Notes for Reflection

October 25                             NOTES FOR REFLECTION

Texts: Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 10:46-52

Theme: The connection between the three readings this week is not quite as obvious as we might like.  Perhaps "restoration" is broad enough to link our first lesson with the gospel, but seeing in Jesus the "restoration" of the office of High Priest would be something of a stretch.  Perhaps the idea of the never-failing goodness of God (in Christ) could embrace all three readings, with some careful moulding.  However, this may be one of the weeks when it is best to concentrate entirely on the gospel passage for a theme, as here we have one of the great questions Jesus poses to us: "What do you want me to do for you?"  So my choice is "Making our Requests to Jesus".

Introduction.  We don't usually think of Jeremiah leaping around and giving high-fives to all and sundry, but this week his message is one of joyful assurance.  Despite their present circumstances and all other evidence to the contrary, God will gather up his people from wherever they have been scattered and bring them back to their own land.  Our second lesson continues to explore the concept of Christ as the new eternal High Priest, able and willing to intercede for us until the end of time.  We finish on the outskirts of Jericho, as Jesus leaves that city on his final journey to Jerusalem.  Above the noise of the watching crowds he hears the pleading voice of one blind beggar, known as Bartimaeus, and the beggar's life is changed for ever.

Background.  It's been a strange week for me, with Monday to Wednesday largely given to the arrangement, preparation and conduct of a funeral service for a lady who died peacefully at the age of 90 years.  By all accounts she was a loving and much loved person.  Towards the end of her life she was frail, and the general feeling among her family was that she was "ready to go".  While naturally sad, her children were also ready to let her go.  I was not surprised that no one raised with me the article that occupied the whole of page 11 in Monday's edition of the ODT World Focus.

Under a smaller, but red-type heading "Dying is the last thing we want to do", and a much larger white type-on-black-background heading "Keep cool and carry on", the article was about the booming cryonics business in the United States.  For the benefit of the uninitiated, cryonics is the process of freezing dead bodies (or, at the customer's option, just the brain), at very low temperatures and keeping them at those temperatures indefinitely in the belief that one day we will have the technology to bring them back to life.  Advocates of cryonics, we are told "insist the possibility of eternal life is getting ever closer."  [You will understand why, when I was committing our deceased lady's body to be buried "in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord" I had to concentrate particularly hard.]

The article mentions a number of organisations involved in this business, of which my favourite is called "The Alcor Life Extension Foundation", run by a couple called Max More and Natasha Vita More (no, seriously!).  This Foundation offers both options: brain-only freezing for $US 100,000, or the whole body for upwards of $US200,000, which certainly puts the average cost of a funeral in this country in a better perspective.  Of course, there are doubters, such as science writer Michael Shermer, who "has compared the idea to thawing out a can of frozen strawberries that, when defrosted, will simply turn to mush".  Oh, he of little faith!  We haven't got the technology now, but given another fifty years or so...  who knows what we will be able to do, at least with a can of frozen strawberries.

What's this all about?  The author puts it in context: "In the United States, the desire to live for ever (and to look good while doing it) has resulted both in a surge of interest in cryonics and in a booming anti-ageing industry.  Spending on anti-ageing products is expected to reach $US292 billion this year."  As another "prophet" of this movement, Dave Kekich, founder of the Maximum Life Foundation, put it: "We want to stay alive as long as possible.  But if that doesn't work, we want a plan B.  That's cryonics."

All of which made our Minister of Health's new plan to fight "the obesity epidemic" seem almost sane by comparison.  We can now tell parents not to smack their children, except in vaguely-described and limited circumstances, but we must not take away or limit in any way the parents' right to wreck their children's dental or physical health by feeding them excessive amounts of junk food and drink – even though the plan recognises that we now have obese four-year-olds.  More absurd still, we have State-funded schools providing such food and drink in their tuck-shops, and even selling such items in organised fund-raising activities.

Fundamentally, we are in denial that human life is designed (or, if you prefer, has evolved) to be healthy within certain limits.  We believe that we should be able to do anything we please that does not impinge directly on the rights of others, with no adverse consequences.  The adverse environmental effects of the intensification of agricultural were also highlighted once again this week.  Yet we go on clamouring for more of everything.  Enough is never enough.

After the service on Wednesday, the deceased was carried out and "laid to rest" in the family grave.  Perhaps that's just a euphemism, but the idea of entering into God's eternal rest is a very important part of the teaching of Scripture.  Each week, from the time of Moses, God's people have been called to observe a day of Sabbath – a day of rest.  Of course, we have long since abandoned that idea as an outrageous limitation on our freedom to please ourselves.  Next Monday we will pretend to celebrate "Labour Day" – a secular version of Sabbath – intended as gift – intended to protect us from slipping back into the slavery many of our early immigrants thought they were escaping from in the lands of their birth.  Do we now see them as progenitors of the Nanny State?  If so, it's not only Bartimeaus who needs his sight restored.

And talking of Bartimaeus I can't resist a reference to The Fred Hollows Foundation.  That Foundation insists that for every $25NZ donated, a blind person can have his/her sight restored by a simple cataract operation.  Just think what it could do with even 1% of the cost of a brain freeze or a full-body job.  And as for 1% of the annual turn-over of the anti-ageing products industry...!

Jeremiah 31:7-9.  Every day on our TV screens we are shown ever-more awful images of desperate refugees driven out of their homelands by the atrocity of those whose only interest in life is hanging on to their power or wresting it from others.  Any pretence that the conduct of war can be governed by international norms and protocols has long-since been shown to be delusional nonsense.  Particularly harrowing are the pictures of the babies and small children caught up in the desperate hordes facing more and more barriers as they try to find safe haven.  To people very much like these Jeremiah spoke these words of astonishing hope and comfort from God.  There will come a time when the horror is over, when their rights and dignity and safety will be restored in a land of their own.  And notice that the promise is made to all the people, not just the young, strong, healthy and economically useful ones.  Expressly mentioned are the blind, the lame, and those with children and even those in labour – all those who might seem to be a burden on others.  Far from scrambling through thickets or along barren tracks seemingly leading nowhere, God "will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble".  Who can believe it?

Taking It Personally.

• Have you experienced a time of estrangement or exile in your life?  Have you any such feeling at present?
• Reflect on the issue of Kiwis being deported from Australia regardless of any real ties with this country.  What is your prayer for them?
• Given the ongoing tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, what is your prayer for them?  Are these verses to be read as affirming any greater rights for Israel, or are they to be understood as addressed to all peoples?
• What can you and your faith community do to assist in providing assistance to those driven from their homelands?

 

Hebrews 7:23-28.  Frankly, I'm not sure what if anything this passage adds to what we have already had in the last little while.  There may be a few Christians who find this passage really very helpful, but I must confess that I'm not one of them.  Suffice it to say that Christ, being God, is eternal – his saving work continues for all time.  Perhaps the most useful idea in this passage is that of Christ for ever interceding for us.

 

 

 

Taking It Personally.

 

• Do you find this passage helpful?  If your answer is no, how do you feel about that?  Are you relaxed about saying so in front of others?
• Focus on verse 25.  Imagine yourself "appearing before God" to have your life examined.  Then Jesus stands up and introduces you to God, speaking on your behalf, asking for God's mercy and forgiveness for you?  How do you feel about that?

 

Mark 10:46-52.  This passage completes a block of material that started way back at 8:22 with the story about the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida.  The whole block therefore, which is about the way of discipleship, begins and ends with the healing of a blind man.  Throughout this block it is the blind who see and the supposedly sighted (including the disciples) who are so often shown to be blind.  This week's story, the last before Mark's description of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, is a perfect conclusion to this whole block of teaching on which we have been focused for the past few weeks.  Once again we are reminded that Jesus is on the journey.  Mark says he and his entourage were just leaving Jericho (Luke says they were just approaching it), the last major pause before Jerusalem.  There is still widespread misunderstanding and disagreement, including among the disciples, as to whether or not Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, and if he is, what that means.  It is the blind man who loudly and firmly identifies Jesus as the Messiah by calling out to him as "Son of David", the best known Messianic title.  Once again the crowd try to shut up this powerless nobody (cf. 10:13).  Jesus stops – breaks his progress – and says "Call him here."  They say to the man, "Take heart; get up, he is calling you."  The man throws off his cloak, likely to be his only worldly possession (cf. story of the Rich man in 10:17-31), and then "he sprang up and came to Jesus".  Then came that great question: "What do you want me to do for you?"  (cf. John 1:38.)  The man tells him directly, and his request is granted.  The passage ends, "Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way".

 

Taking It Personally.

 

·        This is another wonderful passage for praying with the imagination.  Put yourself into this scene: monitor your feelings and reactions as the encounter unfolds.  Are you a passive bystander?  Do you "shush" him with the crowd?  Or are you watching and listening carefully?

·        Now imagine Jesus turns to you and asks that same question: what do you want Jesus to do for you at this time?  Tell him clearly.  Do not let any other "voices", internal or external, deter you.

·        Focus on the closing words "and followed him on the way".  What do they mean to you?  Are you a follower of the Way?