Complexities of interpretation (Lent 3 Year B)

John 2:13-25

Today’s passage is a very familiar story . . . Jesus cleansing the temple.

It is probably a passage many of us know from childhood. Often found in a child’s book of bible stories accompanied by lurid illustrations depicting Jesus as a slightly wild character swinging a whip around his head while the animals run amok.

A version of this event is found in all four gospels. That gives us reason to believe it was considered important by the early church. So we have to ask the question, “Why”? Why is this story deemed essential enough for all four authors of the gospels to have included out of all the source material they must have had available. However, today I’ll just leave that question for you to ponder!

One of the issues I want to consider is the placing of this account. The author of John places this event right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It immediately follows Mary’s revelation to him that it is time for Jesus to show who he is. It is the first public thing Jesus did. Imagine the scenario, Jesus had been revealed to only the disciples and friends at a wedding, then suddenly he strolls into the temple and starts upturning tables and tipping the money out.

By contrast the synoptic gospels include this story at the end of Jesus’ ministry, a precursor to the events which led up to the crucifixion. Jesus upset the hierarchy and they sought to kill him.  For anyone concerned or intrigued by these apparent differences in the gospels a good starting point for study is James Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament.

As today’s passage is in John that is where I want to focus. I want to talk about why this passage was deemed significant to start the public ministry. However I don’t want to offer an interpretation but just offer some suggestions for pondering.

In a sense, I want to use this passage to illustrate the complexities of biblical studies. All of our understanding of biblical passages is interpretation. We read, we study, we ponder, we talk with others and we try to decide what we think is the best meaning for a passage. Others may come to a different conclusion. No interpretation is necessarily wrong. They are simply people’s best efforts to understand the significance of events which happened over two thousand years ago. In addition, we have to realize that those writing down the stories were also interpreting them based on their own experiences and understandings. The gospels weren’t diaries of  the travels of Jesus, written down as things happen. They were stories collated over the years,  some eye-witnessed accounts, some passed down by word of mouth and written to help the newly immerging church to understand their history. I have always been fascinated by the thought that the gospels were written to balance (or even correct) the doctrine circulating in the epistles.

So when one tries to reason with this passage we won’t have a definitive interpretation merely suggestions about the author of John’s reason for the early inclusion of this material.

Today I am going to offer three of several suggestions all of which are brief and would lend to much more in-depth study (indeed books have been written about them)

First I want to comment about the temple. The temple was one of the most important symbols in Jewish life.  I have heard it said that the temple was the centre for national, cultural, social and religious life. Sacrifices were made on a daily basis. The animals, wine and flour were sold in the temple, one needed “temple money” to purchase them. Apparently the money-changers changed ordinary money into temple money often making huge profit for themselves. The priest allowed them to set up inside the temple for payment.

Possible interpretation 1

Jesus was appalled by the way the temple was being used. The poor, and even the not so poor, were being exploited. The priests were getting rich by the people’s desire (or even need) to worship. Jesus deplored what had been originally a place for humanity to meet God being used in such a way. Jesus' bias towards the poor and stranger can be seen. In this interpretation the author of John showed this bias to the poor and stranger right at the onset of Jesus’ ministry.

Possible interpretation 2

Jesus was self-revealing as the true Lamb of God. The scapegoat was no longer needed.  Right at the beginning of the ministry Jesus had shown that he willing walked the path intended for him. He was overturning the old order. Rene Girard writes extensively about this. Girard says, “If the term sacrifice is used for the death of Jesus, it is in a sense absolutely contrary to the archaic sense. Jesus consents to die in order to reveal the lie of blood sacrifices and to render them henceforth impossible.” 

Girard again, “When John the Baptist refers to Jesus as “the Lamb of God,”  or when Jesus refers to himself as “the stone rejected by the builders, who becomes the cornerstone,” the sacrificial process appears and loses its efficacy. The revelation and repudiation of sacrifice go hand in hand.” (Sacrifice, Rene Girard, xi)

Possible Interpretation 3

I stumbled on this one accidentally in the book, Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens. Jesus (and the Essenes) stood against animal sacrifice. Animal sacrifice was invented by humanity to justify eating animal flesh. The relevant part about the temple can be viewed at amazon or google. Find the book and look inside, it may even inspire you to buy it!

Of course, even within these three possible interpretations there are many nuances and different emphases.  I realize how simplistic and superficial these thoughts are. My hope is I have given you some food for thought about biblical interpretation and this passage that, in turn, will cause some deeper pondering throughout the week.

Welcoming Strangers? (Epiphany 4 Year B)

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Mark 1:21-28.

Demons

What does that word convey to you?

What springs to mind when you hear the word demon?

Today the reading in Mark is about Jesus’ encounter with a man possessed by a demon (unclean spirit) which he cast out. The author of Mark placed this story right at the beginning of the gospel . . . setting the stage to show Jesus’ authority.

However, today, I don’t want to think about authority I want to think more about demons and welcoming those who are different.

The scriptures are full of demons. So is our world, a popular work of fiction is entitled Angels and Demons. In our culture there is continuous fight between good and evil. The idea grips everyone regardless of religious persuasion. Video games and Hollywood are full of it.

What do we make of demons in Jesus’ time?

It is fairly clear when we read the accounts of demon possession throughout the gospels that we would perceive many of the situations differently. If the events happened in the twenty-first century we would see people with epilepsy. We would recognize people with various physical and mental illnesses. We would not immediately talk about demons. Our society would like to think that we would seek medical and psychiatric help for the people.

When I read the story in Mark the thing I noticed and started to ponder was that this “demon-possessed” man was in the synagogue.  I also thought of the use “us” as he talked to Jesus. This passage has often been interpreted as meaning there were multiple demons in the man. Yet, I wonder if it wasn’t multiple people. Perhaps the “demon-possessed” man was speaking for a small group of outcasts. Outcasts who were in the synagogue hoping for help, healing and acceptance.

We will never know for certain . . . that is just the image I have. A small band of outcasts lurking in the Synagogue.  Perhaps they became concerned as they listened to Jesus’ teaching. Worried they would have to leave the synagogue. Their experience led them to expect scorn and rejection. Instead Jesus offered healing.

I wonder if things are much different now. We may not talk about demons as readily, yet how do we treat the outcasts? Have things really changed? Or do “outcasts” still lurk in corners hoping for help, healing and acceptance?

Statistics show that people with mental illnesses fill the prisons. Of all youth leaving foster care between a quarter and a third end up on the streets homeless. (Just Google the various categories) Also see http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/who.html

And mental illness/homelessness is just the tip of the iceberg when we talk about those society may consider outcasts.

I have no answers just a couple of questions for reflection.

How can we be as Christ to those perceived by society as “outcasts”?

How can we hold out help, healing and acceptance?

How can we welcome strangers?

+Ab. Jane

Good News! (Advent 2 Year B)

Good News!

The gospel of Mark opens with these words.  Good News!

Don’t we all love these words? Good News! If someone comes to us and says I’ve got some good news to tell you it immediately engages us. We usually start to feel happy, maybe even a little excited. We give the speaker our full attention. We listen in anticipation.  After we have heard their good news it often leaves us with a sense of wellbeing.

Immediately before writing this I was glancing at the English newspapers online. It seems to me that they are filled with bad news. Today, I read about financial disasters, soldiers getting killed, child abuse, legal and governmental corruption to mention just a few. I’m sure good things do happen but the focus always seems to be on the bad stuff!

I imagine it was the same in the first century. I doubt if human nature has changed much.  So Mark opens the gospel with the words good news and not just one event, an ongoing state. “This is the beginning of good news”. What a way to get the readers attention.

It served as a salient reminder to those believers who were suffering persecution and hardship. By the time the gospel was written Jesus had already been dead more than 30 years. For those disciples it must have felt a long time, perhaps memories of the events were starting to feel old. Perhaps a little hopelessness was setting in.

Then the reminder is given  . . . “This is the beginning of good news”.   The gospel was written and must have been a light to them, a chronicle of good news.

Perhaps, that is how we should view advent. It is a light to us. Reminding us of what is important. Indeed, the beginning of good news.

Bad news seems to loom strongly at this time of year. There seems to be a lot of extra pressure on our time and finances. It can be a stressful time. With the rushing and the busyness it is sometimes hard to remember what it is all about.

I do love the advent wreath and the lighting of the candles each week. The candles representing hope, peace, joy and love culminating with the Christ candle to welcome the Christ child. They are our tangible reminders of what advent is about: the beginning of good news.

So as we continue to journey through advent, take a moment to light those candles and remember what the season is all about. Good News!

+Ab. Jane

More Reading Parables Subversively (Proper 28 Year A)

 Matthew 25:14-30

Today we read the parable of the talents. The way I want to look at this story is to subvert it.

As with other parables in Matthew I want to read this as a social comment to the hearers of the day.

This parable has traditionally been interpreted as a comment on the ‘end times’.  The inference being that God is the landowner, we are the slaves and how we live our lives will be reflected in the ‘rewards’ we will earn in the ‘end times’.

What are the problems with this interpretation?

1. Would we want to describe God as harsh?

2. Would we want to picture God as absent?

3. Would we want to picture God as leaving all the work to slaves whilst reaping the benefits?

4. Would we want to picture God as enormously rich and wanting to get richer at the expense of others “reaping where one does not sow”?

Comments on the culture of the day

1. A Talent is specifically a unit of money. Please don’t try and interpret this parable to say that if God makes one good at singing, speaking, art, etc then use the gift! This is not a parable about using one’s abilities for God. It is a parable about moneymaking.

2. Biblical scholar John R. Donovan, S.J., tells us a single talent was equivalent to the wage of an ordinary worker for fifteen years. A talent was 3,000 shekels.

3. Burying one’s possessions was a common way of keeping them safe. This was normal practice in the time.

4. Those who make money were often seen as greedy and unscrupulous. Money making allowed the rich (in this case, the person who owned property and had much money) to get richer. This usually caused the hardship to the poor.

5. The landowner actually was asking the third slave to make money by investing. Usury was against God’s law. There are many references in the OT forbidding this. (eg. Ex. 22:25, Lev. 25:37, Neh. 5:10,11)

Where are we going to find God in this parable?

May I suggest in the third slave . . .

the one refusing to exhort from the poor and suffering greatly as a result

the one who refused to be caught up in the money making schemes of the world.

the one who is rejected and thrown out  (the cross?)

Who should we strive to imitate?

Again may I suggest the third slave . . .

that we have the courage to resist the money making schemes of the day that disadvantage the poor and outcasts

that we follow God’s way even when we know it will cause us to be ostracized and rejected.

Blessings +Jane

PS,  An interesting exercise to do is to read the parable and whenever you see the words "The Master or landowner" substitute "The Emperor" or "Ceasar". You will be surprised how differently it sounds.

Reading parables (Proper 23 Year A)

Today’s parable (Matt 22) talks about a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. The invited guests did not come so he invited those from the streets to come. When they did so, one was without a wedding garment and thrown into the outer darkness.

 This parable is another interesting one. It is the last parable in a little series of three. The other two being entitled (in my Bible) the parable of the two sons and the parable of the wicked tenants. (Matt 21).

 I want to look at this parable in my usual way. That is to take God out of the leading role. I do not think the king is a picture of God.

 Look at how he is described. One who becomes enraged, who sent out troops to destroy people and property and, finally, sent a poor person from the streets bound hand and foot into “outer darkness”.  This is not a picture of God

 Likewise, last week in the parable of the tenants. I don’t think the landowner is a picture of God either.  Landowners were not liked, actually we could be as strong as to say they were often hated. They were seen as those who kept most of the people in poverty. The economic system was such that the landowners were very rich. They usually lived away from their land in the cities. They paid the workers very little so that they were completely dependent on the landowners for sustenance. The workers were often continually in debt to the landowners as there was no relief if the crop should fail or be poor. To the landowner only profit was important, not the people who worked the land.

 Further more, although not always clear in our various biblical translations, the opening starts “there was a person (anthropos), a king”. Although it can be said that this was a typical Aramaism, we also have to consider that maybe Matthew was simply emphasizing that this was a human being not God. Interestingly, the same opening was used in last week’s parable about the landowner, “there was a person (anthropos), a landowner”. 

 I think these parables were simply a comment on the classist system of the day.

 The king is a powerful person who expected people to do his bidding. Perhaps, he was something of a tyrant. He was obviously not well like, friendless, none of the invited guests attended his son’s wedding. When he didn’t get his own way he sent in troops to cause harm and hardship. Then he demanded that the people in the streets were commanded to attend the wedding. They had no choice.

The poor had to do the bidding of the king. They were helpless and voiceless. They had no control over their own fate. Think about the person thrown into outer darkness. This person had no wedding garment, probably beyond the means of a poor person. Yet the king had no compassion, no provision for the poor one. This person had no voice. That is often the situation of those trapped in poverty.

 Why was just one chosen? When one reads the story it sounds like many of the ones compelled to attend were poor, so, perhaps, a little unrealistic to assume only one was improperly clothed.

 I, also, want to cast a glance at the responses of the Pharisees (although that probably encroaches on next week’s reading). After these parables they plotted to trap him.  Interestingly, their minds went immediately to Ceasar and paying taxes. But I will leave that for you to ponder!

 The same with last week’s reading. The passage comments that the chief priests and Pharisees realised Jesus was speaking about them. Perhaps, they saw themselves not as those who did not receive the servants and son of the landowner but as the ‘landowner’ in the parable. They were being exposed because of their unjust economic dealings with the populous.

 Therefore, I think one way of reading these parables is that they were a comment on the social system of the day. Jesus was exposing the injustice of the system to chief priests and Pharisees. Jesus was exposing how desperate, angry, helpless and voiceless the poor were feeling.

May we be as Christ to all we meet.  

May we help the desperate to find justice

May we help the angry to find peace

May we help the voiceless find a voice.

Blessings +Jane

Fairness (Proper 20 Year A)

 If the parables were intended to cause us to pause and think about the complexities of life this one has certainly succeeded.

 We have the story of a landowner who hired people to work in his vineyard. The landowner hired a group of workers early morning for an agreed wage. Then as the day progressed the landowner saw people who had been unable to find work still standing around waiting. They were also hired, some at 9:00, some at mid-day, some at 3:00 and, finally, some at 5:00. Then at 6:00 he paid each of them the same wage. Those who had worked all day received the same amount as those who had worked only an hour.  There was, of course, grumbling amongst the workers especially those who had worked the longest. The landowner reminded them that they had been paid the agreed wage.

 This is one of those parables that somehow makes us feel uncomfortable. Actually, as we read, part of us wants to say that is not fair! Even using a definition of fairness that says that fairness is not equality but ensuring that everyone gets what they need, it still feels unfair. These vineyard workers were only paid subsistence wages and even a day’s illness would cause much suffering and hunger for a family. A little extra was always needed.

 One of the things I always do with parables is take God out of the central role. Often parables are interpreted as if the main character is representative of God. Then one has to try to interpret the parable in such a way as to give the character God-like virtues ignoring or twisting the text to explain away when the central character behaves in a very un-Godlike manner! So this is not a story to be interpreted as the landowner represents God. This is simply a story about a landowner and some workers. That allows us the freedom to look honestly at the story and say maybe the landowner was unfair.

 I just want to interject at this point that as I read this and the other parables in this section, one of which John talked about last week. I wondered how much they were redacted. Clearly, last week’s was. There was talk about the “church” in a parable supposedly spoken pre-crucifixion. I wondered if maybe this was influenced by Paul and the early apostles, who had not physically been with Jesus and witnesses to the Easter event, trying to justify that they were worth as much. Anyway, no more on that thought!

 Let’s get back to fairness.  We see this scenario played over and over again in our society. The concept in this parable is not strange or unfamiliar to us. It is not new. Look at your places of work.  I know where I work most people work really hard, usually even through breaks and lunchtime. Yet, some get paid lots of money, others a pittance often with equally good college degrees and qualifications especially in the current economic climate.

 The Realm of God is not some distant utopia where in the words of  C.S. Lewis “wrong will be right”. (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) It is our reality now. As people of faith we are living in the Realm of God. Maybe unfairness is what we have and what we see around us.  This is the world we live in. (If I wanted to talk on a global scale the problem is more acute.)

 So what do we do with this unfairness?  That has got to be the key consideration. We live in a society where some have more and some have less. Some get sick, some stay well. Some live safely some face disasters. That is simply the way it is.  Often it is circumstantial we don’t get a choice.

 Remember the workers who didn’t get hired weren’t lazy or work-shy. Actually, they showed amazing perseverance. I don’t think I would have stood from 6:00 in the morning until 5:00 in the evening hoping for work.  Maybe, that is where we can see God, in the character of the workers who didn’t get hired until 5:00!

 This parable twists and turns, maybe the ones who didn’t get hired initially thought it was unfair that others got a full day’s work!

 So what do we do with this parable? What does it teach us?

 I think it is just simply that sometimes life seems fair and sometimes it doesn’t seem fair.  It is often beyond our control. Where we get a choice is how we live . . .

 “To be as Christ to those we meet, to find Christ within them”

 +Ab. Jane

If you love me ... (Easter 6 Year A)

Acts 17:22-31, Psalm 66: 8-20, 1 Peter 3: 13-22, John 14:15-21

Today’s lectionary readings have several interesting passages. We could have looked at the promise of the Holy Spirit or Paul revealing the unknown god to the Athenians.

However, the phrase that caught my attention was “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  A very simple, yet very strong statement. Love has an outworking and that is keeping the commandments as interpreted by Jesus . . . Love God, Love neighbour. 

It is the second of this couplet that I want to talk about. How do we love our neighbour?

As I pondered this another familiar phrase kept running through my mind. Well-known by all who have worked or do work within the medical field

“Primum non nocere”   First, do no harm. 

Love neighbour . . . First, do no harm

As I was thinking about these two statements they seemed to become connected and interwoven. If I love my neighbour I will first do no harm.

In the global climate we live in this has far-reaching implications. Our neighbour is no longer the person next-door or even someone living within the same village. Our neighbour is the whole of humankind. In the last few years we have seen how something that does harm in one part of the world effects another part.

Of course, individually we can’t do everything. We can’t help everyone. We can’t support every charity. We can’t be advocates for every cause.

But we can all do something!

Personally, loving neighbour/seeking to do no harm has led me in a number of directions . . .

Advocacy for women’s rights

Supporting and welcoming gay and lesbian friends

Fostering children who have been neglected and abused

Vegetarianism . . . unspeakable harm is done to our animal friends

Trying to be careful of the planet by using all non-harmful products, recycling and composting.

Each person’s journey of how to love neighbour will be different. These are our callings, our vocations  In Lindisfarne we can support each other as we seek to walk our own paths of loving neighbour/doing no harm. 

Perhaps some may want to share their journey as they seek to love neighbour/do no harm.

Blessings +Jane