June 10 NOTES FOR REFLECTION Ordinary 10th*

June 10                                   NOTES FOR REFLECTION             Ordinary 10^th*

*Caution for those intending to use these notes in sermon preparation.  This Sunday has been designated by General Synod as Te Pouhere Sunday "to celebrate our life as a Three-Tikanga Church".  If your faith community intends to do that, a different set of readings will be used.  At St Barnabas, Warrington this Sunday we will be celebrating our Patronal Festival, again with a different set of readings.  The readings on which these notes are based are those set down for the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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

Theme:  An unusually tricky question this week.  I have in mind something like "Puberty, Individuation and Human Development"; but perhaps "Growing in Spiritual Awareness" would do.

Introduction.  As we start the second half of our liturgical year in which we consider the human response to God's startling self-revelation in Jesus Christ, we are invited to consider our own ability of self-reflection, long-believed to be the faculty that separates us from all other creatures.  We start with one of our foundational stories from Genesis, the story of the Fall.  In these few verses we see the birth of self-awareness as Adam and Eve recognise one another as different, as Other.  This is reflected in their new attitude towards God, from whom they now try to hide.  So this story has something about puberty (sexual development) and spiritual alienation in it.  St Paul addresses the Church at Corinth, reminding them that we live in two realms, the worldly and the heavenly.   And St Mark shows Jesus "individuating", finally breaking the shackles of family and building a new community of interest for himself, those who understand and share his values and beliefs.

Background.  The first 11 chapters of the Book of Genesis form a sort of Prologue to our faith history, which only really gets underway with the calling of Abraham.  But it would be a great mistake to dismiss these chapters as myths or legends of no importance to us.  On the contrary they give us penetrating insights into the human condition.  [As our news media continue to cover the Feilding murder trial, keep in mind the story of Cain and Abel.]

At the heart of today's passage is this apparently simple question that God calls out to Adam and Eve: "Where are you?"  Where are they, that is, in relation to God?  That is the question with which we should start this long reflection of our response to all that has been revealed to us from Advent through to Pentecost.  Knowing what we now know of God through Jesus Christ and further enlightened by the coming of the Holy Spirit, where are we today?  As we were reminded in Holy Week, and again on Pentecost, the human response to God has always been mixed.  Some heard and believed, some mocked and disbelieved, many shook their heads and did not know what to believe.  Where are we – among the convinced, the mockers or the don't-knows?  Are we seeking to walk with God or hide from him?

There is a fascinating little throw-away line at the end of chapter 4 of the Book of Genesis, which should shed considerable light on these early chapters.  After giving some (rather far-fetched) genealogical details, we get this (in verse 26 (b)): At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.  It seems to be an acknowledgement by the author that there has been a staged spiritual growth in human history.  There was a time when no one called upon the name of the Lord (we might say today, when no-one was aware of the Transcendent Reality we call God); but at some stage in our development we developed a new faculty to enable us to recognise the spiritual realm.  Today's story from the Garden of Eden may be illustrating that same point, in which case the understanding is that as we developed self-awareness (necessarily implying some separation from other selves), so, too, came some awareness of the Ultimate Other Self (a.k.a. God).  The downside of that is a sense of separation (alienation) from those others and that Other: the upside is that it made possible the existence of love. 

St Mark's extraordinary story can be understood also in terms of personal development.  His honesty (bluntness) was too much for the other gospel writers, so we should treasure all the more his opening verses today.  Jesus and his ministry team are inundated with requests for help, so much so that they do not have time to eat.  Enter worried mother, backed by burly sons, to take charge of Jesus because they (that is, Mother!) thinks her son is out of his mind, is not looking after himself properly, and needs maternal protection from himself!  Doesn't that have a wonderful ring of truth about it?   {I seem to remember a TV ad of a few years ago featuring netball star Bernice Mene receiving an anxious phone call from Dad asking if his little girl was looking after herself.  Apparently she was, eating whatever food it was that she was advertising!]

Jesus' reply seems harsh, disrespectful, even rude, except to those of us who can still remember the struggles we had to assert our right to live our own lives and to break free from the well-meaning but over-protective clutches of our own mothers.  So Jesus here makes it clear that his life, his maturity, has reached a new stage: he must follow his own calling, even if that means breaking his mother's heart.

A further stage of development for humanity as a whole has now come about through the death and resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  There is a sense in which the whole of Paul's teaching can be understood as centred round that one vital truth.  Now more than ever we see that humanity lives in two realms, the material and the spiritual.  The process of development continues, and on that understanding we dare to hope that the best is still to come.

Genesis.  Whole books have been written on this one story, such is the richness of the text as we have it.  It is essentially about limits, and our human propensity to resent any being imposed on us.  Some of that is positive: we strive to do things once thought impossible. Some is negative: we refuse to accept any restrictions on our own freedoms, thereby infringing the rights of others.  In this story God imposes one restriction, one limit, on the freedom of humanity, and rebellion follows.  The story becomes one of opposing views: who knows best what is in our own interests - God or we ourselves?

The identity of the tree from which it is forbidden to eat the fruit is particularly fascinating.  To the modern ear a knowledge of good and evil sounds like a good thing; but the biblical sense of "know" is different from our own.  We might think of knowledge in the intellectual sense, but the Bible sees knowledge as experiential, knowledge from the inside, as it were.  In other words, the only way we can "know" evil is to commit it.  So defying God's command in itself introduces us to an experiential knowledge of evil.

For the first time Adam and Eve become aware of their nakedness, and are embarrassed/ashamed of it.  Firstly, this is about recognising that they are different and being alarmed by it.  Then the story gives us a classic illustration of our human desire to avoid personal responsibility: Adam blames Eve (and even God for putting Eve there in the first place!); Eve blames the snake (probably meaning that she was misled/let down by her animal instincts).   They start to cover themselves; self-awareness leads us to want to hide our true selves from others, we do not want to be exposed, naked, seen as we really are.  This is the beginning of the human split personality, our public and private personae.

Remember that all this involves a spiritual experience for Adam and Eve.  They hear God, the sound of him moving in the Garden and the sound of his voice.  So they are caught up in the human struggle between our physical and spiritual natures.  And more, much more:  this story repays all the pondering we are prepared to give it.

Taking It Personally.

·        Ponder the story long and hard!

·        Notice that there seems nothing inherently wrong in eating the fruit - okay, it's the first recorded case of scrumping, but it hardly ranks up there with murder!  Or does it?

·        Focus on Eve's description of the fruit – "good for eating", "pleasing to the eye", and "desirable for gaining wisdom": all apparently attractive features.  What does it tell you about the nature of temptation?  Can you think of something apparently attractive and good that drew you into a situation that turned sour?

·        Now turn to God's question: "Where are you (at this moment)?"  What is your answer to God?

 

Corinthians.  St Paul is no Pollyanna!  He knows only too well the trials, tribulations and horrors of the world, particularly for minorities, religious and otherwise.  It is particularly in the face of such difficulties that we need to hold firm in our faith, and in our understanding that there is another realm of reality behind the one we call the real world.   He urges us to remain focused, fixed, on that truth.  It is not that we should switch off, lapse into passivity and suffer in silence, assured that all will be well when we die.  But we draw strength from our faith, which enables us to stand firm in the face of that suffering which comes from the world.  We are called to pray that God's kingdom may come on earth as in heaven.  Perhaps that means that in our lives we are to reconcile the material and the spiritual - to overcome in Christ the divide that entered our lives and our world through Adam.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

·       Take a moment to review your present circumstances, focussing especially on any particular difficulties you are facing.  Then read through this passage again slowly.  Does it help to give you a clearer perspective?

·       Focus on verse 16.  Do you have a sense that "inwardly you are being renewed day by day?"  If not, pray that you may receive that assurance.

·       This is a passage full of hope.  How would you explain to someone the hope that you have from your faith in Christ.

 

Mark.  The first recorded case of professional burnout, perhaps!  We find many examples of Jesus drawing aside for prayer; but here is a case where he appears to be working too hard.  His family fear he is having a breakdown, and his opponents charge him with being demon-possessed.  The issue is one of discernment: is he following the Spirit of God or of the devil?  And how we answer that question is of vital importance.  To ascribe to the devil the work of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgiveable sin.  My translation of that is something like this: if we do not open ourselves to the Holy Spirit than we close ourselves off to God, and in that way deny ourselves eternal life (a share in God's life).  Or is this simply a case of poor judgment and lack of commonsense, as his family appear to think?  Once more we may be asked, "Where are you?"  Which camp do you find yourself in?  Jesus makes his position very clear: the world (in this case represented by his family) has no hold on him.  He is creating a new family (as God created a new people), and the common bond of unity is faith, not blood.

 

Taking It Personally.

 

·       Have you experienced tension between the practise of your faith and the dictates of your family?  How did you deal with it?

·       Think about St Mark's bluntness in this passage: does this give you confidence in the accuracy of his account?

·       What insights might we receive from this passage in understanding the "generation gap?"