The Real Prize

Sundays after Pentecost, Proper 7[12] Year C

How many of you have played “Pass the Parcel” or organised that game for your own children to play at a party?

The idea is, of course, that you hide little treasures under the layers of paper that is wrapping a parcel – so many layers that the parcel at the beginning of the game is much bigger than the final prize in the centre – and as the children pass it around, when the music stops the one holding the parcel gets to take off one layer of paper and may get a little treasure as well.

I have had fun watching children disregard the little treasures that come along the way because they are so fixed on getting the “real prize” in the middle, and indeed on one occasion I made sure that the little prizes along the way were much better than the one in the end – just to make a point.

Many of the stories we have in the Gospels and elsewhere in the Bible are very much like the parcel in a pass-the-parcel game in that there can be many layers of meaning to be gained from it, but sometimes I think we are so focussed on getting to what we think is the “real prize” in the middle that we miss the beauty of the additional little treasures that are in a story.

I think this is one of the things that makes sense of the text in Hebrews 4:12 :- “The word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword.”  It means in my mind that every time I read a Scripture it can have new meanings that speak right into my presently lived experience.

That is one of the main reasons I never use old sermons – they were written to address our life and circumstances as they were then, not now.

Today, I am not going to try and unpack the parcel right into the middle – someone else has probably done that well for you before.  I want to offer you some thoughts that could be regarded as little jewels or prizes that we found along the way as we considered the story.

There are so many layers of meaning that I could keep you here all day, I am sure, but let’s see how we can go for 15 minutes or so.

1.    Jesus meets us all where we are

One of the striking features of this story is that Jesus is willing to approach someone whom the rest of society has shunned for many years.

Here is a man whom people kept away from – his behaviour was completely unpredictable and he seemed to have super-human strength. 

He is described as being possessed with an evil spirit – I have nothing in my experience to reference this, although perhaps some of you have.  The closest thing I can imagine as being like it is schizophrenia or some of the multiple-personality disorders that psychiatrists talk about.

Regardless of this it is clear that here was a man who was completely shunned by his community – they feared him.  And to add to his horror in their eyes, he chose to live among the dead in the cemetery. 

You may remember my comments on my first Sunday that being in such a place associated with the dead would have made this man ritually unclean and so unable to fulfil his religious obligations.

With all these things in mind it is extraordinary that Jesus even dared to engage with the man.  By all the cultural norms of his day he should have run away as fast as he could.

But he didn’t. 

He stayed put and reached out to this man in one of the most desperate situations in life and sought to meet his need.

2.   Jesus cared enough to want to know his name and offer to help

Now this is an interesting aspect of the story.  On the one hand his request for a name is addressed to the spiritual entity that has possessed the man.  The important thing I see here is that Jesus seeks to address the PERSON – I would think he was looking into the man’s eyes with compassion.

Because of his situation, the man would rarely have been addressed as a person – you can imagine the kinds of names people would have yelled in abuse at him, if they came across him. 

In Jesus he found someone who not only was willing to come close, but who also cared enough to reach out and help him as a real person in need.  Jesus enables this man to be restored to his right mind – and as you might say, the man was eternally grateful.

3.   What happens when you do good?

If there is anything of a theme in the stories of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels it would have to be that “when you do the right thing you upset somebody.”

Almost every time Jesus does something good for someone he gets it in the neck from one bunch of people or another – healing a man on a Sabbath day; telling a woman her sins are forgiven. 

Indeed it was ultimately too much for the religious leaders – Jesus disregarded both the purity code and the authority of the religious leaders as custodians of the Law – and they determined he would pay the ultimate price.

4. Go home

The final little treasure I want to draw your attention to is the instruction Jesus gave to the man who had quite naturally declared his desire to follow Jesus anywhere.

“Go home!” Jesus said to him.  “Go home and tell people how much God has done for you.”

Sometimes, home is the hardest place to do this – perhaps because of the complex lines of relationship and responsibility that link us to everyone in what we call our family.

The thing that I like about this little instruction is that if we applied it to each of us, we could all do it.

There is no need for a theology degree to do this.  All that is expected is that you can talk about your own very real experience of the blessings of God.

There is no need for jargon here, no need for complicated ideas and doctrines of the church.  Just a telling of your own story – and only you can do that because you are an expert in yourself.

What would you say?  You might need to talk it through with a good friend – because sometimes we don’t notice our own things – but I want to encourage you to think these things through so that sometime, when some asks or you think it’s worth saying, you can talk very naturally about why it is that you are a follower of Jesus.

Let us pray:

God our most holy Friend, you have entered into our lives out of your own deep concern for who we are and what we need most, and you have promised a most precious gift for us, your Spirit, the Advocate, whose work is to embolden us in the telling of our story of following you.

We thank you and pray this through Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Amen!

What kind of man is this?

Sundays after Pentecost - Proper 5 [10] Year C

I don’t know about you but I really like getting to this time of the year when we can get down to travelling through the Bible, through Luke’s Gospel in particular, without all the distractions of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost.

From here on in, until we begin Advent in December, we will be going through the stories in Luke’s Gospel pretty much in order.  We may leave some stuff out, but we will cover a lot of material over the next six months.

You may have read the last article in this Month’s Anglican Messenger by Dr John Shepherd.  In it he is talking about John’s Gospel but the same thing applies to Luke.

“To understand [Luke’s] Gospel we’ve got to see it as an answer to a question.  If we haven’t got the question we [may misunderstand] the answer.”

I think this general observation is also true of the particular – each and every story we read in the Bible has been reported there for us as an answer to a question, and our understanding of the story is bound up with our ability to discern what question it might be answering – and we might come back to that in a bit.

What would be the big question Luke is trying to answer?

I wonder if the big question is “What kind of man or Messiah is this Jesus?”

In some ways this could be the big question for each of the Gospel writers – each in their own way want to tell the people they were writing this all down for something that they think is really important about Jesus.

Now the people Luke was thinking of when he wrote his Gospel were Gentiles – as distinct from Matthew, for example, who was clearly writing for a mainly Jewish audience; hence his frequent references to this being so  “so as to fulfil the Scripture which says …”.

There are a whole lot of reasons for me concluding that Luke wanted us all to know that this Jesus was one who has come from God and who is like the great prophet of Israel – Elijah.  Matthew was thinking Jesus was more like Moses – the great Law Giver – but Luke wants us to understand this stuff about Jesus being like Elijah.  Both are helpful and are not mutually exclusive – but it helps to clarify this in order to understand the stories he tells.

Luke makes sure we get this right at the outset of Jesus’ ministry – when he is rejected in Nazareth.  All three Gospels note this with Jesus quoting the phrase “No prophet is accepted in his hometown.”  Luke, however, adds a reference to the Elijah story we had today from the OT as well as the Elisha story about Naaman the leper.  For him, this alignment of Jesus with Elijah is very important – and for the very reasons that these two stories are significant – they show very clearly that the Good News is not just for Israel, but for all people.

Last week you would have heard the Gospel story of Jesus healing the Roman Centurion’s servant – a very clear parallel to the Naaman story – and today we have this story of the Widow of Nain which is also a clear parallel to the story of the Widow of Zarapheth.

So the “big picture” question here is “what kind of man is Jesus?” And the answer is “A man after the likeness of Elijah.”

But there could be a much more particular question that this story is offered as an answer for.  Perhaps it might be answering the question “Is the Good News of Jesus only for those “under the Law?”

There are two important elements of the story that challenge that idea.  Firstly, the Widow was a Gentile who was clearly a person who was not “under the Law” and then Jesus, himself, challenges the Law by daring to touch the dead man on the bier.  This would have made him ritually unclean under the Law and thereby denied himself access to the graces and mercy of God until his period of purification was complete.  Yet, the intervention of God, the blessing of God, was powerfully evident in the raising of the dead Gentile man to life.

Here we see Jesus offering the blessings of God to the outsiders, those who were not “eligible” according to the Law.

And this is a really important idea or message for us to take note of.  Perhaps we already get it, but let me reiterate it.

The Good News Jesus brings is good news for all those we might regard as being outside God’s grace and good favour. 

Notice I said “WE!”

There are times when we in the church can be a bit like the Jews used to be – thinking that God’s blessings only rain down on us the faithful, the law-abiding. 

I remember a man in my first church, after I had spoken about the “forgiveness” saying of Jesus that you must forgive 70 x 7, saying that this only applied within the community of the faithful.  “I don’t have to forgive those people at my work who have treated me badly.”  I simply asked him the question “How much better would your life be if you applied this rule to the whole of your life – to all relationships?”  He went away, like the rich young ruler to think about that.

But Jesus is challenging us to be much more inclusive and welcoming – because his grace and blessings are for all.  Indeed the greater part of the bad reputation he acquired over the years of his ministry was directly related to the bad company he kept – eating with tax-collectors and sinners, prostitutes and other women.  All these things made him ritually unclean. 

But by doing this, Jesus is showing us a very important thing – no-one is exempt from being touched by God’s grace.  And to show us this, Jesus broke all the rules of the Law.

The widow in our Gospel story would have been left destitute with the death of her son – he was her social welfare service because he looked after her in his home.

He reached out to this Gentile women – no self-respecting Jewish man would do that – and he touched the dean man’s body – remember the scribe and the Levite in the Good Samaritan story – and in daring to do these things, the man was restored to his mother.

I think that we in the church have to dare a little – dare to reach out to those whom society rejects and marginalises because of their life circumstances, those whom society regards as failures with whom they should not associate.

This church has in a sense recognised this in reaching out to the Nuba people who now worship here.  Who else is there in our community whom society has rejected but would be welcome here?

Let us pray:

God of widows and orphans,

the consolation of the sad,

you have visited and redeemed your people.

Grant that by the charisma of your true Son,

closed eyes and ears may be opened,

handicaps may be overcome,

disease may yield to health,

and those who are dead may be raised up

to love, worship and serve you forever.

Amen!

A Tale of Two Sinners

Sundays after Pentecost Proper 6 [11] Year C

Every good story has two key characters in it – one good and the other not so good.  Sometimes they become the antagonists – fighting against each other, usually with the good one victorious over the bad one – and sometimes they are simply compared with each other to make a point.

In our Gospel Reading today, among the many characters are two key characters:

1.      Simon the Pharisee; and

2.      A woman of the city, a sinner.

Without one of these, the teaching opportunity would have been lost to Jesus.

It is a story that I love dearly, especially in Luke’s version.  When Matthew and Mark tell this story they place it as a prelude to the Last Supper, and by doing that they are getting us ready to hear of Jesus’ need of anointing for burial, after his execution.

By telling the story so near to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in his Gospel, Luke is making sure that we understand something quite different by it.

The people who selected the readings for the Lectionary have tried to reinforce this by choosing the passage we read from Galatians this morning. 

This story has something really important to tell us about God’s love for us and grace.  Let’s see how Luke makes this plain to us.

TWO SINNERS

There are two characters in the story and they are classics really.  They appear extraordinarily different from each other as far as the externals go - a religious leader and a woman - but the real difference that Jesus wants us to notice is quite unexpected.

1.         So we have Simon – a Pharisee.  

The Pharisaic traditions of Jesus’ day laid the foundations for the kind of Judaism that would survive after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD and which we most closely see today in Orthodox Judaism with its emphasis on Kosher food and right ritual.

Jesus was no friend of the Pharisees.  They were experts in “self-righteousness” and reduced their religion to a purity code and an understanding of covenant as a system of requirements and rewards – “If I do all these right things, God will fill my life with blessings.” 

Simon invited Jesus to have dinner at his place.  Now Jesus was probably thought of in some circles as a rabbi – the term crops up in a few stories – so perhaps Simon wanted to hear some of his wisdom.

Or maybe Simon wanted to show off to his friends that he could get Jesus to come to his place for dinner.

The text is not clear, so we are left to guess.

I think Simon thinks he is doing a pretty good job at keeping the requirements of the Law and he probably thinks that if he has failed God in any way, it won't be too bad.

2.         And then we have a woman from the city.  

She is further described as a sinner – and that could have been code language for a woman of ill-repute; at least that is what most preachers make of it.  But I want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

In the story we get the idea that this was no random act on her part.  She knew who Jesus was and she knew where he was going to be.  I wonder if they had met in some other place and perhaps had had a conversation in which Jesus had made it very clear to her the extent of God’s love and grace – that although she was a sinner she could be sure of God’s good favour.

She is obviously responding in an extraordinary way to something she had come to understand about Jesus. 

And it was scandalous, what she was doing. 

Let me remind you of a very small episode in the story of Ruth.   When she goes back to Israel, her mother-in-law Naomi does a little match-making with her kinsman Boaz. 

The procedure was simple – when Boaz nodded off for a nap after a fantastic dinner, Ruth was to lie down at his feet.  At the very least it was a ritual invitation to great intimacy, but was also regarded as a form of marriage proposal.

So, you can begin to imagine what was going on in the minds of the other people at Simon’s party. 

The woman was behaving scandalously by touching his feet at the meal, and then by uncovering her hair in a public place and in the company of strange men – orthodox Jewish women today often wear wigs to cover up their hair in public.

You can imagine all the men there shooting sideways glances at the woman – checking out what she would do next. 

You can also imagine, I am sure, their knowing glances at each other expressing indignation that Jesus should not object to what she was doing.  And Simon was doing this, too.

I am sure I would if I was caught up in a similar modern day example of this story.

So, in the context of this, Jesus draws Simon’s attention to the scandal of his own behaviour – his failure to meet his obligations of hospitality to a guest.  Simon had failed to wash the dusty feet of his guest; he had failed to greet him appropriately with a kiss; and he had failed to honour him with oil for his hair.

Jesus is wanting to make it very clear that much and all as Simon thinks the woman is in an awful predicament of condemnation – because she is a sinner – Simon is in no better situation.  His behaviour is just as scandalous.

A PARABLE

This is the central feature of Luke’s version of the story and it is what makes it different from Matthew and Mark’s version.  So this is what Luke really wants us to take notice of.

“A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed nearly two years’ salary and the other less than two months’ salary.  When they could not pay he cancelled the debts for both of them.”

It’s a simple scenario – perhaps a little incredible – but the really important part is Jesus’ question to Simon – “Now which of them will love him more?”

The people in that room would have known full-well how many peasant farmers’ lives were unbearable because of debt, and so they would also have known that the forgiveness of such a debt would have been transformational for their families.

The two sinners in our story provide a striking contrast.  The woman is so stigmatised by her sins as to be a public figure (everybody knew she was a bad woman); and Simon comes across as a blind, smug religionist who cannot recognise his own sinful predicament let alone the genuine gratitude of a forgiven woman.

In these two characters, Jesus exposes our modern moralisms and dramatises for us an authentic response to divine grace.  It is this response that is transformational – and that is the good news.

I found this quote on Friday that says it all, really.

“For I tell you this: one loving, blind desire for God alone is more valuable in itself, more pleasing to God and to the saints, more beneficial to your own growth, and more helpful to your friends, both living and dead, than anything else you could do.”

-From a fourteenth-century

 anonymous work, The Cloud of

 Unknowing

When Jesus says (again) to her “Your sins are forgiven,” I am pretty sure he has already met the woman and told her this before, but I think he said this publicly to make a point.

And the question from the crowd was the same as the question I told you last week was behind so much of the Gospel of Luke – “Who is this, who even forgives sins?”

What kind of man is this?

There are three things about Jesus in this story that emphasise again what Luke wants us all to get – that Jesus is a prophet.

Firstly, he seems to understand Simon’s unstated criticism of Jesus for allowing THAT WOMAN to touch him.  This kind of intuitive “foreknowledge” is a characteristic of prophets.

Secondly he uses that very real and gritty situation to teach something that is very true about life – we are all in need of God’s forgiveness and grace; no one is more or less deserving.

Finally, we hear Jesus pronouncing divine forgiveness for the woman.

In these three things, Luke wants to make sure we get it – that Jesus is a unique prophet of God who is able to see below the surface of things, who teaches us about life, and who forgives sins.

Hallelujah!!

Let us pray:

God our most holy Friend, please assist us to cherish the deep salvation which you have begun in us.  Save us from the lure of those shallow things which win the praise of the world.  You have called us to be people of grace; let us express grace in all our affairs. 

We pray this through Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Amen!

Acknowledgement: Bruce Prewer's resources for Sundays often provide me with much inspiration for sermons and prayers on Sundays. http://www.bruceprewer.com/b_rcl.htm