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^*‘Can you draw out Leviathan^* with a fish-hook,
or press down its tongue with a cord?
² Can you put a rope in its nose,
or pierce its jaw with a hook?
³ Will it make many supplications to you?
Will it speak soft words to you?
⁴ Will it make a covenant with you
to be taken as your servant for ever?
⁵ Will you play with it as with a bird,
or will you put it on a leash for your girls?
⁶ Will traders bargain over it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?

Job 41:1-6 (NRSV)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together counsels that in our daily reading of scripture if a word or verse capture us, we stay there, stay with it, allow it to do its work. It is good counsel. For how infrequently in our reading of scripture does the Word rise up at us and call to us.
So this morning in our service of morning prayer, the appointed reading comes from Job. In the chapters where God gives Job what he has asked for and answers him, with questions (perhaps outside the gospels one of the most authentic encounters with the Living God). And I was captured by these verses, so much so that I had to be spoken to in order to bring me round.

For my purposes here, I will take it that Leviathan is a great whale. How does Job Now respond to God? For indeed what is the Great Leviathan now. Indeed traders Do bargain over it and divide is up amongst the merchants and no longer does ‘Moby Dick’ spell a Herculean struggle and Doom. No, for now a rocket  harpoon with an explosive head, launched from a safe distance does the business of Ishmael. Technological man now speaks back to God, Behold! Now what do You say? Answer Me!!

(Is it any wonder that in an age when We have conquered we have reduced the significant important theological questions from ‘What is man that you are mindful of him?’ to ‘What is God that he allows us to suffer?’)
Technology has as others have noted expanded the dominion of the human. So now, almost as a sporting event, a man leaps from the edge of space with a parachute on his back and we think nothing of drilling deep beneath the disappearing sea ice for oil (whatever the dangers, both to life and limb and to our survival). As I meditated on the passage I couldn’t help but feel that we had in our grasping the Domination of Creation – it’s kingship, that which was never ours, we have become utterly lost, we have lost all sense of our scale and who we are.
And as we have expanded externally we have become less and less internally. Who are you? is a question we might ask of the modern human and they might answer (after Descartes), ‘my thoughts’, or more so today,’my emotions’. What we are Not, it seems, is our body. Indeed our body has become our enemy. Whilst St Paul counsels that the flesh must be brought into subjugation, it was so that it might truly serve God’s purposes, not because we were at war with our bodies. But as we cry out in perplexity or anger to, or at, God, ‘Why must I suffer?’, the I that is at once inflated beyond the imagining of even our recent ancestors, is similarly so deflated and shrunk that it cannot comprehend that it is not actually the Lord of the Universe after all.
At root this, as with all human troubles, is an issue of the heart. It is only the shrunken heart that revels so in illusory expansiveness. Christ gave us Life giving commands, the most crucial of which in terms of the repair of the heart seems to me to be ‘Love your enemies – pray for them – ask God to bless them richly’. It is only in this outward focus on the concrete reality of those we do not love that we can begin to come to ourselves. Here is no illusory Mastery of Creation, here is no delightful concept or conceit with which we can comfort ourselves that we have a right, like Jonah, to be angry. Here is our Enemy, the source of our healing, the one who is given to us to bring us to ourselves, the one who ruthlessly exposes the toxicity of our heart and causes us to cry our ‘Lord, have mercy on Me, a sinner’ – the one who if we will give ourselves to this command will once more re-orient us  towards the worship of the living God, before whom we are nothing, before whom we need to repent in dust and ashes of our folly, our words without knowledge and our lives without LIFE,  Thus leaving us with better questions and far richer lives.

Bible Study notes for Sunday 11th November, 2012

The 32nd Sunday in Ordinary time, Year B

 

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Psalm 127

Hebrews 9:24-8

Mark 12:38-44

 

 

This Sunday presents us with some short passages, but each full of detail and opportunities for reflection

 

Take time to listen to each carefully. As Christians, we are learning to live from our ‘heart’. This is not as we might perhaps think, a reference to live out of our emotional life, rather from the depth of our new Life in Christ, out of the Spirit that God has put within us at our Baptism. To live from the heart is to live in newness of life in response to God our Father. ^[1]

So we do everything from our heart and art of our growth in Christ is learning to listen not only with our ears but with our heart, as we also learn to see with our heart.

 

So listen to each of the readings, perhaps a couple of times – what is God saying to you in and through His words to us

 

1. We have a short reading from Ruth – remind one another of the story of Ruth.
2. Part of its interest is the way in which this foreign woman becomes part of the story of Israel, specifically the story of David. Thus she is included in the genealogy of Jesus – Matthew 1:5. What does it suggest to you that this story is included in the Scriptures?^[2]
3. Read the Psalm. What do vs 1-2 say to you? How does this prayer alter our perspective on human activity? What do you make of vs 3-5? Is this short Psalm a Psalm of two halves or does it form a whole in some way?
4. Reading the passage from Hebrews – we note that verses 24-26 express the gospel. we note that it is expressed in terms of worship and the sacrifice for sin. ‘Nowadays, the significance of Christ’s sacrifice for sin has become less significant in our understanding of Christian faith’ Discuss
5. We are told that Christ ‘will appear a second time, not to deal with sin’ – Why not to deal to deal with sin? – ‘but to save those eagerly waiting for him.’ – Are we eagerly waiting for him? How do we eagerly wait for Christ?
6. Before reading the gospel, read Isaiah 53 – compare and contrast with Jesus’ description of the Scribes
7. ‘As Christians we should not expect or indeed desire to be treated with greater respect than Christ’  – Discuss
8. What does ‘Devour widow’s houses’ mean?
9. Read vs 35-37 – ‘Jesus is here apparently deliberately whipping up th animosity of his opposition’ – Discuss
10. ‘Rich people put in large sums’ – ‘out of their abundance’ The poor widow put in ‘two small copper coins’ – ‘everything she had’.
    1. Discuss the practise of putting plaques up in churches remembering wealthy benefactors
    2. ‘Even the Church still fails to grasp the breathtaking message of Christ in this respect’ – Discuss
    3. It is possible that here Jesus is critiquing the Temple’s financial foundations ‘devouring widow’s houses’ – taking the last penny from the widow. When we think of how we support the church, many churches suggest a tithe of income to the church. The writer Ronald Sider noted back in the 1970’s that tithing was far far harder for the poor than for the rich who might readily give a tenth of their income and hardly notice. What issues does Jesus observation raise for you?
    4. Refer back to Hebrews 9:26. What light if any does humiliation and sacrifice of Christ throw upon all of this and the things we value?
11. We bagan by reflecting that we are called to live form our hearts and to respond to the Lord from there. Take time once more to ‘listen’ to all we have considered – respond from your heart towards God who is rich in mercy.

One of the most difficult aspects of moving to a distant land is leaving behind those deep enriching friendships which you had carefully built and nurtured over the years. Friendships in which often nothing needed to be said – mutual presence and understanding going much further than words ever could.

Difficult that is in terms of Loss. It happened and it had to be born, but in a sense more difficult is to arrive and to establish new friendships. Unlike the Loss of friendships entailed in emigrating, the difficulty in this regard is in the necessary work of friendship building with people whom you do not know. It is a reminder of the deeper aspects of friendship, that it requires commitment and work. Friendships don’t ‘just happen’, rather they are the product of mutual intentionality, committing for example to meeting weekly for a meal or a coffee. To choose to trust a stranger with our lives.

Perhaps more than ever in a world where we are so mobile and faced every moment of the day with a bewildering array of attractive options for spending our time, it is hard to build deep and sustaining friendships. So it was, having just returned from a weekly cup of coffee with one of my new friends that I sat down with the gospel reading in order to prepare for our midweek Eucharist, and was struck by this very thing.

It was the parable of the wedding banquet from Matthew’s gospel (Ch.22 vs 1-14). Recently there has been a trend to try and remove this and other stark gospels from the lips of Jesus – to read them as sociological critiques which we then project back onto Jesus, but it strikes me that when we do this we are as always only trying to see our own reflection in Him. To make a ‘Jesus’ in our own image.

The parable of the wedding banquet is stark. Building on the rejection of the prophets by the children of Israel, those who are otherwise occupied refuse to attend the marriage of the King’s son, and indeed kill those bearing the invitation. The story then moves on to the King’s determination that the wedding feast will go ahead and his servants are sent out once more, this time onto the highways and by-ways to bring in the guests.
Finally when all is set the feast begins, yet the King notices one who is not properly attired, not wearing wedding garments, one who hasn’t made any effort to reciprocate the invitation, one who is thrown into outer darkness.

God in Christ has called us to such a banquet. In Love he has laid down his life for us, he has done Everything. As St Paul has it, he has reconciled the world to himself – he has called us his friends. Every moment of the day he waits for us, waits for our commitment to that friendship, our ‘yes’ to His Yes!

We may well understand the man without wedding robes to be one who has as it were wandered through life, aware at some level of God’s invitation to Know Him, to Love Him, to Be with Him. And yet has not reciprocated, perhaps trusting in some erroneous sense that this friendship required nothing of him (a stumbling block perhaps laid by some kindly preacher?) , that he would ‘go to heaven when he dies’ (a heaven which in popular imagination God, whom we do not know has absented Himself from).

I remember all too well as a youth, having heard so many times that God loved me, abandoning any effort at worship. Why bother? After all, God loved me and worship, prayer and the fellowship of the church were inconvenient. Yet in his mercy God seized hold of me, confronted me with the breathtaking scope of his invitation to me in and through Christ, and I knew I had been careless with that which was of Infinite worth. ( A carelessness of which I am not entirely free, even now some 30 years later)

In another of Jesus’ parables we hear the spine chilling words on His lips ‘Away from me, I never Knew you’. He had kept his appointments, Always been sat waiting for us, but building friendship with him had been too inconvenient for us.
Unlike a key difficulty in making friends with those amongst whom we come to live – that there are often very well established friendship groups into which it is hard if not impossible to break – God in Christ is Always in the business of making friends, it expresses part of the essence of the Triune God. Relating is Who God is. God is Love.

What  do we do to build friendships with others?

What will we do to reciprocate God’s invitation, and thus enjoy the feast of friendship with Him?

He is waiting. When we meet, will it be as strangers or friends?

Bible Study Notes

Sunday 28th October, 2012

Ordinary Time 30 B

 

Job 42:1-17

Psalm 34:1-8

Hebrews 7:23-28

Mark 10:46-52

 

This week’s texts are all relatively brief. Take time to read them out loud in your group. Listen. What catches your attention?

 

We come to the last of our readings in Job this week with the resolution that is in our eyes no resolution at all. Last week we read of how God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, revealing the paucity of Job’s understanding^[1] This week we read Job’s response, the LORD’s response to Job’s friends, and of Job’s restoration. It is I suggest a journey to the heart of faith

 

1. First Job’s response. He says, ‘I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; ⁶therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
   1. What do we make of Job’s response? Why should seeing God cause him to despise himself? What is he repenting of?
   2. How might such a humiliating vision of God change the way in which we live before him?
   3. In Chapter 19:26, Job utters the lines, made famous in Handel’s Messiah ‘After my flesh has thus been destroyed, Yet in my flesh shall I see God’ This verse is usually taken to express a hope of bodily resurrection, yet in the light of 42:5 it is given another meaning, that somehow Job has seen God before his physical death. Read the mysterious words of Jesus in John 11:25-6, Also Colossians 3:1-3, and, again John 5:24. ‘To come to faith is so to encounter God that our life changes as if we had died and been born again’ Discuss.
   4. In this light, the story of Job is the story of someone coming to true faith. Discuss
2. Now we turn to Job’s friends.
   1. What is the LORD’s charge against them? First note that they had with Job engaged in a very serious discussion about God and His ways. How much is such discussion part of our experience?
   2. Yet such discussion is not straightforward ‘We speak too freely of God. We do not take truthful speech about God with due seriousness.’ Discuss
   3. Although it is widely suggested that the Book of Job is one of the most ancient, if not the oldest Scripture in the Old Testament ^[2], one of the remarkable elements of it is the many resonances with the Psalms, especially the Psalms of David. Reflect on Psalm 32:1-6, and also this week’s Psalm in the light of our readings from Job

 

 

 

1. Job’s restoration.
   1. It has been suggested that this restoration entirely undoes the whole story^[3]. Job Is proved righteous and thus ends up materially more blessed than he was at first. Read vs 11 – note that the writer is not squeamish in attributing ‘blame’, so to speak. The Satan has disappeared from the narrative, only the mysterious one who we are told had brought evil upon Job. What do we make of this?

 

1. We come from the mysterious book of Job, to the equally mysterious letter to the Hebrews^[4]
   1. Read the passage – What if anything do you think any of this has to do with Christian faith?
   2. Again we see the High Priestly ministry of Jesus expressed in different terms to that of the ‘former priests’. What differences are alluded to?
   3. Vs 26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. ‘This verse either denies or gives a radically different slant to many popular notions of Jesus’ – Discuss
   4. The Vision of Christ in the book of Hebrews is exceptionally exalted with for example Mark’s portrayal of Jesus. ‘Holding the divinity and the humanity of Christ in proper tension is amongst the most difficult yet crucial aspects of our understanding of God’ Discuss

 

1. Turning now to Mark’s gospel
   1. First we note the many healing’s of blind people by Jesus. John’s gospel gives over an entire chapter to such an account. What is the significance of the healing of the blind?
   2. Interestingly Timaeus is the name of a work by Plato in which the main character, Timaeus ponders the nature of reality.
      1. In what ways does the healing of Timaeus and indeed Jesus’ strange words to the Pharisees (John 9:39-41) call into question the nature of reality?
      2. What echoes are there here of the LORD’s dialogue with Job, and last week’s gospel reading about James and John?

iii. This being the case, is not Bartimaeus’ request the request of all people of faith?

1. Bartimaeus calls out ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’. This is the probable foundation of ‘The Jesus Prayer’ –  ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’ In what ways is it a prayer of faith?
2. In John’s gospel, in the resurrection narrative, Mary Magdalene when she recognises Jesus cries out ‘Rabouni!’ Meaning ‘Teacher’? ‘To See who Jesus is is to understand him to be our teacher’ – Discuss. In what ways is he our teacher?
3. What else do you notice in this brief incident?

Sermon for Sunday October 21st, 2012
Genesis 22:1-19
Colossians 1:1-14
Hope

We do not live in an age which speaks much if at all of Virtue. Being Virtuous has a rather Victorian ring to it, and yet for much of Western history, largely under the influence of Greek culture and philosophy, the Virtues were in part understood as something into which the growing child ought to be formed.
In Classical Antiquity, there were the four Cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Courage, to which the early church being born into this culture swiftly added via St Paul, the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Love. All seven are deserving of deep consideration, not least because the meaning ascribed to each has changed dramatically from how they were first conceived.
Words of course change their meaning down through the ages, but these are words which are tied to fundamental understandings or aspirations of what it means to be human and in the case of the three theological virtues, what it means to be children of God. Faith, Hope and Love are the looked for fruit of a Life immersed in the life of God.
And this evening we think about hope, and the nature of Christian Hope, something which is utterly different to hope as commonly understood.

Martin Luther is reputed to have said something which gives us a glimpse of the Radical nature of Christian Hope, ‘If I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would plant a tree’. As with so many of such ‘famous sayings’, it is in all likelihood not true that he said it, there being no record of his saying it prior to 1944. But be that as it may, this saying ‘If I knew the world was going to end tomorrow I would plant a tree’ encapsulates Much of this most significant Theological virtue. Staring the End of all things in the face and then calmly expressing another possibility, an impossible possibility. Christian Hope is as Action as much as a thought – it directs us to live in a way that makes no sense amidst the death narratives of the world in which we live, And as such, Hope is as timely today as it ever has been.

Whilst we have no sense that the world might end tomorrow, [although given the propensity for such predictions, no doubt someone somewhere has suggested it will] – we do live in an age in which to say we face an uncertain future is putting as hopeful a spin on it as we can. I don’t mean with regard to the future of the Diocese of Dunedin, but to the future of the whole Created order and humankind’s place within it. The end of the line looms ever larger and the temptation to live for the moment it seems has never been so overwhelming. From Soundbite politics to aimless hedonistic lives – will live not only in a culture which is as ahistoric as any previous, but also one in which the Future is erased from the horizon of consciousness, perhaps because it seems too horrific to think about, or to live into with hope.
Having had an amateur interest in Climate Science since the mid 1980’s when I first became aware of what we now call Climate Change, I have watched as the signs of change have arrived with ever increasing rapidity, until we are now seeing unmistakeable signs of a climate which had passed the ‘tipping point’ and is heading into a period of accelerated warming. And that has not gone totally unnoticed as people think of the future.     There was a very definite anti-echo of Luther’s sentiment very present in the UK in the year or so before I left to come to New Zealand. A sense of hopelessness that was expressed in a form of ‘the world IS ending so we are not planting trees’ Young couples getting married, in itself always something which expresses hope – were increasingly heard to say ‘but we will not be having any children, for we fear for what the future holds for them’. I remember a generation ago telling the youngsters to whom I taught science that Climate Change would have perhaps unthinkably dark ramifications for their children. And so it seems for some of that now grown up generation, they sense that this might indeed be the case – choosing not to have children, a symptom of a deep underlying nihilism increasingly abroad as hopelessness seems to grow in the sometimes unconscious actions of our lives.

Choosing not to have children is to embrace as a choice, as a Good Thing, something which down through the ages has been understood as a curse, that of barrenness. The metaphor of the human as Consumer, just making a choice, picking a lifestyle, undeniably justifies these unconscious hopeless leanings,  but throughout history until this day such a choice would be seem as life denying. We seem to have lost sense of what it is to live.

And that choice brings us to the strange story of Abraham and Isaac – Strange, indeed terrifying, and yet a story which goes Right to the heart of the Christian apprehension of Hope, a strange hope which finds no other reference in the world in which we live. That we should look in this dark tale for hope seems at best counter intuitive, at worst perverse. For it is a story about the erasing of the Future, Yet in that very sense of foolishness lies its extraordinary power.

Our reading is the culmination of that story of human hopefulness, of barreness, overcome. Of Joy of delight, but suddenly darkness –  a story about the investment of that human hope in the birth of a child.
We read a little earlier in Genesis 18 of the visitation to the aged Abraham and Sarah and the promise of a son – ‘Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind Abraham. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?’ The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ But Sarah denied, saying, ‘I did not laugh’; for she was afraid. He said, ‘Oh yes, you did laugh.’ – and we know the story, Sarah in due time bears a son and names him ‘Laughter’, or Isaac. The son of laughter who is born against all human hope and expectation. Abraham who has no hope for a son, has a son, and yet this earlier part of the narrative does not as yet touch on Hope as conceived in Christian faith.     For Christian faith is in a real sense not a thing of the miraculous. Christian HOpe is not a sense that a miracle will occur – Jesus himself points his followers not to the miracles, not to the signs, but to that which they signify. The birth of Isaac is a sign of the presence of God, but as yet it is not the ground of faith. Christian hope is not about the WOW of the utterly amazing and rationally inexplicable miracles which still occur around us, but something Other. Don’t pin your hope on miracles Jesus says, pin your hope on me, on my life giving word, and so the story goes on to tonights dark text

To begin to understand what this text might possibly mean and how it reveals to us the heart of the Christian virtue of Hope, we need also to have a feel for something else which for better or worse we no longer acknowledge – that is lineage and particulalry patrilinearity, lineage through the male line.

Abraham had his son! Isaac! The sardonic laughter of Sarah converted in this miraculous birth to exultant laughter, full of wonder and joy – hope it seemed was to continue. that desire for continuation, for continued life – the Human triumphant YES! – but then suddenly faced with the NO! The strange and killing word,  Kill your hope, Abraham. Kill YOUR hope. You have invested your entire future in this boy, He is your hope. And this Life giving, Hope giving word of God came to Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’
For Abraham the call to sacrifice his son was no more nor less than the call to die. To have children was to have Life – true life, life that had continuation – it was the way in which death could be cheated, it was and indeed Is the continuation of that human sense of hope for something more and better, in and of ourselves. Still even against the backdrop of all that seeks to overwhelm us in so many ways, still people Do desire to have children, to see their Life extended, Life on Our terms. If we don’t have a sense of the significance of lineage we miss the point here – Abraham in sacrificing his son, lays down his own future, his own life. Everything is invested in Isaac. “Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, then come follow me.” The Word of Grace is at once an invitation to death, to say no to our own investments, and to Life to discover the treasure of life on God’s terms.
As Abraham and Isaac make this literally ‘terrifying’ walk to Moriah, What lies ahead of Abraham facing this literally terrible call? Nothing. Extinction. Blackness. Eternal night. The end of the line. Death. And it is in confronting that that Abraham discovers Life, a life that is not his own, but one that is Given.When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’ And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt-offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place ‘The Lord will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’

And Abraham, acting in faith reveals the true nature of Christian Hope, that it is not something which we can naturally drum up within ourselves, rather like whistling in the dark. No, it is the gift of God given in the moment when we give up on our own lives. When we lay down our own lives, which is the meaning of the words of Jesus, For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. It is only in the knowledge of God as the one named ‘The Lord will provide’, that we turn from all our futile death denying attempts to live for ever. To have faith is to have already got your dying over and done with, and thus to know something far more sure and certain

St Paul says You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. Abraham as we know is to bear much fruit, to be the father of many nations – but first he too must truly comprehend the grace of God, that God will provide! That it is the indestructible life of God which is the world’s True hope.

A few years ago I went with some of my fellow ordinands to visit a mosque in the east end of London. We sat and listened politely to the Imam, who lectured us all on the superiority of Islam over Christianity. Finally he became a little more hospitable and referred to a common ancestry, that of Abraham and mentioned this story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. One of my friends suggested that in that story was the roots of Christian faith. Abraham in the end did not give up his son, but received him back from death. ‘Islam if I understand it correctly,’ he said, ‘teaches God has no son. As you know, we Christians do not believe that to be the case. God as you say did not require Isaac of Abraham. As we Christians believe, that was because he gave his own son for the life of the world’

To be Christian is to live in and through and out of THAT life, for all our hopes and dreams fade like the morning mist. In the end we all like Abraham must come to that place if we are to live a children of Hope, children of the God who provides. We must all come to the blackness of Good Friday, to know all our hopes and dreams extinguished and then with no light at all, to press on in faith to the Glorious hope expressed on Easter morning. For indeed ‘On the mount of the Lord it has been provided.’
And thus as Christians even if we know with certainty the world is ending tomorrow, we do not be joining the rest of the world in the hedonism and despair of nihilism, rather, in our own embracing Christ in his death and resurrection we reveal something which might by its strange light call the curious to a truer and deeper life. We might indeed choose to plant a tree.

BIble Study notes for Sunday October 7th, 2012

Job 1:1, 2:1-10
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16

This week our study focusses on the two passages from the New Testament

Firstly the passage set from Hebrews

1. Take some time to share together your answer to the questions:- ‘Who is Jesus?’; “How has my understanding of Jesus changed over the years?
a. Now read Hebrews 1:1-4
i. What are your first impressions of the one described here?
ii. How well does it accord with your answer to the question ‘Who is Jesus?’
iii. In Verse 2 we read ‘in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by a Son’. In what ways does God speak in and through his Son?
iv. What does it mean that Christ is: – ‘the heir of all things’; the one ‘through whom he [God] created the worlds (note the plural); the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being’; the one who ‘sustains all things by his powerful word’?
b. A second time, in the light of these questions, reflect back on your initial answer to the question ‘Who is Jesus?’
c. Here we read that he is the one who ‘made purification for sins’
i. What is your understanding of what Jesus achieved on the cross?
ii. What do we mean by the phrase ‘made purification for sins’?
2. Now turn to and read 2:5-12
a. Here we come to one of those passages where those with good intentions have once more denied us the riches of the text. vs6-8a is a direct quote from Psalm 8 vs 4-6, which reads ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the Son of Man that you care for him’. By making the language inclusive, plurals are introduced ‘You have made them a little lower than the angels – you have crowned them with glory and honour – and subtly deflected our attention from the subject of the Psalm, The Son of Man, Jesus Christ [Son of Man being an apocalyptic term as we find in say for example the Book of Daniel]. In what other ways do we deflect attention away from Christ to ourselves?
b. We note that all things are put in subjection under ‘their feet’. The writer tot he Hebrews however is not primarily concerned with humanity as a whole, but with Christ and only secondarily humanity. So the original text reads v8 . . .Subjecting all things under his feet” Now in subjecting all things to him, God left nothing outside his control. As it is we do not see everything subject to him 9 but we do see Jesus . . . now crowned with Glory and honour’ Discuss how this shift of meaning changes how we read the text
c. If we read on into verse 9 we see that Christ is the one who is the archetype of humanity – that in his tasting death, he has therefore tasted death for everyone. What are the implications of this?
d. If Jesus in his humanity is actually the representative of humanity – what does this mean, to represent?
e. vs 10 refers to Jesus as the pioneer of our salvation. What does ‘pioneer’ mean? Why is ‘Jesus not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters’ [here the inclusive language is helpful rather than a hindrance. Look ahead to Mark 10:6]
3. So we turn to Mark 10:2-16
a. Chris in his sermon last week quoted Gillian Rose ‘God is not nice, God is not ‘uncle’, God is an Earthquake’ In what sense is Jesus an earthquake in this weeks reading?
b. What are our first impressions of the text?
c. ‘THis text is not primarily about divorce, but about marriage’ Discuss
d. Note the form of the Pharisees question
i. In what way do you think this is a ‘test’ question for Jesus?
ii. ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife’ It was unthinkable for a woman to divorce her husband in Jesus’ culture. This of course throws up the old chestnut of Rights. Why would someone want the right to divorce? Note – Jesus’ response does not legitimate divorce as a right – he is even handed in his treatment re men and women (vs11-12)
e. Jesus in his reply discloses their heart. He first says ‘What did Moses command you?’ Note 1) the Pharisees do not answer the question, 2) there are no commands on divorce in the Torah (although it is assumed to take place)
i. Given that, what do you make of their reply?
ii. What do you make of Jesus’ rejoinder?
iii. What is ‘hardness of heart’ in this context?
f. It is clear from the few references to divorce in the Torah [first five books of the Old Testament] that women who had been divorced (had been given a certificate of divorce) were in a vulnerable position – Read Deuteronomy 24:1-4 to see what the result of writing certificates was! Given that there is no command about divorce, and Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees ‘It was because of your hardness of heart’ it is quite clear that Jesus is here correcting an abusive system. But if we read on vs 6-12 (note in v12 Jesus sees a woman divorcing her husband as a possibility) – what is Jesus teaching overall in this regard as presented in Mark’s gospel?
i. We are accustomed to giving ‘reasons for divorce’ – it is very much part of our culture
1. what is the core of Jesus argument against divorce? Read vs 6-8
2. In what way is this a very different form of argument to that made today?
3. Now read on to verse 11-12. How does Jesus teaching to his disciples naturally flow on from his argument in vs6-8?
4. The Catholic and Orthodox churches both teach that a marriage that has not been consummated is not a marriage. Is this in agreement with the teaching of Jesus here?
4. Over the last few weeks, Jo has helpfully reminded us that Mark likes to put incidents in contrasting pairs (actually there is a very strong connection to the following story of the rich young ruler . . . more anon). The dialogue on the nature of marriage is followed by the familar story of Jesus’ disciples trying to keep children from Jesus
a. Are there any resonances with the marriage dialogue in this incident?
b. Note :- we begin with a dialogue on marriage and move to one on children
c. What is the Kingdom of God?
d. What does it mean to enter the Kingdom of God?
e. What does Jesus mean ‘receive the kingdom of God as a little child?
f. There are many fascinating parallels between Mark’s gospel and that of John (the two gospels that at first sight could not be more different) – Read John 3:1-7 [Note this is the only time John uses the phrase ‘Kingdom of God’] – Does this throw a different light on your answer to 4e?

What difference if any does it make to your reading of the Mark passage that Jesus is the one referred to in the reading from Hebrews?

The Vicar writes . . .

Recently, as I’m sure we’re all aware, the Diocese has been facing up to the fact that its future is looking increasingly uncertain. To use a phrase which seems to crop up often in our shared discourse, we are facing a ‘Perfect Storm’ of circumstances, which in many people’s eyes call into question the viability of the Diocese of Dunedin.

Diocesan Synod met last month, and there we gave much time over to prayer and Bible study as we pondered what the Spirit might be saying to the church in the midst of this ‘Storm’. Interestingly I don’t remember any of us crying out ‘Save us! Don’t you care that we are drowning??’. Whilst our minds may been attentive to Scripture, perhaps there was too much confidence in our own ability somehow to navigate these threatening waters?

I don’t think I would have noticed this, but for a comment in a debate on a topical issue, which filled much of the rest of our time. In it the speaker said, almost in passing, ‘The Church disregards the teaching of Jesus in regard to this matter . . .’, but without any note of censure or concern. As if it was a matter of no import. As if, as with thinking about the future of the Diocese, we didn’t need, indeed desperately need the Wisdom of Christ. As if we can figure this out for ourselves. And I cannot help but think that the state of the Diocese may well be in part down to a deep rooted sense that we can figure this out for ourselves. [An attitude which it must be said has pervaded most of Western Christianity since the Enlightenment]

Jesus, in Matthew’s gospel says ‘take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’. It is plain from speaking with many people about the future of the Diocese that our souls are far from being ‘at rest’ in this regard. Perhaps that is because we have not taken the yoke of Jesus? But, what is that yoke? This figure of speech is deeply embedded in the history of the Jewish people – for they had a King, Jereboam who laid a heavy Yoke upon the people. This was a Yoke of obedience, but one which was harsh. He was the King, but he did not care for his people. [1 Kings 12]. Jesus Yoke is easy – but it is still the yoke of obedience. In ancient times, the yoke would be put across the shoulders of two oxen. It was a means of ensuring that they worked in harmony with one another, for the Yoke would chafe if they did not. As Christians we are called to ‘the obedience that comes from faith’ [Romans 1:5] obedience to Christ. We gladly take up this yoke of obedience for we Know that he Loves and cares for us and that His Life is our Hope. So we are yoked to Christ and over the years learn obedeince (as he himself did – Hebrews 5:80) – to adjust ourselves in Eugene Peterson’s beautiful phrase, to ‘the rhythms of unforced grace’, the movements of Christ as we learn to live in obedience to him.

Of course we tend to read these things ‘individualistically’ as if their prime application is to the solitary Christian – but there is no such thing. Jesus here as throughout all his words addresses himself to the community of disciples, the infant church. He is saying to his church – take my yoke upon you and learn from me, that you, the church might find rest for your souls.

Following Jesus in obedience is not always convenient or easy. the winds of cultural change blow strong and we are easily deflected. When the Ox is deflected off course, the Yoke chaffs – and the Ox may wish to toss its head and leave the yoke behind – to ‘disregard the teaching of Jesus’ in this or that matter. But no longer yoked it all too easily loses its way, and even forgets, or perhaps does not have the faith in its distress to cry out ‘Lord! Save us! We are perishing!’  Lord, have mercy.

Bible Study notes for Sunday September 23rd – Theme “There are more things in heaven and earth . . .”

 

Old Testament : Proverbs 31:10-31

Psalm 1

Epistle : James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Gospel : Mark 9:30-37

 

This weeks readings are So full of riches it is very hard to know where to start, but as we are going to spend time meditating upon the Word – begin by reading slowly and meditatively the Psalm, Psalm 1. [If you are following these notes alone, then read the words out loud to yourself – it is more helpful than reading in your head. If reading in a group, then perhaps a couple of people could take turns to read it through slowly, so everyone has the chance to Hear the word]

 

 

¹ Happy are those

   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

   or sit in the seat of scoffers;

 

² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

   and on his law they meditate day and night.

 

³ They are like tree planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season;

   and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

 

⁴ The wicked are not so,

   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

 

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,

   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

 

⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

   but the way of the wicked will perish.

(NRSV)

 

1. Our first reading is a little unusual – it is if you like a Coda to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs contains of course many ‘proverbs’, short pithy sayings, many attributed to Solomon. It is also perhaps the most explicitly ‘gendered’ text in the Scriptures. As we have increasingly sought to use inclusive language, the book of Proverbs provides quite a challenge!
   1. Read the passage quickly through and speak out your first impressions
   2. Now pause – read again more slowly – ponder the words. Does a second reading lead you to a different place than first impressions?
   3. This ‘Coda’ is actually all of Chapter 31 – read the ascription (Verse 1) – Does this in any sense affect the way you hear the passage?
   4. Is this text in direct opposition to
      1. Contemporary culture
      2. the culture of the church
      3.  The Gospel??

                                                . . . or is it more complex than that?

[If you would like to take a little more time to think about Gender in the Scriptural account, another passage from Proverbs might be worth considering – Proverbs 4:1-9. try and take all the Gendered language out of it, so father and mother becomes parent, and Wisdom is no longer ‘She’ but ‘It’. What happens to the text when you do this? ‘Male and female you created them’ we say in our liturgy – are gender differences of any consequence? ‘Moving away from acknowledging Gender differences enriches our common life’ – Discuss]

 

1. Now move on to the Epistle – I suggest you ignore the omissions from the text set in the Lectionary and read right through from 3:13 to 4:8, in two parts, first Ch 3:13-end
   1. We move from ‘the Good wife’, with Wisdom personified as female in the background, to the letter of James – in some respects the most practically hard hitting of all epistles. It is about Wisdom for Life as are the Proverbs (despite Martin Luther calling it ‘an epistle of Straw!’ {note here by the way that even the Reformers had a more finely nuanced view of scripture than modern fundamentalist interpreters allow}. James 3:13 – are there echoes here of the Proverbs 31 reading?
   2. Remembering that James first calls us to pay attention to the use of the tongue and that we should be ‘slow to speak’, and that the tongue is a fire – how do these notions feed into the teaching on Wisdom in verses 14-18?
   3. James suggests that there are two types of Wisdom vs 14-18. What are they? What are their different fruits (the evidences of the two different types of Wisdom)? [Note: James mentions lack of partiality as a sign of Wisdom from above – a back reference to earlier in the epistle, Ch 2:3-9]
   4. Now read Ch 4:1-8 James begins to home in on the source of false wisdom, that leads to all the negative consequences of which we have read. This is one of the most compelling passages of spiritual diagnostics in all of Scripture. Contrary to Luther, James shows himself to be a Doctor of the soul. What does he see is the root of evil?
   5. When people are asked to list the ten commandments, there is a slight tendency to remember the ones we keep 🙂 We also have a tendency to forget the first few – that refer to God, and the last one. What is the 10th commandment??
   6. Think back to the old story of the man and woman in the garden. ‘Covetousness is the root of all our troubles. Being dissatisfied with our life in God and wanting ‘more’ is the root sin’ Discuss
   7. Read verse 4 in the light of verses 1-3. What in this context do you think enmity with God means? Is covetousness enmity with God? Remember this passage is all about the desires of our heart
   8. What does it mean to ‘cleanse our hands and purify our hearts’? What in this context does it mean to be ‘double minded’?

 

1. Finally we come to the gospel which returns to the theme of last weeks reading after a few verses
   1. Read Mk 9: 30-32 What strikes you about these verses?
   2. A theme of Mark is ‘the hidden Messiah’ [a theme also found in John, but in a different way – ‘you cannot come where I am going’, ‘Where are you from?’ ‘”I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” etc. ] Why does Jesus seem to hide? Why does he seem not to want people to know who he is?
   3. Why were the disciples afraid to ask him?
   4. Read vs 33-37. ‘Jesus does not do away with heirarchy, he turns it upside down’ – Discuss
   5. Who is ‘the last of all’?
   6. This is the first time that Jesus mentions children in Mark. In the wider culture n which jesus lived, children were ‘no persons’. Here he stands a child literally ‘in the middle of them’ How does his action interpret his words about Welcome?