On Being Children of God

An excerpt from “Anna’s Song” from An Outback Christmas (Words by Norman Habel):

Lift this child to the sun, raise this child to the sky;
God has come from above, come to earth from on high.

Lay this child on the ground, one with us, one with earth;
let God know in his Son, human clay, human birth.

Place this child in the shade, hang this child ‘neath the tree;
with his hand on the wood, may this child set us free.

Give this child to the world, let him be common folk;
God has come to be born as an ordin’ry bloke.

Lift this child to the night, to the silence of God;
let this child cry for us, and the silence be heard.

Well, it’s time to present Jesus to the world in the Gospel of Luke. The baby is taken to the temple, circumcised, named and heralded by two old prophets who are also there that day. As Kim Jong-un was paraded before the North Korean public and declared "supreme leader of party and army and people", heir to his father’s, Kim Jong-il’s authority; so Jesus is, in a sense, paraded before the people and especially the religious establishment as the heir—the heir of God’s promises of redemption to the people; the inheritor of God’s pledge to the people of Israel for them to be a light to the nations; the beneficiary of the hope in which Israel has lived for so long. Luke metaphorically lifts the baby Jesus up and presents him to his hearers: “Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel! Jeshuah-Joshua-Jesus—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And this is God’s Son!”

But this son is a poor one—not rich and powerful or carefully groomed over a lifetime. This heir has doubts about his legitimacy hanging over his head; and his parents can only afford the offering for his presentation allowed of the poor. They offer birds rather than a sheep. “Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel?!”

The moment is bitter sweet, as are the songs of Anna and Simeon—a child destined for great things; a child given for salvation—but a salvation which will expose all that needs saving to the open. Give this child… to the world!

Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap. I wonder what the 28-year old Kim Jong-un thinks about his inheritance. Would he prefer to be focussing on finding his own niche in his society; or having the freedom to travel the world; or simply being another anonymous citizen? What regrets might a Lachlan Murdoch have about the legacy which is his?

I’ve managed to watch several episodes of Country House Rescued on the ABC recently. The children who stand to inherit those large English country estates have huge expectations, debts, problems and dilemmas facing them. Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap.

And the inheritance for which Jesus is proclaimed as heir is an even more ambiguous one. The promises of this legacy are the fulfilment of hopes unrequited; the culmination of the final salvation of the people; the intangible, immaterial things for which we humans yearn so strongly and fail to know how to achieve so dramatically. And as we all know, where there are grand hopes, there are grand and competing expectations; and where there are grand and competing expectations, there is so much room for misunderstanding, miscalculation, misinterpretation and outright disappointment. Most inheritances of any value don’t come cheap.

“Here he is. This is the One! The heir, the promised one of Israel! Jeshuah-Joshua-Jesus—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And this is God’s Son!”

Here is God’s sacrificial lamb paraded before the people. The family cannot afford a sheep for his presentation; but there is no need for one—the sacrifice is the child himself! Give this child to the world!

The moment is bitter-sweet; and yet in this moment, we are meant to find our salvation, our redemption, our liberation. In this moment, we are urged to submit our hopes, our yearnings, our desires to the possibility that we might be set free. Here in this moment, way before we get to the cross—way before we know just what it means for God to submit himself to his Creation, we are asked to understand what the value of this inheritance really means. Give this child to the world!

And that brings us to our text from Galatians, where Paul is trying to unpack what Christ’s inheritance means for us. Paul writes:

My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than slaves, though they are the owners of all the property; 2but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the world. 4But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. (NRSV)

Paul is begging us to let the baby Jesus grow up—to let God’s heir be God’s heir; and as a consequence to grow up as the heirs of God ourselves—co-heirs with God’s son, Jesus. This is our freedom. This is our salvation. This is our liberation. And this is our sacrifice. That we will allow ourselves to be utterly enfolded in God’s will.

According to Paul, God submits himself to his Creation. God’s Son submits himself to the religious Law in order that we, the people, might be freed from the Law—not because the Law has not been important or because we are not called to live ethical lives; but because really inheriting what God promises us means that the Law will be unnecessary because we will know and love and do the will of God without it.

New Testament scholar, Bill Loader puts it this way:

Paul [is] … convinced that the implications of God's action in Christ is that [the] … requirements [of the Law] are set aside and that now what matters is faith in Christ and living out that faith and only that… the Spirit [working within us] will … more than fulfil any legitimate demands contained in the law...

Paul assumes that when people enter into a relationship such as he describes, that of a grown up son to a father, then there is a oneness which generates continuity between what the father wants and what the son wants. It is a first century ideal of family life. [The heir inherits everything that is the ancestor’s in all its fullness.] Applied as an image to Christian living, Paul [argues] … that the Spirit generates God's life in and through the believer and it will show. By contrast, to perpetuate submission to the Law, even though it was given by God and is in the Bible, is to perpetuate a form of slavery which—and here he is quite daring—is not much better than serving other gods! [http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/BEpChristmas1.htm]

For Paul, the life, death and resurrection of Christ offers a relationship with God that was hitherto impossible—the relationship of fully adult heirs, co-heirs with Christ.

For Robert Hamerton-Kelly (Sacred Violence pp. 77-81 as interpreted in http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/xmas1b.htm), the passage from Galatians is saying that:

Christ came to redeem us, to win us back from Satan's power that we might come to live under God's grace as children. Christ redeems us to become children of God. To do so Christ submits to the curse of living under the law, thus becoming a willing victim to its sacrificial mechanisms. Rather than the idea of taking the punishment of God's wrath for us, Christ reveals to us our own wrath and its violence, that we might live by God's true power, which is love, not wrath.

Here, there are echoes of Simeon’s words: “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Luke 2:35). God’s submission to the world God created exposes our lack of submission to God.

This truly is a great Christmas season text… it … express[es] all the basics of the incarnation, of why it is that "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." … because Jesus could fulfill his mission as Son of God, that same Spirit of Sonship is given to our hearts that we might also truly become children of God, freed from the slavery of sin. http://girardianlectionary.net/year_b/xmas1b.htm

“Here we are. We are the Ones! The heirs, the promised ones of God! Fully redeemed, fully alive, fully liberated—Yahweh is our salvation! The one God is our redeemer! And we are God’s children!”

Go then to take up your inheritance!

Giving Birth to Jesus!

There’s always expectation around the birth of a baby: When will it come? Who will it look like? Will it be healthy? A boy or a girl? And just as there are expectations about the baby, there are also expectations about the mother: Will she be a good mother? Will she cope with the baby? Does she know what she’s in for?

There are all sorts of myths about motherhood and babies: motherhood comes naturally; if you’re a proper woman, you don’t have to work at being a mother; good mothers do this, that or the other; if you don’t do this, that or the other, you’re not a good mother; if you’re not a mother, you’re not a proper woman; whatever problems the child may have, it’s all the mother’s fault. You could probably add some of your own.

All kinds of messages are played in our heads about what motherhood should or shouldn’t be, is or isn’t, especially for those of us who are women.

Most of these myths are simply untrue: images created by the idealisation of both babies and mothers. Motherhood isn’t any easier than any other parts of women’s lives; neither for that matter is fatherhood for men; nor is being a parent a compulsory act. Just as marriages and all our relationships require decision, commitment and hard work so too does parenthood—even a very part time stepmother (and grandmother) like me knows that.

Yet in our world, we are swamped by pictures of perfection in parenthood. Gaily smiling, very together women swan platters of elegantly prepared food onto tables surrounded by perfect families to the strains of the margarine jingle “You oughta be congratulated, Mum.” Whiter than white clothes are produced immaculately ironed straight from the washing machine so that Joan and John can make the next sporting fixture just in time. Again you can probably fill in some more examples for yourself.

Even our images of Mary, the mother of Jesus, have been tainted by our unrealistic, ethereal mythical pictures of motherhood. The pristinely clean Mary sits immaculately dressed in blue and white in the middle of a stable full of contentedly lowing animals: no dirt or manure to be seen, the straw is fresh and clean. Can you think of any more unlikely scene than that? This woman, the legitimacy of whose child was seriously in doubt, having just arrived in Bethlehem after travelling along unsealed roads and borne her child in a stable, sitting immaculately and serenely? She is pictured as bearing her pregnancy and the birth of Jesus almost without a hair out of place and, of course, how could she have ever had trouble with such an angelic child who apparently never cried (well, at least according to the Christmas carol if nothing else).

But the biblical picture of Mary as the mother of Jesus is not that type of frivolous, froth and bubble falsity of our modern media nor of the immaculate and pristine woman of sixteenth century Italian painters, from whom most of our popular images of Mary come. The biblical picture of Mary is far more down to earth.

She is a Jew living in a land ruled by Romans. She is a woman living in a time in which women were not considered to be as important as men. Her status in the society is somewhat ambivalent. She is betrothed but not married, in transition from the “protection” of one man to another, her father or other significant male in her family of origin to her future husband. She becomes pregnant without the complete legitimacy of marriage. She endures the birth of her first child in a difficult set of circumstances denied the usual support of her family.

It’s certainly not the stuff of margarine advertisements and yet it is a picture of beauty and of strength, but not because Mary is a carbon copy of a supermodel or because she endures everything while remaining sparklingly clean; but because in this simple yet profound everyday experience of the bearing and birthing of a child, Mary participates in a deeply prophetic action. She expects and brings to fruition the coming of Jesus in all the pain and joy, mess and disorder, that a birth can bring.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye, an African woman theologian, writes about such a birth:

At the age of sixteen I watched an eighteen year old woman having her first baby. From that time I understood why an Akan woman was said to have returned safely from the battle front when she had successfully pulled through that whole experience and returned with herself and her baby.

In this culture into which I was born, if news gets to a woman that another woman has not returned from this battle, she is expected to shake the words off her ears. They are not words that a woman should allow herself to hear—defeat at child birth spells the presence of evil. Birth pangs should result in joy, not sorrow.

For the biblical Mary, the pregnancy and birth are joyful experiences, but not because there is no pain, discomfort or difficulties. For Mary, the new life in which she is involved in bringing to birth, is a sign of life not just for one family but for a whole community, in fulfilment of a prophecy given a long time ago. And that new life was indeed birthed in pain as well as in joy, in the earthiness and ambivalence of human life itself.

When we place our ideas about Mary in the biblical context of the story of Jesus as expected, anticipated, joyful, painful birth and trial, then the words which are recorded as Mary’s song of praise in the Gospel of Luke (the song known as the Magnificat), those words become a powerful and prophetic affirmation. They do not come from the mouth of a television representation of a mother whose only concern is that of the appropriate margarine to serve her family. Nor from the mouth of a woman who seems unaffected by the realities of human life. They come from the mouth of a woman who is involved in the struggle of the reality of life.

The words of the Magnificat are not the platitudes of Christmas carols praying “God rest you merry people all, let nothing you dismay.” They are precisely the opposite: disturbing words announcing something new and different, heralding God’s new action in the world for God’s people, and echoing the words of the prophets uttered many years before:

My soul rejoices in God who is doing many wonderful deeds. God feeds the hungry and sends the rich away to fend for themselves. God scatters the proud and remembers the humble. God remembers those whom nobody thinks are important in fulfilment of the covenant promises.

It is the song of someone with great joy in her heart, joy from deep within, a profound sense of wonder and awe at the graciousness of God being brought to fruition and a profound understanding of the pain that is involved in that action: God becoming present through an ordinary woman and the dangerous, precarious act of the birth of a child.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye writes of the uncertainty of the birth of the child in Akan society:

The new life is waited for with prayers, sacrifices and medicaments. But no material preparations are made for the expected child. No amount of that will ensure safe delivery of mother and child from this encounter between life and death. The mystery surrounding the arrival of life cannot be resolved or even minimized with busy buying of pink, blue and white ribbons. It is awaited with fascination and wonder and, above all, with prayer and right living. The birth itself is in the hand of God. The woman, the bringer of new life, is at this point severely alone with her God and the hope of the new life. Others, especially the leaders of the family, are expected to be at prayer, calling all the relations in the other world to join in interceding for her. Others will stay by to encourage and guide but the parting is between mother and child alone.

The labouring mother, as Jesus observed, is at her most vulnerable and miserable, but her suffering is the prelude to the birth of a new life, a new beginning.

As the people of God, we are called to bear the Christ child into the world again and again (and not just at Christmas) but every day. If we were to imagine that we could do this with froth and bubble, or without getting our hands dirty, we would be mistaken. The birth of the Christ child in the hearts of God’s people again and again is exactly like the birth of Jesus two thousand years ago, and exactly like that of the birth of any child. It is painful, it is filled with expectations, it is joyful, it is worrying. God enters the world in vulnerability: a mother bearing a child; a child needing the protection of its mother; a follower of Christ coming to grips with the vulnerability and ambiguity of human life.

It is a story and an event which demands wonder and awe, and a deep sense of joy from within which is only possible from the other side of pain. But it is not quite the sort of entrance that most people envisage for God. Many people will still ask for the froth and bubble. Many people will still search for the immaculate Mary. They will be disappointed.

When the baby finally arrived, Mercy Amba Oduyoye was disappointed:

Is that all? She was neither beautiful nor cuddly; in fact, I did say that she was ugly. That is birth. But what potential! The mother smiles. “The ugly bundle” will be nursed into a beauty, with a pair of hands that may one day design cathedrals or perform experiments that will result in health for all [or become the saviour of the world].

This is the miracle of the birth of the Christ child, that God came and comes in pain and with joy, that God came and comes in the vulnerability and ambiguity of human life, that God came and comes to each one of us again and again in the earthy, messy, painful, joyful reality of our lives in Jesus. Is it any wonder that Mary sings with such courage and strength and joy in the midst of Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus in ambiguity and vulnerability? This is a real birth, and in that birth, new life has surely been stirred. Mercy Amba Oduyoye concludes her account of the birth of the Akan baby:

For the present at any rate, the labour pains vanish. God who mysteriously breathed the breath of life into her will supervise and direct that life. The chaos and darkness of the labour ward, the screams, sweat, swearing and the piercing cries are given a new quality. A new Adam has been stirred into life.

And the last word goes to the writer of our Gospel for today: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19).

Teach Us Where the Bucket Is

O God, we gather at your waters, as a hot and bothered crowd
gathers on the beach on a sweltering, summer day.
O God, we drink at your fountain,
as a parched dog laps at the fresh,
running water of a bush creek.
O God, we await your refreshment,
as a tired worker watches for the change of shift.
Quench our thirst, satisfy our longings.
May we be refreshed and restored in you.

It’s one of the Calls to Worship from Uniting in Worship 2, the Uniting Church’s book of model orders of service. I wrote it about 15 years ago when Russell and I were in Stanthorpe in the middle of a drought. We were yearning as people, as a community, as a nation for relief from that drought.

It’s not quite like that here in Armidale today and yet, we yearn too. We yearn for relief—from the continual overcast skies and above average rainfall; from the demands of the lead-up to Christmas and our busy lives; from the uncertainty of a world economy in turmoil and the threatening results of climate change. We want things to change. We want some relief.

The people to whom the passage in Isaiah we read today is aimed were also yearning for relief; and they were yearning for the fulfilment of a promise. Isaiah describes a regime of justice promised to the people of Israel in the Torah, the first 5 books of our Old Testament, the so-called books of Moses. Isaiah describes a community who engages in the practice of Jubilee—a just economic situation where the poor were never to be left bereft for generation after generation.

This passage comes to us from the part of the book of Isaiah that scholars call “Third Isaiah”. The people of Israel are back in Judah again; but the hope of the justice and peace of the promised land has once again been dashed. Stan Duncan, the chair of the Jubilee Justice Network of the United Church of Christ Massuchusetts Conference in the US writes:

The immediate occasion of the writing of this particular poem is an economic crisis brought about by the financial dealings of the wealthy returnees who used their status and wealth to grab more land and income from both their deported brothers and sisters and from those who had been left behind. They used their economic and class power to influence the application of tax and finance laws of the emerging nation to their advantage, causing huge increases in their own incomes, but also tremendous poverty in others. For example, they would make agricultural start-up loans during times of drought at exorbitant rates, which violated the Jubilee laws of Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15, but which was allowed because they could buy off courts and lawmakers in case anyone complained. If the poor borrower was not able to pay the entire amount in one year, the next year the unpaid portion would be rolled over into a second loan, thus doubling the interest rate. After two or three years of doubling and quadrupling the interests, the poor farmer was effectively bankrupt and had to give up his farm and often his freedom to the loaner. (http://jubileejusticetaskforce.blogspot.com/)

You would have thought that the people would have learnt after their period of captivity in Babylon which Second Isaiah interpreted as punishment from God for the sins of the people. (Remember last week’s passage and God’s promise of comfort because the people had been punished enough!) But no! The hope of God’s realm has been violated again by those who are greedy and ruthless.

In a week when we have seen the nations of the European union trying to work out how they stand together or apart in the face of the economic crisis of nations like Greece, Italy and Spain; in a week when we have seen the 4 major banks in Australia have to be challenged to pass on an official interest rate cut to ordinary borrowers; in a year where we have seen the haggling over a resources tax be dominated by the voices of large multinational companies—what does this passage have to say about where we’re at now? Where is our dream of God’s realm in our world now? What is it that we can hope for; or have our hopes been dashed too?

And yet, this passage in Isaiah is not one of despair, it is one of hope. The prophet still proclaims the hope of a just world in the face of the injustice that engulfs a re-emerging nation: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me… [God] has sent me to bring good news” (Isaiah 61:1).

And this good news is for those in need of it most—those who are despairing; those who are prisoners; those who have lost their land; those who mourn for what has been lost. The “year of the Lord’s favour” is the Jubilee year when justice will be done; the land of the people restored to its rightful holders; and a time for the earth to rest. That is the vision not just of Isaiah but of the Law, the Torah, and the book of Leviticus—but as far as we can tell, it has never ever been celebrated—at least not by a whole nation or community—it is just a promise; it is still a dream; it is only or at best or at least, a hope—the hope of justice, peace and freedom for the whole Creation.

The people in Judah are being asked not to expect that they should have already found liberation—not to regret what hasn’t been done by the original returnees. They are being asked to expect that they are the ones being called to work for the promise now.

“So, you expected a land of milk and honey; but that doesn’t come without work. It doesn’t come without attention to that which God has called us. It doesn’t happen simply because we yearn for it to happen. You have to be the ones to do the right thing and to make sure the right things are done.”

Now those with good memories will recall that the words of Isaiah are not just found in Isaiah, they are also placed in the mouth of Jesus reading the scriptures in the synagogue in Nazareth in the Gospel of Luke: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me… [God] has sent me to bring good news.” (Luke 4:18) For at the time of Jesus, the people are still waiting for that just world; and probably still looking for others to bring it about too.

So is that what we are doing today also? Waiting for that just world and for others to bring it about; hoping that governments and nations and communities and companies and people will do the right thing when we already know that human beings have never been very good at acting in and for the common good or working for the dream of justice, especially when that means “just us” might miss out on something that we understand to be our right, or our deserving, or at least what we want very, very much.

Isaiah challenges us again to look around at our world; and not just simply to yearn for justice; but to work for it—never, ever giving up the hope of the promise of God’s realm.

O God, we gather at your waters, as a hot and bothered crowd
gathers on the beach on a sweltering, summer day.
O God, we drink at your fountain,
as a parched dog laps at the fresh,
running water of a bush creek.
O God, we await your refreshment,
as a tired worker watches for the change of shift.
Quench our thirst, satisfy our longings.
May we be refreshed and restored in you;
and teach us where to find the bucket and how to carry it
so that we might draw that water for those who most need it.

Advent Prayer

Beneath the evening sky, weary pilgrims wait for the stars
to give them light and show them the way.
In this season of Advent, we dead-beat disciples
wait to be refreshed in Christ’s presence.
Under these southern skies, we exhausted envoys of God
look for the fullness of the reign of Christ.
Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Come, Lord Jesus, come soon!

Looking for a Cataclysm!

Hey God! What do you think you are doing? Where are you? Why aren’t you here helping us out? Can’t you see what’s happening? The western world is in financial crisis. There are acts of terrorism everywhere. And we can’t even control domestic violence in this country, let alone the civil, religious and political violence elsewhere on the planet.

We thought we were doing so well. Didn’t everyone want to be like us? We had dreams: everyone can own a house and build a future and be somebody and be left alone. Everybody can have their 15 minutes of fame. We can all be on Big Brother or Australia’s Got Talent or Australian Idol. We can all have what we want. Sure we overlooked those that couldn’t, but please they didn’t really want it, did they?

Then all of a sudden, the rug is pulled out from under us. And we don’t know about our futures anymore and we worry about the futures of our children and our grandchildren. What are we going to live on in our retirements? What jobs are going to be available? How will we maintain our lifestyles, our security, our society? How do we even know that we’re going to be around tomorrow to enjoy what we have? How do we know that we’re safe?

So God, what do you think you’re doing? And just where are you? After all, it’s not as if you haven’t shown your face previously? It’s not as though you haven’t pulled out a miracle or two for the sake of your chosen people before. Remember the Exodus: what a show!

Come and sing unto the Lord for we have triumphed gloriously:
the horses and the riders are thrown into the sea!

Aren’t we half as good as them? Aren’t you just as interested in us as you were in them? Think about the stories of you meeting with people like Hagar and Moses and Elijah, Jacob and Mary and Joseph.

You know it’s all your fault that we’re in the state we’re in, don’t you? We wouldn’t have done any of it, if you’d been around. That’s why we’re in the hole we’re in. Don’t you know that our churches would be full and our communities would be vibrant, if only you would make yourself clearly known? But you, you hide, and we suffer. When you’re not there, we easily fall away and do everything but we should do. It’s all your fault. So, what are you going to do about it?

We’d like to see a cataclysm: a great outpouring of wrath where all the bad guys get their comeuppance. And, of course, we know who the bad guys are: everyone but us! It’s those people who gambled too much on the stock market; and those others who can see how wealthy the West is and who will do anything to be like us; and if they can’t be like us, they’ll pull us down. It’s those people who don’t like other people; it’s people who aren’t like us. So what are you going to do about?

We want a cataclysm. We were promised a cataclysm. The Gospel of Mark has you talking about a cataclysm; well at least your Child, Jesus, talking about a cataclysm, but if in seeing Jesus, we see you, it’s as good as you promising one (even after all that guff with Noah). Yes, you promised us a cataclysm; and we expected one; and we expected to be the onlookers to that glorious event, the ones saved from your wrath, watching the entertainment as you routed your enemies.

The communities behind the Gospel of Mark, of course, would have known about cataclysm. The power of Rome depended upon the might of its armies. The Markan collection is gathered together just about the time of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. It was a cataclysm; and they so much wanted the end of the world and the beginning of the new one. Can we blame them? The hope was that, in the midst of such cataclysm, despite such cataclysm, even because of such cataclysm, the purposes of God would be revealed, more than be revealed, would be achieved; that God’s reign would finally come to fruition – the reign that had been glimpsed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Yes, that was it, the Christ event. That event was so cataclysmic that the people just knew that God was near: any threat to an imminent triumph must surely be a sign that God would be acting soon.

But, the Gospel of Mark is more circumspect. It isn’t about preparing for the end or predicting the future. It isn’t about watching for the unleashing of the wrath of God. It’s about preparing for God’s reign; it’s about living God’s reign; and that is entirely different.

The reign of God glimpsed, begun, inaugurated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is about anything but the wrath of God. This cataclysmic event which we now describe as incarnation, as embodiment, as being made flesh, is cataclysmic, but it’s not about the wrath of God destroying God’s enemies, nor is it about the destruction of the world in order to bring about a new one, rather it is about God entering the world which we already have, which has already been gifted to us by God. It is about the Creator entering the created order. And that is cataclysmic: the God who is above and beyond and around us is with us, becomes one of us – knows what it is to strive for something worthwhile in a state of limitation and to be defeated; knows what it is to give of oneself to something important to the point of the loss of self; knows what it is to know the depths of being human, of being created, of being mortal, frail, fragile, broken...

And in the process, asks us, not to expect God to be any different from who God is, and not to expect to watch the cataclysmic outcome of the wrath of God destroying God’s enemies (because there’s a fair chance we’d be among them if that happened), but to be about our living as the people of God in the hope that all things will work together for good because of this God who wants to be in relationship with us so much that nothing, nothing, not one thing will prevent God from doing just that.

And yet still we wait for the cataclysm. Surely, the financial world will realise its folly in the face of the current situation, and review its practices. Surely the great powers of this world will see what the problem is in the face of successive waves of terrorism and wipe it out. Surely, whatever we want can happen; and whatever we dream about can be.

But that is not the promise: it is not the promise given in and through Christ… no matter how hard we lament or confess or plead, no matter who we blame or what we look for. The promise to us in Christ is that God is the one who reigns, that God’s reign is both our gift and our calling, and that the God who gifts and calls us is primarily a God of love. In Christ, God has decisively acted to demonstrate utter acceptance of us, utter care for our wellbeing, utter willingness to be in relationship with us – the type of relationship that is not coersive, or abusive, or violent; the type of relationship that is offered, and not forced upon us; the type of relationship that invites our response and accepts whatever that response may be. That action is cataclysmic. It is cataclysmic because it everything (past, present and future) in its embrace as we discover that it is in and through the Christ event that we are who we are in relationship with God: accepted, loved and free.

Why would we look for more? In Christ, God became human. Not to erase our experience; not to obliterate our experience; nor even to over-write our experience; but to enter into it, to know us, to know it and still to be in relationship with us, still offering us relationship despite what we do, what we’ve done, who we are.

So we find ourselves in Advent, still waiting for the “consummation of all things which Christ will bring” to quote the Basis of Union; and still called both to prepare for that coming and to live in the reign already begun in Christ.

Come thou long-expected Jesus!
… Now thy gracious kingdom bring!

Shooting the Messenger?!

“Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:21)

It sounds wonderful doesn’t it? And we can all imagine ourselves in this role: the good and trustworthy servant. Well done! After all haven’t we been faithful, haven’t we followed even when the going got tough! Haven’t we worshipped regularly, served diligently, lived our lives well as witnesses to Jesus?

Or perhaps we hear the alternate words more loudly: “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)

And we beat our chests and cry mea culpa, “my fault, all my fault”—we are unworthy. Even though we have tried we have failed—God have mercy on us; God save us from what we imagine might be our reward.

The parable from Matthew’s Gospel which we’ve heard today (25:14-30) is generally read in one of those two ways. Either, we hear it as an ethical instruction (“Use your talents”) and we feel affirmed either in what we are doing or what we might do; or we hear it as an eschatological warning (“Be prepared for the end times!”) and we quake in our boots wondering whether we have been good enough.

But parables are enigmatic stories! They are meant to confront our comfort and our complacency, our well-worn ruts and usual patterns. They are meant to open our hearts, expand our vision, and loosen our limbs in the face of the unexpected nature of God’s realm.

So, noted New Testament and historical Jesus scholar, William Herzog invites us to hear this parable from a different perspective in his book, Parables as Subversive Speech (1994), and in the Seasons of the Spirit material for this week. He asks us to read it from the perspective of the oppressed; and he asks us to read it with a critical eye to the accepted capitalistic assumptions that underlie those two traditional interpretations. He asks us not to assume that the one “going on a journey” is God or Jesus. He asks us to explore the story a little more in the context of its time; and in the context of what we understand now about who God is and who we are before God. He asks us to find the confrontation for us now in this parable.

And I don’t know about you, but I simply want to jump at this chance, because I know that God who is shown to us in Jesus is not a harsh master, reaping where God did not sow or gathering where God did scatter seed. I know that God who is revealed to us in Jesus is not a master who expects us to be afraid, who keeps us quaking in our boots. I know that the God who entered our world in Jesus wants to be in relationship with us.

So let’s follow Herzog’s invitation for a while by beginning with the servants. Herzog argues that:

The head of an elite household could not stay home if he intended to protect his interests and expand his influence. Not only would he travel to his estates but he would travel abroad in hopes of increasing his investments, initiating new business schemes, building patron-client networks, currying favor with imperial overlords, or perhaps representing his city in some official capacity. For the accumulation of his wealth, the basis of his power and prestige, to continue in his absence, he needed to entrust important portions of it to his household retainers. These powerful figures were not household slaves (oiketeria), although they may have very well have been called [servants], (douloi) to emphasize their dependence on their patron-master.

…the phrase… “to each according to his ability” …[may also] be translated “to each according to his power,” where power indicates rank or status.

So, we have a group of three household retainers, who have different ranks or statuses in the household. The most important one is given the most money; and the least important, the least for which to be responsible.

So, just how did the master (and therefore his retainers) make their money? What was the business in which they were engaged? Herzog continues:

The elites used their wealth to make loans to peasant farmers so that the farmers could plant the crops. Interest rates were high; estimates range to 60 percent and perhaps as high as 200 percent for loans on crops. The purpose of making such loans was not so much to make a large profit, at least by the standards of the ancient world, but to accept land as collateral so that the elites could foreclose on their loans in years when the crops could not cover the incurred indebtedness. Had the servants sought a more lucrative return, they might have contracted with a small manufacturing operation specializing in luxury items, because the only “markets” in the ancient world were the urban elites; to make money meant pandering to their lust for luxury. By combining the talents they had received with the raw goods extracted from the peasants who were controlled by their household, the servants had the means necessary to increase wealth. But to do so, they had to exploit the peasant or village base of the household, the merchants with whom they entered into a common venture, or the peasants to whom they made loans.

That sounds like these servant-retainers were placed in a very difficult position—not really of the elite; neither were they of the village because they had to do the master’s business with the people of the village in an exploitative system. The parable does not dispute that this is a master who reaps where he has not ploughed and gathers where he has not sown. But we all have to make a living, right?!

The first two servants got to work “at once” and doubled their investment even though the master is gone for “a long time.” Their industry reveals the zeal with which they work the system to make a handsome turn for the master, but it also reflects their desire to use some portion of that endowment to feather their own nests. First things first: the owner’s initial investment must be secured, then doubled; after that, the retainers can make their profit.

The first two servants were sucked into the system; and probably they didn’t have much choice—they needed to feed and clothe themselves and their families; but the system was exploitative; and just because one is a victim of a system doesn’t mean that one might not also be a perpetrator, or at least a perpetuator.

The third servant is different; and clearly the third servant is the “focus of the parable”. Obviously, the third servant “enjoys [something of] the master’s trust”. He is given some responsibility thought not nearly so much as the other two. Perhaps it is a test of whether he can bear the weight of further responsibility. It is certainly a test of what he values; and where his loyalties lie.

Herzog suggests that there was “a repertoire of scenarios available to Jesus” for the work of the third servant. Jesus could have had the servant entering “into partnership with the poor”, an act “greater than… charity” “according to the rabbis” of which Jesus was one. Instead Jesus depicts the third servant burying “the talent in the ground”. By doing this, according to Herzog, the third servant “takes the best available precaution against theft and liability”. He makes sure the money is safe because he knows he has a hard taskmaster; and he does not enter into business which might exploit others.

And yet, even though the third servant takes the safe option with the master’s money (and the non-exploitative one), he does not take the safe option when the master confronts him. The third servant does not use the fancy language of the formal exchanges that have just happened between the master and the first two servants. The third servant tells it like it is. The actions of the third servant would have astonished Jesus hearers, just as they are astonishing to us now—doing nothing with the money entrusted; and then speaking forthrightly with the master. Herzog puts it this way:

The third retainer cuts through the mystifying rhetoric that has dominated the exchange between the elite and his first two retainers, and he identifies the aristocrat for what he is, strict, cruel, harsh, and merciless… he shames his master through his unexpected attack...

In his wrathful retort, the aristocrat [master does not deny]… the truth of the servant’s description, [perhaps] because he understands [this way of business as acceptable]… But the third servant has named the master and his occupation from another point of view. He [has] exposed the sham of what has transpired and places it under the unobstructed light of … prophetic judgment…

The master’s judgment is immediate. Having spoken the truth, the servant must be vilified, shamed, and humiliated so that his words will carry no weight.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

For Herzog,

The hero of the parable is the third servant. By digging a hole and burying the aristocrat’s talent in the ground, he has taken it out of circulation. It cannot be used to dispossess more peasants from their lands through its dispersion in the form of usurious loans. By his actions, the third retainer dissociates himself from the system he has so cleverly exploited to attain his position of power and influence. No motivation is given or needs to be; a figure is known by his actions, not by his internal ruminations. When the hero speaks, he utters in the full light of day what he has learned in the dark; he reveals what has been covered beneath the public rhetoric of praise and promise, made known what has been hidden beneath the mystifications of the elites, proclaims clearly what has only been whispered among the elites and their retainers. The whistle-blower is no fool. He realizes that he will pay a price, but he has decided to accept the cost rather than continue to pursue his exploitive path.

“You wicked and lazy slave! You knew…”

The hero of the story is the third servant—the one who stands up to the domineering master who expected them to exploit their friends and neighbours for monetary gain. The parable becomes a story of the prophet who stands up to power and is punished for it; of a servant who shows to the truth to power and is destroyed for it.

In this reading of the story, the third servant is the Christ figure.

This reading of the story carries a different sort of warning—not an eschatological one, but a warning about expecting to be rewarded for following the way of Christ. Doing God’s will doesn’t mean riches and prosperity. It means standing against the corrupting influences of powerful people and the lure of money or prestige; and copping the results of that audacity.

So what does that mean for how we understand mission—God’s mission in the world and our part in it.

It doesn’t paint a picture of the grand success of wealth, popularity and status. It doesn’t affirm that if we do the right things we will get want we want. There is no prosperity gospel in this reading of the parable. Instead, it cautions us that the result of speaking the truth to power is destruction, but that is what we are called to do.

God’s mission in our world is not about the people of God being wealthy or popular or adulated. God’s mission in the world is about the reconciliation of Creation—all Creation. And that means the powerful need to be called to account; and the powerless given their status as the beloved children of God.

Through God’s graciousness, we are enfolded into God’s work in our world—it’s not our work, it’s God’s—but it’s not God’s if it’s not God’s—if it does not demonstrate the values of God’s realm—justice, peace, reconciliation.

How then do we assess our role in the mission of God? It’s got nothing to do with how many we are, how much we own, how popular we are, how much money we raise… It’s all about how we act in and for God’s world… and for that, we can never have any expectation of reward!

You wicked and lazy slaves! You know that there are those who reap where they do not plough, and gather where they do not sew; and you dare as God’s people to challenge that?

Reign of Christ Sunday

This is the last “feast day” of the Western liturgical (worship) calendar in the Revised Common Lectionary which the Uniting Church follows. It’s a fairly recent addition to Christian celebrations. Pope Pius XI instituted it in 1925 in the face of the rise of nationalism and secularism. It was included in Pope John XXIII’s revision of the church calendar in 1960; and in 1969, Pope Paul VI placed it on the last Sunday of the liturgical year—just before the beginning of the new year and Advent.

Through the liturgical renewal movement, spawned by the ecumenism of Vatican II, Protestant churches took it up and so it forms part of our lectionary (bible reading) cycle which is used by many mainline Protestant churches around the world.

It’s a radical feast that makes a definite political statement. Christ is the ruler of the cosmos; and the realm to which we owe our loyalty is God’s. Think of what is happening in Europe between the World Wars when the Pope instituted this feast. Think of what this feast was saying to would-be Kaisers, Kings and Presidents. This feast is a provocative one; and it should still be provocative to us. Where do our allegiances lie? What claims on our lives try to compete with the claims of God? Where are we being challenged to proclaim the reign of Christ?

In the Roman Catholic calendar, this feast is ranked with days like Pentecost and Trinity Sunday—days which make statements about important things that we believe: the work of the Spirit and the nature of God. So too, the Reign of Christ reminds us that the most important claim on our allegiance is that of the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ who claims us as the body of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

White (or gold) is the colour for this important day in keeping with its focus on honouring the work of Christ. It’s the same colour that we use on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day!

I’m not sure what an appropriate greeting on this significant day might be; but perhaps part of the acclamations of praise from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper might be suitable: “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”