Amos 7.7-15; Ephesians 1.3-14; Mark 6.14-29
"What's it got to do with me?" is a good question to ask of all our scripture reading. At first sight you might think the beheading of John the Baptist has nothing at all to do with you. You might look on it as another sad martyrdom, the consequence of daring to challenge authority and power in the name of God. And we can pass over it quickly and get on with reading about Jesus, because that's who the gospels are really all about. Really? ARE the gospels really about Jesus?
For my money, the gospels are probably more about us, if you see what I mean. Jesus's life and work are directed towards us and so are for us. So the gospels are about us, rather than about Jesus. So even this story about John's demise has something for us. This story's got everything to do with me; and you.
And I'm not sure that John is the central character in this story. For me, it's Herod; and his tortured grappling with the truth. It's there that the story's for me; and for you.
The characters either side of John and Herod today are the prophet Amos and St. Paul. Each came to reveal the truth to the people they felt called to. And what was the peoples' response to them and the truth they brought? Amos was told by the religious authority to go away. And he did, eventually. He simply retired and for the first time left a written record. St. Paul, as we know, eventually ended up a prisoner sending letters here and there from Rome.
So, to be banged up in prison wasn't something out of the ordinary that happened to St. John; because he told the truth to people who had trouble facing it. Oh, and remember Jesus? He was killed because he did the same. So the question for me is, "What's my/our response to the truth?" Herod gives us a good insight and that's why I think he's the central character in the story.
St. Mark says of Herod, "...Herod feared John, knowing he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him." Isn't this such a tortured grappling with the truth? Herod's wife wanted Herod to kill John because he said their marriage was wrong, but Herod was afraid to kill him so he put him in prison instead.
Herod was fascinated and challenged by John at the same time. He knew that there was something very special about him, something he needed to hear, but at the same time something that repelled him. So when his wife told him to get rid of John, Herod instead put him away somewhere; not getting rid of him altogether, but, in a sense, putting him away in a box that he could open from time to time if he felt so inclined.
Unfortunately, that way of dealing with a difficult situation didn't last because eventually, something more important than the truth for Herod showed up; which meant that he had to let go of his even tenuous grasp of the truth. To save face, he had to keep his promise to young Herodias. And that, in the moment, was more important than the truth and the truth was sacrificed; and served up in front of him, dead. And I guess that there was something inside Herod that died at that moment too.
If St. John represents the truth to us, don't we often respond as Herod did to St. John, to the truth that presents itself to us; whatever that truth is about? It could be truth about our relationship with our work, our family, the Church, God, our self. Only you know where in your life, the challenges to us of the truth lie.
The truth fascinates us, that's why we are fascinated by Jesus. We love to listen to him. But he perplexes us as well. He troubles us, mightily. He challenges us like no other. And so, how much of his teaching that we find fascinating but a bit too challenging and perplexing do we separate out and put in a box and leave out of sight because it's too much; and just visit it from time to time when we feel we have to or when we are forced to? You'll know what bits of Jesus's teaching you find too hard. And you'll find them too hard because there's something more important. And the easier option is to serve that instead. And we do. Because the truth hurts. And so we have this tortured grappling with the truth throughout our lives; between the truth and what to us is more important than the truth.
Yes the truth hurts. But it doesn't harm. Because the truth makes us free (John 8.32) What do you do with the truth?
Saturday, 11 July 2015
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Maundy Thursday
John 13.1-17, 31b-35
With thanks to the late Anthony de Mello, Jesuit Priest and mystic and his book 'Awareness', for the inspiration for this and for the story (adapted)
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another."
This sentence from today's gospel reading is a golden thread that reaches through all the events of Holy Week and Easter. This time, these last days and hours of Jesus's life, is a time packed with so much action, a time of high drama, of grief and sorrow, betrayal, torture, murder and death; of fear and wonder and joy and resurrection. 'Heights and depths beyond description', to quote words from a well known hymn.
And that golden thread of love reaches back to the dawn of creation and forward to this present day. Oh, that we could be aware of it. Oh, that we could simply see it and then maybe understand it. Then all our problems would be as nothing.
But we get stuck and we don't see; and we don't understand. Just as Peter couldn't see what was happening and didn't understand. And Jesus said to him "....later you will understand". Maybe, later, we will understand too.
You see, we can come away from today with the idea that love is about acts of service, love is about sharing bread and wine, love is about sticking together. And that's where we get stuck. We are bewildered by all these things going on in the lives of Jesus and his disciples and we get stuck there. Peter got stuck because what Jesus was doing was unthinkable. All he'd been taught, all he'd learned in his religion and in his culture bumped up against this action of Jesus washing his feet. And it was his beliefs, his opinions, his ideas and values that blinded him to the love present there, the love that was always present and always would be present.
And we get stuck because we can't understand Jesus either. All that we learn and are taught in this world, all our ideas and beliefs and opinions, and theology, stop us seeing and hearing Jesus; stop us seeing and hearing love.
And so we find ourselves asking how Jesus can say "love your enemies", "pray for those who persecute you," "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also". How can he wash the feet of the man who was going to betray him? How can he pray, as he's being nailed to the cross, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing?" How can Jesus do and say these things? And even worse, how can he ask us to say and do the same?
Well, it's because what Jesus means by love isn't the same as what we might mean by love.
The difference between Jesus and us is that Jesus sees people beyond any thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions and beliefs he might have about them. His love, the love he asks us to have, he casts on the good and bad alike, equally, as the sun shines on good and bad alike. And that's a problem for us too isn't it?
What we call love for someone is shaped, by our thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions and beliefs about them. And we get attached to those thought, feelings and ideas, stuck fast to them. Its that attachment we call love. It's that that we love, not the person their self.
Let me explain what I mean if I can. It's not easy. A baby is born into the world and all it gets to know about the world is shaped by, first the child's parents, then its teachers, then relatives and friends and employers and colleagues and on and on in its life. So as the child grows up he or she is filled with all sorts of ideas and opinions and beliefs and values that it thinks are its own, but are really other peoples. We call that "education"!
And when the child grows up to be a man he's in the pub one evening enjoying a drink with a friend after work, and the friend asks him, "Are you voting Conservative in the election on 7th May?" "Oh no," he says, "I'm voting Labour. My father voted Labour, my grandfather voted Labour and my great grandfather voted Labour. So I'm voting Labour."
"That's stupid logic", says his friend. "If your father was a horse thief and your grandfather was a horse thief and your great grandfather was a horse thief, would that make you a horse thief?" "Oh no", he says, "then I'd be Conservative."
But you'll say, all these ideas and beliefs and values I've taken on are what make me, me. These are my life. Well no, actually. What is truly you, the you made in the image of God lies beyond or beneath all of that.
And that's why Jesus could say "Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friend." That quotation isn't about going to war to fight for your country or stopping a bullet for your friend. It's about dying to, dropping your attachment to all your ideas, thoughts, beliefs, values and opinions about your friend so that you can truly love your friend.
That's the 'life' Jesus says you've got to lose so that you can gain life. When you drop all your attachments to your beliefs and opinions about someone then you truly love them and in truly loving them that's when you truly live, that's when you are raised to eternal life.
When you drop these attachments, when you die to this stuff, these ideas, opinions, beliefs about yourself and others, is when you begin to bear fruit, the fruit of love.
And that's what Jesus meant when he said to Peter, "....you will understand." And I have a suspicion that he finally began to understand when the cock crew.
And when you do see, finally; when you do understand how Jesus could wash the feet of his disciples or at least begin to see, that's when Jesus begins to make sense. That's when all he did and said begins to make sense. And you see then too that this sense that it's making is THE Truth and truth not just for Christians but for Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and every person and religion in the world. because this Truth is maybe the only truth; the Truth of the love of God, the golden thread reaching back to the dawn of creation and out into eternity and eternal life.
And, one last thing, notice the word 'should'; "As I have loved you, you also should love one another." You can't make yourself love like Jesus loved, you have to die into it, just as a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies so that it bears much fruit
.
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another."
With thanks to the late Anthony de Mello, Jesuit Priest and mystic and his book 'Awareness', for the inspiration for this and for the story (adapted)"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another."
This sentence from today's gospel reading is a golden thread that reaches through all the events of Holy Week and Easter. This time, these last days and hours of Jesus's life, is a time packed with so much action, a time of high drama, of grief and sorrow, betrayal, torture, murder and death; of fear and wonder and joy and resurrection. 'Heights and depths beyond description', to quote words from a well known hymn.
And that golden thread of love reaches back to the dawn of creation and forward to this present day. Oh, that we could be aware of it. Oh, that we could simply see it and then maybe understand it. Then all our problems would be as nothing.
But we get stuck and we don't see; and we don't understand. Just as Peter couldn't see what was happening and didn't understand. And Jesus said to him "....later you will understand". Maybe, later, we will understand too.
You see, we can come away from today with the idea that love is about acts of service, love is about sharing bread and wine, love is about sticking together. And that's where we get stuck. We are bewildered by all these things going on in the lives of Jesus and his disciples and we get stuck there. Peter got stuck because what Jesus was doing was unthinkable. All he'd been taught, all he'd learned in his religion and in his culture bumped up against this action of Jesus washing his feet. And it was his beliefs, his opinions, his ideas and values that blinded him to the love present there, the love that was always present and always would be present.
And we get stuck because we can't understand Jesus either. All that we learn and are taught in this world, all our ideas and beliefs and opinions, and theology, stop us seeing and hearing Jesus; stop us seeing and hearing love.
And so we find ourselves asking how Jesus can say "love your enemies", "pray for those who persecute you," "if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also". How can he wash the feet of the man who was going to betray him? How can he pray, as he's being nailed to the cross, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing?" How can Jesus do and say these things? And even worse, how can he ask us to say and do the same?
Well, it's because what Jesus means by love isn't the same as what we might mean by love.
The difference between Jesus and us is that Jesus sees people beyond any thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions and beliefs he might have about them. His love, the love he asks us to have, he casts on the good and bad alike, equally, as the sun shines on good and bad alike. And that's a problem for us too isn't it?
What we call love for someone is shaped, by our thoughts, feelings, ideas, opinions and beliefs about them. And we get attached to those thought, feelings and ideas, stuck fast to them. Its that attachment we call love. It's that that we love, not the person their self.
Let me explain what I mean if I can. It's not easy. A baby is born into the world and all it gets to know about the world is shaped by, first the child's parents, then its teachers, then relatives and friends and employers and colleagues and on and on in its life. So as the child grows up he or she is filled with all sorts of ideas and opinions and beliefs and values that it thinks are its own, but are really other peoples. We call that "education"!
And when the child grows up to be a man he's in the pub one evening enjoying a drink with a friend after work, and the friend asks him, "Are you voting Conservative in the election on 7th May?" "Oh no," he says, "I'm voting Labour. My father voted Labour, my grandfather voted Labour and my great grandfather voted Labour. So I'm voting Labour."
"That's stupid logic", says his friend. "If your father was a horse thief and your grandfather was a horse thief and your great grandfather was a horse thief, would that make you a horse thief?" "Oh no", he says, "then I'd be Conservative."
But you'll say, all these ideas and beliefs and values I've taken on are what make me, me. These are my life. Well no, actually. What is truly you, the you made in the image of God lies beyond or beneath all of that.
And that's why Jesus could say "Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friend." That quotation isn't about going to war to fight for your country or stopping a bullet for your friend. It's about dying to, dropping your attachment to all your ideas, thoughts, beliefs, values and opinions about your friend so that you can truly love your friend.
That's the 'life' Jesus says you've got to lose so that you can gain life. When you drop all your attachments to your beliefs and opinions about someone then you truly love them and in truly loving them that's when you truly live, that's when you are raised to eternal life.
When you drop these attachments, when you die to this stuff, these ideas, opinions, beliefs about yourself and others, is when you begin to bear fruit, the fruit of love.
And that's what Jesus meant when he said to Peter, "....you will understand." And I have a suspicion that he finally began to understand when the cock crew.
And when you do see, finally; when you do understand how Jesus could wash the feet of his disciples or at least begin to see, that's when Jesus begins to make sense. That's when all he did and said begins to make sense. And you see then too that this sense that it's making is THE Truth and truth not just for Christians but for Moslems, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and every person and religion in the world. because this Truth is maybe the only truth; the Truth of the love of God, the golden thread reaching back to the dawn of creation and out into eternity and eternal life.
And, one last thing, notice the word 'should'; "As I have loved you, you also should love one another." You can't make yourself love like Jesus loved, you have to die into it, just as a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies so that it bears much fruit
.
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you also should love one another."
Sunday, 29 March 2015
Palm Sunday
Passion Gospel Mark 15.1-end
Today we begin the most important, the most 'dramatic' week in the Church's calendar. Holy Week. And we begin the week by celebrating the Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
What is asked of us this week?
We are asked to: '....go with Jesus, in faith and love, so that, united with him in his sufferings, we may share his risen life'. So say the words of the introduction to the service today.
But what does that mean?
I have the notion that many think this week is about trying to imagine what it was like to be there, in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago in the last days and hours of Jesus's life; and to imagine the experience, to take on to some degree the anxiety and sorrow of those days; and then on Easter Sunday to try and experience some of the emotion, the joy and wonder and, indeed, fear that the disciples experienced at Jesus's resurrection.
And that's no bad thing, but it can never be for us what it was for them, no matter how vivid or even fevered our imagination. And although, sometimes, the wording of our worship asks us to 'walk the way of the cross', I believe that Jesus walked the way of the cross so that we wouldn't have to. He died that we might live - however you interpret that, and it's here at the start of Holy Week that we can begin to think about what that might mean for us.
I said that Jesus walked the way of the cross so that we wouldn't have to, yet we recall the words of Jesus in our gospel reading from last week (John 12.20-33) about the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying so that it bears much fruit. And Jesus says we have to be like that seed; and that we have to lose our life to gain it. These are difficult words. In another place Jesus says we have to take up our cross and follow him if we are to be his disciples. And we hear Jesus also say in yet another place, 'I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness'.
All these references to death and life and resurrection. So if Jesus died, that we can have life, what is it that we should be thinking about this week? What are all these references, these allusions to death and life about?
To see it properly, we have to think about all that Jesus did and said, the whole package, the whole man. We can't just take isolated statements out of the context of his whole life and expect them to reveal something profound to us. We have to look at the whole man because Jesus preached what he lived. His life was the message.
In his life and death Jesus is showing us what it means to be truly human, what it means for us to be made 'in the image of God', what it means to become what God intends for each and every one of us. And as we read this week about Jesus dying, we are meant to ask ourselves what it is about us that has to die to become what God intends, to experience a resurrection in this life, to have that fullness of life now that Jesus came to give us.
And notice that in that parable about the grain of wheat, the seed isn't put to death, it isn't killed, as Jesus was put to death, it simply has, in some way, to die to become fully what it's meant to be. There is a difference between 'being killed' and 'dying'. And we too don't have to be put to death, there is nothing in us that has to be killed so that we can become what we are meant to be. So often we look at ourselves and others and knowing our and one anothers weaknesses and failings try to put something to death in ourselves because of it, to put part of us to death to become more virtuous. We feel we have to make ourselves better. But that's not how it works. Yet something has to die that we can become more like Christ, see more of the image of God in us, to bear more fruit.
And maybe this is the cross that Jesus is meaning when he says that all of us has to carry our own cross if we are to become disciples of his. What that something is in me that has to die only I and God know. And the same applies to everyone. If we know what that something is we are fortunate indeed. Maybe each of us this week, as we travel through it with Jesus might ask God to reveal it to us and show us how it might die so that we might live and on Easter Sunday experience in our own life now, a resurrection of some sort.
A saint once said that the Christian life is one long dying. What has to die in you that you might have the life of Christ and become all that God intends for you, with life in all its fullness?
Today we begin the most important, the most 'dramatic' week in the Church's calendar. Holy Week. And we begin the week by celebrating the Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
What is asked of us this week?
We are asked to: '....go with Jesus, in faith and love, so that, united with him in his sufferings, we may share his risen life'. So say the words of the introduction to the service today.
But what does that mean?
I have the notion that many think this week is about trying to imagine what it was like to be there, in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago in the last days and hours of Jesus's life; and to imagine the experience, to take on to some degree the anxiety and sorrow of those days; and then on Easter Sunday to try and experience some of the emotion, the joy and wonder and, indeed, fear that the disciples experienced at Jesus's resurrection.
And that's no bad thing, but it can never be for us what it was for them, no matter how vivid or even fevered our imagination. And although, sometimes, the wording of our worship asks us to 'walk the way of the cross', I believe that Jesus walked the way of the cross so that we wouldn't have to. He died that we might live - however you interpret that, and it's here at the start of Holy Week that we can begin to think about what that might mean for us.
I said that Jesus walked the way of the cross so that we wouldn't have to, yet we recall the words of Jesus in our gospel reading from last week (John 12.20-33) about the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying so that it bears much fruit. And Jesus says we have to be like that seed; and that we have to lose our life to gain it. These are difficult words. In another place Jesus says we have to take up our cross and follow him if we are to be his disciples. And we hear Jesus also say in yet another place, 'I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness'.
All these references to death and life and resurrection. So if Jesus died, that we can have life, what is it that we should be thinking about this week? What are all these references, these allusions to death and life about?
To see it properly, we have to think about all that Jesus did and said, the whole package, the whole man. We can't just take isolated statements out of the context of his whole life and expect them to reveal something profound to us. We have to look at the whole man because Jesus preached what he lived. His life was the message.
In his life and death Jesus is showing us what it means to be truly human, what it means for us to be made 'in the image of God', what it means to become what God intends for each and every one of us. And as we read this week about Jesus dying, we are meant to ask ourselves what it is about us that has to die to become what God intends, to experience a resurrection in this life, to have that fullness of life now that Jesus came to give us.
And notice that in that parable about the grain of wheat, the seed isn't put to death, it isn't killed, as Jesus was put to death, it simply has, in some way, to die to become fully what it's meant to be. There is a difference between 'being killed' and 'dying'. And we too don't have to be put to death, there is nothing in us that has to be killed so that we can become what we are meant to be. So often we look at ourselves and others and knowing our and one anothers weaknesses and failings try to put something to death in ourselves because of it, to put part of us to death to become more virtuous. We feel we have to make ourselves better. But that's not how it works. Yet something has to die that we can become more like Christ, see more of the image of God in us, to bear more fruit.
And maybe this is the cross that Jesus is meaning when he says that all of us has to carry our own cross if we are to become disciples of his. What that something is in me that has to die only I and God know. And the same applies to everyone. If we know what that something is we are fortunate indeed. Maybe each of us this week, as we travel through it with Jesus might ask God to reveal it to us and show us how it might die so that we might live and on Easter Sunday experience in our own life now, a resurrection of some sort.
A saint once said that the Christian life is one long dying. What has to die in you that you might have the life of Christ and become all that God intends for you, with life in all its fullness?
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