Author: theelvesareheadingwest

An Anglican Priest of Northern English extraction Discovering Home Learning to be a Friend, father and husband - but above all, and indeed radically redfining all of this, a Disciple of the Risen One

Through the Bible in a Year – June 20

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ki 2; Mat 4; Psalm 67

In the temptations in the wilderness, Jesus is revealed in his full humanity to us. Tempted as we are in every way. What holds him through all that he endures is his understanding of who he is. Whilst we rightly make much of how Jesus responds to the Satan with words of Scripture – we perhaps miss the significance of his baptism – that his identity is secure in God his Father and he is enlivened by the Holy Spirit.

Each of the temptations is in essence to deny who he is, and each challenges us about our apprehension of our identity in Christ as sons and daughters of God.

First he is tempted to provide for himself. Of course much of bourgeois Christianity does exactly this. ‘God helps those who help themselves’ we are told and a thousand and other little lies. We are taught to take our lives into our own hands. In many ways it is the greatest failing of the western church, that throughout 1700 years of Christendom, we have become entwined in the world’s way of thinking about material things. How are our lives any different from those around us in regard to the physical provision of God. Do we know His provision of the stuff of life?

Next Jesus is called upon to deny his Father in terms of trusting him to work his good purposes out. Again the temptation is ‘to take his life into his own hands’, ironically in a way by risking his life. In an age where more than ever before we vaunt the spectacular, the large scale [think how much effort we put into ‘good communication’ re ‘EVENTS’ coming up in our churches] – in our own way we throw ourselves down from the temple many many times . . . to no effect. God reveals his Glory in His way. Ultimately, the ‘spectacle’ of God’s glory is revealed not in pyrotechinics but in the dead body of Jesus on the cross. That is His way of manifesting himself. We need to allow That to influence our efforts at what is effectively ‘self’ promotion.

Finally it all comes to a head – ‘Bow down and worship me and you will have everything you desire’. It is perhaps barely necessary that we have perhaps unwittingly, but certainly in culpable ignorance sold out to Satan in our worship of Mammon in the contemporary church.

Again, I say we see Jesus here in his humanity. In his overcoming temptation he sets a path for us to follow. Being His entails learning from Him (being his disciple). It is not primarily learning the Scriptures, although they have their not insignificant place. Primarily it is coming to our senses as Children of the most high God, realising that these temptations assail our very being, and learning like Jesus to refute them – secure in our identity as those he is not ashamed to call brothers and sisters – following Him.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 19

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ki 1; Mat 3; Psalm 66

One of the key titles for Jesus in Matthew is ‘Son of David’. We find the angel also addresses Joseph thus – so it of course at one level means ‘in the lineage of David’. But at another it expresses Israel’s Messianic hope – the ‘annointed one’ – the Christ – that is the King.

Of course ‘King’ ‘covers a multitude of sins’. Anyone aware of human history knows that those who lead are every bit as flawed as those who are led. So the story of David ends in 1 Kings, not in a blaze of glory, but with an enfeebled king dying and being manipulated by those around him. This is unpacked over the first two chapters as Solomon accedes to the throne – but we see David now enacting revenge that for some reason in his strength he had refused to be associated with.

Perhaps it is here we see David in Truth? Certainly it is instructive that our scriptures do not engage in hagiography – at least the Samuel/Kings account does not.

But now another King steps onto the stage – Jesus embarks on his public ministry – heralded by the abrasive character of the Baptist – who preaches repentance in readiness to meet with the coming one, the one who will baptise with fire – and with the very life of God.

Yet Jesus himself sees how important it is that everything be fulfilled – so he too is baptised. In so doing Identifying fully with repentant Israel, and more broadly all those who repent and turn to God. And in this he is annointed with the Spirit which he will pass on to those who follow him, and is declared the beloved Son of God.

The identification of Jesus with his own is I think worthy of much meditation – we are found ‘in Christ’ to use Paul’s phrase.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 18

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 27-29; Mat 2; Psalm 64-65

Matthew’s great theme is ‘Fulfillment’ We shall see this over and again in many ways. Immediately the Christ child finds himself as it were driven from amongst his people – to that place of ancient threat – Egypt. Abraham of course also sojourned in Egypt, but unlike Abraham, and indeed the children of Jacob, we know nothing of the time the Holy Family spent there, except that ‘it was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophets’.

In the coming of Jesus we see all God’s purposes and plans coming to Fulfillment – and it is worthwhile asking ourselves, can we hold this to be true? Or are we waiting for another??

Through the Bible in a Year – June 17

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 25-26; Mat 1; Psalm 62-63

Our scheme sadly does not take us through all four gospels twice. So we need to pay close attention now to Matthew which we open today. In orthodox churches, there is Always a reading from one of the four gospels. Many of us belong to churches where we stand as the gospelis read – often from amongst the people – to remind us that we are hearing the words of of our Lord.

Jesus as we shall see over the next few days, places great emphasis on listening to his words and doing them. In a sense this is the heart of the Scriptures. These words do not come to us through human agency, except that of the Word made flesh. They are the very words of the Second person of the Trinity. These words are life to us.

And Matthew is at pains to point this out – we begin with one of two genealogies of Jesus – this one dates points us back to Abraham – the one who is the father of the faithful – and also includes the Royal line in the initial inscription. He is ‘Jesus, the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham’

Unlike Luke, Matthew focuses on Joseph in the story of Jesus’ birth – ‘Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born’. All the way through the genealogy, Matthew draws in seemingly peripheral figures, or outsiders, and in a sense this is true also of Joseph. His role is portrayed as simply obedience – an overshadowing of Mary.

In Catholic tradition, Mary is sometimes understood in terms of the Ark of the Covenant – the God bearer. Perhaps we might understand Joseph as the cherubim that overshadow the ark?

Also of course we have the famous text from Isaiah. ‘Behold – a virgin shall conceive and bear a son’. Matthew, one who writes in Greek takes his text from the Septuagint, the Greek text, rather than the Hebrew, or at least the Hebrew as we have it. Actually the Greek is the oldest extant text – our earliest copies of the Hebrew text date from much much later. The Hebrew text has ‘a young woman shall conceive (Isaiah 7:14). It is possible but not proven, that in an effort to quieten the Christian apologists, the Hebrew text was changed, and that in the original it did say virgin.

Finally it is important to note that ‘God is with us’ – in the Isaiah text is freighted with threat as well as promise. When God comes to his people to be amongst them, it is as King, as Judge. Joseph knows the One who commands and goes about His business promptly. However much contemporary tellings of this story make of ‘what it must have been like for Joseph’ -the scriptures only reveal a faithful child of Abraham, who like father Abraham goes in response to his Word (cf Genesis 12:1-3)

Sermon for Sunday June 16th – Four after Pentecost 2013

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1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a
Luke 7:36-8:3

“I see you”

Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. And Ahab said to Naboth, ‘Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.’

That these verses are seemingly innocuous to us, betrays a poverty of theological imagination of the highest and most destructive order. That we can hear these words without a chill going down our spine shows how little we think of God. We think that Ahab’s request is perfectly reasonable – indeed we do not think it can possibly have anything to do with God – after all, isn’t this precisely how we live out our lives?

We see something someone has, and we ask if we might own it instead? I am aware locally of several instances of people or organisations looking at a piece of property – a house perhaps which stands on land which would be very useful to them, and so they make the home owners an offer, and like Ahab sulk when they don’t get their own way. After all, ‘Everyone has their price . . .’ Indeed we see this working itself out in many ways across the world. Governments and large corporations making offers to people to move them off their land, for large agricultural or power schemes. And when they don’t get their way . . . well if sulking is the worst they do, then the people have been fortunate. Much of our food and power production in the modern world is dependent on peoples being moved off their ancestral land, ‘for the greater good of all’ we say. And yet of course it is not Our land which people seek to acquire. It is Not Our land.

In a couple of weeks time, together with my family, I’ll be flying back to the UK. As part of our time there, we’ll spend a week in a remote coaching house, high in the mountains of Snowdonia, North Wales. As you approach the house you drive up a long broad valley with steep sided mountains rearing up to right and left. The hill to the left was made famous some 70 years ago now, when the man who farmed it wrote a book about his experiences

It is a fine and very enjoyable read, but I have to admit I am always put off it by the title “I bought a mountain”. It is I suggest presumptuous, indeed more than that, it verges on the blasphemous. It is surely incredible that anyone who has the remotest sensitivity to Holy Scripture would fail to think this way – for ‘The Earth is the Lord’s and all they that dwell there in’ Yes all land has an owner – the Lord. None of it is ours to buy or sell – but that is not how we see things . . .

One of the interesting things to consider as we approach the 200th anniversary of the first proclamation of the gospel in these lands, is that one reason that the Maori we so very open to the message of the Scriptures was precisely because the Bible teaches that no-one Owns the land. To Maori thinking, as to that of the Hebrews, it was plain. The land was not up for sale. Those first Pakeha migtrants were allocated space, and to farm, because we all need land to flourish. So Space was made, but never with our understanding of Ownership. For the Maori Understood, they Saw that no-one owned the land. Indeed it is a ridiculous idea, because one way or another everyone ends up as fertiliser for the land 🙂 but later the English began to sell the land. Essentially the heart of our many of our bicultural problems here in New Zealand are related to this difference in understanding.
As it was famously with Ghandi, so too with the Maori to some extent – both Saw, both Understood the gospel far better than those who proclaimed it. For several centuries the Western version of Christianity had become increasingly dissociated from the Creation. The word ‘The Earth is the Lord’s’ reduced to the level of a pious bumper sticker – having no concrete reference in the lives of believers. Ahab, in many ways represents Our view of Land, as commodity. The scriptures warn us against covetousness, but we like Ahab see and we desire . . .

But, Naboth responds to Ahab : ‘The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.’ Now we have to be careful here – for we might think that Naboth ‘owns the land’ – in the way for example that part of my family had until about 30 years ago, farmed the same land for several generations. But no this is not quite the same. Rather the ‘inheritance of Naboth’ was that Land that God had distributed, so that in the end none would go without food. All would have, for want of a better phrase ‘the means of production’ – for the Land brings forth her increase – and thus we are blessed by God. ‘The LORD forbid!’ This was enshrined in The Key Law of the Old Testament – the One that Jesus comes to enact and of which I have spoken before – the Law of Jubilee. Jubilee recognised that some would do worse, some would do better, and thus some might find themselves having to pass their land to others in order to survive. BUT after 50 years All land reverted – without penalty. You didn’t have to pay to get it back – because it didn’t belong to the others in the first place. It belonged to God. We do not believe this.

So Ahab is transgressing the law of God in seeking to obtain the land from Naboth in the first place. Naboth knows, he must not give away, and he definitely must NOT sell it. He must not make that which God has given to him a means of dishonest gain. For that in truth is what it is. We cannot even begin to comprehend this, how far has our perception, our apprehension of the Living God evaporated from our consciousness that we hear the opening verses of the reading and do not quake in our boots – we do not cry out in horror at the blasphemous acquisitiveness of Ahab. We just don’t get it. Oh yes we get the horror of what happens next – but we are blind to the appalling sinfulness of the request – because it is how we live out our own lives.

Ahab views the land, and wants it for himself. That is Sin – and it still is. Now I could give you many and varied examples of this going on all around us – suffice to say that acquiring land is how much of modern commerce and trade goes on. Interestingly there is in the scriptures a constant if quiet judgement of trading, which occasionally bubbles to the surface as in this tale. we think nothing of it. We have lost sight of God. And thus also our neighbour.

Indeed it is the evil genius of the modern world that it hides the neighbour from us. and it is why money is so important to us. For Money is a mechanism of disconnection from the other – everyone has their price. When we go to buy something apart from courtesies, we have no interest whatsoever in the person from whom we buy – we pay its value in money – the human is hidden. Indeed of course so much that we buy we do not buy from those who produce. Who made the clothes we wear? Unless you buy all your food at the farmers market, then it is highly unlikely you know who grew it. We certainly don’t know anyone involved in the production of our food in the biblical sense – that you Know them we eat with them, we are their neighbour. But even the act of buying and selling itself denies the other. Ultimately it denies God. how can we pay anyone for anything if the Earth is the Lord’s?? We have devised a way of living which denies the fundamental truth, that Everything belongs to God – and thus also we lose sight of our neighbour. We think that the answer to hunger in the world is better structures – but in reality it is the necessary softening of hearts of those who dwell in fine houses and dine sumptuously each day – to pick up on a later story of Jesus.

And losing sight of God and neighbour is at once the key theme of both this reading and our gospel, and also the heart of our human plight. Thus Jesus is the one who comes to restore sight to the blind. And to See God, is also to see ourselves not only in relationship to God, not only in relationship to others, but in relationship to the whole of creation. We live lives of disconnection from Creation and our neighbour which would have been unimagineable but a few generations ago. We think we can buy mountains, indeed we think we can buy anything if only we have the money. We are oblivious to the impact of others of our decisions. We mat say – ‘this is my land’ – ‘this is my mountain’ even . . . And God laughs us to scorn . . . We are called to a deep deep repentance. Before we can accept the life giving word as the Baptiser says, our hearts must be prepared. ‘You have two cloaks, your neighbour has none’ Unless we are repentant we cannot hear the Life giving word of Christ. Our deceiving hearts block the path of Grace.

At least Ahab had to look Naboth in the face! At least he was tormented by the outcome, and at least he repented – although sadly our reading stopped short of that point. Our lives are disconnected, from the land, from one another and thus from God. It is one reason why I am increasingly saying that as Christians we are ‘against the Spiritual’ – for ‘the Spiritual’ is a way in which modern man escapes the concrete responsibility and necessary repentance he has to his neighbour and to creation. We ‘spiritualise the gospel’ – we sing pietistic hymns about how sweet the name of Jesus sounds – but we do not obey Jesus. We do not See him. we do not know him. And I admit freely and without any pride whatsoever that I know much of my own failings in this regard.

I entitled this sermon – ‘I see you’. Years ago a tutor at theological college told us that we in the West say – ‘How are you?’ when we meet others. But in many African cultures people say ‘I See you’. The other day, in Auckland I was involved in a mihi for the first time and shared a Hongi with several people. I was told that some people looked the other in the eye when pressing noses – I am someone who does look people in the eye – it was a powerful experience – I fully understand why the Maori understand it to be a sharing of divine life. And of course once you have so shared Hongi, you are no longer manuhiri [visitors], you are now tangata whenua – one of the people of the land, sharing in all that that means – sharing in life – Sharing – neighbours in the biblical sense.

Our gospel reading at first sight about foregiveness and love – which it is – is also about the associated theme of hospitality and sharing in life. Jesus asks Simon the Pharisee, ‘Do you see this woman?’ ‘Do you see her?’ Ahab Sees the Land with covetous eyes. “I want that!!” He only sees Naboth purely in terms of his realtionship to the land which Ahab erroneously thinks he owns. Simon sees the woman – purely as a sinner. He has no relationship with her and indeed does not want one with her. One can only wonder at his reaction if he had to give her a hongi! Simon stands afar off. The woman draws close to Jesus.

It is worth noting that the story doesn’t make the sense we expect it to. Jesus uses the love of the woman for him to teach Simon a story about forgiveness – if we read it closely the dynamic is staggering, in her drawing near to Jesus she is forgiven. Her love for Jesus is as much the trigger for forgiveness as it is the result of it. Jesus only speaks the words ‘Your sins are forgiven’ AFTER she has wept over his feet and dried them and it is not entirely clear whose benefit it is for – indeed all we hear is the reaction of the others in the house. She has entered relationship with Jesus – She loves him. As in the story of jesus and Peter which we have mentioned several times since easter – there is no act of penitence – all there is is love. Do you love me.

To Love is to welcome the other – to identify with the other. To identify them in their freedom. Love is never coercive. It involves no ownership of the other. Rather it is a free sharing in the life of the other freely given. It is all gift. The Biblical word is Grace. Unfortunately we are heirs to such a distorted tradition that we imagine Grace is purely something which exists in relationship to our relationship with God. But aside from our relationship with creation and our neighbour we cannot know God. The Land is Gift. It is not to be bought or sold, indeed it cannot. If we do not see this, we do not see. Every person we meet is gift to us, as the woman was to Jesus. To reduce her to a moral problem, or as in the case of Naboth a difficult trader – is to fail to see them. Do we see?

Through the BIble in a Year – June 16

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 23-24; Rev 22; Psalm 60-61

We come to the final chapter of Revelation. In a sense the End of Scripture – although by no means the end of our year of readings. Here we find once more a river, and the tree that our forebears ignored – the tree of Life.

It is in many regards a wonder full thing that these verses close the canon, not least because the place of Revelation within the canon of Scripture was not always certain in the early years of the church. It belinged as we have seen to that line of scriptures called Apocalyptic, and others well known to the early Christians faded from view over the first couple of hundred years of the life of the church, leaving Revelation as The Apocalyptic scripture in the New Testament (perhaps we might also squeeze Jude in there as well?)

Certainly it makes the finest of ‘endings’ – with the reader focussed on the hope and expectation of seeing Christ.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus! is our prayer – perhaps the culmination of all prayer

Through the Bible in a Year – June 15

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 21-22; Rev 21; Psalm 58-59

Again we come upon a conundrum in the Scriptural account which we cannot simply ignore

In the Samuel account of the David story = we are told the LORD incited David to number the people. The Chronicler puts it at the door of the Satan.

There are several issues at point here. Firstly there is the question of what the author is trying to do. The Chronicler is writing in all likelihood much later than the author of Samuel. As we have seen there is a desire not to besmirch the royal name, by not mentioning David’s theft of Bathsheba. Certainly in a sense the Chronicler could be seen to be doing the same with regard to the name of God. Satan, along with all the angelic beings is in some accounts thought to emerge later in the tradition of Israel. His role as we know is veiled to some regards – certainly the opening chapters of Job suggest so. He is seen in some account as a free agent, in others a servant of the purposes of God. In a sense these two are not wholly irreconcilable.

But, and secondly, such texts do not allow us to have a simplistic approach to Scripture. ‘The Bible says . . .’ is always a line to be taken with fear and trembling – and here is one clear expression of why – for ‘The Bible says two things which to our ears sound irreconcilable’. Of course, we are also reminded that the Heart of the message of Scripture is that which we seek to hear. It is why it is Always good to read Scripture in company – none of us have our own personal hotline to the thoughts of the God whose ways and thoughts are not ours. We need to learn to hear the Word – and we do that in a community of disciples, committed above all to following Jesus, The Word made flesh.

 

Through the Bible in a Year – June 14

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 18-20; Rev 19-20; Psalm 56-57

Our readings in the Old Testament are ‘chronologically’ arranged. That is that the texts are read in a way that is arranged with the flow of time, the story of God’s people. Thus we shall soon be reading the prophets who denounced the kings of Israel and Judah, as we also read of the downfall of those same kings.

Of course, as we are all aware, the Old Testament contains many different types (genres) of writing. There is poetry and prayer (Psalms and Song of Songs), there are sayings (proverbs), there are theological tales (Jonah and Job for example), and then there is ‘historical narrative’.

And therein lies a difficulty for us – for there is history and there is history. Who writes the history influences what is included, and in the case of our reading today, what is left out.

We read the words ‘In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle . . .’ and immediately we are in familiar territory, having just read exactly the same words in 2 Samuel 11 . . . but the story does not continues the same.

The Chronicler is not interested in David’s personal history – he is telling the story of the great King of Israel with no interest in his personal character, unlike the author of Samuel. Here the story goes on without missing a step and were it not for Samuel, we would never have known of David’s theft of Bathsheba

Does it matter?

Through the Bible in a Year – June 13

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 16-17; Rev 17-18; Psalm 55

At the heart of the Old Testament is the theme of ‘right worship’. From the strange story of the Offerings of Cain and Abel, through the stories of the Patriarchs and coming to a focus in the Monarchy of the People of God – Right Worship – Worship in accordance with the God who makes himself known to us is central and the key interpretative element on which so much of the narrative hinges.

Thus David of course desires to make a house for the ark of the covenant – he seeks to to right in his worship of God.

At the heart of the story of course is the fundamental question, Who Is God? Right worship needs to be directed aright. Right Worship is a reflection of Divine Glory – it is that for which we are made, to make visible the Life of the God in whose image we are created. Thus worship of anyone or anything else is prohibited not in an arbitrary way, but because it denies who we are. It is death dealing.

Thus in our reading from Revelation, we see the bitter fruit of wrong worship. ‘Babylon the Great’ has made herself great; she has made herself an object of worship. She has made herself the great provider – she has traded to exalt herself, to make of herself a great and mighty nation. As for Babylon, be she Rome or Jerusalem, or be she any other nation, there is only one fate

Only One is great upon the Earth, the one who offers right worship to God. What is Any nation in comparison with Christ, the one who in himself is the Tabernacle of God.

Generosity

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Following a most helpful conversation this morning, through which I developed a far richer appreciation of the background  to the unique ‘Three Tikanga’ structure of the Anglican church here in New Zealand, I was led to think more and more about several things. Partnership, Sharing and ‘Generosity’.

It comes to me that true generosity only begins when we learn what it is to share of ourselves. In the context of most of us, this means, when we are stripped of things and money except that which is essential to our own well-being – the necessary food and clothes and shelter. Then when we share, we are giving of ourselves truly sacrificially.

There are many words we use carelessly, especially those of us who have much, and I am most definitely one of those. We speak of ‘sacrificial’ giving. But such giving is almost always out of our excess, after we have looked to our own ‘needs’, which may include such fripperies as vacations or a new car. Giving out of our abundance is not generosity as biblically understood. Christ comes amongst us divested of everything. It is out of this emptiness of possession he gives All he has, to us and to the Father.  That is Generosity.

The story of the widows mite needs to be read in the light of this ‘divested generosity’ of the Son of God.