John 12:1-8 Mary, Jesus, and that Perfume

 “As the best thing is love itself, not the benefits which it confers, there must be no censure of its lavishness as disproportionate.” (William Temple, Readings in St John’s Gospel, p. 191.) 

 Imagine your brother has just died and three days later Jesus turns up. Jesus does miracles. “If you had been here he would not have died.” (Jn 11:32) That’s Mary of Bethany. She then goes off to mourn at the tomb. Jesus follows and raises Lazarus from the dead. 

 When Lazarus died, Mary did not fully comprehend the significance of Jesus, and especially, the meaning of his death. She understands that Jesus has the power to perform miracles. She does not yet understand Jesus fully, though. She will witness the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, and then understand the miracle as a sign pointing to the meaning of the death of Jesus.

 Fast-forward to the anointing, and Mary now understands. She has seen Lazarus raised from the dead. Her brother is alive once more. Later, when Jesus is at table in her house she does not come to him to acknowledge the miracle as such. The miracle is a sign of something greater. She now understands the miracle as a sign, and she is the first to come to this understanding of the death of Jesus in the Gospel of John. This is why she anoints Jesus for his death. The miracle brought life where there was only death, and as a sign the raising of Lazarus points to the life-giving death of Jesus. The death of Jesus will bring life, eternal life, and the Spirit welling up in the heart of the believer. (Jn 7:37) Where there is death, now there is life. (Jn 12:23-24) The cross will not have the odour of death, to be imprisoned behind a stone (11:39). Instead, his death will have the aroma of extravagance and life that fills the house and will not be contained. (12:3 and 20:1)

John 12:1-8 is the gateway from the public ministry of Jesus (of signs pointing to the meaning of his death) into the narrative of the Passion, that is, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It can be read profitably with John 11. (See Jn 11:2) This larger chunk (from 11:1 – 12:8) retains a focus on the death of Jesus throughout. It begins with the raising of Lazarus, and continues with the plot to kill Jesus. (11:45-53)  Ironically and unknown to him, the high priest, in justifying the plot to kill Jesus, speaks the truth about the significance of Jesus’ death. (11:50-53) They will kill him to eliminate him, but Jesus will go to his death as the one sent from God to unite all the children of God. And then there is the duplicitous Judas, who will betray Jesus. (12:4-6) 

 Mapped over this focus on the death of Jesus is the movement of Mary from tepid, half-understood faith, to a disciple who comprehends. She anoints Jesus for his burial, having kept the perfume for this day of symbolic burial. (12:7) She has not anointed Jesus as king/messiah (see Mark 14:3-9), but in a similar fashion to the way in which Jesus’ washing of his disciples’ feet is symbolic of a total cleanse (13:8-10), this anointing speaks of future embalming. (R.H. Lightfoot, St John's Gospel. A Commentary, p. 236)  This anointing is not a symbolic purification of Jesus. Soon, Jesus will symbolically purify his disciples as he washes their feet, but Jesus does not need purification, he will purify others (cf. Hebrews) and is therefore worthy of this great act of extravagance and love.  “She responds to his self-giving love by giving her all, giving herself in a beautiful, foolish and scandalous way.” (Jean Vanier, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus Through the Gospel of John, p. 206)

Is it all over for the traditional church?

 We are living through an intense period of cultural self-flagellation, or, in other words, a cultural moment of criticism (directed at self and others), purges, confessions to all manner of 'sins', and virtue signalling. The gospel speaks directly to such cultural moments with its message of grace not works, universal sin, forgiveness, beauty and goodness (not perfection). But that is for another time. 

This cultural moment has played into the general collapse of confidence within traditional churches, at least amongst more traditional Anglicans in Adelaide. It is not uncommon to hear people say, dejectedly, that traditional Anglican churches will disappear in the next few decades, or that we will be gathering together in house churches like the first Christians, or something similar. And this is sometimes coupled with a confession of failure or inadequacy, for 'sins' past or present. (The 'sin' of liking traditional worship is common, as though that is, somehow, the problem.) This is not helped by prominent church management/growth material which is, if not explicitly, at least implicitly contrary to or ignorant of the strengths (and possible futures) of traditional churches. (Ah, for the day we have a church survey sensitive to the gifts and future of traditional churches!) 

Does it need to be said that reading the future through the lense of past and continuing decline misses the part human innovation plays in all our personal and corporate futures? Apparently it does. Traditional churches, contrary to the propaganda, are good at innovation precisely because they understand the base they spring from and to which they return. Moreover, one should not confuse traditional with being moribund. The stability provided by knowing where you come from (part of what it means to be traditional) and being familiar with your strengths to be reenvisioned and, at times, redeployed, will bear fruit in a culture doing its best to flatten people out. 

The task for the traditional church is not to drop the ball, and certainly not to give up, just as it is not to try and recreate the past. There will be a few traditional churches that can have a future through nostalgia, but most will find a future that is genuinely traditional, engaging, and faithful.

The task, then, is not to abandon the tradition but instead to tinker with how we deploy our resources in being traditional, helping those seeking depth and purpose to find a home in our congregations. Let's be nimble enough to be able to use in our traditional churches the church resources not particularly suited to us, yet still helpful and that at times make us feel a little uncomfortable about our lack of imagination.

That is, perhaps, one plea I make to leaders and clergy in traditional churches, and to congregations from whom support must come for traditional churches to have a future. We need to be more nimble with our use of and familiarity with the tradition as we mould a future, nimbly integrating insights and experience that will help us. 

Another important aspect of leadership in traditional churches is to fireproof the future of our churches. This is not building walls to keep out the world. This is about a sensible evaluation of our structural weaknesses (e.g. expensive property costs, smaller congregations) and determining how best to gather current resources and deploy them for the future so that our churches do not physically collapse. It is going to become harder and harder for congregations of historical, substantial suburban churches to be able to afford the major costs of roof restorations and replacement, for example. Redeployment of resources for the future while attending to the exigencies of discipleship-making now requires nimble leadership and wisdom from congregations.

In all of this, we shouldn't be surprised that traditional churches have declined in congregational numbers and place in society around. The cultural shifts that are accelerating have been going on for a long time. We can make some pretty good, broad-brush predictions about what future conditions for traditional churches will be like. Not only can we think about fireproofing our churches, but know the desirability of traditional churches re-establishing their presence in their local community (beyond fundraising and serving without explicit witness), while creating new, and honing existing, pathways for people to enter the world of faith.

I haven't mentioned God in all of this. So, before someone comments saying we should trust God, I remind you of the joke of the guy sitting on top of his house while the floodwaters rise, rise, and rise. The plank of wood floats past, the boat comes past, the helicopter (you can string it out for as long as it takes to make the point) ...

Thin Experiences and the Virgin Birth

I remember someone who told me that they had been surprised by gratitude. Not that they were ungrateful before. Perhaps they could be characterised as someone who found meaning without transcendence, without mystery, without anything more than what can be explained by science for example, that is, without God. A flattened reality, but as it turned out, a flat reality haunted by transcendence and mystery. I say that because they realised that they felt grateful. But to whom? It didn’t make sense. Who should they be grateful to when life was good? Maybe it is just luck? (No, hang on, isn’t luck/good fortune originally part of the Greek/Roman pantheon of gods?) If they were to be consistent they would either have to give up being grateful or embrace the truth that we are surrounded by mystery and transcendence. They chose gtatitude. I liked their honesty and consistency. 

 Gratitude is a very common experience. It’s worth thinking about. What does it mean to be grateful? Should it be expelled by telling oneself that it doesn’t make sense in a universe lacking inherent meaning and purpose? Possibly. But then again, maybe there is more to it. Maybe gratitude, the experience of gratitude, is one of those thin places of our lives where the ‘more’ of mystery and transcendence breaks through. 

 When I tried to be an atheist I lost beauty for similar reasons. I could still recognise beauty, of course. But beauty seemed more than skin deep to me. It ran deeper than my appreciation of it, there was ‘more’, another thin place where transcendence breaks through into our lives. The bond between us as people, human compassion and love, for similar reasons are thin places. You can explain our bondedness, compassion, and love if you wish in terms of evolutionary benefit to the species, but we often experience them as thin places where we sense the ‘more ‘ of reality.  And this mystery, this transcendence, this ‘more’, is never against our humanity, never against human experience, it deepens the truly human as we encounter what transcends us. 

 But the ‘more’ isn’t like a thin layer of icing on a cake that you can just peel off and throw away leaving the cake undisturbed. The ‘more’ is not an add-on. We can live as though it is, sure. That is the nature of the ‘more’ that I am talking about. Transcendence – the ‘more’ - suffuses our lives, yet we can live most of the time oblivious to the presence of transcendence. Thin experiences make us aware of the presence of what I am calling transcendence and mystery, the experience that there is a good deal ‘more’ in our lives and in reality, and mystery really is everywhere once we have our eyes opened. This is part of the religious impulse. When I tried to be an atheist I was unable to ignore this ‘more’ no matter how hard I tried. And why would I ignore it? Not just for the sake of consistency, but because more is on offer! 

 And so we come to Christmas. I know that the whole virgin birth thing might be difficult to believe. Or is it? When I read the accounts of the Gospels it seems to me that people experienced Jesus himself as a thin place. A thin place in the flesh, in person. That the mystery that surrounds us, that beckons us to a deeper experience of our humanity and of life, would become manifest personally as a human being, isn’t such an alien idea really. You could think of the virgin birth as another way of saying that mystery came among us, that the mystery surrounding us, that is deep within all reality, came to fruition in the womb of Mary. Those who can’t let anything exist outside of the test tube cannot accept what I am saying. But if you sense, like I do, that there is ‘more’ going on in your life, that you have thin experiences, then faith beckons. The mystery beyond us, yet that also encounters us so often if we have the eyes to see, this mystery, so beautifully matched to our human experience, of course it would become human. Of course. The experience of thin places in my life didn’t make me expect Jesus, but once I encountered Jesus, I understood the thin experiences of life better. Indeed, I understood that mystery and transcendence are embedded in the very fabric of my humanity.

The Surprising Mediator Between God and Humankind

This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one God
there is also one mediator
between God and humankind
Christ Jesus, himself human,
who gave himself a ransom for all. (1Timothy 2:3-6)

The baptism by John in the Jordan evokes some of the great moments in Israel's history, of failed covenantal righteousness and renewal offered. Think of the Exodus, liberation from slavery through the waters of the Red Sea. Think of the entrance into the Primised Land through the (temporarily) dry bed of the Jordan River. Followed by centuries of prophetic criticism and hope in a new covenant. 

In the Baptist, the offer of renewal is underway: a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Lk 3:3) in preparation for the coming of the messiah. (Lk 3:15-17) 

John preached for a response. (Lk 3:7-14) John called the people from their unfaithfulness and from the centres and people of power and importance into the wilderness (Lk 3:1-2), like returning from exile. (Lk 3:4-6)  
But there was a surprise in Jesus, the messiah. Jesus is God's radical turn to the sinner, displayed in a fashion that brought joy to some and opposition from others. In the table-fellowship of Jesus, his absolving of sins and healings, his relationship to the Law and the Temple, his parables and teaching, Jesus ran counter to the expectations of many. (cf Lk 7:18-23)

And this turn to the sinner is deepened in the cross. The rejection of Jesus by all leads to the greatest surprise: forgiveness of sins to those who rejected the offer of grace and forgiveness in the first place! And if that wasn't surprising enough, the one rejected is our acceptance of the offer of renewal. In Christ we are simulataneously forgiven and in his faithfulness, self-sacrifice, and surrender to God the covenant is fulfilled. The Law is written on a human heart. (The heart of Jesus, see Jer 31:31-34.) 

In Jesus we see that God is not a monster of our imaginations

When bad things happen it is easy to say something like, "What did I do to deserve this?" Probably nothing in the sense of the question above. God isn't punishing us when bad things happen. Of course, if we play with fire we get burnt, that is true. But that is not the same as saying that God is the author when bad things happen. This is so important. 'The gods' did bad things, just read Greek mythology! God does not. God dies on a cross for us, we did the crucifying, God did the rising. On the cross God judges human sin by being a victim of sin and raising the innocent Jesus from the dead. The risen Jesus sends out his disciples to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins, not vengeance. It would be wildly inconsistent for the Father of the Lord Jesus to then bring disaster down on our heads. 

People can also have a tendency to misinterpret history in a similar way. An earthquake is not God's punishment. We shouldn't impute to God the disaster that follows the earthquake. People seem to have been (and still are) infatuated with end-of-the-world scenarios. Whether divinely inspired or human-induced, people continue to guess the meaning of events and interpret them as coming from a malevolent or angry god (even secularised people have their own versions of this). In the past people have been obsessed with dating 'the end', and dates still figure prominently in all kinds of secular future dooms. Jesus tells us not to misinterpret the events of history. He knew people would say all kinds of things in his name, and make all kinds of claims. So he explicitly says, don't be fooled by false messiahs, and don't see God as the author of disasters. Disasters, whether human-inspired or not, will come, but don't make God out to be a monster. (See Mark 13:1-8) 

The event to correctly interpret is Jesus, his birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. God's response to suffering, evil, and death is not to make more of it. God’s response is to overcome suffering, evil, and death by surrendering to its power. Jesus, born in a stable, crucified and raised, interprets our history. We are loved, and in Christ our future is secure, even if it doesn't feel that way at times.

The Lord our God, the Lord is One (Mark 12:28-34)

South Australian Year 12 school exams are just around the corner. When I sat for my Year 12 final exams over 40 years ago the outcome wasn't particularly noteworthy. I had already peaked at school, a year or so back. The problem for me was that I couldn't see the point of what I was doing. Not that the benefit of schooling was lost on me. And I could see possible pathways ahead. And there wasn't and still isn't anything wrong with any of those pathways. It's just that I wanted the answer to the "Why?" behind the options of life. I lacked a comprehensive meaning to bind it all together, a meaning that could infuse my life and make a more complete (rather than relative) sense of any particular path I would take. A way of sifting what was on offer, and finding my place in a deeper and broader meaning. 

It still reminds me of a few pages in Walter Kasper's, The God of Jesus Christ (1), on the ancient world's quest for 'the One' lying behind the multiplicity of the world around. Without a binding, unifying 'One' behind the multiplicity the plethora of 'stuff' around us teeters on meaninglessness, amounting to arbitrary and haphazard encounters. They might have a relative meaning, but without the meaning of a unifying force behind them, the bits of our lives eventually appear arbitrary or haphazard. Like the horizon which makes the foreground comprehensible, without a background of unity the multiplicity of the world 'would be nothing but a dust-heap piled up at random and lacking any order and meaning." (p. 235) That's what my future felt like, all those years ago. (I couldn't verbalise it like that back then.) 

Another example. Sometimes a young person attempts to consume as many experiences as possible, hungrily, voraciously, as though in the cumulative consumption of each experience one will find meaning. Sometimes this happens at the other end of life, after a realisation that one's days are numbered. Not necessarily anything wrong in any of the experiences, but in the end, a life of cumulative, relative experiences or meanings is, in my experience, not enough. Living is more than discrete experiences, no matter how many and varied.

And if we were to think of this unity behind the multiplicity as 'the One' (and we wouldn't be alone in the history of religion and philosophy), we would not be referring to a numerical oneness. It is the oneness of unity, completeness, providing an overarching meaning and purpose. Unity, but also uniqueness, for there can be no other, no other source, no other comprehensive meaning, or else we are back to multiplicity. And this 'One' is universal in its completeness and uniqueness, 'the One' for all peoples.

The above is not unrelated to Jesus' use of Deut 6:4-5 in answer to a question about the commandments: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. (Mark 12:29) But my discussion above is not the source of Israel's affirmation of the oneness of God. Israel encountered God, and through that encounter over the centuries came to see that the God of Exodus and Exile is also the God of creation: one, complete, unique, and universal, transcendent if you like.

But there is more to the story of this encounter. In Christ God revealed to us that 'the One' is love. The unity and completeness that is the source and ground of creation is love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Not just loving, but God is love. See 1John 4:7-12.)

And encounter is where my story after Year 12 took me. I encountered God in Christ afresh, and over the years have come to discover 'the One' behind the multiplicity, the God who brings a unity and completeness, meaning and purpose to what is otherwise teetering on the arbitrary. It was a  journey from both ends, in the beginning the implicit search from the dead-end of multiplicity without unity, and then from the other end the active encounter with God in Christ (who is the unity implied in the dead-end).

My story is not unique. Many people feel the "dust- heap piled up at random and lacking any order and meaning." But the One beckons at the end of the cul-de-sac of disparate multiplicity, if we can feel it with heart and mind. Then we have entered the ground of encounter.  We need encounter to break through the cul-de-sac from the other side, so to speak. And in and through that encounter (whatever form it might take) integrate the past of relative incoherence into a concrete meaning and purpose transcending any single experience or meaning. Coming to Christ is an encounter, for it was only in encounter - cross and resurrection - that we learnt that God is love, and that love is the sole criterion for meaning and purpose, as Jesus says in today's Gospel reading.

1. Kasper, Walter. The God of Jesus Christ. New York: Crossroad, 1988

On God’s Love, Spiritual Discipline, and the Freedom of Patience

In Jesus and the Spirit the Father has shared with us God’s (the Holy Trinity’s) own life with us. Not just that God loves us, but much more than that. God is love, and we live in that love. There is not another face of God inconsistent with the face of Jesus. The Breath/Spirit of God is the Spirit of that Jesus shared with us. What we see in Jesus – this is what God is, really. Moreover, there is nothing more that the Father can give us. There is nothing more intimate than the Son and the Breath/Spirit of God. Everything we can receive has been given. There is nothing God is withholding, waiting for us to earn. Everything is given – what more can there be than the love that is God? The effect of what God has done in Jesus and given in the Spirit is still working its way through our lives and, indeed, the whole of creation. But we have been and are lavishly blessed by God. 

 To live into what has been so lavishly bestowed on us requires new habits of thought and feeling, and this means practicing the spiritual disciplines to allow the sense of the presence of God to blossom. That makes it sound like hard work. And while part of the Christian calling is to learn some new habits of awareness and gratitude, the answer is not always an intense discipline, but a freedom and patience that waits for God in our lives. This might sound strange, but often the less intense we are while faithfully engaging in the spiritual practices the more likely the presence of God will be unveiled in our life now and in our past. After all, joy can’t be manufactured, it is a gift.

Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God.

Create in me a clean heart, O God. (Psalm 51:1) 

[And that is exactly what God has done in Christ.]

God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Rom 5:5) 

In a particularly difficult time in my life I had a dream that I remembered the next morning. In the dream I was in a large gathering, robed, and in the Gospel procession to the middle of the large crowd. The Gospel Book was opened and I was about to read and realised that the wrong reading was open. But I spoke the good news of the gospel (it was John 10, the Good Shepherd) to the crowd, but I read it by heart. 

I was talking to someone recently who told me of an occasion when they forgave someone for something most people might bear a grudge over. It was like it just flowed out of her heart. She didn’t need to coerce herself, fight with herself over what to do. I said it sounded like a flowering of her heart, like she knew the good news by heart and lived it. (It reminded me of my dream.) 

The problem was recognised in the Hebrew Scriptures. We are told that God is not swayed by outward appearance, but looks on the heart. (1Sam 16:7) And what is in the human heart? After the flood, God promises to never again curse the ground because of humankind, for evil dwells in every human heart. (There’s no simple solution to evil, like killing off the bad people to leave the good people.) The problem is the human heart. (Gen 9:21) Jesus teaches this too: it is what comes out of a person, from within, from the heart, that defiles a person. (Mark 7:21-23) What is to be done? The Psalmist cries out to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” (51:1) The problem is the human heart, and the solution is for God to cleanse the human heart. The prophet Jeremiah recognises this when he contrasts the old covenant with the new covenant. Instead of the law being written on stone tablets that must be inculcated into the human heart, God will write the law on our hearts, and we will come to know God by heart, and ourselves as God’s people. (Jer 312:31-34. See also Ezek 36:26; Matt 26:27-28; Rom 2:29) Or to put it another way, God will replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. (Ezek 11:19-20) 

The transformation of the human heart is accomplished in Jesus. Jesus knows God by heart. God begins the new creation with Jesus. His heart is God's heart, our heart. But it is not as if Jesus just glides through life serenely oblivious to the temptations and despair of life, as though his heart is insulated from real life because it is God’s heart. On the contrary, Jesus has a true heart of real human flesh. His heart makes him more open and vulnerable, and through him, we are opened to this real human heart. His via dolorosa is the way of a human heart. 

In the same way, the rebuilding of our hearts into hearts of flesh does not insulate us from the world. There are many ingredients necessary for the spread of the good news of salvation in Jesus, not least his disciples opening the door of their hearts to their neighbour and inviting them in.

The Epithet of Sinner (John 6:56-69)

In today's Gospel reading (John 6:56-69) those who follow Jesus are being pared back. They are a remnant of what they were. Jesus collected quite an array of followers, but over the course of his ministry they disappeared. The righteous are being thinned out. Today, they are thinned out because of his teaching about the bread of life and consuming him for eternal life.  And in the end Jesus would lose all his followers, and he, Jesus, would be the remnant, the righteous one. His righteousness covers me, that’s part of being redeemed. Being crucified to my old self, the self that makes crosses and all sorts of metaphorical crosses for others. 

So I like the epithet of sinner. Not just sinner. Redeemed sinner. It’s why Christians don’t mind being named as sinners. We are redeemed. But often we think of ‘sinner’ as a judgment on us. A source of shame, and a state we should escape from. Not being a sinner is preferable to being a sinner. But I prefer to see ‘sinner’ as a way of being that is my identity, how I am in the world. Not as a description that can and should be jettisoned as soon as possible. I think of ‘sinner’ as something almost permanent; this is how I am. Not a layer poured over the top of who I am that I could peel off at some point (if I stopped doing bad things perhaps) and resume being me. I think redeemed sinner is who I am. Sounds negative, and the world rejects and avoids such an epithet. (“I'm not one of those...”) Or sometimes it is embraced as an expression of a deep dislike of self. (“I’m worse than everyone else.”) But for me it is always redeemed sinner, and that changes everything. 

But doesn’t "redeemed" mean that I am no longer a sinner? No, better to keep ‘sinner’ than not. Here’s why. Sinners redeemed in Christ know that they are loved. Not because of their own righteousness (the remnant is Jesus, not Jesus and me), but because of God’s unearned and freely given mercy and love. I receive and therefore my reconstitution comes from gift. That’s what it means to be a redeemed sinner. 'To be' because of gift, the gift of love, or more precisely, the gift of a relationship of love. It changes how I see the world. It’s all gift. I am built up by receiving, in thankfulness, not in grasping or resentment. What I learn as a redeemed sinner becomes a prism through which to see all of life. It is the beginning of joy and the scent of the peace that passes all understanding.

Crucifying the Dividing Walls of Humanity

I know that the obvious boundary in the Bible is Old/New Testaments. I prefer to make the split Genesis 1-11 and the rest. Genesis 1-11 contains those stories we might say are universal. I read them and understand that I am being described, as is the world, and our universal, human predicament.  (E.g. Noah and the flood, here.) God's response we read about from Genesis 12. (Here.) The universal predicament of humankind brings a particular response, God's call to Abraham and Sarah to leave their secure home and to wander the promised land in faith, and God promises that through them all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Gen 12:1-3.) Paul makes much of this (Rom 4 & Gal 3) including that marvellous claim that this blessing to the Gentiles is the Gospel! (Gal 3:8) This blessing is manifest in the union of humankind through the dismantling of the barriers that divide us. (Acts 2:1-11 compare Gen 11:1-19 see here, here, here) These barriers that divide us are universal, and our universal predicament. They have as their root human envy, rivalry, arrogance, and the violence to maintain and create dividing walls, all to be found in increasing intensity as we read through Gen 1-11. Christ saves us from this predicament, by bringing us, Jew and Gentile, together through the cross. (Ephes 2:16, but Jew/Gentile as paradigms of all dividing walls, see Gal 3:27-29.)  And that is the extraordinary thing. Crosses maintain the barriers. Jesus, accused blasphemer, crucified to maintain the wall that divides, brings us together through that very instrument of violence and division. Through Jesus, handed over into the hands of sinners yet vindicated in the resurrection, Satan's ruse (here) is unmasked for those with eyes to see. That which divides us - the accusations, the pride, the rivalry, all of it - and that crucified Christ, is now crucified to us so that it is Christ who lives in us. (Gal 2:20)  

This is why St Paul rails against division and the sort of attitudes and behaviours that cause it. (1Cor 1:10-17, and notice he then launches into his great proclamation of the power of the cross, 1:18-25. See also Rom 12:3; 1Cor 8; 11:17-22; Gal 5:16-26.) Division in the church insults the Gospel itself, for our unity in Christ is integral to the Gospel, not an added on extra. If you don't believe me search and see how often Paul links poor behaviour and its renewal to the death of Christ and the death of our old nature. (E.g. Col 3:5-17.) And notice how Paul's explanation of faith, law, grace, and justification can lead to his reflections on God's promise to Abraham. (See Rom 1-3 leading into Rom 4, and then keep reading into Rom 5! Also, Gal 2:15-21 leading into Gal 3.) 

In an age of intensifying polarization, with accusation and counter-accusation, here is a mission for the traditional church. Traditional churches eschew fads, do not have a cause derived from Jesus (that is a cause having a life apart from Jesus) and are wary of the heightened emotionalism and easy judgements of the mob. Nurturing this and living into our unity in Christ, while still holding a variety of opinions on different topics (often divisive topics in the world around us) is not an easy road. But because it is the gospel itself it includes cross-work (Mark 8:34-35) but also freedom and human dignity, and the whiff of resurrection.

Virtual Choirs, Perfection, Clay Jars, and Making Space for Each Other

Recently I listened to a choir conductor explain the process of creating a virtual choir performance. It requires skill, but also a sensitivity to the human because the best virtual choir performances won't be 'perfect' if they are to sound beautiful. Perfection, when put together by a computer program will sound robotic and manufactured. In creating a virtual choir performance slight 'imperfections' are introduced to make the performance not just beautiful to the ear but also human. What a great metaphor for being human, and the church for that matter.

We are clay jars (2Cor 4:7-15), but who prefers the factory manufactured clay piece to the piece of art that has within it the 'imperfections' of the human hand? The more perfect, the less human, generally. And we recognise this on the screen in those dystopian movies and TV shows that have regimented societies seeking perfection by brainwashing and violence. History is replete with real-life examples. Thank God the preferred human way of fashioning human perfection is not God's way of bringing the metamorphosis of transformation! God works with our imperfection and makes something beautiful from them.

This is not to abandon the call to perfection. (Matt 5:43-48 cf Luke 6:32-36) But it is to make space for each other's imperfections. There is something beautiful about the 'making space'. And this 'making space' is to make space for our mutual imperfections without condoning or condemning ourselves or anyone else. And in this space, we seek the transformation that comes through God's love discovered in our mutual love of one another.

Last week I spoke of the space that the cross gives human beings. (Here.) God provides space for us to be who we are, even to the point of crucifying the Son of God. And it is in this space of weakness (1Cor 1:18-25) that God brings the transformation of forgiveness and resurrection. It is a space of mutual forbearance, but not of carelessly inflicting our imperfections on each other. It is a space of discipline and a space for repentance, for experiencing the love of God in forgiveness without any hint of self-rejection.

Who is this? Mark 4:35-41

 Without the cross, the answer to the question (about Jesus) "Who is this?" pops out wrong. But with the cross and the resurrection of the crucified, the answer is Christianity. Because of the cross and the resurrection of the crucified:

1. Christianity has a sensitivity to the voice of the victim and the human tendency to scapegoat. Where Christianity has taken root in a culture so too has the moral high ground of victimhood. (Look at the West now and the place of the voice of the victim. But this sensitivity is meant to be coupled with conversion to Jesus and his way of forgiveness to prevent making new victims.)

2. Christianity teaches of a God who is sympathetic to the human condition, for in Jesus God has suffered with us in the flesh. And it is through this suffering and death as a victim of human sin that God has brought about union with us. A union with us at our lowest point, i.e. as sinners.  (See Rom 5:6-11) One can never get to this spiritual insight without the cross (and resurrection) of Jesus.

3. And then, this crucified Jesus, now risen, offers forgiveness, not vengeance or 'justice'. (John 20:19-23) There is no line in the sand that to step over brings destruction. Instead, we discover the patience of God and space for human freedom, and the means to be transformed through repentance and forgiveness.  (2Peter 3:8-9) 

4. And in the space (to sin) that we see in the cross of Jesus, we see also a model of what creation is like. As Creator God does not transgress our freedom but gives creation space and its own integrity to be who we are, and in that space to be transformed by love. (1John 4:7-12)

5. To be Christian is to know God's love revealed in Christ and his cross and resurrection. And to be judged by this love, not the judgment of others or the judgment of self-loathing. This love that has given all and reaches the depths of who we are, asks of us everything. For it is in the spiritual renunciation of all that we believe we are that we transcend the boundaries of our current humanity, bringing to light that which is hidden. In other words, we learn to be loved and to love.

The Kingdom of God is Like a Weed

 Jesus likens the kingdom to a weed. (The mustard seed grows into a weed.) So the kingdom isn't the project you are doing in the shed, it is to be found behind the shed in the unkempt part of the yard not usually visible from where all the action is happening. That's funny. It must have provoked at least a little snigger amongst some, while others may have been a little offended.

These days it is difficult to find someone in the church who doesn't recognise the danger of identifying our pet projects with the kingdom. We know that when we give our hearts to pet projects (that is, the pet project becomes an idol, displacing the kingdom from its place of honour in our hearts), all kinds of problems and disasters occur. Idols always distort those who worship the idol and the outcomes. 

If avoiding making our pet projects into idols were as easy to say as do, I suppose human history would look significantly different to what it actually does. And this isn't just for religious people. Pet projects become ideologies, driving adherents to say and do all sorts of crazy stuff. Like any idol.

And this is why the parable of the mustard seed is so helpful. It's a warning against pet projects. Even when we think the pet project is the kingdom. Even when the pet project begins in kingdom-type activity. It's just too easy to equate what we are doing and thinking with the kingdom. We all decry the empire-building of yesteryear but are happy enough to think that when we act justly or evangelise (or whatever it is your church tradition values in particular) that we are doing God's work. Well, yes, possibly. But it is a slippery slope, and is why history looks like it does.

I could just say, let's hang loose people. Let's not invest too much in our pet projects. But how to give (of self) genuinely and hang loose? How to avoid becoming tepid? (Neither hot nor cold, see Revelation 3:16.) Well, keep looking behind the shed. That's the point of the parable, or at least part of it. Keep looking behind the shed. And when we do, and we see the weeds growing, let the weeds take your interest for a while. We can divide our attention, which is a good, practical way to get our hearts off the pet project and (at least potential) idol in the shed. God is doing all kinds of stuff, not just our pet project. It might be time to move on from the pet project. The kingdom requires nimbleness.

Here is a parallel from the Christian tradition. People hunger for spiritual experiences. Christians have always hungered for spiritual experiences, and when an 'experience' is granted, hang on to the experience. And not just Christians, it seems that many contemporary people are hungering for 'spiritual' experiences, although who knows exactly what the world thinks it means by 'spiritual'. Anyway, the advice from the Christian tradition is not to hang onto the experience. The experience may well be helpful, but hang onto it and it will become less and less helpful until it has the opposite effect. Kind of like how the pet project can become an idol. The advice is to just go back to praying, like normal, and leave behind the experience. The experience has done what it was meant to do. Move on. And that is part of the problem with seeking a  'spiritual experience', it feels like it is helping us grow, but it will actually stop us from moving and growing in a relatively short space of time.

Or another parallel. In the Christian tradition, God is more unlike than like any image or thought we have of God. Words and images have the tendency to become replacements for God, that is, idols. Or, less dramatic, prevent us from continuing our journey into and with God. We get stuck. Just like spiritual experiences, we can get stuck. Just like pet projects. We can get stuck. The kingdom is moving on, let's keep looking, moving, joining, looking, moving ...

Satan Casting Out Satan

 When the opponents of Jesus turn up accusing him of being in league with Satan (Mark 3:22) he doesn't so much as deny it as play with it. It is not the ones we humans expel as evil/immoral/ etc who are in league with Satan, but the accusers (who believe themselves to be righteously casting out Satan) who are in league with Satan, the great accuser: Satan casting out Satan. (3:23)

This dynamic of expulsion is played out among us and through human history. It seems good and right, even necessary to expel. And its effects of a temporary peace (by expelling the supposed source of conflict/sin) reinforce and support the sense of virtue retained/regained. But this peace is temporary, for a house divided is inherently unstable. (3:24-26)

And Jesus will ransack the strong man's house by first disarming him, like a thief. (Mark 3:27; compare Matt 24:43, 1Thess 5:2, 2Pet 3:10, Rev 16:15) The strong man is Satan, and he will do this on the cross. Satan will cast out Satan, and Jesus, in the disguise of a criminal and immoral person rightly crucified, the lie of accusation will be unmasked and God's vindication of Jesus in the resurrection will give us eyes to see.

This is scapegoating, Satan casting out Satan. When we participate in scapegoating we are in league with the diabolical. Of course, we all think we would never do such a thing. No one ever does think that, we always think we are innocently and righteously identifying the problem (someone else). All kinds of self-righteousness accrue.  Social causes are vulnerable to being pulled into the diabolical. (Its why someone always ends up against the wall when the revolution comes.) Whatever you think of the righteousness of a pet cause (to say this should immediately give pause), the conditions for just such scapegoating are visible around us. 

The lie that allows humans to be content in self-righteousness is best maintained if the scapegoat is guilty of something. That way the fiction of their (whoever they are) guilt can have at least an air of credibility. Scapegoating pops up as sides and causes are taken, and as victims (of evil) and perpetrators (of evil) are discovered and denounced. Satan casting out Satan. As mentioned, it is best if there is some element of guilt present and some element of ostensible (self-)righteousness. But the guilt need not be related directly to the 'crime', only tangentially. But when the invective rises and continues to rise, when we are all forced to take a side, or when to not take a side is to be accused of being on the wrong side of history (siding with evil), Satan is casting out Satan.

Following Jesus asks us to be sensitive to the victims of the diabolical who are innocent of the crimes heaped on them (not necessarily innocent). To be a follower of Jesus is to renounce the false peace and feelings of righteousness that flow from Satan casting out Satan. At a minimum, to be Christian and part of a Christian community is to find our communion in love and forgiveness, not in expulsion.

Am Important Detail at Pentecost

Acts 2:1-12 tells the story of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples after the Ascension of Jesus. It is easy to miss the significance of a small detail embedded in the story. It is crucial that the disciples are given diverse tongues rather than the hearers enabled to understand the (single) dialect of the disciples. Imagine if it were around the other way, with the listeners enabled to understand the one language. Christianity would be another religion, a religion in which God's word is uncluttered with the varieties of human culture, indeed of human experience. A religion that perceived variety as an impediment to unity, or should I say, an impediment to uniformity.

    Christianity affirms that humans don't have to be translated into a monoculture.  We don't have to reject who we are, where we come from, how we have learnt to be human, to be Christians. Hence the church's commitment to translating the gospel into the language of the people. Christianity is a religion in which variety is celebrated, and this variety is not an impediment to our unity.  There still remains a gospel to be heard, and this gospel will change us and the languages and cultures in which we express ourselves. While retaining its integrity, the gospel is accommodated to the human family in all of its variety. We don't become who we aren't to be able to hear the good news.

Not that this little detail in the Acts story begins God's accommodation to the variety of the human family and all creation.  The pedigree stretches way back.  Most especially so in the Incarnation, with God becoming human in Jesus so that we can share in God's life as human beings. (John 1:14; 2Corinthians 8:9) 

    And this story is not the only example of Christianity's insight that variety is not the enemy of unity. Christianity likes bringing together that which is usually separated. A doctrinal example is the doctrine of the Incarnation. According to the belief of the church expressed in the creeds,  Jesus is not a mish-mash of divine and human, nor some divinised quasi-human. Think here, for example, of the Creed of Chalcedon, 

... without confusion or change, without division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together ... 

The union of that which is usually apart - divine and human. This union provides us with a glimpse of our future in God: union with God without our diminishment (or God's).  But if Jesus were in some way not fully human and fully divine the little detail in the Pentecost story would have to be the other way around. And we would have to change St Paul's reflection in 1Corinthians 12 (especially vv 4-7) on the variety of gifts given to the church. So too the Christian insistence that our final fulfilment is not to be dissolved back into some great sea of being, but to be who we are, in Christ united with the Father, through the Holy Spirit. (1Cor 15:20-28.) And we would have to change our doctrine of creation. In Christianity God not only permits 'the other'/creation, but loves creation, providing creation with its own integrity. (Christianity is not pantheism.)

    All of these examples speak of God's sensitivity to our particularity and personhood, and the variety of all creation in which God delights. So, of course, when the Spirit is given the disciples speak in diverse languages rather than the Spirit squeezing the listeners into a cultural straightjacket.

Glorified Wounds

 Jesus is the Lord who came to save us by dying for us on the cross. The wounds in Jesus' glorified body remind us of the way in which we are saved. But they also remind us that our own wounds are much more than roadblocks on our way to God. They show us our own unique way to follow the suffering Christ, and they are destined to become glorified in our resurrected life. Just as Jesus was identified by his wounds, so are we. (Henri Nouwen)

The Wounds of Jesus are Not an Embarrassment

 The wounds of the Risen One are neither an embarrassment nor inconvenient.  The cross was not a mistake that needed Plan B to correct. If the wounds of Jesus were an embarrassment or an inconvenience we would not have an account of a Christophany of the Wounded-Risen One.  It is almost like Jesus wants his disciples to see his wounds.

In popular culture the afterlife is portrayed in ethereal terms with at least the world of suffering and death a past memory, or perhaps even ignored. Think of Dumbledore and Harry P speaking near the end of the movie series in a railway station of sorts. Like an escape from reality, a dualism with the unreal afterlife wholly disconnected from the evil world from which he has escaped. Not so the resurrected Jesus. He is no bodyless spirit or vision. The resurrection takes all that we are, and our histories, into God's future and transforms us. Resurrection has nail holes.

We should be rattled. Imagine seeing a dead man who is so visibly alive as the risen Christ yet has all the wounds of death. The kind of wounds that kill. It isn't enough to say that such a person is alive. It would be better to say that a dead man is alive. And that doesn't make any sense, or at least not in the way we ordinarily think of life and death. It wasn't just a matter of God reversing the death of Jesus, as though death was banished. It is more like God gave life to a dead man who remains dead, except that death has lost its sting, its meaning, and its power. Life and death, as two sides of the one coin as we experience life and death, no longer mean what we think they mean. Christ is risen!

I like that little bit in Colossians where we are told God made a public example of the rulers and authorities, triumphing over them in the cross. (2:15) When the risen Jesus flashes his wounds to his disciples (John 20:20; Luke 24:39-40) he is making a public example of his victory over death and the power of death. Not the public example of a Roman general in a Triumph. Indeed, the evidence of the triumph of God in Christ is exactly what Rome would see as signs of defeat. But, because Christ is raised (not just alive again instead of being dead), death has lost its sting, death has lost its meaning and power, the wounds of Christ are his Triumph.

The Hand and Feet of Jesus

 Jesus' hands and feet were not just anyone's hands and feet, but the signs of his real bodily presence. They were the hands and feet of Jesus marked with the wounds of his crucifixion. It is of great spiritual importance that Jesus made himself known to his disciples by showing them his wounded body. The resurrection has not taken his wounds away but, rather, they had become part of his glory. They had become glorified wounds. (Henri Nouwen)

The Death of Jesus v the Death of Socrates

The death of Socrates is very different from the death of Jesus. Socrates dies with equanimity, almost elegance. With a bit of philosophizing, he helps others see the necessity of his death, and so he then dies with great dignity. This is very different from Jesus. Jesus sweats blood. Forget the question of whether that is physically possible. It's a great metaphor for Jesus' inner anguish as he approaches death. 

At the last supper, Jesus gives a portion of bread to his betrayer. Is this an act of forgiveness, an offering of his 'body'? (See here.) Whatever you think of that, one can't help feel the poignancy of the moment. Jesus' world is collapsing and he still offers the bread to Judas. And then Jesus makes his way to Gethsemane. He needs his friends as his world darkens, but they fall asleep. "Take this cup from me ..." The God who has been so diligently responsive throughout his public ministry is now silent. Where will this end? On the cross, with loud crying (Hebrews 2:7) and a cry of lament, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His inner turmoil is apparent as he experiences God's absence. Jesus dies a lonely, isolated figure, and I feel our common humanity in his suffering and anguish, made intolerable by desertion and godforsakenness. His end is extreme, but we know something of anguish, isolation, and suffering. 

Jesus' death is so different from the death of Socrates. It is hard to imagine Socrates crying over anyone, but Jesus cried over Jerusalem. Jesus felt a deep sympathy with those he healed, so much so that the New Testament says that, in respect of his healing ministry, Jesus 'took our infirmities and bore our diseases.' (Matt 8:17. See Isaiah 53:4-6.) Jesus is no philosopher like Socrates. He is a High Priest offering himself in the depths of his humanity and ours for the salvation of the world, a path that leads right through the middle of suffering not around it. Jesus could relate to people and heal them: not because he was distant from them, but because he knows us from the inside. (Heb 2:14-18) And it is why we can relate to God through him. We are not leaving behind our humanity when we come to God through Jesus, but are invited into a more intimate sharing of our common humanity. We are not less prone to inner anguish, but more prone to feel the world and its pain. 

Is Forgiveness a Duty?

Is forgiveness a duty? Is it the case that if we don’t forgive others, then God won’t forgive us? Do we have a responsibility to hand God’s forgiveness of us on to others? And are we obliged to forgive others so we can break the cycle of revenge? That's duty, and it has its place. But the motivation for forgiveness is love, not duty. 

   

But what is the alternative to dutifully 'forgiving' someone if we can't really forgive them? Well, if we are not able to forgive the alternative is not to tell ourselves that we should forgive others. The alternative is an act of will not to seek revenge against that person, and to guard against subtle acts of retaliation. There is a level of authenticity in this kind of non-aggression. We are not trying to make out everything is fine. And it doesn’t extend the harm that has already occurred. And then we can do the spiritual disciplines that I outlined previously. (Here). Maybe, one day, we will forgive the other party.

This question is similar to helping others out of a sense of guilt. The motivation for forgiving others or helping others matters. St Paul says we can do all sorts of incredible feats of self-sacrifice, but without love, nothing is gained. (1Cor 13:1-3) Acting out of guilt is really about us. Helping others out of guilt is then really about us, not the ones we help. And the 'help' we offer is very easily skewed or distorted when it is offered for our benefit.  Moreover, guilt is too closely related to self-disgust to take us very far. And guilt doesn’t build a future but is stuck in the past. 

And responding to the needs of others out of guilt will bring unintended consequences. For example, let’s say someone is feeling guilty about the blessings in their life so they decide to be ‘generous’ in money/time/goods toward those they perceive to be less fortunate. And isn’t it handy that the recipient of the largesse then comes to depend on the ‘generosity’ of the giver! I say 'fortunate' because then the feelings of guilt can be easily assuaged. Almost like a vending machine. Whole industries of charity are built on evoking this ‘generosity’. 

 In the same way, forgiving someone wallowing in guilt won’t relieve their guilt but more likely feed it. The person feeling guilty feels a little better after being forgiven, encouraging them to seek forgiveness over and over. A kind of moral addiction if you like, and Christianity calls such addiction salvation by works. (Or these days we might call it virtue signalling.) And the moral addiction easily becomes a moralistic addiction seeking out other sinners to denounce. We have a plague of this at the moment in western societies. 

 But to return to the original question: do we have a duty to forgive others? Duty ultimately skews relationships. It is good to remember that. We might think that we should at least mouth forgiveness for the benefit of the person seeking forgiveness. Maybe, but inauthenticity on our part won’t get them very far. Remember, a genuinely remorseful person won’t necessarily require us to forgive them. That's because they won't be seeking forgiveness for their sake but to heal a relationship as best as can be done. So they will let us have our feelings and our work to do rather than require us to forgive them. And genuine remorse means the person has already done some of the work themselves about their actions, who they are, and the future. 

Contrast this with the person who needily seeks forgiveness. They will need more than a show on our part. They could come to church and authentically open themselves to the One who has already forgiven them so as to heal and lead them beyond their neediness.