 Readings, Isaiah 56:1-8 and Matthew 15:10-28
Image, Michael Cook, “Crumbs of Love” There are a lot of overlapping themes and tensions across our last few readings from Matthew. Today, I want to lay them out to see how they might shape our approach to some of the prickly parts of today’s reading. But it is helpful to attend to our reading from Isaiah, which sets a helpful backdrop to all we are going to encounter. I’ve been teaching a class on the church at United Theological College this semester, and early on in the course we do a week on the doctrine of election. The aim of the course is to explore what makes the church the church, and that particular class introduces the idea that part of what makes the church the church is the action of God to choose and call a people to witness to the way of Christ. Of course, this idea of God’s electing activity is around long before the church. The story of Exodus is organised around the famous words I will be your God, and you will be my people. God chooses Israel and delivers them from Egypt, so they can witness to the reign of God in the world. Now, thinking about election leads to a number of tensions and issues – many more than we can do justice to today (I’m not sure I got through them all in a two-hour class), but one is the issue of universality vs particularity. Scripture attests that God is the God of all, the God of all the earth, the God of all creation, the Sovereign, Universal Singular. Yet, Scripture is also emphasising the particularity of God vis a vis Israel, or vis a vis Israel and the Church. Naturally, this can, and has, lead to superiority complexes of various kinds – with attendant justification of violence and dispossession not only in scripture but across history. Now, Scripture also has threads which undermine or trouble the particularity. God, for instance, makes a promise to Hagar to make a great nation from Ishmael (just as God had promised Abraham to make a great nation from Isaac). In the Book of Numbers, God speaks through the non-Israelite prophet Balaam. The Book of Ruth celebrates the determined faith of the foreigner, who becomes part of the Davidic line. And, in what we heard today, the prophet Isaiah reminds the people of the word of the Lord: the foreigner and the eunuch should not be kept separate, but those who love God and keeps the sabbath shall be brought to God’s holy mountain and made joyful in the house of prayer, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. Of course, this passage alone does not solve the tension of universality and particularity – importantly, the vision in Isaiah is still that of a situation where those on the outside are brought in to a kind of stable centre. But it does critique the hardlines we might want to draw between who are or aren’t the chosen, who or who don’t warrant the care of God. God is the one who will gather those besides those already gathered, God’s house shall be a house of prayer for all people. There is an expansive trajectory we might say, that the particular is not the be all and end all, but rather it is through the particular calling of Israel and the Church that God will bring about the universal salvation of the world. The chosen elect are thus those who are called to witness to what, someday, many more will know. Which, in my mind, makes all the more strange and troubling the rebuke of Jesus to the Canaanite woman, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Is not the promised Messiah the one who will gather others? Who will bring about the messianic age where all shall come to the holy mountain and pay homage to God’s glory? Why is Jesus insisting on such strident particularity? Why is he so determined to cast those of Israel as children, and the Canaanites as dogs?
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 Reading, Matthew 14:22-33
The moment that puzzles me most in this reading is Peter’s response to hearing Jesus identify himself as the figure approaching them across the water. Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. The more I think about it the stranger it feels that Peter chooses this command unprompted. To recap, the disciples are out on the boat near dawn, the winds are against them and they have spent hours being battered by the waves. A figure approaches them in the darkness, seemingly walking on the water… understandably they are terrified of this approaching ghost, perhaps come to bring them down to a watery grave. Hearing their fear the figure responds, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid. Now what adds to my puzzlement, or exacerbates the strangeness of what Peter says next, is that it is unclear how sure the disciples are that it is Jesus. Perhaps in the crashing of waves and whooshing of wind it is hard to discern for certain the source of this voice? Perhaps the phantom is posing as a trusted voice so that they drop their guard? Perhaps it is Jesus and so their fears of immanent ghost attack are replaced by concern for what this storm will do to Jesus or their boat? The thing is, I’m not sure which of these scenarios best explains Peter’s request: Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.  Readings, Genesis 32:22-31 and Matthew 14:13-21
Image, Laura James, 5000 Fed (1999) There’s a kind of story I’m sure most of us a partial towards. It’s when you have experienced something go off without a hitch, only to find out later that a string of near disasters were only narrowly averted. It’s the invisibility of these hurdles that makes their belated revelation all the more thrilling. The revelation that the cake was nearly dropped en route to the table, that the actor was nowhere to be found moments before their cue, that the star athlete won gold with all kinds of hidden injuries, or, the soloist prepared for entirely the wrong concerto and only realised the moment the orchestra sounded the first chords. We then played this video of Maria Joao Piers having prepared for the wrong concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=300t2DS3VdQ It is often lauded as a sign of true grace under pressure when someone is still able to execute after everything has gone wrong without giving away that anything had gone wrong. Both of today’s readings share something of this quality. Both are famous scenes, where the central character performs something miraculous, which is made more incredible when we realise the wider context of pressure and hurdles they are facing. That is to say, the acts of the miraculous feeding and the wrestling with the angel are impressive enough on their own, but are even more so when we understand all that Jesus and Jacob are experiencing, before, beneath, and beyond these scenes.  Readings, Psalm 104 and Song of Songs 2:8-15
Image, To the Sea of Tranquillity, John Petrie We’ve come to the end of our poems and psalm series, an opportunity for us to consider how we live lives of meaning, value, and hope. We have considered the question of humanity with Psalm 8 and Shakespeare, and affirmed that at a foundational level the human is the one who God is mindful of, who God has made and loved. We have considered the necessity of lament with Psalm 6 and James Schuyler, and affirmed that a life of hope comes through the communal sharing of woes, wounds, and burdens. We have explored the call to rejoice with Psalm 34 and James Merrill, and affirmed the role of the psalms to open our lives to marvels within and beyond our experience. We probed the command not to worry with Psalm 131 and Emily Dickinson, and affirmed that the slow, appreciative consideration of creation going about its course in unhurried simplicity allows us to breath in the rhythm of God’s tender provision and become a community able to hold what we have in common. We looked frankly at the great chasm of wealth inequality with Psalm 10 and Evelyn Araleun, and affirmed not only the necessity of having our sense of worth and value continually reshaped by the vision of God’s kingdom but also the workings of God beyond our own efforts to see and seek out oft-unpunished the wicked. And now, at the end of our series, we have Psalm 104, and a poem by contemporary poet Derrick Austin, to help us consider what reminds us of the closeness of God, and affirm our many varied ways of being reminded.  Readings, Psalm 10 and Luke 16:19-31
Image, Vitaly Polyakov, After storming the Winter Palace Out of a kind of morbid curiosity which is surely not benefitting me at all, I am prone to read the comments on news stories on social media. Now everyone rightly says don’t read the comments, and that’s even truer at this stage of the internet, with what we know about the proliferation of bots and paid commenters. Nonetheless I go to the comments because sometimes, and here’s where the morbidness comes in, I’m fascinated by the vitriolic ways people can respond to almost anything. And if there’s one thing that earns the ire of a particular kind of internet commenter it is a story about wealth inequality. Particularly a story about someone (or group of people) struggling with poverty or inequality etc. You can read the most heart-breaking story about someone who has lost everything through terrible luck, unpredictable tragedy, or the nefarious scheming of bad actors and you will still find comment after comment blaming the victim or the society that enables their victimhood. And so, I can only imagine, stripped of its biblical pedigree, the comments on a news post that begins: There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. This would only earn similar vitriol as our contemporary stories: similar blaming of Lazarus for getting himself in this situation, similar commending of oneself that you would never let it get that bad, and similar defence of the Rich Man as someone who has likely earned his stature and security through hard work, and doesn’t owe a layabout like Lazarus anything, let alone a dreaded handout. Jesus however, in keeping with the general tenor of the biblical witness, displays no such blame for the poor man, nor defence for the rich. Against the tendency of society to associate poverty with a lack of morals, ethics, intelligence, or effort, and to attach to the wealthy a presumption of virtue, wisdom, and aptitude, Jesus narrates the poor man in eternal comfort while the rich languishes in Hades. There is not a word about character, belief, or the choices which led one to be in purple finery and the other sores… but the simple fact of unaddressed economic inequality is enough to generate the great chasm which can no longer be crossed. Jesus doesn’t play with the excuses of the rich or the blaming of the poor, he is immune to the click-clacking of the comment section trying to condemn Lazarus under the banner of personal responsibility. Jesus, steeped in the psalms, knows: God will not forget the oppressed and nor the rich and wicked, who in their pride falsely believe God does not see and will not seek them out.  Readings, Psalm 131 and Luke 12:22-34
Image, Claude Monet, Poppy Field in a Hollow near Giverny (1885) Let’s hold that gospel reading in mind for a moment, while I read these famous words from the letter of James: If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? Now I want us to consider if there any conflict between those words and the teaching of Jesus heard today? That is to ask, could James’ words be offered as a rebuff to Jesus’ encouragement: do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear, seemingly offered here without attending to the crowd’s bodily needs? No one panic! We’re not attacking Jesus. No one is saying Jesus did anything wrong. And yes, we might say, Jesus did feed people with the fish and the loaves, and we might say, that Jesus does note at the end of the passage that food and shelter and clothing will be given as well, as natural offshoot of striving for God’s kingdom. But if we want to be a little brazen, we could ask: what is the good of telling people not to worry about what they will eat or what they will wear without providing them with what they need to keep warm and full? Would we not critique a more common man for so casually teaching us not to worry about things so basic to our survival? What should we do about this tension? The great picture of what it looks like to strive for God’s kingdom and receive the basics needs as well comes in the early chapters of Acts. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Here we see the material needs being met, overflowing as an outcome of centring the communal life on striving after the kingdom. This is a community, we might say, that has organised itself in such a way as to make it easy not to worry about what you shall eat. If the apostles were to pass on the teaching of Jesus in the midst of a community holding all things in common, we would see no discrepancy. Indeed, it is the harmonious picture of faith and works in concert, where striving for God’s kingdom includes the meeting of earthly needs. What I want to offer, is that what Jesus says about considering the lilies is a bridge between the encouragement not to worry and the community of Acts. The teaching to consider the ravens and the lilies is not only key to observing the instruction do not worry but paves the path to that harmonious common life. Learning to consider the lilies is thus foundational to becoming not only a person able to lay aside the drive to strive for more and more worldly things, but also to becoming a people of God able to tend to one another’s needs. But to get to how, we need to consider a psalm and poem… for that is the series after all.  Readings, Psalm 34 and Romans 6:1-11
Image, Cressida Campbell, Flannel Flowers (2013) Imagine with me, for a moment, that you’re on holiday in a new town. As you mosey about something strange catches your eye. A giant billboard celebrating shiny white teeth. Having seen this first sign, you can’t stop noticing all around the town other similar signs, posters, ads, and murals. Each of them a variation on a theme: healthy teeth, beautiful smiles, minty toothpaste, gentle brushing – kids and adults of all genders beaming bright white teeth and enthusiastically gripping or displaying a dazzling array of toothpastes and brushes. Having now become fixated with the sheer amount of these signs, their uncountable multitude spread in every nook and cranny across the town, you actually meet your first local. Naturally, only one thought occupies your mind: I’ve got to get a look at this person’s teeth. Now, here’s the question for all of us: what is the state of this person’s teeth? Because our first guess might be, well, clearly a town that so vigorously promotes healthy oral hygiene will be filled with people with pearly whites. But if that was the case, we might wonder, what’s the need for all these vigilant reminders? On second thought we might ask: do all these reminders, all these celebrations of toothbrushing actually reflect the fact that this whole town has, for generations, neglected their teeth? Is this whole town adverse to brushing, ignorant of gum health, and circular-motion brushing? Are these signs not a reflection of town values, but a desperate attempt to change the people’s habits? The psalms contain a lot of calls to praise, and more than a few appeals to rejoice. It was hard to get some exact figures, but I found one source which noted that the English word praise occurs 248 times in the King James Bible, and about 155 of those times across the book of Psalms. Rejoice (in its varying forms) occurs about 260 times across scripture. And so, the question might be posed: are all these references there because Christians are such joyful and grateful people, consistently rejoicing and praising God… or are they there because we perhaps ought to be… but are struggling to internalise the message?  Readings, Psalm 6 and Matthew 9:18-26
Image, The Old Guitarist, Pablo Picasso, 1903 The psalms have ordered, guided, and resourced Jewish and Christian worship for millennia. And there are many types of psalms. Psalms of thanksgiving, psalms of praise, royal psalms, wisdom or teaching psalms, imprecatory psalms, and psalms of lament. Given this, the question is often posed: does and if not why doesn’t TiS, or a similar modern worship hymnbook or song list of contemporary Christian songs contain such range? While we can find reasons for not-replicating some kinds of psalms, it is hard to explain the absence of lament. For we have not run short of sorrows, the tears have yet to be dried from our eyes, why should we have given up so readily, collective lament through music? There are between 60-65 psalms of lament, both individual and collective. Which makes it the largest category, covering over a third of the collection. And it’s not even like it takes a while for the psalter to warm up, there are two laments in the first ten psalms – one of which, Psalm 6 – we heard today. And I love this psalm, in particular, because of how grounded the lament feels. There's that passage in the middle, I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. Which feel like lines you'd still hear on the radio today. There's nothing peculiarly biblical about that feeling, about flooding your bed with tears, that belongs to us all. But I want to focus first on this section: Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror. My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O Lord—how long? Throwing oneself at the feet of God with this mix of woes, plea, and accusation is characteristic of the lament.. Plea: O Lord be gracious to me… Woes: my bones are shaking my soul is struck… Accusation: O Lord – how long? -- I particularly love the way that "how long" just bursts in, as if the psalmist were planning a longer, ore eloquent line, but the well burst and all they could do was blurt out their plea.  Readings, Gen 1:1-19 and Psalm 8
Image, Sean Layh, The tragicall historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke (2026) In the century and a half before the birth of Christ, two significant Rabbis lived, taught, and developed schools. These were Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai. Hillel is famous for a story, where a gentile interested in converting to Judaism comes to the Rabbi and (in order to prove his seriousness) declared that he would stand on one foot while learning the whole of the Torah. Rabbi Hillel responded: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this—go and study it!” Anyway, the two schools formed by their distinct Rabbis entered many conversations which remain recorded in the Talmud. One of which, is this: For two-and-a-half years, the School of Shammai and the School of Hillel debated. These said, ‘It is better for man not to have been created than to have been created’; and these said, ‘It is better for man to have been created than not to have been created.’ Talmud, Eruvin 13b Now, in part this debate is based in broader views on the order of creation, distinctions between spirit and matter, and the purpose of commandments. But it also reflects a deeper response to the wickedness of humanity and the wreckage wrought by human sin. This concern was not introduced by the rabbis, but finds precedence way back in Genesis: The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Genesis 6:5-6. God, it seems from this passage, has misgivings about the place of humanity in the picture of creation. Where in Genesis 1, the creation of the humans is something of the crowning achievement (the sole very good) here, six chapters later, the evil of humanity grieves God, right down to the heart. A fortnight ago I went to hear cultural critic Fran Leibowitz in conversation at the Opera House. Leibowitz, with characteristic wit and pessimism responded to a question about hope for humanity with (something like) this: I have no hope for humanity, humanity is a terrible species. Every problem on earth, you know who is responsible – humans. You don’t look at a problem in the world today and say, Oh, you know whose responsible for this… the giraffes! We might say then, that from Genesis, through to the present, the jury is out on whether the creation of humankind was for the best. We might like to appeal to the wonders of art and architecture, the capacity for care and community, heroism and sacrifice, or technological marvels across history as testament to the goodness and value of humankind… but if we do that, we must test the scale against the violence and exploitation, the division and apathy, the power squabbles and political machinations, the pollution and greed. Which brings us to this series: poems and psalms. Over six-weeks we will bring poems and psalms together to consider the human condition, the nature of God, and the pursuit of meaning and value in the world. Today, we start with something that is perhaps only technically a poem. Hamlet’s what a piece of work is man speech drawn from Shakespeare’s play.  Readings, Acts 1:6-14 and John 17:1-18
Image, Bagong Kussudiardja, Ascension, 1983. I built a graph for today’s sermon – look at that, it’s got an x and y axis and everything… I’m way out over my comfort zone here. What we’re tracking here is something fairly simply, being left in charge of something (either of relatively high or low importance) – that’s on the x axis, and then on the y we’re charting our confidence in our capacity to handle the responsibility of being left in charge. So we all love the ones down the bottom left – easy tasks for which we are completely confident. The sweet spot, and by and large, we hope that these fill the bulk of our days. Now when we get around the middle, where our capacity/confidence is just a little below what is required, we might say this is a pretty good spot for learning and growing. We’re going to be stretched but not overwhelmed. And then way down here on the right, this is where we don’t want to be – this is the stuff nightmares are made of where we are pushed out onto stage in front of a full house to play Hamlet without having ever studied the script. We’ve just heard Luke’s account of the ascension, Jesus going ahead of the disciples and instructing them to wait until the coming of the Spirit so that they may carry on and expand his work. At this moment, as they look to the skies seemingly anticipating his immediate and dramatic return… where do you place the disciples on our little table? Fundamental to the Christian faith is this: Jesus didn’t take us with him, but sends us on in his name (and with his Spirit). |
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