Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Our three readings today seem to me to illustrate an interesting evolution of religious thinking through the Judaeo-Christian tradition. I've said something about this in the notes (in the pewsheet); and what I've said is very much a generalisation, or a gross over-simplification. But in principle we can say that the Scriptures show us the people of Israel looking to and worshipping the God they called Yahweh, whom they understood to be their god – the god of their people – while understanding that other peoples had other gods. So we see evidence of a belief that Yahweh literally fought for Israel; he accompanied them into battle, and if their forces were victorious it was because Yahweh had (literally) overpowered the other gods. In part because of such a belief, any defeat of Israel raised awkward theological questions. Did it mean that Yahweh had been out-muscled by the enemy's god, or that for some reason or other Yahweh had refused to fight for his people?
But over the centuries, and particularly from the time of the great prophets, the people of Israel came to see that the God they worshipped, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was the only God; and was God of all the nations and not just of Israel. At least, that's what Israel believed on a good day. On a more typical day, what Israel believed was a subtle variant of that: they believed that the God of Israel also had sovereignty over all the other nations of the world.
And if we think about those two views for a moment, we can see how vitally important the difference is in terms of how the people of Israel thought about themselves in relation to the other nations. If there is one universal God of all the nations, then Israel has no special status in the eyes of God; and all the other nations are of equal status and importance. But if the God of Israel rules over all the other nations, then surely the people of Israel are superior to the people of all the other nations? Something of that tension between those two views is still with us today, not only in Israel, but in the Church as well, I think.
Things were so much simpler in Jeremiah's time. Our first reading is clearly concerned with the relationship between Israel and God. There's hardly a thought given to any other nation. God is clearly the God of Israel; he is angry with the leaders ("shepherds") of Israel who have been remiss in their task of looking after the people, and he is going to intervene personally and dramatically. As a result of the neglect of the shepherds, the people have been scattered to other lands (even though in one part of the text (v.3) God is quoted as having driven them out himself!); and so God is going to get rid of those hopeless shepherds, and take over the pastoral work himself, re-gathering the flock in their own pasture (Israel). Then he will appoint new shepherds for them; and will even raise up a king from the House of David to rule over them justly and wisely. The point of all this is that at this stage of our faith history, God seems concerned almost exclusively with Israel; and his relationship with the Gentiles enters into it only to the extend that it impinges on Israel.
Now, lets fast-forward to the time of Jesus, particularly as it is described for us in St Mark's gospel. One of the curious features of this gospel is the central role given by it to the Lake (the Sea of Galilee). On a number of occasions, particularly in the early chapters where St Mark is concentrating on the Jesus' teaching and healing ministry, St Mark refers to him and the disciples "crossing over to the other side". It is important to St Mark that we know on which side of the Lake Jesus was at any particular point of the narrative.
And it seems clear that the reason for that is that the west side of the Lake was Jewish territory, and the eastern side was Gentile territory. Hold onto that thought for a moment, and notice another interesting feature of these early chapters in St Mark's Gospel. We find Jesus mobbed by vast crowds wherever he goes; and St Mark tells us that Jesus often tried to get away from them. It's as if Jesus were the pop star of his day, constantly harassed by adoring fans. And when Jesus is trying to escape from these crowds, he seems to head for Gentile country. That may simply have been the fact of the matter, and it would make some sense; but it is possible that St Mark is using the troublesome crowds as a cover story, a defence for the fact that Jesus from time to time entered Gentile country.
After all, there are other hints in the gospels that Jesus treated the great divide between Jew and Gentile with considerable caution. An obvious example is found in St Matthews' version of the commissioning of the apostles. His instructions to them are said to have included this: "Do not go among the Gentiles, or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel." And, of course, we are told that Jesus tried to brush of the persistent Syro-Phoenecian woman with much the same approach. So it seems that even Jesus felt that he had to be careful about crossing the great divide between Jews and Gentiles.
And yet St Paul is able to tells us, on more than one occasion, that in Christ God has not merely crossed the great divide, he has abolished it for ever! And nowhere has St Paul explained this more beautifully and more movingly than in this passage we have this morning. Just listen to these bits again: now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...his purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility...consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God's people and members of God's household.
Marvellous stuff, isn't it? And the tragedy is that two thousand years later we still haven't truly got our heads round it. Think, for example, about that huge security-fence that Israel is building between it and the Palestinian communities – between it and its Gentile neighbours. The wall says, we are two peoples; there can be no peace between us, but only hostility. St Paul says the complete opposite; we are one people; the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, has been abolished. Christ himself is our peace – no wall can ever make peace between us.
Now think about how that message from St Paul would be heard today by refugees, or over-stayers, seeking the right to live in this country: you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household". Would that not be sweet music to their eyes? Yet how many of us even recognise that matters of immigration policy raise important issues of faith? How many of us flicker when a political party calls itself "New Zealand First", without asking ourselves, first before whom, first for what? How many of us instinctively began to growl when our Prime Minister offered to supply Samoa with some of our precious stocks of Tamiflu? Surely, we should make sure we have enough for ourselves before giving it to others? Or was the offer of our Prime Minister more in keeping with the teaching of Scripture than our own gut reaction to Mr Key's offer?
It's when we realise just how many of these issues can be looked at in the light of St Paul's teaching in this one passage of Scripture that we begin to grasp something of the extraordinary breadth of his vision. If there is one God, then it follows that there is one people, the human race. And when we truly grasp that we have to call into question every barrier, every wall, every border that we create between ourselves and those on the other side.
When we were in Kawhia, Trish and I were invited by a group of Christian doctors to go with them on a small boat across the harbour for a picnic barbecue, and I was asked to lead them in a short bible study. I took the text, "and Jesus crossed over to the other side." And I invited them to look back across the harbour to whence we had started our trip and to ask themselves, this question: which side are we now on? By crossing over we have changed the other side to this side, and this side to the other side.
Maybe that's why St Mark wants to constantly remind us that Jesus crossed over to the other side; and if we don't want to be on the other side from him, we had better go with him.
No comments:
Post a Comment