Failure is fine; God is here (Year A, 13 August 2017)

Readings
1 Kings 19.9–18
Romans 10.5–15

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. — Deuteronomy 6.4

Abba Arsenius prayed to God in these words, ‘Lord, lead me in the way of salvation.’ And a voice came saying to him, … ‘Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the sources of sinlessness.’ — Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart
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I have a granddaughter, E., who lives with her mum (my daughter) and her dad in South America.

E. is two in October, and she is growing up bilingual. She is learning to speak Spanish and English. At the same time.

My daughter is fluent in Spanish, but she speaks to E. in English.

E.’s dad is improving his English. His English isn’t bad, it’s better than my Spanish. But he speaks to her in Spanish.

E. is growing up hearing both languages all the time.

One day, she’ll separate them out and speak both English and Spanish fluently, but right now anything goes. She was playing with the family cat the other week. She calls him ‘Gato’, which is Spanish for ‘cat’.

Gato is ve-e-ery patient with her, but when he gets tired of being poked and picked up in awkward ways, he just trots off.

It happened the other day. As he was moving somewhere quieter and safer, E. called out, ‘Bye bye, Gato’.

As far as she is concerned, ‘bye bye’ and ‘gato’ are words in the same language. (Maybe it should be called ‘Spanglish’!)

It’s cute for her to speak Spanglish right now. But by the time she’s my age, it won’t be cute any longer. She’ll need to have it all sorted out.

She will do that by listening to her parents, and to others, and sorting out which words belong in which language. E. is going to make lots of mistakes. We can’t call them mistakes yet, it’s all too cute, but one day she may embarrass herself be getting English and Spanish all mixed up. She could feel a failure if she does that.

Failure’s bad, right?

And success is everything, yes?

You know, success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

God/struggles (Year A, 6 August 2017)

Readings
Genesis 32.22–31
Matthew 14.13–21

Israel’s self-understanding is one of being in a locked battle with God. In their very name, the Israelites make very plain and public that they see themselves as a people that struggle with God. — Enns and Byas, Genesis for Normal People

Come, O thou Traveller unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
and I am left alone with Thee;
with Thee all night I mean to stay,
and wrestle till the break of day. — Charles Wesley, ‘Wrestling Jacob’

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Today, we heard about a wrestling match between Jacob and—who was it? A man? An angel? God himself? Or could we even read it as a parable of Jacob’s inner struggle with himself?

This is a text to struggle with.

Hidden in plain sight ( Year A, 30 July 2017)

Reading
Matthew 13.31–33, 44–52

For Jesus, God’s realm is not some esoteric kingdom in the sweet by and by, but as close as the next mustard bush or loaf of bread.
Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol.3.

Truly, you are a God who hides himself,
O God of Israel, the Saviour. (Isaiah 45.15)
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In the Gospel According to Matthew, Jesus begins his ministry with these words:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

The kingdom of heaven—what Mark and Luke call the kingdom of God—has come near.

What is the kingdom of God? Well, it’s something Jesus tells stories about.

We can tell that this kingdom is near because when Jesus tells stories about it, he tells stories about things that are near at hand. Jesus’ ‘Parables of the Kingdom’ are stories about farmers and seeds and merchants finding pearls and women baking bread.

But these stories have a bit of a twist. The twist is there because whilethe kingdom of God really is nearby, it is also hidden. You can see it—hidden in plain sight—if you know how to look. If you can repent and look with new eyes. The parables of Jesus call us to engage with them, to rethink, to redirect our heart.

In today’s terms, we could tell a parable something like this:

The kingdom of God is like an old woman in a coffee shop who pays for the strangers at the next table, and slips out before they realise it.

Or,

The kingdom of God is like a pregnant woman getting on a full bus, whereupon a gay man gives up his seat for her.

Pilate tweets Holy Week

I came across this the other day. It’s delightfully hilarious!:

Read the rest here.

 

How great the pain of searing loss

Readings
Hebrews 12.1–3
John 13.21–32

Here hangs a man discarded,
a scarecrow hoisted high,
a nonsense pointing nowhere
to all who hurry by.
(Brian Wren)

Last night, we heard that when Jesus was on the cross, he cried out (Luke 23.34),

Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

We saw that here, the Son is addressing the Father. And that the Holy Spirit is holding them together.

Tonight, we want to hear something else that Jesus uttered from the cross. He cried out in the opening words of Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Perhaps you know that feeling.

When I was younger, I was taught that this was the point at which God turn his back on Jesus as Jesus ‘became sin’ for us, as Jesus ‘paid the penalty’ for sin. God could not look on sin, so he turned away from Jesus.

One of the proof tests for this idea comes from the book of the prophet Habakkuk. In 1.13a, we read

Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;

That seems to settle it. God cannot look upon sin, so God turns away from Jesus on the cross.

But we need to read the second half of that verse:

[so] why do you look on the treacherous,
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?

Habakkuk is confused by this. He thinks that God cannot look upon evil; but he sees that God does look upon evil.

I feel equally confused when people talk about God turning away from Jesus on the cross. You see, I don’t believe God did turn away from Jesus.

The only way I can get any handle on all this is to look at these words as spoken to God the Father by the eternal Son made flesh. Just as ‘Father, forgive them’ is a conversation between Father and Son, so is ‘Why have you forsaken me?’

When Jesus asks ‘Why have you forsaken me?’, we are still dealing with the Father and Son, held together by the Spirit.

God was not far away from Christ that day, nor having an afternoon catching up with his emails in the office. God was in Christ. According to 2 Corinthians 5.19, ‘God was making the whole human race his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins…’

Or in perhaps more familiar language, ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.’

You may know this song: How deep the Father’s love for us. It starts like this:

How deep the Father’s love for us,
how vast beyond all measure,
that he should give his only Son
to make a wretch his treasure.

And then we go on to sing these words:

How great the pain of searing loss:
the Father turns his face away.
as wounds which mar the Chosen One
bring many sons to glory.

Let’s just leave for another day the exclusive language that uses ‘sons’ to include ‘everyone’. We won’t go there tonight—it’s important, but it’s not the time right now.

But let’s look at the words.

How great the pain of searing loss:

This is the very heart of the Cross. ‘The pain of searing loss’ is such a moving way to describe the godforsaken cry of Jesus.

Yet the Father also shares the pain of searing loss with the Son.

In that cry, not only is the Son fatherless; but the Father is also sonless. The Father freely enters into the pain of the Son. [Note 1]

If the Father and the Son were truly separated at that point, we could ask Does the Trinity then fall apart? [Note 2] No, because the Spirit binds Father and Son as one in a grief-stricken embrace.

Next, we sing

the Father turns his face away

As I said, I don’t believe the Father’s face is turned away at all; but if it were, it would be turned away in heartbroken grief.

It doesn’t help me to say the Father turns away because the sin of the world is placed on Jesus. For heaven’s sake (literally!), the Son has been spending his life embracing sinners. If God is Trinity, then the Father has also been embracing them with the Son. The Father also embraces us with the Son. The Father is the one who looks out every day for the prodigal to return. The Father does not keep account of sins.

The song goes on,

as wounds which mar the Chosen One
bring many ‘sons’ to glory.

Do those wounds ‘mar’ Jesus? Do they make him ugly to the Father? No! If you see your child injured, you run towards them and not away from them. Your child is beautiful to you no matter what happens.

The scars do not ‘mar’ the chosen one; Jesus bore them in his risen body. He took the scars with him as he ascended into heaven.

The wounds may make Jesus ugly to us, but not to the Father.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Because Jesus uttered these words, they have become words of hope for us who are adopted as children of the Father. The triune God will never forsake us: the Spirit binds us firmly to the Father; the Son has accomplished it all for us.

Let us move into the Great Three Days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter itself with confidence and joy!

For the Wednesday of Holy Week, 2017

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Note 1: ‘To understand what happened between Jesus and his God and Father on the cross, it is necessary to talk in trinitarian terms. The Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son. The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son. The Fatherlessness of the Son is matched by the Sonlessness of the Father, and if God has constituted himself as the Father of Jesus Christ, then he also suffers the death of his Fatherhood in the death of the Son.’ (Juergen Moltmann, The Crucified God)

Note 2: This is almost an inevitable question. It also blunders by exceeding the bounds of human language about God, and is guilty of hubris.

In the cross of Christ I glory

rafittiReading
1 Corinthians 1.18–31

In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o’er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime.

A piece of graffiti now in the Palatine Hill Museum in Rome may be the earliest picture we have of Jesus on the cross, dating back to sometime shortly after AD 200. It is bitterly sarcastic. Jesus has the head of a donkey; Alexamenos was considered a fool. The graffiti says

Alexamenos worships his God.

It’s clear that Alexamenos was considered a fool. It’s also clear that Jesus was an ass.

The early Christians had a problem. Anyone who was crucified was absolutely cursed by God, the refuse of the Empire, fit only for insult, scorn, and ridicule.

Why worship such a creature?

The cross still causes offence. There are churches that have taken the cross out of the worship space so that people aren’t confronted by it.

It’s a symbol of death.

Recently, in a general article on pedophilia, the image above the headline was a cross. The article wasn’t just about the churches; but the cross stood for pedophile abuse.

Paul said the cross is ‘a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles’; it is foolish today.

When Jesus was on the cross, he cried out (Luke 23.34),

Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.

It is utterly foolish for a crucified man to forgive anyone. He is in a position of no earthly power or authority. In fact, anyone who was crucified was considered the absolute and utter dregs of humanity. Who would want such a person’s forgiveness?

But wait just a moment. Note who is being addressed: the Father. And who is speaking: the Son. And who is holding them together: the Holy Spirit.

We have here a glimpse into the life of God the Holy Trinity.

Often, people think of God punishing sin and hurling thunderbolts at evildoers. If God were like that, this would be the place above all others that God would shower us with those thunderbolts.

But the triune God determines to forgive humanity in its sin and rebellion.

Surely, that is an eternal wonder.

And God still holds out that forgiveness to all.

God calls us to continue that work, being people of forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion to everyone we meet.

Foolishness?

I think not.

For the Tuesday of Holy Week, 2017

My song is love unknown

Reading
John 12.1–11

My song is love unknown,
my Saviour’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown,
that they might lovely be.
O who am I
that for my sake
my Lord should take
frail flesh, and die?

When Jesus speaks to Mary’s sister Martha in John chapter 11, he says

I am the resurrection and the life.

Now, Mary is preparing ’the Resurrection and the Life’ for his death.

Without a doubt, Mary of Bethany is one of the most interesting characters in the whole Bible. She only gets three mentions: once in Luke’s Gospel, twice in John’s. Each time, she appears with her sister, Martha. Each time, she is found at the feet of Jesus. Each time, she touches Jesus deeply.