Epiphany 6

William Loader

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

These verses continue to express Paul's defence. At one level he is still trying to justify the fact that he works to gain financial support so that he can exercise his ministry, rather than 'by faith' depending on hospitality and support from among those to whom he ministers. The latter was the pattern which Jesus set up. Paul is doing a kind of first century 'worker priest' ministry. For some it just exposes his lack of status. This infuriates Paul. He has taken it upon himself to exercise ministry and look at financial support in a very sensible and flexible way. He is prepared to work really hard to make his ministry possible.

Today's section often stands alone, as it does in the Lectionary, without the existential context. It is clear, however, that this is as much a personal statement as anything else. Like a disciplined athlete Paul is prepared to 'do it tough'. Only those prepared to do the hard yards will get anywhere. The illustration is common in the secular world of Paul's time. For the 'spiritual', Paul is in danger of digging himself into a hole. The conflict will become worse and Paul, even more desperate, as 2 Corinthians 10-13 show.

Why shouldn't Paul use the latest wisdom from the secular world about self management and motivational training? Paul is wonderfully flexible at times. He sees through rules and regulations and through claims of status to what really matters. What really matters for him is making the message and meaning of the gospel known. There may have been patterns for doing so in the past (which probably suited semi rural Galilee), but even if they were established by Jesus (as they were!), that doesn't mean they can't be changed in new situations. Love has the capacity to change, to adapt, to be flexible. Paul's way of doing things made good 'love-sense' in the situations he faced. His priority was the love expressed in the gospel. It was not ensuring other people recognised his official status or even with ensuring a 'Lord Jesus' got things done in exactly the right way. Paul's Lord, Jesus, was not a slave of patterns (or the lord of patterns!) and obsessed with being a lord, but one who emptied himself, poured himself out. That is where Paul is coming from. That is why he can be free. That is also why he can appeal to common sense.

Self discipline is the key to success. Only the successful win the prizes. Unfortunately, we can read the text this way and use it as the key text for a so-called Protestant work ethic. Paul's use of the image is a little more subtle. He is not suggesting that the gospel teaches that there is a prize to be earned by hard work. For him the prize is the gospel itself; or, better, being able to be oneself confidently in the presence of God, the God who loves. Freed from the need to prove oneself and win prizes, we, with Paul, can be free to turn our attention from ourselves to others. For love and for ministry we can exercise discipline, ensure we get adequate ongoing training, and stay 'fit' (in all relevant aspects!) - why? So that we will one day be given a wreath? be acknowledged as true apostles? No: rather so that we may love more effectively. Otherwise, as Paul says, we will end up proclaiming the gospel to others, but ourselves miss the mark, indeed, contribute to the world's (and the church's) problems not to its solutions. ... quite a good text for reflecting on the need for life long education for ministry!

Gospel: Epiphany 6: 12 February Mark 1:40-45

Epiphany 5

William Loader

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

In this chapter Paul has been 'on the back foot'. It is not difficult to discern the issue. People have been questioning his authority and standing as an apostle. The issue becomes even more acute by the time he writes 2 Corinthians, especially 10-13. We see from Jesus' instructions to his envoys (this is the meaning of 'apostles') in Mark 6 and in Q (preserved in Matthew 10 and Luke 10), that the expectation was that they be fed and sheltered by those to whom they ministered. Without citing these particular passages, which he would not have known, Paul, nevertheless, alludes to Jesus' instructions (9:14) . It is likely that some people at Corinth knew that this was the established pattern. Possibly they had learned about it through Peter. They probably also saw it as a sign of faith and apostolic authority. When Paul worked on the side as a tent maker to raise funds for his mission it looked very much like either he did not have the faith that his needs would be met or he did not have the authority to claim support for himself - or both!

That is the context for the verses which we have in today's epistle reading. Without that context it sounds as if Paul is making some personal statements of a very general kind. He is not. He is defending himself. It belongs to Paul's style not to retreat into self justification, but to explain his actions in a way that shows careful thought and theological consistency. He begins by denying any rights to himself (and therefore also to others with whom he is being compared!). Instead he claims that preaching the gospel is laid on him as an obligation.

In such situations Paul makes full use of rhetoric. That includes exaggeration. It is not really as though he is preaching the gospel against his own will (9:17b); he obviously decides to do so! But he is not doing God a favour or doing others a favour in such a way that he would be putting others in his debt. He is not angling for a reward! This is easier said than done. How many people are in ministry because they seek a reward, even if it is the reward of being appreciated and valued. Dependencies easily emerge when ministry is our investment resulting from our neediness. Paul holds himself back from all such 'rights' and claims on others. His reward is the work itself - paradoxically, it is in preaching the gospel for no reward. It is really important to understand that love is a way of being which is its own reward. When loving or ministries of caring become self investment then something is askew. People often feel used and abused and often are.

Many at Corinth remained unhappy with Paul's explanations. They went on to argue that he was inconsistent, because he was apparently willing sometimes to receive aid - for instance, from Philippi. We see this behind 2 Corinthians. In our passage Paul broadens his defence into a statement of strategy. He argues for flexibility, perhaps already sensing that consistency would be an issue. In saying he is a Jew to Jews and a Gentile to Gentiles, he is doubtless also telling us that he would be observant with observant Jews but not so when with Gentiles. This is consistent with his advice to the Corinthians about food. They should adopt a strategy of being sensitive and not offending those who observe the Law about foods. That is his freedom. It would have infuriated those Christian Jews who saw Scripture as absolute and therefore its laws as immutable and infallible. The conflict in Antioch, recorded in Galatians 2:11-14, illustrates that even people like Peter would have been uncomfortable with Paul's strategy when it came to the crunch.

Paul is eager to point out that he does not mean anything goes. This had always been the accusation: if you drop some parts of the Law, don't you invite lawlessness!? Fundamentalists have the same fear today about dropping any part of the biblical law. For Paul, the law of Christ demands much more than the biblical law, but it is also able to relate to new situations more flexibly, because its starting point is not rules but a central principle and relationship. Paul is arguing for flexibility. Notice that the underlying motivation is love. Paul puts it in terms of preaching the gospel and gaining people. His evangelism is not a numbers game, but one of drawing people into a relationship with this God who loves, and produces in people the fruit of the Spirit, which is love.

With his back to the wall Paul often says powerful things. The conflict he faced is still around today and his way of responding to it is still a model to be considered. At a more basic level, it alerts us to a range of things which happen when people engage in ministry - only some of them are life giving; some of them are life-sapping and based in self-investment. Paul will have none of that.

Gospel: Epiphany 5: 5 February Mark 1:29-39

Epiphany 4

William Loader

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

Paul is responding to another worry expressed in the letter from Corinth. Clearly some in the community saw no problem in eating meat which had derived from the temple slaughtering where the animal would have been considered an offering to an idol. It may have been difficult even to get meat which had not been through such a process. It made sense to say: we eat it and we see no problem because we don't believe in idols anyway. Perhaps Paul himself would do so on occasions and perhaps those who think like this could point to Paul's own behaviour, or, at least, his theology of freedom from such considerations.

Such freedom belongs, for Paul, within a context of responsibility and especially of love. Paul never seems happy with absolutes. Knowledge and insight is always relational. People are always in focus. Underlying his thought constantly seems to be: and what does this mean for those around me and for my relationship to God. The relation to God and to people are inseparable for Paul. In some ways it reminds us of Jesus' saying: the sabbath was made for people not people for the sabbath. People matter most. Correctness according to the Law or correctness in knowledge or even doctrine must be considered in the setting of the overarching doctrine of multidirectional love.

The problem at Corinth seems to be not that those who do not believe in idols are wrong, but that there is always more to consider than being right. Many people still struggle with this problem. When getting it right (whether at the conservative or liberal end of theology and practice) is foremost, people usually get relationships wrong. At worst we see it in fanaticism. It can also express itself in intolerance and insensitivity. There is a criterion of truth that concerns itself with faithfulness (or being true in a different sense) to my neighbour. I can be right but fail really to listen and engage. Most people in marriages and similar relationships will have had such experiences. Winning the argument and working through the relational issues can be quite different things. The latter often courts the scornful comment that these are irrational issues.

Paul is not happy with people being right; he wants relationships to be right, too. In fact he would not have separated the two. Relationship matters most. This is why he can go straight on to speak about being known by God. It means known, not known about. So the so-called knowledgeable (whose insights are not in dispute) appear to have acted from a self-assured superior stance. Paul may be asserting that all have knowledge without exception; or he may be citing what this group was saying: we all have knowledge. Paul immediately brings love into it. He does not argue with the knowledgeable about their belief in only one god and in Jesus. On the contrary he asserts such central belief, using what might well have been a set formulation. That statement has the effect of affirming that God is God of all and of us and that Jesus is Lord of all and also the basis for us being who we are. Had he filled this out more, he might have pointed out that even this statement of belief sets everything, therefore, within a Jesus-shaped understanding of God, where love matters most and that is the very basis of our identity.

He then addresses the particular problem, which appears to have arisen because converts from idol worship had difficulty doing such things as eating meat offered to idols. We need to bear in mind that much sacrifice in the ancient world had to do with communion with the god by eating the meat of the sacrifice (as also in the eucharist). Paul might have tried to help them see it was nothing and they needn't worry. Instead, Paul appears to work with less psychologically naive presuppositions. These people (whom the others call 'weak', a term which Paul also picks up and uses) are not simply going to turn round and make the rational jump into freedom. They have difficulty. To be with them means to take their situation into account. It is not a matter just of being right, but of doing the 'right thing', the caring thing, by them. Paul's assessment is that this will mean abstaining where it would create problems for them. This is generous and sensitive love.

Love has to be informed and situational. We know too little of the situation to be able to assess whether Paul's advice was appropriate. Given what we know it certainly makes sense and we can certainly connect with where Paul is coming from and learn much from it. It should not, however, cease to be what it is, that is, situational advice about love, and become a general rule for every situation. Sometimes it is necessary to do things which will cause offence to some. This is not a general rule about avoiding upsetting people. Such an approach could not make sense of the life of Jesus, let alone his death!

So the issues need assessing in each new situation. It might mean for some abstention from alcohol in communities where alcohol is a huge problem, or, at least from insensitive use. It might enatil issues of sensitivity about dress, food, and a range of other behaviours. But it cannot and should not be used as a weapon by individuals or groups to hold others to ransom (eg. offending others by ordaining women, liberating slaves, taking a different approach to sexual orientation, etc). We are better to come at such situations from the centre not from rules. The centre is truth in love, Christ in God. The centre is compassion and understanding. In each new situation we need to decide. The issue is always relationships, seen in the context of God's will of wholeness for people. It can never just be about being right or about getting people by hook or crook to do things our way.

Gospel: Epiphany 4: 29 January Mark 1:21-28

Epiphany 3

William Loader

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

Unfortunately Paul's assessment of 'the appointed time' was awry. He expected that Christ would come in his lifetime, that he would experience the transfiguration which would make him like those to be raised from the dead (1 Cor 15:52). Does this also invalidate his advice? First we need to explore what he is saying and why.

The context is about marrying and about marriage. He has had to counter those at Corinth who have given up marrying and marriage altogether. Such people were doubtless inspired by the widespread assumption that in the age to come there will be no sexual activity (see Mark 12:25!). They decided to live now as they will then. Paul had made such a decision for himself - as had Jesus and John the Baptist. Some of the Essenes had reasoned similarly. Such people 'made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God', to use a phrase attributed to Jesus in Matt 19:10-12. Where Paul (and Jesus) differs from the people at Corinth is in asserting that this is not something to be imposed on everyone. For some it is perfectly acceptable to marry. Even though Paul is cautious and clearly sees the unmarried state as preferable for people, if they can cope with it, he is at pains to point out that marrying, including having sexual relations in marriage, is something good and belongs to God's order.

Some people think Paul's hesitation about marriage is entirely because of his view of living in the last times. This is clearly not the case. He is operating with assumptions about sexuality which were present in the early Christian movement which both affirmed it and marginalised it, particularly because of the way the future was envisaged. That probably had to do with notions of holiness and that sexual activity did not belong in the holy place. The Jewish roots are evident: the temple is the holy place; outside it, especially out in everyday life sex is fine - but not in the temple. When heaven or the life to come was envisaged in cultic terms, there was a problem.

Nevertheless Paul's view that they were living near the close of time certainly contributed towards his attitude towards marriage - and many other things, as our reading indicates. It is a little sad that his view of marriage is one where being in a marriage partnership is not likely to help you in the last days or in times of struggle. Many people have found the opposite and would dispute what he goes on to write in the verses which follow. Paul looks more widely in these verses to espouse the view that the best way to live is without distractions - whatever they are. What he writes matches quite closely the wisdom of the secular world of his time, especially the Stoics, often admired by Jews (and Christians) and therefore quite influential on early Christian thought.

Paul is saying: reduce distractions and you will cope better with the challenges which meet you as people living in the end time. He is doubtless thinking of the prospect of hardship. For some this would be general advice about life, whether one believes the age is about to end or not. You can make a strong case for this approach. People who are distracted by a range of priorities sometimes lose track of what really matters and therefore do not function or cope well. The pressures and distractions become like 'other gods' whom they serve. It is really important to stay centred, connected with God, who is one and so helps us integrate our life and activity and see things in perspective.

The approach also has some serious dangers. One is that the ordinary human issues of life receive little attention or at worst come to be seen as the enemy of the 'spiritual' - like they had at Corinth. We can think of fanatics whose devotion to their 'god' causes them to neglect family, friends, other human beings. It can be disastrous - not least when they believe their god wants them to disregard care of other human beings. In its mild forms it is also dangerous and can lead people to expect God only in high places and extraordinary experiences and not in the everyday. It can produce the ideal of the Christian who will not be rattled, shuns emotion and emotional involvement, and so stunts himself (or herself - though usually a male model) and others' emotional maturity.

Paul wants people to be free of 'worries' (7:32), but there are ways of trying to achieve that which are themselves a very big worry. We need to hear what Paul is saying and bring it into dialogue with other texts and stories. The impassionate Stoic ideal does not even fit the impassioned Paul, himself, well. It does not fit the Jesus of Gethsemane - although the pressure was certainly on to make the two fit. It does not fit the doctrine of creation which affirms humanity, sexuality, relationships, the time to weep and the time to laugh. Paul's challenge does, however, confront the style of living which loses touch with the centre and is carried along in a segmented fashion. This is a common lifestyle in the present. God is just one of the pressures to which we succumb beside all the others which bombard us through slick advertising or through our submission to western norms. Paul's word may jolt us into asking whether we have in the process lost God and lost ourselves - let alone the real interests of others.

Gospel: Epiphany 3: 22 January Mark 1:16-20

Epiphany 2

William Loader

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

There is a conversation going on! We are hearing one side of it. This is fundamental for understanding the two letters of Paul to the Christians at Corinth. We know of at least two more letters, one sent before 1 Corinthians and referred to in 5:9 and one written between 1 and 2 Corinthians, referred to in 2 Cor 2:3. We know of delegations from Corinth before 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 1:11; 16:17) and of a letter (7:1). Our passage has slogan like statements, which appear to be slogans emanating from Corinth, perhaps inspired originally by Paul's preaching.

In our passage Paul is addressing issues which he has heard about. He begins by citing a slogan: 'All things are lawful for me'. He cites it twice, each time modifying it. We have to assume Paul is not disputing the basic idea. For Paul Christians are no longer under the law; they are free. Paul makes such claims in the context of envisaging a life filled with the Spirit, bearing the fruits of the Spirit. We can see this in Galatians 5 or Romans 8. Paul appears to have been misunderstood as stating that Christians are lawless. In Romans 6 he explains how this is totally wrong: what baptism celebrates is the birth of a new life, a particular kind of life and living. His opponents argued that his assertions of freedom would create chaos (see Rom 3:8!): people needed laws and commandments to control them; depending on the fruit of the Spirit was not enough; it was outrageous to dispense with the Law. Paul argues in response that the just demands of the Law get more than fulfilled when people walk with the Spirit (Rom 8:4; Gal 5:13-15).

Was Paul right? His opponents could point to Corinth and say: I told you so! So Paul modifies this freedom: not everything is appropriate and, more telling: I won't want to be in the power of anything or anyone other than Christ. This is interesting because being under the power of someone or something is a way of speaking of a god or a spirit. The concept is worth exploring: what dominates your life? The issue is idolatry, but also more than that: certain behaviours and attitudes. The language of idolatry returns at the end of the passage - not by chance.

There appears to be another slogan in 6:13. Food is for the stomach and stomach for food. Perhaps it extends on to what follows: and God will destroy both. So what? Well, it would mean that we should not be greatly bothered about such physical things, including physical behaviours. The comment that God will destroy both the stomach and food could be Paul's response. Then he would be responding to a slogan which implied that food and the stomach are physical matters which should not affect our spirituality with the claim that what we do will be under judgement. Either way the slogan may have first arisen in the context of arguments about foods. That will be the topic when the freedom slogan next appears (10:23). Here, however, the focus is the body and sex.

Paul's abrupt shift in 13b to sex and the way he develops that theme shows that sexual behaviour has been in mind from the beginning. The argument against sexual immorality, specifically, engaging in sexual intercourse with a prostitute is based on certain assumptions about relationships. You might have thought that Paul could have just cited moral strictures, but it is typical of Paul (and helpful) that he grounds his warnings and is not prepared simply to cite authoritative rules. His argument is this: when you engage in sexual intercourse with a prostitute you enter her power sphere; you fall under her authority. Your relationship with her then competes with your relationship to Christ. This is interesting because prostitutes were often linked to temples and were sometimes understood as a sacramental way of communing with the god. That idea lurks behind the closing verses in a striking metaphor which speaks of our being bought with a price and being a temple of the Spirit. Paul is playing with the idea that our relationship with Christ is like sexual intercourse paid for with a temple prostitute achieving divine communion.

Paul bolsters the argument about competing relationships of power by using Genesis 2:24, which in its ideal of male-female partnership speaks of man and woman coming together to become one flesh. While that entails much more than sexual union, it is this aspect which Paul singles out. But then he argues that sexual intercourse, itself, creates much more than physical union. It creates a oneness with power dimensions comparable to the oneness in Spirit created when someone 'joins' Christ. Paul is not thinking of flesh or the body as in opposition to Spirit, but of both as having all the dimensions which make up life.

You cannot be devoted to two competing gods. It would be a mistake to turn Paul's argument around and suggest that even marriage, itself, creates a competing relationship. Perhaps some had done that. The next chapter suggests this is so. There we find another slogan: it is good not to have sex at all! Paul has to counter that slogan, too, even though at another level it was his own lifestyle choice. For Paul the main thing is: there cannot really be a divided loyalty. As God is one and Christ is one, so what we do needs to be coherent. His argument has less to do with laws of immorality and more to do with what happens in relationships and how they can compete with our relationship with God. The case of the temple prostitute is clear. It is worth exploring this slant on morality: sometimes things compete with our relationship with Christ (and God's relationship of love for the world). Paul's logic challenges inconsistency with that primary relationship, whatever form it takes (apparently moral or immoral). Less morally spectacular (because not sexual) but just as destructive can be financial dealings or compromised loyalties which sell people short and promote injustice and poverty.

It is always possible that Paul is using a rhetorical ploy. Perhaps no one at Corinth was visiting prostitutes at all. At most some of those who renounced sexuality were doing so secretly. The alternative is that Paul was really dealing with people who had a negative attitude towards sexuality and engages in this moral flourish in 6:12-20 simply to win the hearts of those anti-sexual members before then turning on them to subvert their assumptions, much as he does in Romans 1:18-32 before in Romans 2 turning the tables on those who would be cheering him. Paul would mean everything he says in 6:12-20, as he does in Romans 1, but it is really a 'softening up job' to confront the anti-sexual members in the next chapter. In any case Paul regularly shifts our focus from morality to relationships, just as he shifts our focus from law to freedom. But his notion of freedom is wise to issues of power and confronts the splitting and compartmentalisation which refuses to let God be God and love be love in everything.

Gospel: Epiphany 2: 15 January John 1:43-51

Baptism of Jesus

William Loader

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

Twelve people in a group: perhaps, symbolically a cell of greater Israel? We know from Jesus' movement that twelve was significant. Was it also for John the Baptist? Or is Luke playing with the symbolic number? As in the first chapter of John's gospel, the model action is clear: people who once followed John should follow Jesus. These model disciples of John - for that is what they appear to be - become disciples of Jesus. The fact that they are termed 'disciples' already before their encounter with Paul may reflect the closeness of the two movements, about which we can only speculate. John 1:20 has John the Baptist bending over backwards to assert that he is not the Christ. No such belief appears here, but the baptism does.

Both John and, according to John's gospel (3:22; 4:1), Jesus (or his disciples) baptised. Maybe they once operated together? Read in the context of Luke's gospel we might expect that these believers had lost touch with developments. They had repented and been baptised by John. Allowing John to do it rather than immersing oneself made the event unusual. Ritual washings and immersions were common enough. But it was so unusual that one person immersed someone else that John acquired a reputation: people called him 'the baptizer', John 'the dipper'.

The unusual procedure appears to have been a theological statement. It heightened the sense of total dependence on God. Baptism was a way of submitting oneself to something which God is doing. That logic later flows through into infant baptism where people recognised that God's life-giving love already touched people in their infancy where that love was acknowledged and celebrated. It became a way of entering the influence of the story of Jesus, his life and death and resurrection. Forgiveness of sins belongs to such love (as does much else!) and, addressed to adults in John's time, the call to baptism certainly entailed a total turnabout in direction of life with ethical consequences (emphasised strongly in Luke's account).

John and Jesus were not in competition - certainly not in Luke. Jesus did, however, add significant new dimensions. They appear to have included a sense of celebration in the present (John fasted) and the claim that what John and others waited for was beginning to happen already in Jesus' ministry. Mark pictures the ministry as Jesus' baptising with the Spirit. Luke sees the blessing of the Spirit both in the ministry of Jesus and in the life of the early church. Luke sums up Jesus' ministry as going about doing good (Acts 10:38). That sounds rather tame, as if it means going about and not being bad. In fact it meant something much more radical as Jesus' sermon at Nazareth indicated (4:16-30). Jesus proclaimed and embodied good news to the poor and oppressed, whoever they were, rich and poor, men and women, Jew and Samaritan.

That was the extra that Jesus brought and why to be baptised with Jesus' baptism, ie. in the name of Jesus, meant an act not only of receiving divine grace (as with John) but also joining with Jesus in his reaching out and, like Jesus, being equipped and inspired by the Spirit to do so. The twelve are baptised; they receive the Spirit. They then speak in tongues. This reflects a favourite technique of Luke's: to echo something which occurred previously. Something as new as Pentecost is happening again. It happened in Jerusalem. It happened with Cornelius. Now it is happening with the church of Asia. That is probably why we hear just at the end that there were twelve. It is a kind of wink.

Baptism, belief, receiving the Spirit, and affirming the lordship of Jesus were linked as aspects of what was usually seen as one total event. Not everything happened together. That does not seem to have bothered Luke or his hearers. It bothers more system-driven thinkers who have used the irregularities in the order of these aspects to establish denominations or at least to create naive havoc in existing ones. But for Luke sometimes the Spirit came first. Sometimes the baptism came first. The order did not greatly matter, even if days or hours separated them. Nor was there room for separating the aspects: baptism was not to be seen as something which in a magical way operated independently of the context of faith or vice-versa. They just belonged together. Clearly for Luke baptism is also about much more than individual experiences. It is about a radical extension of doing and being good, or better, embodying God's goodness and justice in the world.

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

New Year's Day

William Loader

January 1, 2012 Ephesians 1:15-23

What appears to be a letter to the Ephesians by Paul may well be something of a more general kind composed in this format. In any case it is dense with allusions to Paul's ideas as well as developing particular slants of its own. Its lack of particular attachment to a context gives it a general character and wide application, as key themes receive attention which are applicable to all.

It is designed as a source of teaching for Gentile believers and identifies key foundations for their faith. Its language tumbles to excess with nouns piled up which fall forward, as it were, in overbalance to make its point. When we pick ourselves up from the ocean floor having surfed across so many "of"s, which kind translators often try to disguise, we find that important things have been said.

The first two verses are simple enough and follow the traditional pattern of beginning letters with assurances of interest in or prayer or thanksgiving for the recipients, but then the wave builds and in 1:17-19 we are scrambling to keep upright as words tumble and rumble. Basically the prayer is that the Gentile believers will understand what their hope is and how powerful God can be in their lives.

If we let the thoughts run up onto the sand, we can see that it is reassuring to tell people via a prayer what you wish for them and want them to know. Whatever it may take, ensuring we have a sound foundation of hope is a key to life. Hope occupies the God-spot in our lives, just as God occupies the hope-spot. It gives us a sense that life is worth going on. Notice that the wisdom about this is not expansive knowledge or speculation about what it might turn out to be in detail. There is nothing of that. The hope is totally focused on God - so the details can be left. It is not a hope we control by having knowledge about it. It is rich; it is glorious; it is, in fact, God's being. It is not to be commodified into a package and put on the greed-shelf of spiritual consumerism.

In the Greek our whole passage is really one single sentence. So when the prayer also expresses the wish that we may know the power that this unleashes in us in 1:19, it simply continues in 1:20 with the relative pronoun, "which". The power which we experience is the power "which" elevated the dead and rejected Christ. So we can surf down the sentence a good while longer with its twists and turns.

In 1:20-22 the passage uses a string of ideas we find elsewhere, for instance in 1 Peter 3:18-22 and Hebrews 1-2. They include: God raised Christ from the dead; God seated him at his right hand (using the imagery of royal coronation from Psalm 110:1); God subjected powers (including angels) to him; God subjected everything to him (using imagery from Psalm 8:6). Colossians which Ephesians uses extensively employed many of these ideas. Paul uses them in 1 Corinthians 15 and, partly, in Romans 8:34. In other words the passage uses a sequence of ideas designed to tell us about God's response to human rejecting of Jesus. It is language from the sphere of kings and coronations (as is the word, "Messiah", Christ, which means Anointed).

Where people had rejected Jesus in the worst possible way, God affirmed him in the best possible way - at least within the prevailing value system of the day. The message is clear. God does not abandon the one who loves. The powers that destroy do not have the last word. Love overcomes hate. God took Jesus home and celebrated him. The same God and the same hope is the life force of believers. It could just be wishful thinking. It can never quite escape the charge that it is wilful defiance of what appears to be reality. Faith understands that and needs to recognise that it is often wilful defiance in the name of love. Christ's hope and ours belong inextricably together.

The connection between God's affirmation of the rejected Jesus and ourselves comes through very strongly in the last two verses. It is not just that our fate may mirror his. It is not just about affirming a principle of hope and its power in our lives. Rather what happened with Christ was the beginning of something which reaches out and encompasses others and brings together into a network of people who share the same source of energy. Borrowing from an idea developed in new ways in Colossians, Ephesians speaks of Christ becoming the head of an expanding body into which we are incorporated. Paul's image of the body for the local congregation now becomes the basis for understanding how all believers belong together.

It is interesting to examine the language used of mission. Here the central term is filling. May the earth be filled with the glory of God! Such thoughts will have inspired this new image of what God is doing through Christ: filling the world with grace and doing so by filling the world with the community of faith and life.

It is also a very dangerous image when given definitive status and not allowed to blow away in the wind as good images must to uncover the truth. The church has not shown itself to be good news when it has seen its role as filling the universe and controlling it. It slips off its board in the turbulence when it forgets its fallibility and need to see to balance. Nevertheless, the image can inspire. Far from being an ever expanding hand reaching out to grab, manipulate and control, it can understand as its authority the engagement in bringing transforming grace and hope, both of which carry their own authentication and infallibility.

Christ the king is also an image which has both cursed and blessed the world. It is at its most powerful when captured in the vision of a thorn-crowned figure on the throne of a cross. The power of which Ephesians speaks is not a power to undo that image and replace it, but to affirm it. And such abundant love needs to reach every shore.

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

Advent 4

William Loader

Advent 4: 18 December Romans 16:25-27

These last words of Romans are an acclamation of God. They have probably been added to Paul's letter as a fitting climax for its use in the liturgical context of the community of faith. Many ancient manuscripts do not have them or have them earlier. It is interesting that the primary benefit at the receiving end of this great bow of praise that touches humanity and reaches up to God is strengthening. One might even use the word, enabling, which has become much loved in recent years. This enabling comes from the good news which Paul proclaimed. If this is not Paul's own statement, it coheres with Paul's assertiveness to recognise that what he is doing is something which brings life. Paul has not learned that form of Christian piety which will not own strength, but must play at humility. Paul's message stands beside and is derived from Christ's kerygma or proclamation. Communities which treasured and carefully edited Paul's letters acknowledged his leadership and his role in bringing to them and their forebears the good news. As in Ephesians and Colossians we are viewing a deep respect for Paul and his mission. It is one which we might want modelled if people were to assess our own assertive faithfulness to the good news.

The acclamation lifts our sights even higher. Not only was this the good news from Christ (and about Christ); it was also a mystery (another echo of Colossians and Ephesians). The term was a favourite in some circles to describe a future event or revelation which came from the heart of God and is pictured as being suspended in divine care until its release, like the release of doves at occasions of great celebration. We seem to be hearing the reflection of a generation which could rejoice in biblical witness to Christ in writings. The 'prophetic scriptures' may even be the gospels. We may have a first hint of a rudimentary canon of scripture. Akin to the emphasis in Ephesians (once more), the acclamation celebrates the inclusion of the Gentiles. The acclamation has doubtless arisen in a predominantly Gentile context. The theme of inclusiveness is at the heart of this good news. It remains a difficult attitude to sustain. Here it is the heart of the good news, the core of faith, the wisdom and compassion of God.

The 'obedience of faith' is a term Paul uses in Romans 1:5, which finds its echo here. It underlines that faith is more than cognitive assent or 'making a decision' to believe at some point in time. It suggests rather an ongoing relationship which includes involvement in God's life and compassion reaching out into the world. Lofty as the acclamation sounds, its ground is in the human experience of God's love embracing all. In Christ that love touched the dust and through Paul flowed across the cities of the eastern Mediterranean and into the countryside. It is large and generous. It is also ongoing and enabling. It is the strength of those who are immersed in its nourishment. The upward thrust of the acclamation might have us soaring high in ecstasy until we see the divine flow is really in the other direction: not drawing us away, but sending us out - to all, for all, without discrimination. Its poetry disguises the profound religious struggle which is embodied in the letter to which it is attached. It hymns what Paul saw as God's initiative of love poured out, of goodness (righteousness) generating reconciliation, of liberation offered to all who want it and without prerequisites. All this was over against the notion of a God needing protection and against other followers of Jesus worried about stepping on divine toes.

Gospel: Advent 4: 18 December Luke 1:26-38

Advent 3

William Loader

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

I cannot help but read the immediate context - at least from verse 12 - and when I do, I recall one of those delightful typos which can occur when busy people prepare orders of worship. I remember some years ago seeing as part of a liturgy of ordination the words of 1 Thess 5:14-15. Instead of �warn the idle� the spell check had allowed: �warn the idol� and so it was!

The preceding words also give some �bite� to 16-25, which can sound rather general. They deal with attitudes towards leadership, especially how they are to be supported (including upkeep; 12-13). Living for peace is central (13) - and does not mean avoiding conflict or trying to be �nice and Christian� (Paul shows this is not the case). It means engaging and confronting as well as comforting (14). It means abandoning revenge (right through to responses to Sept 11! 15) and seeking to a source of good and goodness to all (not just to �us� - also to �them�; 15). That�s plenty to go by before we even reach verse 16!

Such is the context of joy (16). So it is not being high. It is not the antithesis to pain and suffering. It is not an antidote to the cross or Gethsemane, but an attitude which finds life there and finds nurture and rest in feeding on brokenness and a poured out life.

Nor is 16 speaking about endless prayers, lives filled with liturgical mutterings, or thoughts and conversations punctuated with �dearest Lord Jesus�. It is more to do with connectedness. Elsewhere Paul speaks of walking in the Spirit. It is about sharing the life of God, who might, as it were, constantly interrupt our words and ask for us for a hand to do something here and there. There is a spirituality which holds together deepest dimensions of individual personal faith and awareness of God�s presence with the sense that one is surfing onto new shores and running to catch up to a God who is out there drawing us out rather than sucking us in or up. Some people see the religious life as responding to God as a kind of vacuum cleaner where the goal is withdrawal and oneness with the divine - away from it all. Paul usually has the hose on the other end: God�s love is poured out and the intimacy of the Spirit births an expansiveness. God chose not to take up the whole space in the beginning, but made space for others to be and for a flow of love. Prayer is about the ebb and flow of that tide. Part of that movement is, indeed, giving thanks.

Moving from the metaphor of the flowing Spirit to the Spirit of fire, we hear the encouragement not to quench the flame. That includes running with the challenges which the prophets and interpreters bring. There are plenty of them today - inside and outside the church. Paul�s common sense and engagement in critical theology shows when he cautions us to test what we hear. Not all inspiration and inspired prophecy is going to bring good. The problem of �false prophets� is ancient. Many New Testament writers felt the need to encourage their hearers to be more critical (eg. 1 John 4:1-4). In an age where statistics are the measure of success (and Jesus automatically fails), impressive preachers (and �inspired� politicians) have many more techniques and media available to them to sway opinion. In some sense one of the distinctive features of the community of Jesus needs to be its �ungullibility�, its critical edge. Evil does, indeed, take many forms as Paul says (22) and many of its forms are overtly religious, even Christian, as surely our Christian history has taught us. How wonderful that Paul�s final words are a blessing in which �wholeness� is the guiding theme!

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

Advent 2

William Loader

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

The letter addresses what the passing of two millennia no longer sees as a problem. Clearly many expected divine intervention, the day of the Lord, within their lifetime or soon thereafter. This was the case with Paul. It hasn't happened; and it hadn't happened by the early second century when this letter was probably penned. Such intense hope has lapsed. Occasionally people have stoked the expectations. There have been the speculations at the turn of the millennia and many others at other times. Our author, writing with claims to be or represent Peter, himself, urges caution.

It is interesting both to observe the tradition with which he works and to see what he does with it. The idea of a future day of the Lord remains. It was after all fundamental, had its roots in Old Testament hope (although Amos warned that unless things changed people should not really look forward to it at all!), and appears to have been central in Jesus' message, despite the attempts from time to time to rescue Jesus from such an embarrassment. It was part of their world. It is as little part of ours as belief in a flat world or a demon based cosmology is. What do we then do? Join the scoffers whom the letter confronts?

Notions of a final conflagration were by no means confined to Jewish speculation. From a totally different perspective we can probably affirm something like this - in millions of years time; or in the case of a nuclear holocaust. But such parallels should not invite regression into a flurry of future prediction based on 'Bible prophecy'. Theirs was conceived differently and seen as a divine initiative, not as a terrorist strike or a consequence of the planet's overheating.

The author's retreat from the speculative, points to useful possibilities for us. He focuses not on the event but on God and God's time. While at one level this will have been a rationalisation for the delay, it also shifts attention to what we can know - or at least trust. This return then leads to an assertion about God's being: God does not want people to perish. This is a move - not taken very far - but a step which has the potential to unravel some of the speculation and the notion, crudely put, that God will finally want to destroy all who do not repent or punish them eternally. The author does not go that far, but it is significant that this catches his attention.

He then resorts to the suddenness argument: beware it can come at any time - a bit hard for us to sustain. The attention then turns back to appropriate behaviour. It goes beyond a scared waiting, to an eagerness which feels more like hoping for a fulfilment of something good rather than for something bad. The hope then shifts to a new heaven and a new earth - which might look like a simple replacement theory, but the key vestige of good news is in the assertion that the new reality will be a place of righteousness or justice. The hope for transformation, which winds up in desperate thought to a pitch where the old melts and there is something totally new, is born ultimately in the pain of injustice, one's own or that of others. It is as though flamboyant images of dramatic conflagration are the verbal arm waving of people in crisis reaching out for liberation. Of course, this is only half true. The author writes reflectively and people in those days took such images more literally. We can nevertheless link arms with people in such plight. It is the original context of our whole movement. We are to belong to those who yearn for justice, even if our poetry is less dramatic and expectations more measured.

The purity and godliness espoused in this letter may have a strongly moral quality and focus on piety. For us such purity and godliness has to be transposed into singleness of endeavour and solidarity with God's action and promise that there can be peace and there can be justice in this world - within people and among them. Part of our task is to transpose the eagerness and urgency from the cosmological speculation to the register of human need and the state of the present world and its future.

Gospel: Advent 2: 4 December Mark 1:1-8

Christ the King

William Loader

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

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

Pentecost 22

William Loader

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

Paul continues to use traditional imagery, as he had in 4:13-18, and, again, we find ourselves in a strange world. It made sense for Paul to warn about the possible sudden return of Christ, like a thief in the night (5:2). He was expecting it during his lifetime. One never knows when contractions will start (5:3). One never knows when the day of the Lord will come. We no longer live on the edge of our seats in this regard. 2000 years is too long a time.

Nevertheless we can find meaning in Paul's words of comfort and encouragement in other ways. Again Paul is employing popular categories when he contrasts light and darkness, day and night, wakefulness and sleep, sobriety and being drunk. This can be reduced a crude self-congratulatory "us" and "them" contrast. Paul's wider perspective shows that he is not at all happy to run off with a saved clique and condemn the rest of the world. His life mission is to reach out in love to all. Rather Paul is wanting to reinforce the identity of the Thessalonians, to help them see a contrast implicit in that contrast which should sustain them.

It is not difficult to find matches for the metaphors of sleep and drunkenness in today's world. It is important to recognise the intoxicating effects of modern western society, in particular. We can be swept up into behaviours, attitudes, values systems and politics which are destructive for ourselves and others, without knowing it. Paul encourages us to stand back and recognise differences. There were pressures in his day as there are in ours. People need to keep just as awake today as they needed to then, perhaps even more so, because we are being constantly bombarded and manipulated by subtle strategies of persuasion, "spin" of all kinds, including political "spin".

In 5:8 Paul uses a military metaphor drawn from Isaiah 59:17 and better known from Eph 6:14-17, where it has been further elaborated. Here in 5:8 the armour is defensive: protection for the chest and a helmet. Military metaphors can be dangerous. They invite notions of domination and power and frequently use language of aggression. Here the focus is defence. Paul uses the familiar trio, faith, love, and hope. These are not innocent virtues, but robust stances which enable people to live in a way that resists the pressure to conform to what the powerful want and to stand out against abuse in solidarity with the abused and violated.

Ultimately the contrasts which Paul draws are not narrow and sectarian nor focussed on heaven and eternal damnation (though Paul alludes to such ideas in 5:9), but between sharing the life of God, made known in Christ and dynamically present in the Spirit, on the one hand, and living according to the gods and priorities of greed and power, on the other. It is faith in the one who gave his life for others, who embodied love, and so gave people hope, which defines this new existence. So in 5:10 Paul takes us back again to Christ and returns to the thought of 4:17. Our future is in solidarity with Christ and that is also our hope - to live now and then with him.

It is a pity that people make a paragraph break between 5:11 and what follows. In 5:11 Paul, ever with a sense for the present implications of faith statements, encourages the Thessalonians to mutual support. On the ground, that really matters. Not much hope grows where not much love flows and love needs to flow through people. Paul understands this life of faith, hope, and love as one lived in community where the processes of change and renewal are generated through real experiences. 5:12, then, moves even further into practicalities. Support people in leadership. That was as important then as it is now. Paul knows that they can become vulnerable. They are human. They need loving, too. And sometimes, then, as now, they probably needed to be persuaded to heighten their level of self-loving and caring. Intentional care of this kind is the presupposition for what Paul goes on to say in 5:13: Be at peace with each other.

Paul moves toward the conclusion of his letter with a fine exhortation about pastoral care in 5:14-24. Warning the idle (5:14) always recalls for me a word of dismissal which I once saw printed in an ordination liturgy where the spell check had no qualms about leaving "idol" in the text. Warn the idol indeed! At least Paul in our passage brings to our awareness that the issue of idolatry is far from irrelevant for our times, even if the imminence of the day of the Lord is not. These days the idols have major corporate sponsorship and represent powerful vested interests, but from much of Christianity there is little about which they need to be warned. Paul believes Christians should not be so drowsy and drunk, but be asserting the radical new way of faith and love and hope. His world needed it and so does ours.

Gospel Pentecost 22: 13 November Matthew 25:14-30

Pentecost 21

William Loader

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

The Christians at Thessalonica have been worrying Paul. He is writing after he has heard from Timothy that they have kept their faith despite facing persecution (3:1-10). His concern to address the issue of what happens to people who have died may reflect awareness that in the persecution some had lost their lives, although Paul does not say so directly. He does, in any case, want to offer words of hope and for this he passes on what appears to be early Christian tradition about Christ's return (4:16-17).

It is an extraordinary statement. Paul paints a picture of Christ returning with a loud shout, an archangel's call, and a trumpet sound. Possibly the image means that Christ does all three: shouts, speaks like an archangel and makes a blast on a trumpet. Paul would have been aware he was using imagery. Trumpets accompanied important events, especially festivals, and marked beginnings and endings. It was also common to imagine divine figures making themselves known with loud shouts, especially in the wider religious world of the time.

This colourful or perhaps, better, noisy spectacle serves another interest. Paul is underlining his belief that ultimately Christ will come to receive and care for his own. They will not be abandoned. Staying within Paul's framework of thought we can see that here, as in 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul develops similar imagery, Paul expects to be among those still alive when Christ returns. So he imagines a sequence of events. The dead will be brought to life. Then those, like himself, who are still alive, will be caught up into the air and then both, the resurrected ones and those still alive will be taken off to be with Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians he defends his belief in future resurrection by explaining that it must not to be taken too literally. He is not talking about flesh and blood bodies, but about transformed bodies. People will be embodied but in a different order of reality. Such ideas have their roots in texts like Daniel 12 which picture the future for the righteous in a way that makes them seem like stars. It was common to believe that they would be embodied like angels. The preview of the climax of history which we call the transfiguration has Christ, therefore, transformed into this new order of shining reality. Handel has immortalised the passage from 1 Corinthians 15, which speaks of the trumpet sounding and our being changed.

It is hard to make much sense of such a passage today. We no longer believe the earth is flat or like a saucer; nor do we believe in an imminent return of Jesus, let alone in a form that would match Paul's imagery in any literal sense. Paul was wrong in his expectations. He died. 2000 years have passed. We now smile at the hundreds of attempts to revive belief in Christ's imminent return, even if we don't want to be labelled "scoffers" (see 2 Peter). It would be easy to walk away from such beliefs altogether. Is this the only way?

At a very basic level we might identify with Paul's faith in the following terms. He looks at uncertainty and adversity. He believes in hope. He embraces the imagery and poetry of his day. He probably did not have a clear definition of where the imagery stopped and where the reality started. In any case we would draw it somewhat differently. His hope was, as it were, held in solution in a beaker of swirling imagination using standard ingredients. In all of this he was conveying the confidence that all does not end in oblivion and certainly not in hopelessness. Ultimately that hope does not depend on images or sequences or explanations about how, but on the nature of God.

Even in the movie clip which Paul runs for us, the end is about hope in presence. Being present with Christ and this only has meaning in the context of the presence of God. In one sense, far from having a book of details, we have just one detail: God. But this detail has the contours we have seen in Christ and the story of his resurrection is the primary symbol of meaning that both declares him affirmed by God and presents a story which encourages us to hope beyond death and whatever else confronts us of such proportions. Thus Paul opens the door to his statements of hope by talking about Christ in 4:15. Christ provides an impetus for hope because we identify in him the contours of God as a God of love.

Even when we live with healthy agnosticism about the future, including post mortem survival, our faith remains grounded in the being of God, whatever that will mean and there we also believe we meet the one whom we see in the refracted symbols of Christ's impact and that one meets us. There are dreams and visions and colours splashed about the screen of our imagination, but it is not science and it is not knowledge. It is important not to believe the poetry; otherwise it loses its power. It finds its power when we live with hope and a sense of worth and do so with and for others.

There is a pastoral trap in the opening verse of our passage which if misread or misheard will inspire people to guilt about grief. "People who have hope do not grieve" - really? The text is talking about being able to grieve - with hope and not hopelessness. Hope does not mean we do not suffer loss, do not deeply miss loved ones, do not go through patches of Gethsemane or even sit sometimes like Job. But it is important to deal with the pastoral trap, because some people are waiting to "beat themselves up" and others have suffered much through naive notions about "happy" Christians. We need to be able to face pain, ours and that of the world. We are not good news for ourselves or for our world when we live in an artificially trumped up denial and this is even worse when it governs our politicians. Ultimately Paul's life shows that he's not holding his breath to get out of here, but that he has identified with the one who entered life's pain fully and gave his life - and found his life - for the benefit of all.

Gospel Pentecost 21: 6 November Matthew 25:1-13

Pentecost 20

William Loader

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

The sensitivities continue in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. It would be interesting to know how much they knew. Paul keeps referring to it. "As you know" comes again in 2:11. From what we know we can sense what Paul is probably doing. People at Corinth and elsewhere criticised Paul for working to earn his keep instead of obeying Jesus' command to let himself be funded and resourced like a proper apostle by those who he served (most graphically evident in 2 Cor 10-13). The snipers could point to disobedience - but then Paul never treated the words of scripture nor the words of Jesus in such an inflexible way. They could also accuse him of failure to trust God. There was more: it was as offensive not to receive hospitality as it was not to give it. Paul was dishonouring the people whom he served. Worse still, some suggested it was all a sham. Paul did collect money everywhere. What did he do with it!?

Little wonder that Paul wants to head off with the Thessalonians any such accusations. It is serious. So in 2:10 Paul uses the language of an oath to swear by God that his behaviour was above reproof. If a few verses earlier he uses the image of mothering, here he uses the image of fathering. He is making the point that his ministry comes from love, not from self interest. They should recognise that this was the reason why he worked on the side. Compassion calls for flexibility, not playing it by the rules and protecting one's rights and status.

We might imagine Paul sitting down regularly with his congregations to ensure issues are clear and people know where he stands, what he is doing and why. He cannot do that. He is too far away. But his commitment to people means he makes the effort to communicate. Paul does not model the ministry of a loner or martyr or depressive who withdraws and blames. Ongoing open communication is essential in ministry. We are the beneficiaries through his letters.

When in 2:13 Paul's turns to thanksgiving, it is also his attempt to have them join him. It is also how he often began his letters, with praise meant to endear. It can be slightly manipulative, but there is no reason to doubt Paul's genuineness despite the obvious agenda of endearment. Our passage stops short of further attempts on Paul's part to build solidarity in verses which have been quite dangerous and, for some, encouraged antisemitism. While opposition from fellow citizens is a common experience for many in Christian congregations of Paul's day, he extends the solidarity to a sense of oneness with Christ being killed by his fellow Jews (2:14-16).

Paul's language is unfortunate and reflects, or perhaps only generates, negative Jewish stereotypes about Jews as the enemies of humanity. Paul would be the first to counter abuse of his statements. His attack is not on Jews as a people. He is one of them and proud of it. Then those who killed were not all Jews, nor even all Judeans, but only some and certainly not without Roman collaboration who actually carried out the execution. Still, Paul bears resentment and seems happy to see them suffer at the time of writing, a regrettable slip from the logic of his gospel.

I suspect that the motivation for such resentment has less to do with the history of Jesus and his countryman and more to do with Paul's own anger about the Christian Jews, including those from Judea, who have been hounding him. In that conflict, as in most conflicts, there are positives and negatives on both sides. The Christianity of New Testament times is far from a model to be emulated, but it is one from which we can learn.

Gospel Pentecost 20: 30 October Matthew 23:1-12

Pentecost 19

William Loader

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

Our passage begins with another, "you know", which we have seen comes frequently in the letter. Two more follow in our short passage (2:2; 2:5). It is an appeal both to what the Thessalonians knew and what Paul felt they ought to know and bear in mind. Why do this? We have to read between the lines, but Paul is obviously very keen to make these points and it has to do with his relationship with them. Thus Paul reminds them that he was not on a preaching tour to make money for himself. It cost him something. Had he not been genuine, he would have given up long ago. Paul is not prepared to surrender to those who want to belittle him and therefore his gospel. Paul is not prepared to compromise to avoid conflict on what really matters. Paul does not espouse the philosophy of peace at all costs.

We see further hints of his opposition in 2:3-4. It appears that some have been saying that he plays games, disregards spiritual purity and peddles wrong ideas. From other conflicts which Paul has we may suspect that the opposition comes from other Christian Jews who feel that he has abandoned the true Christian faith. That probably includes the accusation that he disregards biblical concerns about holiness and purity. In Galatians, too, he mentions the assertion that he is just out to please people. Behind this is the accusation that Paul ignores scripture's requirements to make it easier for Gentiles to fit in, not only by dropping the biblical command of circumcision but by saying that believers are no longer under the scripture (the Law).

For his opponents this is outrageous and infringes God's rights. How can anyone set aside scripture for the sake of making people feel at home? Paul, of course, sees it differently, arguing that all barriers to inclusiveness and compassion must be torn down. One of his prot�g�s who wrote Ephesians even describes the scriptures (the Law) as a wall of enmity which must be dismantled (2:14-15). Paul sees this not as disrespect for the scriptures but as a way of reading them which does justice to what they are truly about. The issues which plagued Paul still plague the church today.

Paul is wanting to ensure the Thessalonians do not succumb to these people who want to undermine him. After all, it is not just a personal matter of his apostleship (2:7). It is about the heart of the gospel. The heart of that gospel is compassion and Paul reminds them that this actually characterised the way he related to them in the first place (2:5-8). He was not on a power trip. He was certainly not trying to make money for himself (2:5) - although his commitment to making a collection for the Christians in Judea always left him open to the accusation that this was a smokescreen for his own gain. Paul was intent on pleasing only God (2:6) and being one with God's compassion which is the heart of the gospel. He even uses the language of an oath to underline this reality (2:5), because he is confident about his accountability to God.

Paul's alternative stance leads him to identify with female images of care (2:7). Like a nurse caring for children, so Paul approached the Thessalonians. Paul was not wanting to win or to count or to master them. He crosses gender prejudices in his inclusiveness as he insists on consistency. His style of ministry was consistent with the gospel he preached. It was based not on coercion by biblical authority, but on biblical righteousness which as Paul understood it was intent to help people into a right relationship with God so that their lives would then become rightly oriented and their behaviour rightly expressed, measured by love. It made his opponents fear - for themselves and ultimately for God, whom they sought to defend by denouncing Paul. It was a tragedy already symbolised earlier in the event of the cross, but which perpetuates discrimination and destructiveness in the name of the gospel, as people fear a gospel of love and replace it by a message of fear and control.

Gospel Pentecost 19: 23 October Matthew 22:34-46

Pentecost 18

William Loader

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

Paul begins his letter to the Christians at Thessalonika (modern day, Salonika) very positively. He has heard news from Timothy (3:6) who has reported that all is well with this new community of faith. They have apparently been subject to adversity and have held firm. They also seem to have stayed with Paul's approach to the gospel and not wavered. The words, "you know", occur frequently in the letter. The effect Paul seems to be trying to produce is to underline and reinforce what they know (or should know if any of them doubt!). So Paul is wanting to consolidate what seems to be a stable community.

Paul is also concerned about the relationship between himself and his team and the community. So he reminds them of the founding visit. It is interesting to see him stressing the miraculous side of his visit (1:5). That will later turn around against him when opponents accuse him of being deficient in this regard or not as impressive - as we see in the later parts of 2 Corinthians. Even here one suspects that Paul is being very sensitive to potential rivals. A little later on he will reassure the Thessalonians that he does not use manipulative or exploitative methods (2:1-8). The first two chapters are entirely taken up with Paul's efforts to consolidate and to present himself in good terms. There was obviously a potential problem. So he is both relieved at Timothy's news and still somewhat anxious.

Paul wants them to model themselves on him. He also praises them as models for people in the region. They have made an impact. It is impressive. Paul does not want to see all this contaminated by invasions from outside, especially from preachers who turn the Christian gospel into a set of laws and justify doing so by appealing to the authority of scripture as happened in Galatia. Let people rejoice in the gospel of grace and goodness! Religion can be so destructive to faith when it comes out of fear and the desire to control.

Our final two verses give a brief summary of what Paul achieved. The Thessalonians abandoned idolatry and turned to the living God. Simple as it may sound, it represented an assertion of God's generosity beyond the traditional bounds. It would have infuriated some contemporaries of Paul, who would have taken Paul to task for not handling the matter in conformity with scripture which in Genesis 17 clearly demands circumcision. We know little of the religion of the Thessalonians. Were they bound in superstition? Did they particularly suffer through it? All we know is that they turned away and accepted what Paul would have presented as an offer of God's love. That is to be celebrated.

The simplicity of the conversion finds expression also in the final verse of our passage. It almost sounds too simple. What was the purpose of the conversion? To wait for Jesus to come again and for rescue from God's anger. Perhaps Paul's preaching did reduce the gospel to a simple message: believe in Jesus and be saved from God's anger! It certainly leaves a lot out and raises serious questions. Perhaps we already see this in what Paul goes on to say later. Some seem to believe that Christian life is a matter of lazing around waiting for future deliverance - or, at most, trying to save others. Paul turns the focus to practical things like the need to work and to watch how one lives in the present.

On the other hand these verses do give a reduced version of the gospel. It is so reduced as to distort the focus of the good news and should probably not be treated as an adequate summary. It is after all just an aspect of what Paul is saying and emphasises a change of direction. If we invited the Paul we know from the other letters to expand the outline, we would begin hearing about who this Jesus is whom they await and what his vision for the future was about. We would begin to see that God's anger is not about being peeved or temperamental but at least in part can be seen as a mechanism of self harm which people bring on themselves. We would also hear that the living God is indeed alive and active through the Spirit and through the living Christ building community and bringing liberation and wholeness in the here and now.

Gospel Pentecost 18: 16 October Matthew 22:15-22

Pentecost 17

William Loader

Pentecost 17: 9 October Philippians 4:1-9

Our passage begins with some concrete personal references. Paul has enjoyed shared leadership with women. Gender is not an issue as it would become later where such leadership became a male preserve. Rather his concern is about how they relate to each other - that they find their common bond in Christ and let that determine all else. 4:3 lets us know about other fellow workers. Paul deals with relations among fellow "staff" by doing theology and pointing to the foundation of spirituality. This then introduces his famous words about rejoicing.

The word, "rejoice", is also the word commonly used to conclude letters and could be translated here: "farewell!" There is no doubt: Paul wishes them well and, whether this comes under the influence of the formal ending of the letter or not, Paul wants them to be in positive spirits. Do we need to be told that it is a good thing to be elated, to be glad and happy? Some, who see Christianity as something dour and serious, need to hear it.

In some forms of Christian culture the worry about control and balance has been such an emphasis that anything like joy which is spontaneous is embarrassing. Such people find it much easier to express joy with a heavily structured sphere of discourse, such as in the words of a hymn. Paul is surprisingly strong in his affirmation and expression of emotions. In his day it ran against the grain of those popular philosophers, like the Stoics, who cautioned restraint in all matters regarding feeling as a way of lowering one's vulnerability to bad experiences.

Why do we leave joy to those who compose songs which make happiness sound like pastry and conjure a false image of a "victorious" life of constant highs? Joy need not be something superficial. Sometimes our distaste for excesses leads to a neglect of this very vital human experience. People need to know about joy just as much as they need to know about pain. We have similar mechanisms for avoiding both and for leaving the field to shallow renderings.

Paul's "always" is not a quantitative assertion of the kind that implies joy in every moment. Joy is never alone. Its companions are pain and fear. At times Paul's letters display more of some than the other. Paul's sense of joy is not the absence of pain or fear, but the presence of Christ, in whom he places his hope and trust. The deep human need to belong, the joy of belonging, is met for Paul in Christ. That unity takes him into pain and death, and, as he often emphasises, leads him over and over again on a journey from death to life, from pain to joy. Sometimes his joy stays alight as a flickering flame amid an oppressive darkness of criticism and downright hate. But it remains and can flare into brightness at relief and change.

What brings it to burn brightly is the knowledge that here and there love breaks through, people are rescued from the negative effects of religion, pagan, Jewish and Christian, and are set free to be loving people. For Paul joy and love belong closely together. For he rejoices at the truth (see 1 Cor 13:6). Here in 4:5 that means he wants the Philippians to let their goodness, their gentleness shine. The focus is outward. For the Lord in whom he wants them to rejoice is the one whose life reached out.

Paul is expecting that Jesus would return soon to this world: "The Lord is near" (4:5). That sounds unreal for us, because we look back over 2000 years and it hasn't happened. It is interesting that Paul does not say this in order to appeal to some spiritually self-interested strategies which people should undertake to make themselves safe. On the contrary, Christ's future coming like his past coming issues in a single invitation: to live in his life in the present.

The exhortation not to worry is interesting, coming from Paul. It hardly means, don't have serious thoughts or don't be anxious. Just look at many of Paul's letters and you will see how involved he was and often how worried he was about what was happening to the people of his churches. It was a quite a burden, as he reminds us in 2 Cor 11:28 (where he uses the same word, "worry"). So Paul is hardly peddling a lifestyle option of the unengaged life of serenity. His spirituality is quite the opposite. But part of his joy is that it keeps him from total despair, the kind of worry that becomes obsessive and self-destructive. An openness to God in prayer keeps him centred - just as it kept Jesus centred in Gethsemane.

When Paul speaks about "peace" in 4:7, we know he is not talking about that favourite religious pastime of learning to be still and happy and finding oneness beyond this world and its uncertainties. When he speaks of this peace keeping people's hearts and minds, he is almost saying: this will keep you sane! It is neither a disengaged serenity nor an intellectually worked out, solution-focused state of having answers to all the problems. Rather it is a peace that goes beyond the repose of rational resolution and cannot really be achieved by it. Ultimately it is the peace of or from God. That sense of the presence of God, the awareness of oneness with the compassionate one who is engaged "up to the neck" in life, is bigger than our imaginations and our solutions. Paradoxically the love which makes itself vulnerable, the joy which both flares and flickers, and the peace which gives no rest as long as there is injustice and need, all belong together inseparably as the fruit of the spirit. As Paul writes to the Galatians, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace..."

The positive focus continues in 4:8-9. It again becomes personal as in 4:2-3. Here Paul refers to his own teaching and example. Again Paul integrates theology and practice. Paul is not just advocating the power of positive thinking. This is about more than technique and persuasion. It is about filling one's mind with what Paul sees as the signs of God's life - not so that will feel good, but because this is another way of filling oneself with God's life and so allowing God's life to flow through us to the world around us. This kind of grounded spirituality lies behind Paul's understanding of peace and, ultimately, also of joy.

Gospel Pentecost 17: 9 October Matthew 22:1-14

Pentecost 16

William Loader

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

Just two verses earlier Paul had warned about "the dogs" and "the circumcision". The target of his attack is not so much Jews as Jewish Christians, who dispute Paul's legitimacy and object to his attitude to scripture. They demanded that scripture and its commands were infallible and saw Paul as watering down God's word in the interests of winning people to his way. It was cheap evangelism, selling the gospel short. Paul, for his part, saw such fundamentalism as one of the very things which stood in the way of true faith and from which people needed to be liberated. Paul is not always exemplary in his handling of such conflicts. They generated a lot of heat, both in his day and in the ministry of Jesus - just as they often do in the church today. Calling people names does not usually bring progress.

So we are meeting the passionate Paul. What he is passionate and positive about comes to the fore in our passage. First he asserts that, if he must, he can match their claims (3:4-6). He is all that they boast about, a true Jew, a true Israelite. Their admiration for zeal needs to acknowledge that his zeal was exemplary! Then comes the twist: zeal, yes, but that was a zeal which attacked Christ and his church. On their terms he was blameless, because he was a blameless observer of all the commandments. Can one be a blameless devotee of scripture and at the same time an enemy of Christ? Paul would say a very definite: yes! Fanatical devotion which loses perspective and blindly follows beliefs and maxims, even when they are scriptural, is so often dangerous, because it justifies hate and in the name of God perpetuates violence. Such violence is as much present in Christianity as it is in other religions - wherever human worth and dignity is given second place to a notion of God's laws, wherever people think that people were made for the sabbath not the sabbath for people. As soon as people imagine that God has other priorities than love and compassion, such as self aggrandisement and self absorption, then matching behaviour will follow - in religious people and in their leaders.

Paul describes a reversal of values. He is not abandoning scripture, let alone abandoning God, but he is abandoning a theology based on seeking to please God by zealous protection of divine laws. He is abandoning a theology which sees God as obsessed with his own laws and preoccupied with becoming angry and offended when things are not done in exactly the prescribed way. Such theology is a projection of human egotism. In Christ he has found an understanding and embodiment of God which says that God's being is characterised by love and generosity which is pained and angered by human sin and harm and seeks to reconcile people from their estrangement and their captivity - including their captivity to religion.

Without throwing away his own religion Paul, nevertheless, throws away a theology which had made him important and given him great status. In its place he embraces Christ and Christ's way. But this is more than just a change of values. It is also a deeply spiritual and personal change which affects Paul at the heart of his being and changes his future forever. One could read this as the exchange of one fanaticism for another. We could see Paul as now blindly following Christ. The passage could then read as little more than the self indulgence of a new kind of fanaticism in which Paul is totally focused on the rewards and prizes of his resurrection. Such fanaticism does occur from time to time, in every age, and is not better than his fanatical espousal of the Law.

Fortunately we know enough about Paul to recognise that this is far from a religious ego-trip. Paul's desire to live in conformity to Christ expresses his conviction that God was in Christ doing the work of reconciling, as we saw last week in 2 Cor 5:19. The sharing of that life includes the vision of resurrection and hope. It also consists of engagement in mission and ministry, compassion and reaching out, as God in Christ reaches out. That can include suffering, if that is what this solidarity demands, but it is not the blind suffering of the fanatic, but, as he expresses it elsewhere, the travail so that something new may be born, the pain entailed in enabling more and more people to experience God's generosity. This means going all the way with Christ, through pain and suffering if need be and beyond that ultimately into hope.

Paul refuses to claim he has graduated or has arrived (3:12-14). He taunts some of the Corinthians who seem to think they have arrived (1 Cor 4:8) and doubtless here, too, he has in mind the same kind of arrogance. Paul sees no need to claim the power which might come with such a status. His ministry does not depend for its effectiveness on a kind of spiritual invincibility or perfection. Such constructions which preachers can make for themselves or others can make for them are powerful tools and for many very persuasive. But they are an abuse of power and a return to the very stance on which Paul has turned his back. Not the power of demand and law, but the invitation of love and relationship sets people free. No one said the latter would achieve a greater numerical following. Often the reverse is the case.

Paul is not seduced by such opportunities to become a god. He does not lose focus. Employing the common metaphor of the race, he asserts that he keeps his eye on the goal. The high calling may be a calling to join Christ on high. Or it may be a calling that comes from on high. Either way the prize is not a thing but a relationship with God and Christ. Slippage is possible here; we could easily become captive to the image and convert Paul's words into self indulgence again. Of course, Paul really is acting in his own self interest and doing what he wants to do and wants us to do the same. He really wants us to find our ministries and our lives by finding ourselves engaged in the life of God. He wants the Philippians to be imitators of him in this (3:17). But for Paul what one needs and what fulfils come together as one with what God needs and what fulfils God. That is nothing other than communion and engagement with one who loves. In this we reach our goal, God's goal, and through our oneness engage in God's goal that love and peace and goodness may fill the whole creation

Gospel Pentecost 16: 2 October Matthew 21:33-46

Pentecost 15

William Loader

Pentecost 15: 25 September Philippians 2:1-13

This passage contains one of the most well known texts of the New Testament: 2:5-11. The latter can easily stand on its own, as it does in our lectionary at Passion/Palm Sunday.. Much of it may well have stood on its own even before Paul came to write it into his letter. It uses language which is distinctive and plays with ideas which are special. It is worth nevertheless approaching it through the letter so that we can grasp what Paul saw in it in the first place and so read it within its broader context of 2:1-13.

2:5 is an obvious starting point, but its meaning is less obvious than appears. It could simply mean: 'be like Jesus!' But it may be saying more. It could be saying: let the mindset of Christ be yours as you draw your life from him or live 'in him'. Certainly elsewhere Paul usually goes one step further than holding Christ (or himself) up as an example to be followed. He usually includes the notion that there is an inner dynamic which helps make this possible. This is most evident in the verses which follow this passage, where we read: 'work out your own salvation, because it is God who is at work in you' (2:12-13).

The mindset of Christ is evident in his story. While the main point of the story line is clear, there are many details which are not. Being in the form of God may allude to Adam being in God's image. It would be a way of speaking about Jesus as a human being. While Adam relished the chance to eat of the fruit to be like God (equal to God?), Jesus did not. Instead he emptied himself. A quite different interpretation sees being 'in the form of God' as a reference to Jesus existing as a heavenly being like an angel (or even in intimate association with God - perhaps even as part of God's being as later Christianity would assert). Then the temptation would be either to emulate rebellious angels who want to usurp God's role (and who in legend were cast out of heaven) or to hold onto a status in God (reflecting later assumptions). Is equality with God understood as something Jesus once had or as something he might have wanted to achieve and chose not to? I find the latter more persuasive.

However one might understand 2:6, the import of 2:7 and the major focus of the passage, is Jesus' decision to embrace becoming a lowly human being. The language used in 2:7 is so strong it may suggest that 'being in the form of God' of 2:6 is the opposite of 'being in the form of a slave'/'coming to be in the likeness of human beings'/ 'being found to be like a human being in his structure of being'. This is why so many see 'being in the form of God' as being something other than human and something more than Adam (although there were speculations about a higher Adam). The emptying must mean giving something up. It recalls Paul's version of the story of Jesus in 2 Cor 8:9 where he writes of Jesus: 'though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor'.

It is not easy to know exactly what this story was meaning, nor to know how Paul understood it, when it spoke of changed forms of being. What is clear however is a choice. Jesus chose to obey what God wanted. That entailed his entering into solidarity with human beings and becoming fully one of them. We might speculate about what he gave up. It was certainly not the consciousness of who he was as a deciding person. He knew what he was doing. His choice was to abandon an option which was directed towards what some would have seen as self-advancement. Nothing indicates that, had he gone with that option, it would have worked for him. He chose to align himself with the divine will and that meant willingness to go the whole way in solidarity with human beings. Here we have to read between the lines about the purpose of such an act. Read in the context of Paul's writings, it would have been above all to face death on the cross for us, for sins. Some wonder if the reference to the cross is Paul's addition. Maybe the tradition spoke simply of faithfulness in doing God's will right through to the point of death. However we understand the exact intent, there is little doubt that it is reporting an initiative based on the will to bring about change for human beings. It was an initiative of love. It was both Jesus' story but in part also God's story, showing us God's agenda.

2:9 brings us another contrast. Matching 2:8 which spoke of Jesus making himself lowly, 2:9 speaks of God exalting Jesus. This is a commentary on the resurrection which sees it as an act of God which vindicates and rewards Jesus. People regularly misunderstand the statement about the name in 2:9-10. It is not the name, 'Jesus'. Rather Jesus receives a name. That name is none other than the name which is above all other names: the unspoken name of God, represented by the word, 'Lord'. 2:11 also makes that clear. Everyone will acclaim Jesus Christ with his new name: 'Lord'. It is a way of saying that Jesus really does reveal God and the way God is. Bearing someone's name was like bearing their responsibility and being recognised as able to represent them. In Judaism angels could sometimes be given Yahweh's name.

At one level we have a story with a twist. Jesus did not chance his arm to try to usurp God. Instead he chose to do what God wanted. As a reward for that God actually gave him what he had originally contemplated and had rejected as an option: he was called 'Lord' (or God). We could then trivialise it into a piece of common wisdom. Don't be too ambitious about promotion. Do your job and see: you'll get there. It is possible to reduce the passage to an account of Jesus' cv. As such it becomes a piece of divine, self indulgent PR. But this skews its function. Paul is using it to expound an attitude. That attitude is not about how to get promoted, but about what the will of God is and what Jesus was doing. Paul would not be imagining that the act of lowliness was just one of those things Jesus had to go through to get to the top, but something paradigmatic. It said something about the heart of Jesus and the heart of God. He is 'Lord' now not because he has left all that behind, but because God names him as representing the way of divine being. It is in that sense even paradoxical to speak of exaltation and enthronement. Elsewhere we see that paradox expressed in an enthronement of Jesus on a cross with a crown of thorns.

Paul uses this traditional account of the story because he wants to evoke greater generosity and self-giving among the Philippians, as 2:1-4 shows. Already to this point in the letter he lets it show that he is far from happy with some Christians who are showing the opposite attitude and creating rivalries and divisions (see 1:15-18); so he calls for solidarity and community (1:27; 2:1-4). Paul reads his own life constantly in the light of the story of Jesus (1:20-26). He wants them to read theirs similarly. The great treasure of this passage is that it challenges us to do the same. It is, however, easily subverted into an opposite attitude, a paradigm for success and power

Gospel Pentecost 15: 25 September Matthew 21:23-32

Pentecost 14

William Loader

Pentecost 14: 18 September Philippians 1:21-30

Paul is writing to the Christians at Philippi from a situation of imprisonment. They know about this. Paul is not engaging in pious speculation when he contemplates his options. He faces real danger. In that danger he knows death means he goes to be with Christ, even if that may be in a state of rest until Christ returns according to his usual pattern of imagining the future. He sees himself more likely not to face death and in that he thinks less of his personal survival and more of what it can mean for others, including the people at Philippi.

This is all part of relationship-building with them. Paul is sensitive about the relationship and wants them to know he cares about them. It was a standard part of letters to assure the recipient of your concern and love for them. Relationships matter. It was also a standard part of ancient letters to speak about the hope of coming to make a visit. Paul follows this pattern. But Paul is not indulging in mere formalities.

In 1:27 he then turns to explicit instruction. Here we get to the real concerns. Paul is concerned about unity. For him part of conducting oneself in a worthy manner as a Christian is to seek to maintain unity. This does not mean unity at all costs. Paul is very clear elsewhere and in this letter that unity has its basis in Christ and in understanding Christ as a manifestation of God's goodness and generosity which is radically inclusive in its scope and does not discriminate against people on the basis of such things as circumcision.

1:28 tells us more. There is opposition. Possibly this means opposition from authorities in much the same way as Paul faces such opposition to the extent of imprisonment. His fellow Jews may well have a hand in it because they see him as betraying his people. They would have no interest in defending him against the charge of trouble making. It makes one also wonder whether such opponents also include the Jewish Christians who see Paul as a renegade. Probably they did.

Elsewhere in the letter it is clear that he is very unhappy about what he labels sham preachers, including those who take what we might see as a fundamentalist line of insisting that circumcision is in the Bible and therefore must be imposed on people because obedience to what is written is the foundation of their faith. In 1:15-17 Paul writes with generosity, but probably much pain about such preachers. They are "Christians". They contribute to his imprisonment (1:17). 3:2 uses much sharper language. 3:18-19 even describes them as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Paul does not want his Philippian congregation to succumb to such pressures. But he knows the dangers. The alliance of fundamentalist-type Christianity and political powers is very dangerous. The imprisonment to which it leads these days has less to do with being put in jail (though that is certainly the fate of some who protest) and more to do with being captive to the spirit of the age, frequently sweetened by a triumphant nationalism. Being Christian then comes to mean supporting one world power against others and tragically shifts our loyalty and priority from the poor to protecting our own self interests. We must not be seen to "betray our great people". Paul faced that accusation but had the courage to put love and compassion for all peoples first and to face the consequences.

Gospel Pentecost 14: 18 September Matthew 20:1-16

Pentecost 13

William Loader

Pentecost 13: 11 September Romans 14:1-12

Paul wades into controversy. Some believed very firmly that they should not eat meat. The issue was not vegetarianism in the interest of animals, but fear that meat might be contaminated since much of what was for sale would have been slaughtered by cult personnel belonging to pagan temples. One might imagine that converts from paganism to Judaism would have seen this as fundamental to their identity. They would have seen it as impossible to contemplate eating meat. Many would feel very strongly and Paul implies that some would have condemned those who did eat meat. We cannot tolerate being in a church where meat eating is tolerated, we might hear them saying. It would recall the intensity with which some issues are debated today.

Just as serious would have been those who looked down their noses at those who abstained. Even Paul's designation of them as "weak" would probably not have been seen as complimentary. They are like fundamentalists, stuck in literalism, unwilling to see beyond the surface of things, one might hear them saying. Abusive and judgmental statements can be so destructive of community. Paul obviously sides with the "strong", who were probably radical Christian Jews like himself, but he is not willing to take a divisive stance towards "the weak". He wants both groups to accept their differences and live with difference in dignity. This was a big ask in his day as it is in ours.

There were also disputes about days. This may well include Jewish feast days and perhaps even the sabbath. Paul has made it clear elsewhere that he now sits very loosely to special days. He belongs to many of his day, pagan, Jewish and Christian, who had moved away from revering sacred times and sacred spaces. It was an intellectual trend, not unrelated to the shift from concern with cult to concern with ethics which we see in the great religions in the 6th century and thereabouts (e.g.: in Israel's prophets). It came about in part as people travelled and saw different practices and realised that they were outward manifestations of something less tangible. Such experiences relativised the particular observances and shifted the focus to what lay behind them and what they had at that level in common. It was very easy, then, to ridicule those who kept strict observances about these things. They are primitive, one might hear them say. Paul does not go down that track. He has a concern and respect for people. We, today, might recognise beyond such different stances different stages of faith development or personality types, though that, too, may (and probably should) imply serious value judgements about the directions of growth and the nature of maturity.

Paul shifts the focus from honouring or dishonouring scruples, including those enshrined in scripture. Instead he puts Christ at the centre. Christ "rules" - to use a popular modern term. Christ is the point of unity. Paul's Christ is not standing there with a rule book ticking boxes, but with the marks of the cross and the mind of compassion. Love for people, valuing them, transcends differences on things like food and observance of days. It will even lead Paul to suggest compromise which will favour the "weak", not offending them (14:13-23); although that should not be taken as a general rule. Paul was quite prepared to offend those who insisted on circumcision, for instance.

Paul's flexibility is rooted in his vision of Christ. He sees himself and all Christians as being answerable to that - indeed answerable to God. For him some central things are not negotiable, namely who Christ is and his radical offer of God's grace. Beyond that Paul has the freedom to be flexible, even with scripture. It was maddening for those who identified the not negotiable not just with the being of God and Christ but also with the scripture where they could get a handle on God and God's will. For such people flexibility was a big ask, as it is today for people who want to see the Bible as an authority in this more literal sense. One should not expect them to be flexible on issues such as gender and the like.

It is very easy for those with a more focused not negotiable space to be flexible. Such people are often very intolerant of those with a broader base. Ultimately these two types can live together only with some compromise. Christianity in Paul's day was far from exemplary in how to handle such conflict. The opponents of both Paul and Jesus were clearly on the side of those who insisted on a controllable base of non negotiability, namely the scripture. Somewhere there is a point where Christ's centrality and centrality of grace beyond and beneath scripture is strong enough to hold such diversity together. Sometimes it has been so submerged that conflict and division is inevitable - even hate and alienation. The piety of such literalism slips off from the continuum of making grace foundational and concrete law takes over. But just as easily those who reject such a stance can slip off the other end and lose contact with the grace which keeps open in love towards those who make themselves opponents and enemies. Paul helps us find the centre.

I imagine some in Rome would have loved Paul's words; others would have no room for them. Little has changed.

Gospel Pentecost 13: 11 September Matthew 18:21-35

Pentecost 12

William Loader

Pentecost 12: 4 September Romans 13:8-14

Paul has just been offering instruction about how one should respect to civil authorities. He even has a sense that secular institutions are also part of God's will and plan. We should pay taxes. Perhaps behind Paul's advice in 13:1-7 is a sense of the need for order in society. He does not allow his spirituality to be confined to just the church community or just to "spiritual matters". Responsible citizenship is important. Paul has learned well from his teachers. Among them there were likely to be those who stood under the influence of Stoic thought which placed great weight on order. It appealed to Jews who were also concerned to perceive God's order or law in every part of life.

Having just asserted such conformity, Paul shows in 13:8 that his starting point is something more than a concern for order. Already in 13:5 he tries to move people beyond conformity through fear. In 13:8 he moves us beyond laws and commandments to attitude and behaviour based in love. That is the heart of his gospel and it also informs how he sees behaviour. Paul goes beyond the "oughts" of obligation which we might owe others (13:8). Approaching others with love and respect is the foundation. Stand on that foundation and you will fulfil and more than fulfil the Law. Paul had already made that point in 8:1-4. Love is more than an ideal. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the outworking of allowing oneself to be loved and of the process of liberation which that initiates, freeing us from our fears and guilt and preoccupation with ourselves so that we are available for life and love with others.

In 13:9 Paul is not suggesting we return to the ten commandments and try to make them the basis of our living. Rather he means: when you allow love to be the centre of your being (being loved and expressing that love to others) then you cover all such commandments. As Paul explains in 13:10, such love is not going to act destructively towards another human being. Love fulfils the law not in the analytical sense that one could find that love informs each of the commandments of the Law, and this is why one should try to keep every one of them. Rather, life lived the Christ way sets up a dynamic which produces behaviour which meets and more than meets what the Law requires.

This does not sound convincing for those who are concerned with every command of the Law. They would soon notice that Paul was being selective. He was prepared to drop some commands, including circumcision, food laws, laws about special days, and so on. Paul's choice is not arbitrary. But he does have a value system which deems commandments relevant primarily on the basis of whether they conform to the love he sees in Christ. But even then he argues that it does not make sense to try to live by the commandments which he accepts as good. Rather we need to live from a relationship of love. That was the point of Romans 7. Then everything else will fall into place. We will more than fulfil the law.

It is an interesting ethical move and very helpful in discussing new issues in our own day. Paul would keep taking us to what this love and respect for people - which we have experienced and which we want to express - would want to say. He would not take us to laws or even sets of ideals, although he assumes that love will know what is good for people.

In 13:11-14 Paul changes gear, drifting into what seems to be traditional language perhaps derived from someone's preaching in the context of baptism. The nearness of the end, that is, the day of resurrection stimulates Paul to extra emphasis. For us such exhortations are rather limp after 2000 years. We can, however, understand the images. In joining Christ we have turned towards the light and away from the darkness. Paul is thinking in terms of power systems. We have deliberately incorporated ourselves into an alternative power system from the one which dominates much of human society. The notion of a power system is also reflected in the military metaphor - we join a new legion. It also suggests discipline and effort. Paul was never so naive as to believe that the process of liberation and love happened automatically in people. It was a process easily foiled and subverted. People need to remain focused.

Listing loose living, drunkenness, sexual immorality and excess as signs of the self indulgent life was common. Notice that Paul ends the list with divisiveness and infighting. That is a little closer to home for those who will be listening to his letter. In the next chapters he will address causes of division and suggest ways to handle them. Generally he is contrasting two different lifestyles characteristic of the two different power systems. One follows the desires of the flesh (13:14). Here we should not misunderstand Paul. He is not objecting to our natural hunger nor to sexual desire. He is objecting to when these take over to the extent that we exploit others and do harm to ourselves. When we reduce our lives to only that level of gratification we not only miss out too much; we are also bound to live abusively towards others and ourselves.

In other words, he is contrasting the love system with the non-love system. His way of putting it in 13:14 also stems from one image used of baptism: we put on Christ. We clothe ourselves with Christ. We immerse ourselves in the life which flows in his being which is the life of God and we allow that life to express itself through us. For in fact to do so is to find ourselves and be in touch with our own depths. Paul knows that such spirituality bears fruit which shows itself in lives of compassion and caring and generosity, because that is how God is.

Gospel Pentecost 12: 4 September Matthew 18:15-18

Pentecost 11

William Loader

Pentecost 11: 28 August Romans 12:9-21

Paul has just challenged the Roman Christians to see themselves as the body of Christ. Individuals are like members of that single body. Each member has a part to play. There is no room for rivalry and also no need for it, because our confidence rests not on making ourselves better than others but in believing the gospel: that God values each one of us. God's righteousness or goodness is the foundation of our faith and our being.

What does it look like when people live on that basis? In our passage we see something of the answer. It could easily have come straight from a Jewish teaching manual of the time. There is nothing particularly Christian about it. It represents the best values Paul has learned and now sees as needing to characterise the community of faith. Notice the focus on genuineness and the priority of love. That is no empty commitment. It includes recognising what is not love, namely evil and resisting its sway. The good we are to hold close to is defined by love, not by a set of rules. It is not about not doing anything wrong, but about living from compassion.

Mutual love and honour or respect is fundamental to good community (12:10). There is no room for exploitation of any kind. Nor is there room for shaming behaviour. We are to be free from having to win (by making others into losers). Paul urges a positive attitude in 12:11. Some people need to hear that it is possible to choose depression and want to stay there. Depression is bad enough to have to cope within itself, so that there really is no value in choosing it if we can help it. For Paul this is less about rules of behaviour and more about choosing to believe in hope. Hopelessness can be a way of life frequently allied to the comfort of feeling one is a victim. There are enough genuine victims in our society. Where we can choose, we do not have to make ourselves victims. Instead Paul urges a stance which will hold us up even in situations of adversity (12:12). Paul knows that one of the secrets of the nourished life is the nourishment of prayer, time spent in the presence of God believing in grace.

Paul is not interesting in a self serving happy communities of people caring about each other. He widens the vision to include making contributions to people beyond our horizon (12:13). The word for making a contribution is a form of the word, koinonia, which means both fellowship and engagement with others out of common concern. Paul has been making great efforts to raise money for the saints in Judea. Paul cannot separate love from money. We need to love with all the resources we have. Otherwise love is not "genuine" (12:9). The outward looking focus comes to us also in the word about hospitality. In the ancient world it was absolutely vital that strangers, including visiting Christians, be welcomed and looked after. Paul knew this from his own experience. In today's world it has less to do with hosting visiting preachers and more to do with taking seriously the plight of refugees.

It is easy to curse those who oppose us. Bitterness so easily takes root where we collapse into feeling our value is threatened when people oppose us. It becomes even more subtle when we know they misunderstand or are being directly malicious. Violence has a way of sucking its victims into cycles of violence and making its own disciples. It can be hard keeping one's spirituality sufficiently centred not to drift into such eddies. To bless our enemies is not to condone their actions, but it is never to lose sight of their humanity and dignity as persons (12:14).

To rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (12:15) can sound mercurial: we play games with ourselves and others. But Paul assumes we can be in a state of being where we can make room for people - in their sadness and in their gladness. We are not so preoccupied with ourselves that we cannot accept people where they are. 12:16 brings us back to the dangers of self preoccupation and the rat-race of worrying about ourselves. He is not suggesting we pretend we have no wisdom or play at being of no worth when we know we have worth. That is false humility and manipulative (it manouvres for a reward). Rather, let's have a realistic assessment of ourselves and come to terms with it.

In 12:17 we are back with conflict. Paul warns again against engaging in defensive and aggressive power struggles where we feel we must beat someone down if we are to make our way up. Pay-back may seem like a way of "getting even" but it is not a way of getting justice. Justice has to be more than arithmetic. Without reconciliation or acknowledged difference there can be no balance. Paul is also realistic. Peace is not always possible (12:18). We need to bear that in mind when Paul urges submission to the structures of authority in society in the next chapter. Sometimes it is not possible.

Paul ends the chapter with some typical wisdom of his time derived from Proverbs 23:21-22 (12:19-20). Unfortunately it is too close to vengeance. It seems to be saying: another way of getting back at people is to burn their consciences with hot coals by doing good to them and making them feel ashamed. That is simply self interest in disguise. Paul's use of the self-serving piece of secular wisdom goes beyond self-interest. He stays with the image of victory. You win a victory by overcoming evil with good. It is not another way of getting one's own back on people. Paul does not speak of evil persons in 12:21, but of evil, itself. Confront lovelessness with love, confront hate with grace. That only makes sense if the love is genuine. Such genuine love never writes people off, not even enemies. It is never sucked into revenge and the spirals of hate and violence. It breaks the cycle. This is more than a wise rule or even an ideal. For Paul it is part of living out of the gospel of grace. It is a fruit which the Spirit can reproduce in us if we let go of fear.

Gospel Pentecost 11: 28 August Matthew 16:21-28

Pentecost 10

William Loader

Pentecost 10: 21 August Romans 12:1-8

Paul is now shifting from his concern with complaints about his treatment of Israel. Though he struggled to get there, he ended up hailing God's goodness and saw no need to have explanations. He would leave the future to God. It is "mystery". His certainty is God's love. That is enough. Now he turns to the Roman congregations, probably house churches. They have to live together. What might that mean? There are problems which he will address. They include diversity of approaches to matters like food in the Gentile world.

But first he gives a general exhortation (12:1). He acts as a priest, at least in the sense of calling people to sacrifice. They are to offer themselves. It was not uncommon to use cultic imagery, to speak of the community or, among Christians, the church as a temple. The exhortation applies to all. It is a common starting point. Offering one's "body" fits the image of sacrifice, but Paul means the whole person, not body as opposed to soul. Notice his call is in response to what he sees as the heart of God: God's compassion or mercy.

Paul is doing more than focusing on a common goal or asserting a common value. He goes on to speak about how we shape our lives (12:2). Paul never saw being a Christian as a life membership on a roll somewhere. It was always entry into a relationship and growth in that relationship. Paul is always thinking about what shapes people's lives. It is another way of speaking of one's god. In his day - and certainly in ours - there are many people who count themselves as Christian, but are shaped by the prevailing values of those around them in a way that undoes anything that Christ might have wanted in their lives. They reflect particular national, political or social values, sometimes not even knowing they stand under such influence. They can even call some of these values "Christian". But there is no engagement with what is at the heart of Christ's message.

Paul knows about shaping. He urges the Romans to engage in a process whereby they are shaped not by the prevailing fashions of the age but by Christ. It is in that sense a counter cultural renewal to which he calls the Romans. The renewing of one's mind - stance, attitudes, orientation - is the basis not only for individual wholeness but also for a healthy community or congregation. Sets of rules imported from business schools about how congregations should run have their worth, but no sets of rules will work without a holistic approach which involves transformation. This is the same insight which grounds Paul's assertions that the Law (the commandments) is not very effective in changing people and tends to produce the opposite. His gospel instead speaks about a process of renewal which changes people's attitudes and from that process of transformation changed behaviour flows. It is relationship based, not rule based. Notice that Paul sees this as the basis for developing discernment about God's will. The focus is on goodness, on pleasing God (the God of grace) and on maturity. Translating teleios here as 'mature' (one of its common meanings) rather than 'perfect' makes much better sense in the context. Paul will appeal to such maturity in what follows.

Paul goes on to confront the malaise of communities and relationships: people who lack awareness of themselves, especially people who feel they must play power games and show themselves superior to others. This is one of the values of "this age" (12:1) - his and ours - against whose influence he warns. It teaches that my value must be measured over against others. To be a person of value I must be better than others. Others who are better than me are therefore potentially a threat. This is destructive of community and makes people obsessed with themselves. So Paul's words in 12:3 follow on well from his exhortation. Paul aims at maturity, based on believing the gospel of love and grace which sets people free from needing to achieve their self worth at the cost of others.

When we are free from the obsession with establishing our own importance we can then see ourselves for who we are. That includes identifying our gifts and abilities and understanding where they and we fit in. So Paul returns to the image of the congregation as a body in which all members belong together like different body parts (12:4-5). He had expounded it in detail in 1 Corinthians 12. Here he uses it again, citing a different range of gifts and abilities. I am sure Paul would be highly amused to see how some people have tried to make his illustrations in 12:6-8 into a rigid set of categories designed to label "spiritual gifts"! Paul is asking for a maturity that goes beyond such counting and classification and includes all that we bring and offer to God and to each other (to use the sacrifice image again).

Saved from ourselves, we can get on with the job, both as individuals and as a church. We do not have to be super people. Maturity is about knowing who we are, what our abilities are, and how to use them for the good. It is not about making a name for ourselves. Nor is it somehow about needing to make ourselves more than what we are or doing more than we are able to do, as though we refuse to accept our limitations (in ability, time and space). Believing in love is the key to all of this. Letting it sink in is at the core of the spiritual journey.

Gospel Pentecost 10: 21 August Matthew 16:13-20

Pentecost 9

William Loader

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

This is the third time we dip into Paul's struggle with the objection that his gospel entails betraying his heritage and his nation. We take it up again at the point where he asks whether God has abandoned Israel (11:1). His answer is a resounding: no. But at first his answer is somewhat limited: he is an Israelite (11:1). He means: he has not been abandoned. Jews like himself who have responded to the gospel are a remnant of Israel who have listened to God. He goes on in 11:2b, beyond our passage, to cite the example of Elijah, who felt depressed because everyone had forsaken God (11:2b-3). This was not, in fact, so in Elijah's time, as Paul points out (11:4). In his day there are Jews like himself who have responded and are a remnant in the same way.

That, however, is only a partial answer. What irks his opponents - and apparently also unsettles Paul - is the notion that all the rest could be thought of as abandoned. We see hints of this already in his words in 11:2a: "God has not abandoned his people whom he foreknew". The words, "whom he foreknew", allude to God's choice of Israel. That is a major issue. Paul is not so much thinking legally as ethically. How can God choose people and then write them off? His answer about a remnant is not an adequate answer and he knows it. Nor really is his next argument in 11:11-24, which suggests God has been controlling what had happened, deliberately causing Israel to reject Christ, that is, hardening them, so that the gospel would go to the Gentiles. Paul is scraping the bottom of the barrel. It also gives him a chance to caution Gentiles in Rome not to become arrogant and for that he employs the image of the root stock and the graft. Paul's understanding of God leads him to try such explanations.

But ultimately what drives Paul's thought is less his theism and the need to rationalise events to show God is in control - after the holocaust that has become very problematic - but rather his notion of God as compassionate. It reminds us of Hosea 11: how can God give up Israel? There the image of the caring parent is used. Here, Paul reaches the climax of his struggle with the issue by asserting hope. He has no idea how - it is "a mystery" - but he insists: all Israel will be saved (11:25-26). It is a great pity that we skip these verses. Paul finds it hard to believe that God could ever write Israel off and he knows the answer is not really to say: well, Christian Jews only will be saved.

We see here an understanding of God that senses the incoherence between speaking of love and grace in the present and speaking of permanent rejection (and punishment) in the future. Christians have mostly lived with this incoherence and it helps explain the incoherence of much that Christians have done throughout history: espousing love and espousing hate simultaneously, even making it the basis for evangelism through threat and for atonement through seeing Jesus' death as the buying off of God's unrelenting hate (or rejection) by having it imposed only on Jesus. These are crude notions which have the effect of legitimising hate. Paul prises open new possibilities by suggesting God continues to be characterised by grace even into the future and so cannot abandon Israel, any more than a good parent would abandon a child.

Our passage (11:28-32) brings these thoughts in summary. God's gifts (gifts of grace) and God's choice in love of a people must remain valid (11:29); not on legal grounds but on the grounds of God's being. God's compassion always has the last word according to Paul (11:30-31). Even when he embraces a belief in God as somehow in control of the fact that all disobey, the end game is love (11:32). What a wonderful vision: God wants to have compassion towards all people - and will! How appropriate then that he lifts us beyond reasoned reflection to doxology in 11:33-36, which, alas, fall outside our passage. In the end - in and through all there is God! And God, in the end, is the God of compassion!

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

Pentecost 8

William Loader

Pentecost 8: 7 August Romans 10:5-15

Paul is midstream in explaining why his gospel does not amount to a betrayal of his own people, let alone scripture. In 10:1 he has reasserted his deep concern for his people. They remain on his heart. He has not simply abandoned his heritage; nor has he turned away from scripture. In 10:2 he acknowledges their zeal, but declares it misguided. The chief problem as he sees it in 10:3-4 is that they refuse to acknowledge God's new initiative through Christ for getting people into a right relationship (righteousness). The Law is no longer the way. The new initiative spells the end of following the biblical Law as a way of being liberated. Back in Roman 7 he has explained why: it does not work.

We pick his discussion up at the point where Paul uses scripture passages in order to bolster what he is saying. First Paul uses a seemingly harmless text from Lev 18:5, which insists that that people will live by doing the commandments (10:5). Paul has probably used this passage before in argument a number of times. We find him using it also in Galatians 3:12. Here and there "live" has come to mean not just live one's life, but find life in relationship with God, even eternal life. Paul disputes that such life can be found by keeping the commandments.

Instead, he insists that the new initiative creates something that really does produce right relationship and subsequent right behaviour. He assembles some more texts to support his view. He contrasts the old way with the new way by speaking of something more immediate. Combining two texts from Deuteronomy (9:4 and 30:12) he appeals to a new way of looking at things which does not see life as obeying an external law (10:6-8). Instead it comes through a relationship with Christ. This is slightly odd, because the second passage is making the point that God's commandment is not too hard. It is not out there, faraway - above us or below us - but close by, even within our being. Instead of applying this to the commandment, however, Paul applies it to Christ. Now he uses the language of the text to say: Christ is not a distant idea far away, but within us and this is what generates the change which produces goodness in us.

It is a double shift: the contrast (between a view of the commandments of God as external and the view that sees them as being able to be written on people's hearts) becomes in his hand a contrast between the Law and the new word given us in Christ. Perhaps if we pressed Paul, he would respond by saying that when the biblical passages speak of the commandments in this way, they are not really speaking about a set of laws, but something more direct and personal - which we now see in Christ.

Paul will not have been the first to make such a move. People spoke like this about wisdom. Where can you find it? Often they identified wisdom as the essence of God's will and God's law and so the heart of the commandments. Wisdom could come and dwell with people and in them. Others dreamed about a new covenant when the law would be fully internalised. For Paul this dream of wisdom and internalisation is the key to change in people. He identifies Christ as embodying such divine wisdom. Unlike his Jewish contemporaries, however, Paul does not equate God's wisdom with the commandments. They do not match. Some are irrelevant or have served their day and should be discarded. Others are still valid, but are not to be used as the basis for living. The basis for right living and right relationship (righteousness) is being at one with the word which dwells within - which, for him, is Christ.

In 10:9-10 he shifts naturally to how this happens. How does this intimate internalised word establish itself in us? Paul's answer is clear. It is a person: Christ, the risen Christ. To accept Christ as Lord, to represent God in us and to us, is the way to liberation. Paul is concerned about liberation (salvation) for life. In 10:11 he employs another favourite text, Isaiah 28:16, which he had earlier cited just a few verses earlier in 9:33. Paul applies its word about a stumbling stone to Christ to explain why most of his fellow Jews have been tripped up. Here he uses the second half of the citation to state that if we allow Christ into the central role in our lives we shall be confident about life.

In 10:12 he swings open the vision to include all peoples. Not only is he saying: this is the way to find right life. He is also saying: this is available for anyone without discrimination. Joel 3:5 is another favourite text. He weaves it in here, to emphasise that the life is available to "whoever calls on the name of the Lord". The few verses from 10:5-12 contain a number of scripture passages which had developed a life of their own in the hands of Paul and others as early Christians tried to explain themselves. Sometimes they are put to use in ways that match their original meaning. Sometimes they go far beyond it. Through it all we nevertheless see Paul advocating some central values. It is sometimes easier to identify him at that level than it is with his particular uses of biblical passages.

The final two verses of our passage are a rhetorical flourish of Paul's by which he brings attention back to his particular role. If the new initiative is to take effect, people need to call on the name of the Lord. To do that they need to believe. To believe they need to hear about it. To hear about it someone needs to tell them through preaching. For that to happen they must be sent. That is where Paul fits in. He has a commission to preach and - reading between the lines - we can hear him saying: and my mission and my preaching is legitimate! He includes himself among those to whom the famous words of Isaiah 52:7 applies. "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the one proclaiming good news, declaring to Zion: 'Your God reigns!'." We find this verse used at Qumran and early Christianity to speak of bearers of good tidings in God's final plan for history and for liberation. Paul has no hesitation in seeing his own ministry as a crucial part of God's plan.

This is not the easiest passage in Paul. He makes the same point more clearly elsewhere, but we can get his drift. Ultimately it is about a new way of relating to God based on a more internalised relationship. He had been arguing that in the previous chapters. Beside this he insists that it is available to all and that his ministry is part of God's initiative to make it accessible to all. His difficult explanations occur in the context of considerable tension, yet away from that tension his thought also has the seeds of finding much common ground with Judaism - and one might wonder also with other religious traditions - wherever people sense God as compassionate and liberating and not primarily as an external authority.

Gospel Pentecost 8: 7 August Matthew 14:22-33

Pentecost 7

William Loader

Pentecost 7: 31 July Romans 9:1-5

If we forget Paul's situation, it is easy to think that Romans 1-8 is the main substance of his letter to the Romans. After that it peters out. Such an assumption rightly notes the climax which Romans 8 brings: we can face the future with confidence. We look to the transformation of all people and the whole universe. Yet Paul's concerns cannot be divided up in that way. He has been under attack not only for setting the Law aside, but also for betraying his own people. How can he reduce Jew and Gentile to the same level as he does in Romans 2 and 3 without calling Israel's special place into question? This is behind the questions he poses to himself there: has the Jew no advantage? (3:1; 3:9).

Romans 9 is simply continuing his response. It is deeply personal because such accusations strike at the heart of what he considers precious. In our passage he declares himself. Far from now not caring for his own people any longer, he cares very deeply. 9:1 is fully taken up with trying to assure the Romans of his genuineness. Then in 9:2 he goes on to declare his deep personal involvement. He grieves for his people. 9:3 goes even further: he would be willing to be cursed if only it brought about their salvation. That is dramatic.

In 9:4-5 he focuses on their identity by listing all their blessings. He had begun to spell out such advantages in 3:2, even beginning what sounded like it would be a list by saying "first", but then never going further than that. Here he goes further. Here we finally get the list. As people of Israel they are God's adopted children. This assumes a special relationship, not shared in this way by others. The glory doubtless includes the benefits of experiencing God's glory. Covenants form an important part of the Genesis story. Paul is thinking particularly of those relating to Israel, such as the covenant with Abraham. The blessings also include the Law and (temple) worship which much of the Law regulates. The promises may include the covenant promises, but more than likely refer to the prophets. The focus then falls on "the fathers", especially the patriarchs, especially Moses and possibly David.

The special nature of Israel is marked not least by the fact that Jesus the Christ (Messiah) was one of them through physical descent. The passage ends with some ambiguity. Does it declare God forever blessed as a closing acclamation? Or is it making a claim that Jesus is God forever blessed? I think the former best fits Paul's pattern of thought elsewhere.

These are important assertions. Paul has neither abandoned his people nor does he espouse the view that they are just like any other people. He really does think they have had a special role. He really does value that. Christ's coming has not altered that fact. He would understand why we have a so-called Old Testament which we treasure. There is something special there (which does not mean we must disparage all other traditions). Paul has not swung into anti-semitism or changed into neutral as far as Israel is concerned.

It is interesting to observe what is happening here. Partly it is a rhetorical ploy on Paul's part to reassure and blunt the criticisms. One might imagine, however, that those listening to his letter might respond all the more vigorously: then why on earth are you teaching what you teach? On Paul's part it is, however, much more than a rhetorical ploy. Paul engages the issue and he takes other people seriously and wants people to know it. He is not one for short-cuts which could simply dismiss Israel. It belongs to his gospel to take people seriously. That includes Israel, even though many of its adherents are giving him a hard time.

There follows a series of arguments in which Paul tries to explain himself and his gospel and its implications for thinking about Israel. They are tortuous and uneven. Running through them is the assertion that Israel can get it wrong and for the most part has got it wrong about Jesus as it did about the prophets. God has been involved in the twists and turns of history. Paul seems shakiest in seeming to attribute Israel's failure to God's scheming. Sometimes it sounds like a common rationalisation of failure and disappointment. But Paul never surrenders the goodness (righteousness of God). It keeps reasserting itself, so that finally he almost gives up the explanations and simply asserts a mystery: God will never abandon Israel. How can you abandon your own? How can a parent give up on a child? Nor will God and nor does Paul. Paul's understanding of God is his ultimate answer - even when he is at a loss to know how it will all work out. He refuses to entertain the notion that God will write Israel off. That is very radical and Christians soon abandoned such daring. Thoroughgoing love is too hard to contemplate for so many - even today. We need people to write off - do we really?

Gospel Pentecost 7: 31 July Matthew 14:13-21

Pentecost 6

William Loader

Pentecost 6: 24 July Romans 8:26-39

Paul is in midstream as he looks to the future. He has just opened a vista of hope that looks to a transformed world both of people and of creation as a whole (8:18-25). In recent times the transformation and renewal of the whole creation takes on new dimensions of urgency as we face the impact of climate change and the way we manage our environment. Such issues claim central court in our reflections on spirituality and hope. Paul has already spoken of the Spirit (8:23). The Spirit yearns. It longs for change, for renewal, for birth of the new. Paul has not arrived. He is in the midst of the pain of change and hope. The Spirit helps us in our human frailty (8:26), not by offering shortcuts to success, but by praying with and for us. The Spirit, the life of God with and within us, is a longing and yearning Spirit. What a spirituality! We are caught up into the divine yearning for change far beyond what we can comprehend: we cannot capture it in words (8:26). Paul may have in mind ecstatic groaning, but this is far from a celebration of speaking in tongues. It is love's yearning which knows no bounds and cannot be captured in definition.

The Spirit not only groans with us; it groans for us (8:26). There is a groaning in the heart of God. We become part of it. That is something ultimately and fundamentally positive. It is hope, whatever befalls us (8:28). It is probably God who works good out of all our experiences. One might want to surrender at this point to belief in a calculating plan which has set our destiny, but this would misread Paul. He is returning to his theme in Romans 5 and earlier in this chapter that suffering does not mean abandonment and failure (8:18). Quite the contrary, it means being engaged with God in the world.

8:29-30 might sound even more like a closed system, but Paul's focus seems to be not an exclusive system or a theory of why some respond and some do not, but rather a celebration of God's love from the beginning. Sometimes love's claims make outrageous statements which are true as celebration and doxology and become shaky if turned to the discourse of doctrine or definition. In the language of love we might affirm "you were meant for me from the beginning of time", whereas in our settled moments we realise we could probably have a good marriage with a number of people. Paul's focus is not exclusion, but the privilege of love and love's goal.

We are to become like Christ. In his letter to the Galatians Paul speaks of labouring like a women until Christ be formed or born among the Galatians (4:19). Here he looks to our becoming children of God with Christ as the firstborn from the dead, an echo of the tradition with which he began his letter (1:4). Becoming like Christ elsewhere means recovering the image of our humanity, which we lost through sin and alienation (3:23). Paul lets the rhythm flow, from our call to our glorification (8:29-30). That is a theme he introduced in 8:17. Glory is a way of speaking of God's being. In Christ it is as good as done and we look forward to being surrounded by God's goodness. That is our hope here and beyond.

Paul's rhetoric reaches great heights in the closing section of the chapter. Echoing the questions of Isaiah 50:8, Paul brings us into the courtroom and invites us to face reality and judge for ourselves. God is for us! That is the meaning of love! 8:32 celebrates that fact in Christ's death seen as God's giving. Christ's reward as God's Son, the first to rise from the dead, is just as much our reward. What is so rewarding? Sharing God's life in the here and now and in the future. That life is love. The reward is not a place or a gift or anything which would contradict its source: outgoing love. It does not consist in ceasing to love and finding selfish reward, but finding joy in God's life and in our own and that of others as we engage in God's generosity. In that we also find ourselves.

Paul knew about accusers. For him they are near at hand, not least the Christians who fear his radical gospel. But they can be further afield or can be our domesticated enemies within with whom we have contracted over years of experience to live and who become the basis of our balance or imbalance. It is like Paul invites us to call them up. Let them have their say. Bring on the therapy. Then let us hear the word of God. Picking up what was probably a very early image of Christ, Paul depicts Christ as the advocate for us in the heavenly court. The notion of a heavenly court appears to have been an ancient strategy in the shift from polytheism to monotheism. The gods are powers in Yahweh's council. Prophets have the gift of listening in. In the legend of Job the heavenly court hears the accuser (the Satan). Paul plays similarly, except that even in the heavenly court we can be assured that someone speaks up for us: Christ. Hebrews has a similar idea: he will intercede to help us when we face suffering so we will cope (4:14-16; 7:25). It is only in 1 John 2 that we have the idea that he also prays for our forgiveness. Paul is not focussing on forgiveness but on help and support.

The focus on suffering comes to expression so strongly in 8:35-37. Partly Paul is refuting accusations that if he were a true apostle he should show signs of blessing and victory. In the spiritual supermarket, Christian preaching which promises victorious living as freedom from troubles and guaranteed prosperity attracts the go-getters and fits more neatly into the goals of society at large. Paul rejects this both as criticism of himself and as a travesty of the gospel. It makes his words far more than just personal, relating to him. They become beacons to lead our way through the glitter of religious commerce. He is happy to speak of victory, but it consists in being like Christ: loving like him, suffering like him, and finally joining him also in the future. In this we are more than conquerors (8:37). Even in this statement he is not thinking about who might be conquered. Paul doesn't have to win by beating others. Love is against making others losers at our expense, even though that runs contrary to much common wisdom in his and our day.

Finally Paul's flourish in 8:38-39 is a wonderful assertion of love over against the competing and threatening powers which in their persuasiveness or power have the capacity to enslave us. Paul does not give us detailed predictions about the future. He doesn't have to have "knowledge-control", that is, answers which pretend to know the unknown. He doesn't have to pretend the powers don't exist or present no menace. Paul can face up to his own vulnerability without deceit and without magic. He does so simply because he is convinced that God, the God of Jesus is loving. That gets him through. Paul stakes everything on God's goodness. That is also the heart of the gospel which he preaches.

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

Pentecost 5

William Loader

Pentecost 5: 17 July Romans 8:12-25

This passage rounds off well to the theme with which Romans 5 began: hope. Partly the issue is personal: Paul's sufferings underlined that God was not blessing him and approving his gospel. A naive (but in part biblically supported) theology of success calls Paul's credentials into question. In response Paul refuses to descend like his later imitators to the blaming game and to name calling. Instead he goes back to the heart of the gospel as he understands it and mounts his case not really for himself - but for God! Paul does theology. We have the benefit in the passage of seeing how Paul, having dealt with the Law issue, turns to show how faith faces struggle. He knows he tells his own story but also addresses the story of many others, including those who will hear his letter read before them in Rome.

Our passage begins with echoes of the theme of Romans 6. Having been baptised, a celebration of our entry into the new life which God offers, we are to live that life. Baptism celebrated the receiving of the Spirit. We receive the Spirit so that we might walk with the Spirit. Last week we saw that Paul is setting in contrast two systems. One is based on following the inclinations of our personalities when they are living from fear and guilt and are self-obsessed ("the flesh"). In it we are caught into a syndrome of sin and fear and guilt and it spells death. The other is based on the liberating goodness of God which sets us free from our guilt, fear and even from shame, so that we become free to live for God, for others, and even for ourselves, in ways that are creative and, in turn, life giving for others.

Paul does not apparently have a list of church members. At least he does not do his counting by who once had a conversion or similar experience in the past. This became an obsession in the church in a form that left people with nowhere to go. I'm saved and going to heaven: why should I do more than enjoy the prospect? It's a cast iron guarantee! The earliest Christians really did not think like that. Here in 8:14 Paul has a much more dynamic description. Those who are children of God are those who are led by the Spirit. He does not mean people who pray and find parking spaces or who slip "the Lord's leading" into their sentences in the belief that they are so sure they know each step to take and the steps they take are always right. Being led means being moved or activated by the Spirit. Paul is still talking about the ongoing process in which the Spirit frees us to love and so more than fulfil what the Law intends.

By speaking of "children of God" Paul is using the language which meant so much to converts whose entry into Christ was celebrated by baptism. For many today the experience of coming to faith is gradual and baptism celebrated that at its (and our) infancy rather than in adulthood. This should not prevent us from grasping Paul's meaning and insight. Paul's point is precisely that being a child of God is not guaranteed by an occasion of ours from the past but by an ongoing relationship which continues in the present, a relationship which in that sense baptism (even in infancy) celebrates in advance. We spend our lives realising the potential it celebrates for us, entering more fully into the once for all story it depicts.

8:15 makes it clear that he is using the language of relationship. We are not in a relationship of slavery, but in one of freedom. We have been adopted into the family, itself, and have been made heirs (8:17). Like children who grow up in the household we address our father in intimate terms. Paul may be reflecting a widespread tradition in the beginnings of Christianity of retaining the Aramaic family address of children to fathers: "abba". It probably reflects Jesus' own tendency to do theology by pointing to what parents do when they operate rightly: they care, they confront, and they love.

Even self assurance is not based on fetching the certificate of membership or recalling an event of the the past, but a sense of oneness or otherwise with the being of God the Spirit moving within our lives (8:16). It is a sense of being together in ourselves, including God's presence within us, rather than counting up extraordinary experiences or measuring the depths of the mystical into which we can descend. Paul is always pragmatic. Love is the fruit of the Spirit - not hard to recognise. It grows where it has soil. It doesn't need specialists of intellect or charisma or achievement or meditation, as valuable as each can be. At most we may need specialist help to remove the clutter that blocks the light of love reaching deeply into our lives. It is just as likely to be found among the ordinary people going about their daily round as it is among those who know all about it.

Lack of assurance or false self-assurance plagues people at many levels and leads to compensatory behaviours that are frequently destructive to self and others. Paul is confident in love and assumes this is what God's goodness does for people. It frees people from their self-preoccupations. But of course others have a big investment in wanting to keep people back in their sense of inadequacy - including, alas, some in the name of Christ!

In 8:18 Paul takes off from present confidence to future hope - just as he did in 5:3-5. Adversity does not topple his confidence. He expects it. In 2 Corinthians and elsewhere he expounds this by pointing to Christ's suffering resurrection. Christ is the model. We live mainly on the cross side of his story, for even though we also have some of the new life now, the real change to resurrection lies in the future. Here Paul speaks of glory, a favourite image of God's presence and being. Paul's hope is not golden streets and shinier rewards, but God and God's presence.

In 8:19-24 Paul clearly moves beyond just his own situation in which some of his adversities come from his fellow believers. His grasp of God's goodness enables him to see "God-wide" into the broader context including both all humanity and all of creation. He is not a gnostic who can't wait to escape this evil material world. He is not a dualist who limits the focus of God's goodness to just some segments of creation. He is not one of those ancient and modern Christians who see salvation in terms of the salvation of souls. His passionate heart goes out to all creation. He looks to its renewal, its rebirth.

We might wonder at Paul's explanations. He sees it all as part of God's plan for the universe, while at the same time he clearly does not attribute destructiveness and failure to God's action. In his understanding the universe (much smaller of course than the way we see it and geocentric) is like a mother in the final stages of pregnancy. We all belong in this mother image. The Spirit also belongs. It is almost as though he sees the Spirit as the panting in the birth process, though that is my connection not his. The image is remarkable nevertheless. The Spirit - indeed God - is travailing with us for change.

The sense of solidarity is remarkable. The compassion knows no limits to its extent. The goodness which Paul celebrates as the good news is now fully universal. His mere hints send us out to look in awe and respect not only at all humanity but at all creation. Ignoring the plight of the world's eco-systems becomes impossible. Tossing off concerns about the environment is a gross outrage against God's goodness - against future generations, but more than that: against creation itself.

Paul's sense of hope is firmly rooted in present engagement with God's goodness in the world of people and of creation. His dreams envisage a renewal that will see us all (like creation as a whole) transformed into a new form of reality - raised in transformed bodies like Christ's resurrection body. That was a common belief of his time. He also envisaged that the cosmic re-birth would happen as early as his own lifetime. We find ourselves necessarily distanced from his times and his timing, but also from how he conceptualised the fulfilment. Our universe is larger than the one his generation envisaged by a factor of trillions and more. In this light we may be tempted to treat the passage as little more than a relic of a past hoper. It is that, but it is more. Our hope is perhaps more naked, but its central truth remains: in the end: God. But our engagement with God's goodness in the present usually lags far behind Paul's vision. Two millennia behind us, he walks far ahead of us and leads the way more than any other New Testament writer. Our challenge remains: to walk according to this Spirit and not according to "the flesh".

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

Pentecost 4

William Loader

Pentecost 4: 10 July Romans 8:1-11

Last week we saw Paul depicting the human condition as one in which even God's good Law is turned to ill effect. "Who shall liberate us?" he asks in 7:24. We need to see that Paul is still defending his understanding of the Christian gospel which gives no prominent place to the Law. His opponents think this is a betrayal. Surely Israel's Messiah would want them to uphold Israel's God given Law! Otherwise people will just turn to sin. This is even more acute now that the movement has opened itself to Gentiles. Paul has been countering their view by arguing that, good as the Law is, it cannot produce the kind of change required in people to set them free from the syndrome of sin, guilt, death and condemnation.

In Romans 8:1 he asserts: there is now no condemnation when we enter the sphere of Christ's influence and power ("in Christ"). Why? Not just because there is forgiveness; nor just because we have someone else to reinforce the authority of the Law in telling us how to be good - not at all the latter! Paul explains immediately what achieves the difference: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated you from the law of sin and death" (8:2). This is ambiguous. Does "law" here mean "the principle" or does it mean the Law? It is hard to tell. A reference to the Law is doubtless in there somewhere because it is a major issue of concern. But it hardly means: "The Law when it leads to life in Christ Jesus". Whereas "the Law which leads to sin and death" is doubtless intended to reflect on the Law. After all, Romans 7 has been labouring to make that point.

The following verse also confirms that there is a contrast between the Law and what Christ brings. So it seems Paul is referring to a new law or principle when he speaks of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which effectively replaces the Law of Moses. This becomes clear as we read on. 8:3 declares that the Law was weak, undermined by human personality in its corrupt state which keeps using it for its own ends. Romans 7 made that point. In response to this situation Paul sees God taking the initiative to bring about liberation. He send his own Son right into the thick of the human predicament to deal with the situation. Paul has many ways of explaining how this was achieved, often linked with notions of vicarious suffering. Here the focus is on the disempowerment of sin as it is found in the human predicament. Earlier he talks about an initiative of God's goodness which restores a broken relationship. That good news is so powerful it sets people free (1:16-17).

The effect of God's goodness not only liberates people from the sin syndrome which he has described in Romans 7. It also produces fruit, as he stated already in 7:4-6. Now the just requirements of the Law have a chance of being fulfilled, but it is not by way of trying harder to obey the Law. It is rather by allowing transforming love to liberate us from sin and its power which consists in guilt and fear. In Galatians he speaks of the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace and much else (5:22-23). In other words, by opening ourselves to God's Spirit which brings transforming love we are transformed to become loving people. When that process starts happening we more than fulfil what the Law intended. Its goals are achieved, but on the basis of a loving relationship. Love begins to reproduce love. Human experience tells us that this really does work. While there is a role for behaviour modification and rules, nothing changes a person so much as the experience of being loved - we see it in young and old. This process is foundational to Paul's argument.

Recognising this process also sets the agenda for Christian living. It is life in relation to the Spirit of Christ. It is, as 8:5-7 suggest, focusing oneself on the Spirit which brings love instead of on "the flesh", that is, the systems and priorities of our human personalities when they are caught in the sin syndrome and not liberated by love. Both options represent more than two sets of rules. Rather they represent two different ways of centering one's being. Each way initiates and perpetuates a process. When we operate out of sin and fear, we reproduce sin and fear. When we operate out of love and hope, we reproduce love and hope. In both cases this is more than living by ideals. Paul does not personalise the negative focus - as others might have by speaking of the devil. He is too aware that this is a system created within ourselves for which we need to take responsibility as it cripples our will. But on the positive side it is clearly a life in relationship with the Spirit of Christ. He can say "Spirit", "Christ", Spirit of Christ", "Spirit of God" - all effectively meaning the same thing.

8:9-11 expands the celebration. Not only do we have this process happening in us - and we need to keep focused to keep it going - but it also holds the promise that one day we will be fully liberated from the negative aspects we have instilled into our human condition. For Paul that means a resurrection body. Until then we need to face the reality that we carry about with us both systems and can easily lose focus and surrender ourselves again to the sin syndrome. The ruts and routines don't magically disappear! Some have deep roots. The difference between this state of affairs and what Paul described in Romans 7 is that here in Romans 8 he speaks of a liberating power which the human being pictured in Romans 7 did not have and desperately needed.

Paul is optimistic and would be shocked to hear some Christians in later times seeing themselves in Romans 7. Paul would see no liberation in people with plagued consciences. Paul's gospel lifts people beyond such self preoccupation so that they are now free to "get on the with the job" of living. Death does not reign. Life does. There is now no condemnation. There is the Spirit of life. As we allow ourselves to enter this powerful new way of being set free, we ourselves have some chance of also embodying such good news and being good news for others.

Gospel Pentecost 4: 10 July Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Pentecost 3

William Loader

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

Paul is employing observation of human experience to add further support for his gospel which depends on a relationship of faith to change people, not observance of the Law. He is on dangerous ground because many would hear his comments as encouragement to disregard scripture. That would have generated the same heat then as it would now. But Paul will not back off. In a daring metaphor he speaks of entering a new marriage in 7:1-6. We are no longer married to the Law! That marriage bore children in the form of sin. We were stuck with it. Now we have been liberated from the old marriage - made somewhat more palatable by suggesting not a divorce but death of partner! These scary thoughts are Paul's way of saying: we are now in a relationship which bears different kind of children: behaviours of goodness. Some of the hearers of his letter must have been ready to get up and walk out!

He imagines their outcry in 7:7. "Is the Law sin?!" Of course he doesn't mean that. The last thing he wants to do is disparage scripture, but he wants to torpedo a spirituality which believes people will change by telling them (or themselves) to be obedient to the commandments. He argues his case here along the lines that an approach to the Law which sees it as something to be obeyed inevitably ends up subverting it (7:7-8). Human nature when it is twisted by sin takes the commandments to serve its own ends so that commands end up not preventing but rather prompting sin. Many a drug education program has been an introduction to the drug scene when not carefully handled. In what may be a play on the garden of Eden, Paul seems to suggest that the very prohibition put the idea in Adam and Eve's mind (7:9-11). Or, at least, that is how he sees human experience. By contrast, as Romans 8 will show, he believes that goodness is the product of goodness liberating people to be good, not of the negative path commandments. His gospel of goodness has that power for liberation (1:16-17).

In 7:12-14 Paul returns to settle the objection and have his hearers sit down again! They need to understand he has no argument with the goodness of the commandments and the holiness of the Law. But it is not really going to change people. Now, in our passage in 7:15-23, he employs more arguments from human experience. People find themselves wanting to do good (including God's good Law) but end up not able to do it. His hearers may be familiar with this insight. It was alive in the intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman world as an analysis of the human predicament and how people are not free. It reaches as far back as Euripides' tragedies.

Paul uses these ideas within a theological framework. Translation is difficult because of his use of the word, nomos, which could in every instance mean the Law or could in some instances mean "the principle". Either way he is talking about people's relation to the Law. This is the case in 7:21-23. Perhaps Paul is seeing the Law playing different and conflicting roles in the human mind, sometimes as conscience, sometimes as prompting awareness of the possibilities of sin. In any case Paul, through his repetitions, wants to say: human nature when twisted by sin has the capacity to be divided against itself and render a person almost helpless, at least seriously morally impotent. He might say the true self wants to do God's Law, but the false self wants something else and, as long as it remains dominant, any move towards goodness will be undermined. No amount of encouragement to do good and obey commandments will achieve much until the inner state of affairs is dealt with.

It is almost comic, but also tragic, that some read Paul here as describing the inevitable for everyone and seeing no hope of change in this life. Christians troubled by their consciences have sought solace in Paul's hopelessness. That is a tragic confession and contrary to the whole drift of Paul's argument and defence in Romans. Even more misleading is the reading which imagines Paul, by saying, "I", is talking about his current state of being. That would simply play into his opponents' hands! "All he has is bad news!" For Paul is saying: this is the state where people try to live by the Law and it is why he offers an alternative.

The good news of God's goodness in Christ brings a new power into this hopeless situation which liberates people from such captivity. As people open themselves in faith to the love which offers them a relationship of forgiveness and growth in confidence, they move from death to life, they move towards freedom from sin and guilt and death. That freedom then liberates them to live and to love others, not least because they are released from the hopeless struggle grounded in fear. Love reproduces love and for Paul love is the fulfilling of the Law. That is how to get there - not via the path of trying harder to obey good commandments.

So in 7:24 Paul gives voice to such human hopelessness: who will liberate us from this destructive personality (body of death)? His good news answers: God in Christ (7:25a). Romans 8 then goes on to show how this happens. Our passage cuts off at 7:25a because 7:25b seems to start the discussion over again. In fact it is better to see it as summarising his defence: Yes, in that state I serve the Law of God with my mind or intellect but in my corrupted false self I serve the law of sin (or the Law as an instrument leading me to sin). So, you see, I am not opposing the Law of God; rather I am trying to say: people in that state are in a state of hopeless conflict. He follows this with the declaration that when we change states and enter the relationship with Christ we become freed from this chaotic situation and the condemnation it incurs (8:1).

Paul's arguments remain important early pointers to what achieves change in human behaviour. We recognise that behavioural change can in fact be effected by direct interventions, enhanced motivation, altered routines and patterns, but Paul's fundamental insight remains: people are most likely to change when they experience the kind of love which helps them deal with the sense of inadequacy whether that is grounded in guilt or false guilt or simply in the sense of shame that expresses itself in seeing no value or place for ourselves. Radical love has the capacity to bring rebirth and make people new. Closer to Paul's terms, we get set right by trust/faith in such love, and thus God's goodness can reproduce itself in us.

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

Pentecost 2

William Loader

Pentecost 2: 26 June Romans 6:12-23

It is impossible to understand this passage without knowing what had gone before. Without that context it might sound just like any other moral exhortation: don't sin! But Paul has been addressing a major issue about what liberates people. He believes it is the love shown to us in Christ; in other words: God's goodness and generosity. It is not by telling them to obey commandments. He has just been arguing that when we accept God's generosity, celebrated in baptism, we enter a new way of life. By this he does not mean we turn over a new leaf and try harder from now on. Rather he means we enter a new system, we become part of a new dynamic; we experience a new set of possibilities. These are created by a new relationship with God wherein by opening ourselves to God's goodness we not only experience forgiveness and hope but also begin a journey where that love produces love in and through us. God's goodness and generosity reproduces itself.

It is in the light of entering this new life with its dynamic generation of love and goodness that Paul now declares: so don't let yourself be ruled by the competing system which generates sin. Paul sees sins as the fruit of relationships with God which have gone wrong resulting in alienation from God, from others and from ourselves. When we enter the new life with its new possibilities the old patterns and systems do not shut down. The destructive ruts and routines are still there. Paul is saying: you don't have to surrender to them because the new life can lift you beyond them. In 6:12 he identifies them as having their roots in our human bodies, in particular in our appetites. In this he shares the views of many of his time. For Paul the body is not evil; nor are its desires, but when we allow our lives to be determined by satisfying our cravings without any thought for the consequences for ourselves or others - whether that is as unsophisticated as sexual abuse or as sophisticated as ripping off the developing world through hogging wealth and resources - then we are caught up into a power network which produces destructive behaviour. Paul is thinking about two different systems: sin and death on the one side and goodness and love on the other.

6:13 is about integration and orientation. When openness to love becomes a possibility for you, then your journey has just begun. That journey includes the process of bringing all parts of your being into the sway of this liberating power. You allow yourself to be taken up into the dynamic goodness and generosity of God. That is what resurrection life is about. Baptism simulated death to the old system. Christian life means living that reality out so that it affects everything. As 6:14 puts it, sin no longer rules.

But then in 6:14 Paul goes on to say that we are longer under the Law but under grace. The heckles of his opponents would rise. No longer under the Law, the Bible (as he knew it)! - what can he possibly mean? You can just hear them reiterating their argument: "all this talk about love is not enough; you have to have the commandments! That's the trouble with Paul." Paul is being quite courageous here. It is as though he courts the opposition. So in 6:15 he restates their question for them: doesn't all this mean we should keep on sinning? It echoes the question with which he began in 6:1. Paul is not, of course, suggesting they dispense with scripture. But he is saying: when you live on the basis that you try to observe the commandments and keep on failing, then you are caught in a system which does not work. The Law treated in this way is bad news. He will go on in Romans 7 to illustrate this further.

Here he needs to reinforce his argument that accepting God's generosity does not mean we turn around and keep sinning. In the first half of Romans 6 he shows that this would make nonsense of what baptism celebrates: death to the old life and beginning of new life. In the rest of the chapter he tries a slightly different tack. The aim must be to be free from the old system, so it makes no sense to surrender to it. To develop his idea of a system he uses the image of slavery (6:16). Notice that he refuses to reduce the discussion to rules about doing good. He is always more interested in the processes and what they do to people. So he repeats: the sin system produces destructive behaviour; the grace system or the system based on God's goodness and generosity produces goodness and generosity. Here he plays with the image: we undergo a transferral of ownership from sin to God and goodness (6:18). Some slavery! But Paul is wanting people to think in systems and the dynamics that produce.

In 6:19 he half apologises because of his playfulness with the image. Some of his opponents would have made much of purity and holiness. So Paul picks this up in 6:19-22. Ultimately the fruit of living a life which feeds on God's goodness and generosity or grace is not just goodness and grace in our lives (and surely that is even more than the Law demands and more than fulfils it!); it is also holiness or "sanctification". For Paul holiness is not another sphere related to withdrawal or even especially to cultic practices and rites. It is love. For Paul God's being is not preoccupied with being untarnished and pure, but with being generous and self-giving, making something out of nothing, raising the dead, helping people from the sin-death syndrome into the goodness-life processes which love generates.

6:23 is not primarily about sins leading people to hell, and about the gift of life as escape from hell into heaven, as evangelistic missions propounded with this, one of their favourite texts. That arose because people did not read the Bible carefully or take it seriously enough. When we do read it carefully, we find that Paul is talking about something much more encompassing and is doing so with his back to the wall. He is contrasting two fundamental dynamics at work in human beings and their behaviour which also become the stuff of conflict among Christians. The way of sin and death shows itself in actions, but it is much deeper and stems from powerful forces within our own being which are generated through our alienation from God, from others and from ourselves. They are so destructive they can even take good commandments and subvert them to send us sinking further into the mire. That is the death - here and now and forever. Against it Paul argues the liberating effects generated by the relationship of generous love which God's goodness offers people. It sets up possibilities of transformation for people the effects of which are behaviours that express the same goodness and generosity in the world. That is "eternal life" - beginning in the here and now. That is the good news of which he is not ashamed (1:16) because it is powerful and is rooted in God's goodness (1:17). It still is.

Gospel Pentecost 2: 26 June Matthew 10:40-42

Trinity

William Loader

Trinity: 19 June 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

How to end a letter. Usually Paul simply writes: "The grace of the Lord be with you" or "with your spirit". He sometimes ends with an exhortation as here in 13:11 and often with the exhortation to give the greeting of a kiss as in 13:12. At one level these are formalities. At another, they warrant closer examination. Paul is rarely just being formal.

2 Corinthians is the most personal of all Paul's letters. He has just been defending his integrity against Christians determined to discredit him. They claim to outshine him, out-speak him, and have better connections and pedigrees. They also cast aspersions on Paul's motivation for making a collection and see his working to earn money as an indication of lack of faith. He has been buffeted by many of the people whom he addresses here. They see him as a wimp with no authority. In the tortuous few final chapters, 10-13, Paul reasserts his authority, but not for purposes of self-aggrandisement. He ridicules strategies to make oneself impressive. He wants only to live Christ and that means he is happy to boast in what they call weakness. The cross is his model. They need be under no apprehension. When he comes to them he will confront the issues without flinching.

How should he now sign off? First in 13:11 he gives a string of exhortations which in some ways summarise his desires. The first, "rejoice" or, perhaps, "fare well" is a common conclusion. But Paul does not leave it there. Next comes something like: "Get yourselves sorted out!" That is very direct and clear in the light of what precedes. It repeats a word used at the end of 13:9. Then comes a word which means "be encouraged/comforted/exhorted" which in effect means: "Listen to what I have been saying to you!" Next follows: "Find a common mind". This addresses the division in the church. It is not about everyone agreeing on everything but about finding the common basis which makes fellowship possible. Stop the power plays! "Be at peace!" follows this appropriately. In the context it cannot mean: be nice and put up with everything. It is something much more authentic. Ultimately Paul comes to the promise of the presence of the God of love and peace. This, too, cannot be a formality or just a wish. The presence of the God of love and peace is noted where people face up to things honestly and give their attention to relationships. Not much of the presence of God is visible when Christians are making themselves gods and engaging in power struggles.

13:12 contains a common exhortation, but, again, Paul would have little time for symbolic gestures such as kisses which are not grounded in the approach he assumes in 13:11. Faith is not about shallow niceties which hide deep rivalries and division. It is about belonging together. For Paul that is always more than just the local community and more than just himself and his addressees. It is the community created by participation in Christ into whom all are baptised. All the saints, that is, all who embrace God's holiness offered them in Christ are brothers and sisters. This still means a large, convenient and often inconvenient bunch of believers, very imperfect, but belonging together in acknowledging love and grace.

The final verse now serves as a standard benediction. We can thank Paul's rhetorical flourish. It is interesting that of all places it is after his most uncomfortable letter that Paul composes this formula. Here, too, there is much more than formality."The grace of the Lord" often appears in Paul's farewells. Grace puts the focus on compassion as the life of the gospel. "The Lord" identifies the lexicon where we look up the meaning of compassion: the ministry, life and death of Jesus. "Love" in "the love of God" is another way of addressing the same truth, thus reinforcing the emphasis: it was lacking at Corinth! The "fellowship" is about community, participation and sharing. Paul can also use this word to describe monetary sharing. It is a sense of commonality which the Spirit generates. How does this relate to love? Love is a fruit of the Spirit and is its main evidence according to Paul. So this is what Paul wishes for them. It is very like what he said would be with them at the end of 13:11.

Paul has expanded a traditional farewell to make it match a situation where community and compassion was largely missing. It is his last word to them: not an argument, nor a criticism, but a pointing to what is the source of their faith and life. Paul held on to the centre even in the face of turbulence and personal attack which would have derailed many others. He has a way of always coming back to the centre. That can shift the ground in contexts of conflict. It also bequeaths to us a benediction which teaches us where the heart of the gospel lies - if we ever to stop to think what it really means.

Gospel: Trinity: 19 June Matthew 28:16-20

Pentecost

William Loader

Pentecost: 12 June Acts 2:1-21

One of the three pilgrimage festivals, Pentecost falls 50 days (seven weeks) after Passover, as its Greek name, Pentecoste (50th), preserves. It is also called the Feast of Weeks, an occasion to celebrate the gathering in of the harvest (Exod 3:14-17; Lev 23:15-22). It also became a time to celebrate the coming of the divine Law on Sinai. Legend has it that on that occasion a flame came down from heaven and divided into 70 tongues of fire, one for each nation of the world. All could understand, but only one nation promised to keep the Law, Israel.

Such symbolism has shaped our story. Perhaps it also lies under the influence of the Tower of Babel story in which human ambition resulted in the collapse of the tower and the breakdown of communication: the legend to explain why people speak different languages and cannot understand one another (Gen 11:1-9). Certainly the imagery of wind reflects the word for Spirit, which in both Hebrew and Greek, means wind, breath and Spirit.

These rich embellishments may hide a historical event. It is entirely credible that the first great pilgrim festival after Jesus' execution at Passover and his disciples' acclamation of his resurrection would have been a special occasion for the fledgling Christian community. Perhaps there was some event amid the crowd. Perhaps there was some experience which those who believed saw as an outpouring of the Spirit. Luke is hardly likely to have dreamt up the occasion from probabilities.

Yet we can see that Luke has been painting panels of faith richly coloured with symbolism. He has Jesus appear after his resurrection for forty days before ascending. His hearers would have made the connections to the forty years in the wilderness. He has 120 believers assembled in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost. His hearers would have recognised the numerical symbolism. Here was true Israel. Then comes the Spirit and the harvest! The Spirit comes as wind. The Spirit comes also in tongues of fire. None of this would be lost on those familiar with the word used for Spirit and stories told about Sinai. And some would hear the echoes of Babel.

Not only is the symbolism striking. The scheme of events also clearly reflects symbolic interests. We celebrate the Day of Pentecost as the day of the coming of the Spirit because of Luke's symbolic history. In John's gospel the Spirit is a gift of the risen Jesus on the day of resurrection when he appears after having risen and ascended to the Father - all back to front, when compared with Luke's scheme. No other New Testament writer reflects Luke's timetable of events. Even Luke, himself, in his gospel, has the ascension much earlier according to some early manuscripts (24:51). Paul and most others assume that resurrection means exaltation to God's right hand. From God's presence Jesus then appears as the risen one to his disciples - and not just limited to forty days. Paul hails his own encounter - long after forty days after Easter - as an appearance of the risen Lord.

So, whatever historical event lies beneath Luke's story in Acts 2:1-21 - and there probably is one - we have to recognise that he is writing a symbolic narrative which wants to tell us something much more than a once-off historical event. He is celebrating the presence of the Spirit in the early Christian movement. He does so with a slight sense of humour. He alludes to the phenomenon of speaking in tongues, which Paul also mentions, and gives it also a symbolic twist. It makes people sound like drunks to those who do not know what is going on. But to those who do know, here is a language miracle, which reverses the curse of Babel. Communication is restored! Luke nowhere follows his creative innovation through to its logical conclusion at a literal level, namely, that Christians filled with the Spirit don't have to learn languages! How often people have wished that they could! So, here, too we have symbolism.

Like a movie director, Luke creates a scene with wind and fire. The scene is a commentary on the whole movie to follow. The God of Sinai and the Law is acting again. The promise of an abundant flow of God's Spirit is being fulfilled. God's Word, God's Law, is being declared. These people with flames shooting from their heads are again the true Israel, committed to obey God's Word. History is repeating itself, but in a new way. The focus on Israel is reinforced when we realise that Luke is talking here about people from all parts of the empire: all Jews! This is a celebration of God and God's people. In Acts 10 the same blessing becomes available to people of other nations.

Luke's symbolic scene expresses hope and confidence. John's gospel has Jesus say to his disciples as they face the prospect of his death: ''Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me!" He then goes on to speak of the coming of the Spirit (14:16-17), which is then expanded in our Gospel Reading for today. If we celebrate the presence of God in the person of Jesus who lived compassion in flesh and blood, does his death leave us without hope and only with memory? Is such life still possible? Luke's artwork answers in unmistakable terms: yes. God, God's Spirit, the Spirit which drove Jesus, is accessible to all! Believe it! Believe that God said yes to Jesus by raising him from the dead. God said: this is who I am and how I am! We are not left with a good and inspiring memory, but a promised presence. That presence promises we stay in touch with the divine word, we learn to communicate in love, and we can celebrate being a community in true continuity with God's people of all ages.

Peter's speech is equally flamboyant as it uses Joel. This enhances the moment of great drama: moon turning to blood, a darkened sun, blood, fire, smoke - it just needs dramatic musical accompaniment, drums, trumpets, clashing cymbals. We're off again into a block buster portrayal of Pentecost! Both the story and the speech are doing things, painting word pictures, inviting us to fantasy - all because Luke really wants us to sense a momentous truth. The Spirit, Breath, Presence of God, which we celebrate in Jesus, can be present in human community. When this happens and we let it happen, the ancient curses which divide us are undone and we connect with God in a new way and we gain a new sense of identity.

Luke invites us to play and play we should - he has set the scene. Let's run riot with symbolism. He did. And in doing so the key is not to lose connection with what and who is being celebrated.

Gospel: Pentecost: 12 June John 20:19-23
Epistle: Pentecost: 12 June 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

Easter 7

William Loader

Easter 7: 5 June Acts 1:6-14

Luke begins his account of the beginnings of the church by recapitulating some of what he had reported in Luke 24. There he had indicated that Jesus gave the disciples instructions that they would be witnesses, adding: "And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (24:49). He then ascends to heaven (24:51), though some manuscripts lack this, perhaps because it does not sit altogether well with how Acts begins where he ascends only after 40 days. If we turn to Acts, the 40 days serve a symbolic purpose, as does dating the coming of the Spirit to the harvest festival, Pentecost, the 50th day after Passover. Luke, who alone dates these things in this way, is making a statement about continuity with Israel. It is a way of saying: this new movement is no novelty or new invention, but stands in continuity with the ancient traditions of Israel and more importantly: with God's action in the world from the beginning.

The connection with Israel is evident in the first verse of our reading. The disciples are concerned with Israel's future. Its kingdom is God's kingdom. When will God again reign in Israel? It is another way of saying; when will good news for the poor - Israel in its brokenness - happen? For those familiar with Luke's first volume we hear echoes of the faithful Jews at Jesus' birth who were awaiting the restoration of Israel and jesus' announcement of good news for the poor (4:16-20; 6:20-21). Volume two begins as had volume one, but, more significantly, Luke is in this way reaffirming Israel's hope.

The hope of the Jewish people to live securely in its borders in justice and peace is a continuing preoccupation. The crucial issue has always been: how? At whose expense? From the prophets onwards there have been competing visions, from Israel's peace by extensive possession of land, dispossessing if not annihilating others, to Israel's peace in harmony with all peoples and radically inclusive so that no person or race, of whatever gender or state of fallenness, etc, is deemed beyond God's love. In this sense Jesus was offering just one among the many "solutions" to Jewish hope.

One might have expected Jesus in 1:7 to round on the disciples and rebuke them for still hankering after Israel's hope, but Luke tells us nothing of the kind. That hope is no more out of place at the foundation of the church than it was at the foundation of his ministry. If there is a rebuke, it is in the form of telling them not to worry about timing: leave that to God. They are, instead, to go and tell people what has happened. Luke's understanding of Israel's hope is one that is a blessing for all peoples. That is why it makes sense to tell the story to all: to the uttermost ends of the earth (we could have told him there was an Australia and a New Zealand!). The Spirit, God's inspiring presence, like a breath and a wind, would energise them to tell the story everywhere. Good news for Israel and its poor becomes good news for all peoples and their poor everywhere as they are invited to believe the story and join the expanded people of God and share its blessings. Luke does not do, as we usually (and rightly) do: claim that what Jesus preached to Israel is now to be preached to all. He stays within the framework of Israel's hope, as do most New Testament writers. The good news remains Israel's good news. It blesses others as they join with the true Israel. That is the invitation.

Having said this, Jesus departs. Luke has us imagine Jesus ascending into a cloud and presumably from there to God's immediate presence. This is symbolic narrative of much the same kind as we find in Luke's account of Jesus' baptism where he has the Spirit appear physically as a dove and of Pentecost where has a real wind and real fire. He and his hearers would know the game. It is a profound and celebratory play with images. So the story of the ascension should not have us pondering the possibilities of Jesus in orbit, nor should we be imagining that for 40 days Jesus resided somewhere in suburban Jerusalem. He didn't. He appeared and disappeared. Luke's neat symbolism creates problems for Paul, whose encounter has to be categorised differently - he would not be pleased. The rest of the New Testament - and Luke elsewhere - speaks of the resurrection as the moment when Jesus ascended to be seated at God's right hand. The point was his vindication, the affirmation of his ministry, God's ownership of who and what he was and is.

Ultimately - in the end - God matters and therefore Jesus matters and so history's future must be an encounter with that truth. Luke neatly has Jesus go with clouds and come again with clouds. The latter was a tradition reflected in images of Jesus' coming in Mark 14:62 and 1 Thess 4:13-18 and elsewhere. The issue is not meteorology but mystery. Our gospel reading last week showed how authors might play with the concept. indeed the coming of Jesus in the Spirit into the life of the believer is the greatest promise. :John has the traditional notion (14:3), the immediate resurrection appearance for the then disciples (14:18-20) and the divine indwelling (14:21-24). What counts in the end is not the events, but the life and hope which the coming of the Spirit of Jesus brings for all, as attested already by Jesus himself in his statement of mission in Luke 4:16-20. That is now the mission of the disciples and of us all.

Gospel: Easter 7: 5 June John 17:1-11
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 Acts 7:55-60

The obvious context for this reading is what precedes, indeed, also chapter 6. Despite the accusations there, Stephen is attacking neither the temple nor the Law. The Law, he declares, was given by God through angels (7:53). That means: it is sacred and authoritative. The problem was that the leaders did not keep it. Similarly the problem with the temple is not its status, but that its leaders are corrupt. While one might attribute this to Luke's endeavour to paint the first believers as faithful Jews, it also fits what we know of the historical Jesus and his challenge to the temple authorities. Continuity is a key theme. Not the faith, but the faithlessness of the leaders is being called into question with the fairly standard accusation that they were no better than their forebears who rejected the prophets.

Luke thus depicts the first Christians as in no way setting aside the ancient traditions. That would have appealed to those espousing Roman values which gave prior respect to tradition over against innovation. It also fits Luke's later depiction of Paul as a conservative who remained Law-observant all his days - in contrast to the Paul we know of the letters. So we probably have a mixture of history and theology in Luke's account, which is not so easy to untangle.

The historical Paul sided with those wanting to suppress the Greek speaking believers like Stephen. His reversal and subsequent theology suggests that what he believed about them may have had more credence than Luke's account suggests. Perhaps they were already beginning to relax those aspects of Law which made communication and fellowship with their fellow Greek speaking non-Jews difficult. Fierce disputes arose over setting circumcision and food laws aside. Just how close was Paul's position to that already being espoused by the Greek speaking believers he once persecuted? After all, Paul appears to have been comnverted to the position he once opposed. Paul's disputes (reflected in his letters) were primarily with fellow believers. The issues between believers on the one hand and between their forebears and other Jews in Jerusalem, including Paul, were probably about the extent to which scriptural demands were met. Too much override of biblical laws through biblical principles of love and inclusivity will always rile those whose faith is fundamentalist in the sense of seeing all scripture's demand as infallible. This will be why only the Greek speakers and not the Aramaic speaking believers were banished from Jerusalem.

Luke's account keep the conflict to one about the leaders' rejecting Stephen's challenge to their integrity. The result is to shift the focus from other issues, but it leaves unexplained why only the Greek speakers (the so-called Hellenist Christian Jews) had to flee and not the Aramaic speakers (the Hebrews). Thus Luke styles the conflict as one of disobedience and obstinacy and through public stoning illegality. People hearing his account might see their own experiences reflected in this and were perhaps meant to see the story in this way. The first killing, like the later killings of their time, were groundless and based in failure to hold faithfully to Israel's ancient traditions.

Luke connects the story to Paul (using the more familiar informal name, Saul, of Saulus Paulus) and indirectly to persecution in his own time. He also connects it Jesus and especially his Jewish trial. For there, too, we hear of Jesus speaking of sitting at God's right hand, reflecting the early Christian use of Psalm 110:1 to claim that God enthroned Jesus as Israel's Messiah at his resurrection. Here in Stephen's vision Jesus stands - perhaps to receive him. That connection with Jesus brings Stephen's story back into the context of Jesus' life and ministry, as Luke sets it out in his gospel. That ministry and its message was an appeal to what can be claimed to be at the heart of the biblical heritage: compassion, forgiveness, good news for the poor. That informs Stephen's speech as Luke has constructed it. In effect, then. Stephen faces the same fate as Jesus and for the same reason.

So Luke's story serves to comfort believers in his day. It serves to bolster the belief that persecution from (fellow-) came from their unfaithfulness. Certainly the allegations of corruption match those made by Jesus on the basis of which he declared God's judgement on the temple. Luke omits that in his gospel and so brings it here. Stephen thus follows Jesus. Similarly in his death he surrenders his life to God, just as Jesus did according to Luke's version (23:46), and even prays for his killers' forgiveness, as did Jesus in some texts (Luke 23:34).

Luke has made more than enough of the story and it all counts. But there is probably more to it as there was much more to Paul's conflicts than Luke's accounts reveal. For Jesus' claim about what was at the heart of scripture confronted not only corruption but also those who approached scripture differently and who could have no tolerance for the ultimate setting aside of some of its demands in the interests of inclusivity. What killed Stephen still snuffs out life, but we need to see that it is active wherever the appeal to love as the highest priority is resisted and violence is preferred as somehow "right" or even as "just". Jubilation at the killing of anyone, both saint and sinner (including an Osama) puts us among those who threw stones at Stephen. It was the persistence of Jesus that love and truth have priority and that no one be deemed beyond God's love that led to his demise - and it leads to faith's demise still.

Gospel: Easter 5: 22 May John 14:1-14
Epistle: Easter 5: 22 May 1 Peter 2:2-10