalem temple and the disciples (Mark 13). Matthew is similar, but supplemented with warnings about the need for future disciples to be disciples of deed and not just word (Matt 24-25). Luke innovates by composing a final address which is given by Jesus at the last meal (22:21-38), as in John. For instance, he transfers some of the teaching he had found at an earlier point in Mark (10:41-45) across to this point (22:24-27).

John’s gospel reveals even more creativity, but, as in Luke, John draws on traditional elements which had formed part of the early stories. These included the prediction of Peter’s denial (13:36-38) and the promise that the Spirit would come to the aid of disciples who were hauled before the courts (Mark 13:11). We can also recognise promises about answered prayer and promises that Jesus would come again. These are all now woven together in John’s version of the last discourse, in which John invites us to imagine Jesus’ parting statements.

In the ancient world a person’s last words were always very special. Biographers would take great care to ensure they contained the most important things which future generations should learn. Deuteronomy, as Moses’ last words, fits this category, as do the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs and many other such writings in the Jewish and Christian world. This is also why people have found in these chapters of John a rich treasury for their faith.

The disciples were confused by what Jesus had been saying and troubled by the foreboding his words evoked (14:1; see also 14:27). The response of Jesus is wonderfully simple: believe in God! believe in me (14:1)! Belief, here, includes believing that Jesus claims to represent God, but it also means trust. The trust is in the person, but 14:2 offers information - quite a rare phenomenon in John. There’s a place for you! One wants to break out into the lyric from West Side Story. What a wonderful summary of the Christian gospel! There’s a place for you - in the heart of God, and that includes the realm of death.

At this point John picks up the tradition about Jesus’ coming again to gather his own (14:3). In typically Johannine fashion, the speech will go to say that this coming also happens when he and the Father and the Spirit come to believers (14:18-24 - more about that next week). The focus is not details of a place but quality of a relationship, which includes that it lasts. So, despite Peter’s confusion earlier, it is true: they will follow him and be with him also beyond this life.

Thomas’s confusion about how to get there (14:5) evokes the famous response: ‘I am the way’ (14:6) John is in no doubt: Jesus is the way. It is not claiming that Jesus points to the way, but that he, himself, is the way (and the truth and the life). This only makes sense if we see the focus on the relationship. The verses which follow make that clear (14:7 and 9-11). Jesus is not claiming any of this independently of God, but rather saying that they should ‘believe in God’ as they have seen God in Jesus.

Philip’s confusion (14:8) helps move us further into what that means. Jesus’ response uses words of intimacy and trust (14:9-11). The challenge is to recognise God in Jesus, in his words and deeds. This is a fundamental Christian claim. For some it justifies an exclusive claim that denies that God is to be found anywhere else. For others it justifies the claim to find God wherever God is recognisable by such words and deeds, even where Christian claims are not made or not known.

14:12 makes the extraordinary claim that the disciples will outdo Jesus. I’m sure his PR advisers would have counselled otherwise! The focus is not bigger miracles, but bigger mission, because he will send them equipped with the Spirit to speak of God’s reality to people far beyond Galilee and Judea. Jesus sees his departure as making this explosion possible. So 14:12 must be read closely with what follows in 14:15-17. On commission (14:15), equipped by the Spirit (14:16-17), they will go out to do greater things. This is also the setting for the promise about answered prayer in 14:13-14. It is not a blank cheque for every whim, but a promise about help for the mission.

John has been portraying Jesus’ last words to his disciples, but doing so with an eye to his hearers and future generations, including us! Their distress and confusion about Jesus’ fate becomes a paradigm for confusion and distress in our own experience. While John employs the individual disciples to enhance the drama, its message is simple and telling. Trust that God is the way Jesus told us and demonstrated to us. That means two things, especially as we now think canonically and include more of the story of Jesus from the other gospels: we can trust in the God of compassion in which there’s a place for us (even if we know nothing else!) and we can know that the meaning of life is to share that compassion in the world - there’s a place for all! We can join that compassion wherever we recognise its ‘Jesus shape’, acknowledging it as life and truth and the only way.

First Reading: Easter 5: 22 May Acts 7:55-60
Epistle: Easter 5: 22 May 1 Peter 2:2-10

Easter 4

William Loader

Easter 4: 15 May John 10:1-10

The shepherd image is rich and traditional, even if it no longer forms part of everyday life for most people and reflects practices quite foreign to the sheep farming with which most are familiar. Like images of kings and queens, which have long since lost their relevance for most in contemporary society, even where monarchies survive, this is a persistent image. Images have their own life. The Latin translation, ‘pastor’, has tended to associate the shepherd image with ministry. Originally it was most common as a metaphor for rulers, as far back as the Pharaohs. It was a way of describing royal responsibilities which included caring for subjects, the flock. It was apt symbolism when David became the shepherd king and the model for messianic hope.

These associations are swirling around in the background as we consider our passage. The sheep are unambiguously people who are to be cared for. That fact, in itself, represents a value implicit in the image. For us it might evoke Jesus’ parable about caring even for the one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), which Matthew then applies to care for members of the church who have fallen morally (18:12-14), an important value in a vengeful, unforgiving age. John’s Jesus is ambitious to make the whole world a flock for divine love, far beyond Israel (10:16; 3:16).

These are the assumptions within which 10:1-6 focuses on leadership. When John reports in 10:6 that Jesus’ hearers did not know what the parable meant, John’s hearers are being challenged to get it and so are we. This was not too difficult with the image of call and response. Perhaps imagining a pen where many sheep perhaps from more than one flock are protected overnight, the hearer would know the common practice. Sheep belonging to a particular shepherd would follow that shepherd through the gate in the morning out into the new day.

The parable may imply the instruction: make sure you listen to his voice! It might also be explaining why some sheep belong and why some do not, an assurance for those who belong that they are special and a comfort for the failure to attract others. The parable of the sower also came to serve that function. John’s gospel has a number of sayings which suggest a closed system according to which only those in the light respond to the light (eg. 3:19-21) and only those who are drawn may come (eg. 6:44). It is important to recognise their function and not to make them the basis for exclusive systems, because it is equally apparent that whoever hears and responds may come and will move from darkness to light. The paradox is promising.

There is more, however, to the parable than urging response and explaining rejection. It is warning about rival claims to leadership. In the context of Jesus’ ministry which forms the primary setting for the gospel story those rivals are the other Jewish leaders with whom Jesus is in dispute. In the context of the gospel they are doubtless also other Jewish leaders who compete for the loyalty of John’s sheep. The dangers envisaged here may be a range of rivals from other Jewish leaders even to Christian Jewish leaders and, perhaps, non Jewish as well. If we read this from the world of 1 John we would recognise such leaders as those who disputed the writer’s teaching and had led their Christians out to a new Spirit-inspired understanding of Christ which elevated him above the flesh and blood which appeared to compromise his divinity (2:19; 4:1-6).

It is difficult to discern how far these disputes already formed the background for the gospel, but it is clear here and in Jesus’ parting words and prayer (especially John 15-17), that disunity was a major threat. Certainly the image interprets Jesus’ conflicts with ‘the Jews’ at the feast, as 10:26-30 show. There the association of shepherd and ‘messiah-king’ is assumed (10:22-25). But like in most of John’s gospel, contemporary concerns are never far away. There is an ongoing tension between the will to include all and the need to explain rejection and console the flock who respond. The latter is quite dangerous and in some hands leads to hate and exclusivity (including antisemitism). Yet this is the gospel grounded in John 3:16 and a vision of unity, which ultimately wants to embrace all in compassion.

What seems to many a romantic and gentle image is in fact a very theologically political statement. Words like ‘thief’, ‘brigand’, ‘fleeing’, ‘steal and slaughter and kill’, indicate the serious tenor of the statements. It is not ‘nice’. It invites us to look out for dangers in our own times and to recognise that they will sometimes present themselves as religiously plausible. Thinking critically about theology remains crucial to the leader/pastor/preacher’s task.

The passage ends on a note to celebrate: the goal is ‘life, abundant life’ (10:10). This shorthand summary of the good news needs unpacking. It brings us back to the centre: God’s will and intent. For John that is rooted in God’s love. God’s being in love, in relationship, is the source and pattern for a vision which might include all in such unity. Globalised, it engages us in a vision which embraces diversity and difference, but has no place for exploitation and marginalisation. ‘Shepherd’ first scratched itself on stone as advice to rulers about social justice and care for the poor. It is therefore bigger than the Jerusalem disputes about Jesus and the tensions of first century Asia Minor. It is ultimately a way of engaging and being engaged by God and being called out into the day.

First Reading:: Easter 4: 15 May Acts 2:42-47
Epistle: Easter 4: 15 May 1 Peter 2:19-25

Easter 3

William Loader

Easter 3: 8 May Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Following last week's excerpt from Peter's speech at Pentecost according to Acts, this week brings another excerpt, skipping 2:33-35. It is worth, however, reading these verses because they show the basis on which Luke has Peter make his statement in 2:36. God has made Jesus Lord and Christ at his resurrection in accordance with Ps 110:1. "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool for your feet'". No other OT text is alluded to or cited in the NT more than this text. It refers originally to a royal coronation where the psalmist reports what God said to his master at the point of enthronement. As with some other royal psalms, notably Psalm 2, 45 and 89, Christians applied these texts to the hope for a king like David, messianic hope, and in this they reflected Jewish interpreters before them.

Accordingly, one of the earliest interpretations of Jesus' resurrection was that God had raised Jesus from the dead in order to appoint him the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed one. Royal ideology also described the king as God's adopted son, and we see this, too, applied to Jesus. Luke will later use the royal adoption declaration of Psalm 2:7, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you" and apply it to Jesus (13:33), as did the author of Hebrews (1:5; 5:5). Paul. too, knows this early tradition, when he writes of Jesus being appointed Son of God at his resurrection (Rom 1:3-4). Very soon Christians found alternative ways of hailing Jesus' significance, which would have more relevance in a non-Jewish environment. These included speaking of Jesus as Son of God from his birth or even from eternity. Luke, however, true to his attempt to recreate Christian beginnings, brings one of its earliest acclamations about Jesus, summarised in 2:36.

As noted last week, to claim that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, was fraught with ambiguity. In many senses it was simply not true. He was not a military king who might win battles like David and expel the Roman oppressors from the land. To complicate matters further: how could he be Messiah when no longer alive on this earth, but with God! What could that possibly mean? According to Luke no further explanation was required. Peter's hearers surrendered. What should they do? Peter's response is simple: change (repent) and be baptised in the name of Jesus to be forgiven and to receive the gift of the Spirit. 3000 did just that.

Peter's simple response needs some unpacking. To repent entailed not only acknowledging guilt about what was done to Jesus - assuming the 3000 would all have felt such guilt, which one might question - but more significantly it meant "changing one's mind". That is the core meaning of the word metanoia, translated "repentance". It is about much more than being sorry or feeling sorry. Believing that God had raised Jesus from the dead and made him Messiah entailed believing that Jesus was right in what he did and said. Luke has given us an account of Jesus' ministry. It fills out what Jesus was about. So repenting meant turning to embrace what Jesus was about, taking on a big agenda.

Being baptised meant doing what John the Baptist asked people to do. In the face of God's impending intervention into human history, people should already let themselves be overwhelmed by God, represented by being immersed in the river. Christians adapted John's baptism and fundamentally it meant the same: come and be submerged and submitted to what you believe God will do. The Christian version modifies John's vision somewhat - at least as w have it reported. Now the focus is on God's coming reign which will bring justice and peace. Immerse yourself symbolically in it now! So it was baptism according to Jesus, in his name, reflecting his version of the vision of change. A standard Jewish expectation had been that on that great day of God's intervention, God's Spirit would descend upon human beings in wonderful ways. Christians claimed that this aspect of future hope already happened at the moment when you let yourself be immersed by baptism in what God was doing.

Luke has probably developed his Pentecost scene on the basis of early experience of speaking in tongues in Christian communities as people felt overwhelmed by the presence of God's Spirit. He has adapted such memory so that it now serves his symbolic narrative of the coming of the Spirit as like a second Sinai and a reversal of Babel. Luke is not really promising that believers from this time forward would have instant multilingual skills. That would be to misread his account too literally. But Luke does imply that the people who change their minds about Jesus being wrong and acknowledge him as vindicated, a new kind of Messiah, will do more than embrace an ideal. They will participate already in the present in the transforming action of God in the world. They have not "arrived". That is why baptism is retained: it symbolises future fulfilment. But baptism also now symbolises being immersed already now in God's life in the world through the Spirit. And that means joining the community of believers, the church.

The 3000 is impressive, but should not subvert us from the real focus so that we become captivated with numbers-based church growth, as though membership recruitment is the meaning mission. Rather it is all about who Jesus was and is and what he did and said and becoming involved in being the good news he proclaimed. The issue is quality rather than quantity. Paul is our best witness to what life in the Spirit and the community of the Spirit looks like: it bears the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love (Gal 5:22-23; 1 Corinthians 13). Luke's Jesus hailed the compassion of a Samaritan as the manifestation of eternal life. So Luke's wider context, including his gospel, gives the substance to what it means to hail Jesus as God's Messiah and change one's mind in his direction. Ultimately it means also to bear the Spirit as he did, and also in word and deed to declare hope for the poor, the hungry, the alienated, and the empty rich hiding in their trees.

Gospel: Easter 3: 8 May Luke 24:13-35
Epistle: Easter 3: 8 May 1 Peter 1:17-23

Easter 2

William Loader

Easter 2: 1 May John 20:19-31

A lot happened on resurrection day according to John. The opening scene of today's passage shares some similarity with Luke 24:36-43. There, too, Jesus appears before fearful disciples gathered behind closed doors and greets them with the words, 'Peace be with you!' In Luke's account the disciples fear they are seeing a ghost. Jesus proves his materiality, showing them his hands and feet, suggesting they feel him and then, to clinch the proof, eats a morsel of fish.

It is hard to believe the writer of the fourth gospel is unaware of the story in some form. Our passage appears to be a creative extrapolation. Now the words of peace are repeated and followed by a very Johannine portrait of Jesus giving the Spirit and commissioning the disciples. The matter of proof has been attached to the figure Thomas who insists on materiality. This spawns, in turn, a further meeting a week later where his concerns are satisfied and he acclaims Jesus, Lord and God. In keeping with John's modification of the crucifixion scene, the elements of proof now include the wounded side. We probably have before us a very creative reworking of an old story. The power of the event and the experience in the life of the community spilled over into new ways of celebrating its meaning. Understood in this light the passage has much to say to faith.

'Peace', 'Shalom' is a standard greeting, but here it probably echoes the promise of peace given in 14:27, just as the events to follow recall the promise of the Spirit given in the same chapter. John's disciples are glad at Jesus' appearance, not afraid as in Luke. They become models for believers. The negative trait is attached to Thomas. The result is that the scene becomes a celebration of the Church, its constitution and its task.

Jesus sends the disciples, just as he was sent. This is the premise for discipleship. It sets our agenda by directing us to what Jesus did, especially as he is portrayed in John. Jesus offered light and life and truth through relationship with himself, through relationship with God. Our role is also to offer light and life and truth through a relationship with God. This does not equate us and Jesus, but the task is the same. As he was God's representative, so his disciples are to be ambassadors, to use Paul's image from 2 Cor 5:20. Like the Jewish 'shaliach' (envoy) and in keeping with the major vehicle of communication before the days of telecommunication, the message bearer often needed to be able to act for and on the authority of the one who did the sending. It is authority to offer the relationship in which is life.

Heard at a single sitting, the gospel would be recalling for people at this point the promises Jesus made to his disciples in John 14, even more impressive at the stage where the text was without chapters 15-17. Already Jesus' words to Mary (20:17) recall 14:1-4. Jesus is going to the Father. 'Peace' recalls the promise of peace in 14:27. The sending recalls the promise of mission in 14:12-15. Then the giving of the Spirit recalls the promise of the Spirit/Paraclete on 14:16. John has woven the great commission and Pentecost into a single scene.

Breathing belongs to the image of the spirit which in biblical languages means wind and breath and spirit. John plays with the range of meanings already in 3:9 (the spirit/wind blows where it wants to..). Perhaps the image is evoking God's breathing upon human clay in the creation story. Here is a new beginning. The Spirit, the helper, will help the disciples lay the claim of Jesus before people. 16:8-11 explains how: the cross becomes a mirror in which to become convinced about sin (which is killed), goodness (which is vindicated) and judgement (because evil is disempowered). In 20:23 gives them the power and authority to give structure and discipline to the community. This is to be ministry and community with accountability.

Thomas is not only a doubter; he is also a dubious figure. Some see him as a saint, once he reaches the point of acclaiming Jesus, Lord and God. I am more inclined to see typical ambiguity here, as with many other characters in John. They get it right, even though they are hardly exemplary (like Nathanael). John is not anti-miracle, but he is critical of the focus on the materiality of miracles and Thomas surely approaches that stance. Blessed are those who believe who did not need the proofs (20:29). Such miracles and proofs (affirmed by John in 20:30) only make sense if they lead to the real faith which consists in a relationship with God of which 20:31 speaks.

An alternative view would see the author using the story to emphasise the materiality of Jesus over against those who saw both his earthly and resurrection existence as only apparently material and not really human flesh and blood. This is a concern at 19:34-35. Some see this as the agenda of only the final edition of the gospel when such ideas were beginning to develop. Maybe. Thomas then becomes a hero; he proves Jesus was real; but, if so, that is a secondary development.

20:31 returns to the central focus of the gospel of John and the Christian gospel as a whole: life! It defines salvation, the agenda of mission and its context. Ultimately John's celebrations in narrative of the Easter message point to life as its message. Before and after Easter it is still life. The change is that now there are new bearers of that life and the Spirit given without measure to Jesus (3:34) now operates without measure among the disciples and makes Jesus' presence real to them (14:22-26). Thomas needs to get there and until he does (if he does), he remains on one of the roads of religious distraction which robs him and others of life but keeps them very busy, saying even the right things.

Epistle: Easter 2: 1 May 1 Peter 1:3-9

Easter Sunday

William Loader

Easter Day: 24 April Matthew 28:1-10

This Easter Sunday we can choose to run with Matthew or with John 20:1-18. Matthew's account of the discovery of the tomb is clearly a reworking of Mark's brief account in 16:1-8, but with significant modifications. In both, the centre point is that Christ has been raised. Mark's account ends with the enigmatic comment that the women said nothing for fear and at a surface level one is left wondering how on earth the movement progressed from there, unless the hint of the appearance to Peter is the wink which sets it all in perspective. Mark seems concerned to show human failure, now even by the women, who had not fled like the male disciples and whose actions, first the anointing of Jesus' head, then the anointing of his body for burial, embraced the passion account with faithfulness. Now that the women have failed, too, only a divine miracle will save the movement! And it did.

It may be that Matthew realises the somewhat maverick nature of Mark's account which is constructed to serve his educational purpose. It is unlikely that Matthew knew of the resurrection only through Mark's account. Matthew appears also to have known of women's direct involvement in the Easter appearances (as did John's gospel - see John 20) and is not prepared to sacrifice it by following Mark's agenda or by shifting the focus to the first male witness.

Matthew comes closer than does Mark to describing the raising itself, but stops a little short. He reports an earthquake. This Dickensian trait also appears in Matthew's account of Jesus' death. There tombs are reported to have split open and apparitions occurred (27:51-53). Such images normally describe the events with which history will come to a climax: the great resurrection and the day of judgement. By portraying Jesus' death and resurrection in such colours Matthew is saying that something of ultimate importance is taking place.

In Matthew's religious imagination the tomb could be open only because of an earthquake and it must have been the work of an angel who in the process rolled away the stone. The fact that he then sat atop it with an appearance like lightning and garments as white as snow, whereas Mark has a young man in glistening attire sitting in the tomb, would have bothered neither Matthew nor his hearers. For the truth being told demanded such licence and each did his best to colour its significance using the narrative decor of the period. Matthew's is all the more dramatic because he had reported the posting of guards who would have prevented any theft (an answer to one theory) and who are rendered lifeless by the occasion (a nice touch of reversal of roles).

The words of the angel largely match those spoken by the young man in Mark and form the centre piece of the story; 'You are looking for Jesus who was crucified; he is not here; he is risen, as he said.' Matthew adds 'as he said' to remind the hearers of Jesus' own predictions. The instructions to tell the disciples he was risen and that they should go to Galilee where he was going ahead of them also largely match what we find in Mark, except that Peter is not singled out for special mention as in Mark.

This feature, Peter's prominence as a witness, reflects the primary importance of such an appearance in the genesis of resurrection faith. For Paul's tradition also lists Peter as the first witness (1 Cor 15:3-5) and Luke also knows of Simon's unique experience (Luke 24:34).

Matthew is not intent on making that the primary vision; instead he has Jesus appear first to these women and has Jesus, himself, repeat the instructions. This definitely puts the disciples in second place and reinforces the truth of what the women heard, for they had now heard it twice. Twofold testimony was recognised as irrefutable for those who followed biblical law (Deut 19:15). In addition the women have not failed as in Mark. They have not fled in fear saying nothing, but have departed quickly in fear and great joy to do what they were told. Their reward is a personal appearance of the risen Jesus before whom they worship as later the disciples would do in Galilee (28:16-17).

Preaching on the resurrection raises a huge number of issues, whatever story we follow. The assumption is clearly a raising which left no corpse behind, but not a resuscitation such as with Lazarus in John 11. This is clearer in Paul and Luke than in Matthew but should also be assumed here. People would have understood it to be the type of body which others, too, would have at the general resurrection. Paul calls it a 'spiritual body' (1 Cor 15). Daniel spoke of shining like stars in the firmament (Dan 12). The transfiguration and the appearance of the angel also indicate the nature of the transformed state. This equivalence (between Jesus' resurrection embodiment and general resurrection embodiment) can also be useful today when we attempt to say what we mean by resurrection - his and ours.

The event means vindication of Jesus by God and so puts the focus in that sense back onto what Jesus said and taught (especially in Matthew; see 28:19). We should not see the event as proving resurrection as a belief, since that would have been widespread. It was more that this Jesus had been raised, had been raised first of all, and, as follows later in the chapter, has a role to exercise and a commission to give. That commission, in turn, directs attention to the ministry and teaching of Jesus as the good news.

Resurrection is not a departure from God's way with us as demonstrated during the ministry of Jesus, as if that had been an exceptional episode and not characteristic of God, but an affirmation that this is the way God was and is. Resurrection does, of course, entail reversal, but we need to guard against too much being reversed as if God (and Christ) have now reversed out of lowliness and compassion and as if now what matters now is to glorify the might and power of the divine. The one who meets us is, as we read in John and Luke, the one who carries in his being the marks of his passion and the being and becoming to go with it.

Gospel Alternative: Easter Day: 24 April John 20:1-18
Epistle: Easter Day: 24 April Colossians 3:1-4

Palm Sunday

William Loader

Palm Sunday: 17 April Matthew 21:1-11

Palm Sunday is also Passion Sunday. The Palm Sunday passage moves us towards the Passion. It has its genesis in Jesus' strategy to bring himself and his message to Jerusalem. This was much more than a PR opportunity not to be missed because of the concentration of people in Jerusalem during Passover. Rather it belongs to the body language of the message of the 'kingdom'. It is an expression of hope for change. Just as Jesus reflected the Jewish roots of his passion for change by choosing twelve disciples, so also his march on Zion reflects his people's vision that God would bring about a change beginning with Jerusalem. To affirm the vision of the kingdom and to live out its hopes in the present in action and symbol meant challenging existing structures of authority, both those of the temple leadership and those of Rome. This is the backdrop for the drama which follows. To journey with Jesus still means espousing a challenge to the powers which hold sway in our world (and our church).

Palm Sunday invites play, serious play. Here is the procession to end all processions. Here is adulation. The creative imagination can place the hearer among the crowd beside the road, reluctant, fully adoring, standing aloof in confusion or alienation, perhaps remembering key events from Jesus' ministry. Let the imagination run!

It is important, however, not to cut story from its moorings so that it becomes a triumphalist celebration. In Matthew, as in Mark, whom Matthew closely follows here, this is the fateful entry which will take Jesus to his death. The dramatic irony which celebrates Jesus as king and reaches its climax with Jesus crowned king of the Jews on the cross, is beginning. The acclamation of the crowd is, therefore, at least ambiguous. They will, in Matthew, call Jesus' blood upon themselves and their children. That will have fateful consequences - according to Matthew in the destruction of the temple and the widespread slaughter of its inhabitants, according to subsequent history in the annals of anti-Semitic hate. The scene is full of danger and denseness. John's gospel shows some sensitivity to the problem when he adds the footnote that the disciples did not really understand what was happening or what it meant until after Easter (12:16).

Nor should we picture an historical event in which the whole of Jerusalem lined the streets, thronging the new Messiah. An actual entry with some shouts of praise doubtless occurred but would have been sufficiently lost in the Passover crowds as not to warrant the military's attention, who would have been swift to put an end to what could have seemed like a potential disturbance. Whatever the event, it became highly symbolic. Perhaps it had this quality from the start, especially if we imagine a provocative act on Jesus' part in emulating Zechariah's prediction, which Matthew now fully cites; but this is doubtful. Throughout the passion narrative it is difficult to know where reports gave rise to scripture elaboration and where scripture gave rise to stories. Most echoes of scripture (especially the Psalms) probably began as allusions and subsequently became quotations, as here in Matthew. Matthew's concern for precise fulfilment has Jesus ride on 'them', that is, both the ass and its foal, one of the funniest results of 'fulfilmentism' in the New Testament!

Matthew begins, as does Mark, with the finding of the animals, a miracle similar to the finding of the upper room a little later on. Hearers of the evangelists would recognise in this a sign of divine involvement; it worked for them. Matthew dwells on it less than Mark. The actions of the crowd are as they are reported in Mark. Their acclamation, using the words of Psalm 118, which finds it echo in the eucharistic liturgy, is more than heralding a Passover pilgrim. It is heralding the Davidic Messiah. Matthew simplifies their cry. It becomes: 'Hosanna to the son of David.' 'Son of David' is an appropriate title for Israel's Messiah, a hope modlelled on selective memory of his achievements. It is found on the lips of the Canaanite woman, two sets of two blind men (20:29-34; 9:27-31; cf. Mark 10:46-52), and a few verses later on the lips of children who also cry: 'Hosanna to the Son of David' (21:15). Matthew uses acclamation by outsiders, marginalised and little ones, to shame Israel for its failure to acknowledge him as 'the Son of David' of Jewish hopes.

According to Matthew Jesus' presence sets Jerusalem in turmoil. One is reminded of the consternation caused there by the magi (2:3). To describe the turmoil Matthew uses the word for earthquake (eseisthe), which will reappear at Jesus' death (27:51) and again at his resurrection (28:2). The event was 'of earth shattering significance' - certainly in world history, in retrospect - so Matthew writes this into the scene. It is his own creative addition to Mark's account.

The crowds in Jerusalem have not really grasped who he is, stopping at 'the prophet from Nazareth' (21:11). This nevertheless forms a good transition to what immediately follows in Matthew, the attempted reform of the temple (21:12-13). Matthew has removed from the scene the cursing of the fig tree which encapsulates the event in Mark (11:12-14; 20-21; Matthew brings it later: 21:18-19). Instead we see the true Son of David performing in the temple acts of healing which in Matthew appear strongly linked with Jesus as Son of David and may reflect popular traditions about the first Son of David, Solomon as a source of medical wisdom. They may also reflect fulfilment of the great prophetic hope that in the end times there will be healing on Mount Zion. The presence of 'the Son of David' in the episode immediately preceding the entry (20:30,31), in the entry and in the episode which immediately follows (21:15), has the effect of making the whole a celebration of his identity as Israel's Messiah, as the bringer of wholeness and healing.

Jesus was not entering a foreign city, nor entering the city of 'the Jews'. He was a Jew. He was entering the city which symbolised in his faith and his scriptures God's promise to Israel. To confront one's own faith and its traditions is painful. This is part of the drama of the event, both in Matthew's account and in the earlier forms of the story, not least in the event itself.

Thus Jesus' approach to Jerusalem has become for many a symbol of the confrontation they must make, including the confrontation with themselves. The issues at stake are not ultimate control or power, though it is easy to give this impression: Jesus is the rightful king! For then might dictates the terms and we reinforce the theme that might is right and right is might and reproduce its abuses in the swirl of deduction. The children acclaim the true signs of messiahship and they have less to do with palms and crowns, which ultimately must be subverted into irony on the cross, and more to do with acts of healing and compassion. Without them the entry story is ambiguous, a potential disaster, which realises itself in every generation in the name of piety. A radically subverted model of power exercised in compassion challenges the temple system and Rome in its day and their equivalents in our own, around us and within us.

Epistle: Passion and Palm Sunday: 17 April Philippians 2:5-11

Lent 5

William Loader

Lent 5: 10 April John 11:1-45

This another great narrative in John’s gospel, a well chosen sequel to John 4 and John 9 in the previous weeks. The verses which end the previous chapter (10:40-42) take us back to where the earthly ministry began: Jesus and John the Baptist. The effect is twofold. We are reminded of the difference between Jesus and John; John did no ‘signs/miracles’ (10:41). Jesus is greater - a major concern of the author. And, secondly, Jesus really is the one whom the Baptist predicted (10:41). The broader impact of these two verses is that they prepare us for the climax of the account of Jesus’ ministry. We are heading towards death and resurrection!

The story of Jesus and Lazarus, like the other great narratives of John 4 and John 9, operates at two levels - at least two! At the basic level (Nicodemus’s level) it tells the story of bringing a dead person back to life (who will eventually die like other human beings). Like the healing of the blind man in John 9 or the lame man in John 5 it is a miracle. John believes in miracles and is able to convey to us a sense of what the death meant for the people involved. It was real: Jesus wept! That verse alone is worth a sermon in contexts where the gospel is understood as all light and joy.

As the drama unfolds at the basic level we have a number of scenes. Martha and later Mary affirm that if Jesus had been present Lazarus would not have died. Jesus responds to the distress of Mary and her friends. Jesus is very fond of the family and of Lazarus, which has led some to speculate whether Lazarus might be the enigmatic ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ of whom we hear elsewhere. Jesus had deliberately postponed his response for strategic reasons. In the larger story the raising of Lazarus will set off a chain of events leading eventually to Jesus’ journey through suffering to glory. All these and other details fit the story at the basic level.

We do not have to travel far into the story before we see that something else is also going on here. Jesus’ response that Lazarus’s sickness was not terminal may reflect an earlier form of the story in which Jesus really did assess the situation wrongly, but it is not the case here in John. ‘This sickness will not lead to death’ eventually becomes true. That it takes place ‘for the glory of God’ interprets the sickness (and death) as having a purpose (with all the theological issues that raises), but the outcome will be: Jesus, ‘the Son of God, will be glorified’. Passages like John 17 show that John portrays Jesus’ path of suffering and death as leading back to the Father’s glory, ie. his glorification. Jesus knows that. The hearers of the gospel know that. His disciples and others in the narrative do not. This creates irony in the passage.

The irony is apparent in 11:8-10 where the disciples (cannot help but) miss the point, because going up to Jerusalem to suffer and die is Jesus’ plan. Jesus’ response about light and darkness reminds us of his affirmation that he is the light of the world. The period of his ministry is coming to an end. Darkness is coming! A similar irony follows in 11:11-16 where again the disciples are missing the point and Jesus is speaking in riddles (from their perspective), but we the hearers know it all makes sense! We smile sadly at Thomas’s words in 11:16: some will die with Jesus - or, at least, for him. Indeed they will.

The two meetings, first of Martha, then of Mary, with Jesus sit neatly in the centre of the narrative. They have the effect of highlighting Jesus’ proclamation that he is the resurrection and the life (11:25-26). Martha typifies faith: she believes in Jesus’ power; she believes in a day of resurrection. We should assume the same for Mary (whose quieter character is reminiscent of what we read in Luke). The Jewish crowd is also important for the basic level of the narrative. Their reports and the controversies which ensue will bring Jesus to death - and then to resurrection! On the way we pass through the description of distress, of weeping, of the smell of the corpse, of the dramatic emergence of the embalmed body, and of wonder and excitement. But, above the drama at that basic level, hovers a higher meaning which comes to expression in Jesus’ response to Martha.

Jesus declares: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone believing in me, even if they die, will live and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die’ (11:25-26). At the basic level it is not, in fact, true: Lazarus will eventually die. But it is not meant to be understood as applying to that level. Rather, like the statements that Jesus is the bread of life and the light of the world, it is making a different point. It is typical of John’s gospel that it can be read at both levels. Because it uses the words, ‘even if they die’, we might think of what happened to Lazarus. ‘Will live’ introduces the point of ambiguity. At the level of the narrative this is also true of Lazarus (until he dies again!), but the implications of such a statement would be that any believer who dies will be similarly brought back to life for a while in a literal sense. That is about as absurd as when Nicodemus thinks literally about being born a second time (3:3-5).

The point of the saying, and ultimately of the narrative as a whole, is to make and celebrate the claim that people who believe in Jesus find life. It is eternal life, which includes timelessness or eternity in the temporal sense, but the focus is quality not quantity. It is sharing the life of God here and now and forever. The claim made in 11:25-26 uses the narrative as a springboard to jump to a different level of reality that leaves the original story behind and no longer applies to it. People who remain at the basic level of the story will have a faith like that of Martha and Mary. They need to move beyond that. If they do not, they will be left looking for the next miracle and failing to see, that from John’s perspective the miracles are signs of something else.

As we retell the story today we will have some who are as happy with the miracle as John was. We will have others who find such reports problematic and question the point of telling them if they are not repeatable in other situations of need. For the former an event becomes the setting for a claim which goes far beyond it. For the latter the narrative is a mythical drama, but to make the same claim.

To acclaim Jesus as resurrection and life is ultimately to say something about God and to do so we need to ensure we think theologically. How do we understand this God who through Christ is shown as life and nourishment? We then find ourselves talking about compassion and challenge. John’s gospel keeps doing this: making claims which need careful exposition because the content is implied. At worst the claims become slogans of propaganda which are made also about others (that they are truth, the way, etc). At best we tell the whole story and know its summary: God so loved the world; God is compassion. That is the light that challenges the darkness, the truth that challenges the falsehood, the caring that challenges the abandonment - and so leads from death to life.

Epistle: Lent 5: 10 April Romans 8:6-11

Lent 4

William Loader

Lent 4: 3 April John 9:1-41

It is a refreshing reminder to hear again Jesus’ rejection of a necessary causal link between disability and sin. While it is clearly outrageous to think otherwise, it often appears to inform attitudes and has been given broad application. So we will hear that people for whom life does not go well are at fault, whether that is about a disability, unemployment or sickness. Its corollary usually holds such an attitude in place: people who prosper are blessed; people blessed are good people. Other people are bad people! Biblical texts can be cited to support the claim.

In the drama which John unfolds here for his congregations the rime and reason for the disability was a matter of promoting the importance of Jesus. Whether the historical Jesus would have seen the needy as opportunities for promotion is doubtful. We need not have an explanation of others’ ills in terms of God’s benefit. God more likely weeps at others’ ills than sees an opportunity for enhancing reputation. But then as now people found many ways of detracting from the dignity of others.

Coming through the narrative is the strength of its source which doubtless portrayed the deed as an act of Christ’s compassion. John’s story lifts our eyes to a wider perspective. Jesus is not just a healer, but light for the world’s darkness, which was another language for saying: God so loved the world! The response of Jesus in 9:4-5 also reminds the hearers that even Jesus would fail. That, too, would not mean he is bad!

Perhaps the old tradition John used contained the details about how the healing took place. It is not unlike techniques used by others in the ancient world (see also Mark 8:23). John cannot help lifting our attention again to the symbolic level when he translates Siloam. The scene which follows in 9:8-12 playfully repeats the story of the healing and ends with a typically Johannine ambiguity: the healed man does not know where Jesus is. It reminds us of the saying about the wind/spirit in 3:8. Finding Jesus is much more than finding his location.

There are doubtless deliberate echoes of the healing in John 5, also linked to a pool, when John 9 tells us that a deed of healing by a Jerusalem pool took place on a the sabbath and that this upset the Pharisees. The to-ing and fro-ing of the drama in 9:13-17 and 9:18-23 expose the Pharisees as obsessive about their laws. 9:22 mentions the parents’ fear that becoming off side with the Pharisees could lead to expulsion from the synagogue - probably a real experience for many in John’s congregations.

The drama heightens in 9:24-34 as the Pharisees urge that glory be given to God. It had been Jesus’ intention all along according to 9:3 to glorify God’s works (see also 11:4). The Pharisees profile themselves as righteous and Jesus as a sinner, but in the process further expose their obsession. Hearers of the gospel thus far would know that rather than remaining faithful to Moses and the Law these Pharisees betray it. Its sole function now was to point to Christ’s validity. The former blind man makes simple responses which unmask the critics. For that he is expelled. All it needs is for Jesus to find him and tell him the truth about himself as the Son of Man (9:35-38). The drama is nearly over.

Jesus’ final words are about judgement, which probably explains why he referred to himself as the Son of Man in speaking with the blind man. In a different way Matthew shows the two are closely linked: the Son of Man will be the judge. It is then scarcely subtle when the Pharisees ask: ‘We are not blind are we?’ Answer: a resounding: yes! They are the sinners! The situation has been reversed.

This carefully crafted piece would have reassured John’s hearers who had experienced the pain of being forced out of the synagogue communities. Their claims about Jesus had gone too far. They had in effect set aside the biblical Law or, better, redefined its role as now to function only as a witness to the Messiah. They now attributed to him claims once made of the Law: that he was the (in fact the only, the true) light, life, truth, word and bread.

It is not difficult to see the passage mirroring the experiences of John’s community. Here were Jews in conflict with Jews. Like many passages in John the images, loosed from their Jewish moorings, can sail off to join the armada of anti-Semitism. The Pharisees, like Nicodemus in John 3, are stereotypes. Once we see this, other doors open and we recognise conflicts of our own day - also within Christianity. Wherever rules matter most and people take second place, we have darkness, even if they are divinely warranted in scripture.

Obsession with observance is a characteristic of religion which makes it very dangerous, as many forms of fundamentalism have shown, not least the recent most violent. Such rigidity at the expense of people is not, however, limited to certain widely acknowledged types, but can flourish on both the left wing and the right, among the biblicists and among those serving other ideologies. It is also at home where people read John and the Bible as vehicles for propaganda for their Jesus and their God, to ‘win’, instead of as testimony to divine compassion which puts people first. As the blind man might have said: ‘Well I don’t understand much about all of that, but I know when I see people getting helped and I’ll run with that!’

Epistle: Lent 4: 3 April Ephesians 5:8-14

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