Second Sunday after Trinity: BCP

1 John 3:13-24 and Luke 14:16-24

The genius of the parable as a form of teaching is that parables can be adapted to suit different contexts. Matthew and Luke both recount Jesus telling the parable of a great banquet, but telling it in different ways.

Matthew frames Jesus’ whole ministry in terms of proclaiming impending crisis: the call to ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 4:17). That is to say, turn back, return to God, in the light of an imminent day of judgement! In the same way that the immediate prophetic horizon of the Old Testament prophets was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire (which took place in 587/586BC), so the immediate prophetic horizon for Jesus was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire (which would take place in AD70).

Luke frames Jesus’ whole ministry in terms of proclaiming Jubilee: God’s favour expressed as good news for the poor, freedom for captives and the oppressed (Luke 4:16-21, where Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-2. For more on what Jubilee meant, see Leviticus 25 and 27). That is to say, Matthew and Luke focus on different dimensions of Jesus’ message, Matthew looking to an event in the near future (the now-and-not-yet kingdom of heaven is coming), and Luke to an event in the now (the now-and-not-yet kingdom of God has come).

So Matthew records Jesus telling the parable of the great banquet as a parable of God’s judgement on unrighteous Israel, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem. Behind the action of the false god Caesar, in which those who currently enjoyed power and prestige would suffer horrific death, stands the judgement of the true King of heaven. In contrast, Luke records Jesus telling the same parable as a parable of Jubilee, in which those who had been pushed to the margins found themselves included. While the powerful experience a marginalisation they have not previously known, there are no gory deaths: the focus is justice, not bloody overthrow.

Someone gave a great dinner and invited many. But they all alike began to make excuses. If the excuses sound at all reasonable to us, that should be a warning to us of just how far we have accommodated worldly power in our own lives. The first has just bought land, without even seeing it. This is a clear violation of the Jubilee, where all ancestral land that had been mortgaged to a creditor had to be returned, liberating families from the burden of debt and the captivity of poverty. This restoration took place only twice every century, and so to take property in this particular moment was effectively to hold others captive for a full fifty years.

Another invited guest has just bought five yoke of oxen, and wants to try them out. Again, this is a clear violation of the Jubilee, in which the land was to lie fallow for a year. It is not only the tenants of God’s land who are to experience release: Jubilee extends to the land itself. Of course, to embrace a fallow year requires trust in God’s provision. To buy oxen and put them to work in this particular moment is to disregard and dishonour God.

Yet another invited guest has just married. Surely this is not a violation of the Jubilee? Don’t rich and poor alike marry? Well, in Numbers 36, Moses is called upon to settle a dispute. It has already been established that daughters can inherit land; the concern is that if unmarried daughters inherit land and then marry into another Israelite tribe, and if the land is subsequently mortgaged to a creditor, then at the Jubilee redemption it will be restored to that tribe and not her ancestral tribe. The concern is that marriage can result in the permanent loss of connection to the land, which was the inheritance of the people. In this version of the parable, where the first two excuses reveal violation of the Jubilee, Jesus’ listeners would have understood marrying in this particular moment as an attempted land-grab in violation of the Jubilee.

The RSVPs come in, and none of the invited guests are attending. So the owner of the house instructs his slave to bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. This is done, but the slave reports back that ‘there is still room.’ The master sends his slave out again, to compel people to come in, that his house may be filled. As far as Jubilee is concerned, once you have fulfilled the letter of the Law, there is still room to go further, to bring more people in to the experience of justice and freedom.

How might this parable of the Jubilee relate to us, in Sunderland, today? Our reading from 1 John instructs us to love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Love is expressed in providing help to those in need. This week has seen the publication of the Cinnamon Faith Action Audit, which has found that in Sunderland, faith communities – overwhelmingly churches – run over 400 projects serving the community. These include work with children, young adults, the elderly, the isolated, those in financial crisis, asylum seekers, those with addiction, those trapped in trafficking or prostitution, alleviating homelessness, skills and employment, and creating safer communities. More than 2,000 volunteers reached almost 80,000 beneficiaries in 2014, delivering services of a total financial value calculated at over £3.5 million. On average, each church or faith group was delivering 7 social action projects; with 4 paid staff working 1,939 hours; and 39 volunteers giving 5,553 hours; providing support for 1,395 beneficiaries; at a financial worth of £62,666 (paid staff hours, plus volunteer hours calculated using the living wage of £7.85 and a small supplement for management time).

The poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame are being brought in. And there is still room. The Jubilee that Jesus proclaimed is alive and well in Sunderland, because it is still, and always will be, needed.

We return to this place, to the house and presence of our Lord and master, in order to receive his word. First, he feeds us, nourishes us – but this is not the banquet itself. Then he says, go out…and bring in... Let us be strengthened in our duty, and serve with joy.

First Sunday After Trinity

Genesis 3:8-15 | 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 | Mark 3:20-35

On our dining room wall there are photos of our children, including one of each of them on their first days at school, which happened to be in three different cities, Sheffield, where they were all born, Nottingham, where I was at theological college, and Liverpool, during my curacy. What can be seen is temporary. Who I was at birth, at seven, at fourteen, at twenty-one, at twenty-eight, at thirty-five, at forty-two – or, at least, who I understood myself to be, and who others took me to be – differs one from the other. Like icebergs, only a small and melting part of who we are is visible; most of our selves are interior, hidden as much to us as to others, buoying us up in an eternal sea.

Today I want to consider the temporary outer nature, which is [beautiful in its many stages of] wasting away; the eternal inner nature, which is being renewed day by day; and the crucial role hiding plays at the meeting-point of the two.

Let me set the scene for the reading from Genesis. The human family, embodied in our first parents Adam and Eve, were given three gifts by God: firstly, the gift of a vocation, to enable harmony within God’s creation, characterised by fruitfulness and rest; secondly, the gift of abundant provision, which is what fruitfulness looks like; and thirdly the gift of limit-setting, which is actually what rest looks like, given in order to spare us from being overwhelmed by the wonder and mystery of life. But we, again embodied in our first parents, ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; our eyes were opened to our nakedness; we were afraid, and hid. As embodied persons this surely includes physical nakedness, but actually describes being overwhelmed by a glimpse into the enormous, mysterious life we were created for, terrifyingly desired and just as terrifyingly costly.

We are made to be a particular person who stands in the presence of other particular persons, including God; and who enjoy ourselves and the other as gift. (This is what it means to be made in the likeness of the Trinity.) This being present in the presence of another is easy in innocence, when we have no idea that it will cost us everything – just this week, I watched a baby interact with every adult in a café – but is overwhelming when our eyes are opened to the enormity of our own possibility and that of every other person. When I was fourteen, all I wanted to become in time was a husband and a father. When I became a real husband to a real wife, and a real father to three real children – all of whom change through time – I discovered that I hoped for something far beyond the ability of the person I have become.

The man and the woman hide. Now, the instinct to hide is a reflex common to all animals God has created, and learning to hide well is an essential skill. Hiding gives us the space we need in order to closely observe, to observe ourselves as well as others; a place where we will be safe until we are ready to step into the presence of another person, not as an innocent who knows not what we are doing but as one created for real relationship with real others. Indeed, hiding, done well, is good – as we will see in Jesus. But when we fail to hide well, we fall back on hiding badly, because we have presented ourselves too soon.

The first place the man and woman hide is among the trees of the garden. The calling to fill the earth [provision; fruitfulness; including relationships] and subdue it – that is, calm its raging storms [limit-setting; rest; involving struggles] – has become overwhelming to them; and so they hide in that part of their vocation they can see in the present – as gardeners of the Garden. And here they hide well, by which I mean that from their hiding place they carefully observe God, and what they observe enables them to overcome fear and step out from the trees.

But in this beautiful story we also see what hiding badly does to us. The thought of filling the earth is overwhelming. Adam hides within the immediate relationship he can see in the present - ‘the woman you gave me’. But he does so badly, the encounter defined by blame and not delight. Fruitfulness is frustrated. The thought of subduing the earth is also overwhelming. Eve hides within the immediate struggle she can see in the present, represented by the serpent. She also hides badly, the encounter defined by deceit and not honesty. In shifting blame [movement, with false intent] rather than owning responsibility, rest is frustrated.

Both male and female hide from what is invisible, or too large to see, in what is visible: the temporary, passing, wasting-away outer edge of our vocation and relationships and struggles. Even though this edge is falling away, it provides the place from which we can see the next step emerge, the place from where we can step into our ‘being renewed’ selves rather than being pushed unprepared.

Jesus also hid and watched, but always hid well. He hid within his vocation: for thirty years of obscurity as a builder, forty days in the wilderness, at the festival of Booths, in the tomb. He hid within his relationships: observing others with compassion before stepping from hiding to respond to a woman ostracised by her neighbours, a woman longing for her child to be healed, sisters weeping for their dead brother, a woman in a garden weeping for her lord. And he hid within his struggles: asleep in the bottom of the boat while his friends wrestle the storm that rises within them as much as about, until he is ready to step forward and restore calm with a word.

Hiding is an essential skill; and God is so gracious in recognising this. Eavesdropping as two guilty children are being questioned, can we glimpse the knowing gaze and loving smile of a wise parent? God’s response is to re-state the vocation of humanity to enable harmony in creation; and, in parallel promises, to re-affirm first to the woman and then to the man that, though their labour will be hard, they will ultimately know both fruitfulness [met desire] and rest [under the protection of human relationship, in life; under the protection of the earth, in death]. In three successive declarations, the eternal perspective on vocation, on relationships, and on struggles are revealed, beneath the surface of what is presently visible.*

We hide, holding on to a role in the community that has, in part, defined us, before we let it go and step into the next chapter in the story of our inner nature. We hide, holding on to our children as, well, children, before we know them, and are known by them, as adults. We hide, holding on to perceived enemies [including ourselves], before we dare to meet them as potential friends.

Letting go of what is temporary and stepping into the next temporary season has its own timing. This is a mystery; and mystery is not meant to be understood but, rather, to be experienced. Wherever you are hiding today, whatever immediate past you must let go of, whatever immediate future you must take hold of, God comes, looking for you, wanting to know you and to be known by you in that intimate moment where we disappear and appear. Parent and child, caught up in a game of hide-and-seek. It is a beautiful encounter – and it can be yours today.

[*By such steps, the man and the woman are able to move out from the Garden into the world that must be tamed. Finally, God sets an angel to prevent them going back, for hiding is instinctive to us, and while it stops us from charging ahead too soon, it can also prevent us from stepping out at all. We can never hide in the same place twice, for once a hiding place has served its necessary purpose, it is lost to us forever.]