Jesus the Innocent Victim (Lent Study Week 4, 2013)

Jesus the Innocent Victim

Please read Luke 23:32-49 (or segment)

Notes

Troyes (part) altarpiece

1. The passage is drenched in irony. Those who mock Jesus reject him as the messiah and the points of mockery are exactly why he is the messiah.
2. Even to the end Jesus is faithful to his mission in obedience to his Father. He has preached non-retaliation and forgiveness, invited the sinner to experience God’s acceptance through healing and fellowship, and now he prays that the Father will forgive his executioners and those who mock him. (23:34)
3. The mockery reiterates the charge of blasphemy against Jesus and deflates the expectations that his healing ministry encouraged.
4. The innocence/righteousness of Jesus is recognised by two unlikely characters, one of the criminals executed with him and the centurion (Lk 23:47 cf Mk 15:39) presumably in charge of his crucifixion. (See also 23;4, 14-16) The faithful death of Jesus evokes a change of heart amongst some of the onlookers (23:48 cf 18:13) and strengthens the resolve of even a member of the council. (23:50) The unanimity that bound together all those who condemned Jesus is beginning to unravel.

Some Questions

Have you ever discovered you were part of a unanimity of condemnation that was later proved a misjudgment? (That is, the person was innocent of the charges.)

Can you remember how you were persuaded to join in? 

And how was it that you discovered that the charges against the accused were false?

What happened next?

Where was God in all this?

And can you remember a time you were wrongly accused? Where was God in this experience?

Final Thoughts

1. The resurrection is the vindication of Jesus and the sign that those who judged Jesus, and the judgements made about him, were wrong.
   
   
2. Beware joining the unanimous crowd of condemnation! Beware the tight arguments we form in our own heads that justify our condemnation of someone we are in dispute with.
   
   
3. The resurrected Christ, still faithful to the Father, preaches repentance and forgiveness of sins, not retaliation. The disciples are wtinesses to this Jesus.

Being Formed By the Whole Story of Scripture

This is important I think.

Eating and Drinking with Jesus (Lent Study Week 3, 2013)

Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano

Luke 5

vv 1-11 Jesus calls first disciples

12-16 Jesus cleanses a leper

17-26 Jesus heals a paralytic

27-28 Jesus calls Levi

29-32 Jesus invited to a banquet

33-39 Jesus and celebration

Luke 7

v 34 “a glutton and a drunkard” See Deut 21:18-21

36-50 “... hence she has shown great love.”

Luke 14

vv 1-6 Eating and curing on the sabbath

7-14 Humility, who to invite

15-24 Bring in the poor, crippled and lame

Luke 22:14-23 Last Supper

Luke 23:43 Paradise as a banquet, see Isaiah 25:6-9

1. Jesus eats with those rejected and vilified. These people recognise in Jesus someone victimized as they are, by those who have rejected them. And Jesus is willing to risk the opposition that will come from his mixing with sinners and eating with them. Eating and drinking with sinners disrupted the rigid and enforced system of insider/outsider and was an enacted parable of God’s acceptance of all. (See Luke 15)

2. Luke 5:30 Pharisees ask the disciples why they eat with sinners compare Mark 2:16. By time Luke writes the church is being asked the question. Jesus answers the question (5:31), and this is the reason the church shares a table fellowship of festivity and inclusion signifying God’s acceptance and generosity. And notice Jesus’ answer, pointing to the healing ministry of his eating with sinners. (See Luke 4:16-21; 7:18-23)

Some Questions

Do people say this about our Eucharistic practice? (Lk 5:30)

What do people say about our Eucharistic practice?

How could we enhance the sense of the Eucharist as an occasion of joy in the presence of Jesus?

How do we welcome people to the table? 

How could we strengthen this practice?

Who isn’t welcome at our table at church? 

How do we live and invite people into a discipleship of righteousness and inclusion?

Quote for Reflection

“Jesus' compassion is characterized by a downward pull. That is what disturbs us. We cannot even think about ourselves in terms other than those of an upward pull, an upward mobility in which we strive for better lives, higher salaries and more prestigious positions. Thus, we are deeply disturbed by a God who embodies a downward movement. Instead of striving for a higher position, more power and more influence, Jesus moves, as Karl Barth says, from "the heights to the depths, from victory to defeat, from riches to poverty, from triumph to suffering, from life to death." (Henri Nouwen)

A Little Acolyte Verve

World-Wide Mission (Lent Study Week 2, 2013)

Peter Baptising Cornelius by Francesco Trevisani

A. Mission and Missionaries

Some passages you could check out in Luke-Acts

• Luke 3:4-6 all flesh
• 4:18-20 the Spirit of the Lord, justice
• Luke 10 the harvest is plentiful but labourers are few
• Luke 15 lost sheep, lost coin
• 19:10  to seek out and save the lost
• 24:44-49 repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations
• Acts 1:8 you will be my witnesses .. to the ends of the earth
• Acts 10 conversion of Cornelius, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.
• Acts 15 the Council of Jerusalem (compare with Galatians 2:11-14)
• Acts 28 gospel has reached even Rome

When you think of the mission of Jesus/the church/Holy Innocents/you yourself what do you think of?

B. Acts 10: The Ins and Outs of Community

Acts 10:9-16

10:28 God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean

10:34-35 God shows no partiality

10:36Israel, peace by Jesus Christ, Lord of all

10:37 that message spread

10:39 we are witnesses

10:43 everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name

10:44 the indiscriminate Spirit! And baptism

1.We are tempted to think that it is relatively easy for a community to remain faithful to its identity (current and historical) and let in new people. But how easy is it really? (Think about the functions of a ‘tribe’ psychologically and sociologically, both positive and negative.) It is easy for members of a community to mask an attitude of assimilation into the existing ‘culture’ of a community with the belief that we are open to new people in our community. When people join an existing community change happens - for the community and for those who join.

How well do we negotiate this tricky boundary here at Holy Innocents? (Give concrete examples please.)
Where are the points where we need to grow or change? And how might we do that?

2.We take the freedom of the gospel  and its call to break down the barriers separating people for granted after centuries of its inner dynamic shaping Western culture. Some now wonder how it was that people didn’t see this freedom before and act on it. Some wonder if the gospel is now superfluous given that the ethnic and discriminatory barriers between people can be rationally unmasked and dismantled. But is it really that simple? Is it that simple in your life? Without the gospel working over the millennia, would our freedoms have been possible? And what about the future?