Between Two Worlds

There's a term that has gained some currency in Christianity, that likely came from Celtic mysticism: 'thin places'. The idea is probably quite ancient, but the term perhaps more recent. it speaks of a place or a situation where you experience the here and now, at the same time as perceiving something of the 'other world', the 'eternal'. Like being between two worlds. There are certain places on earth that are renowned for this - whether areas of outstanding natural beauty, religious sites, or somewhere else. 

It's something akin, perhaps, to the mountaintop experience - literal or metaphorical. There's an incomparable aliveness that comes with the achievement of reaching a pinnacle, a peak, a milestone. But part of this entails the contrasting experience of the valley, of coming back down to earth. 

After the drama of Easter, Matthew's gospel draws to a close with a mountaintop experience. The remaining disciples of Jesus go to the mountain in Galilee to which he had directed them (this is in Matthew 28:16-17). There's no definite identification of this mountain. Some people think it might have been Mount Tabor, the site of Jesus' transfiguration - where he appeared to shine with the glory of God in the presence of three of his disciples (and Moses and Elijah, who dropped by, Matthew 17:1-8). Some think it could be the hill near Capernaum where Jesus delivered the 'Sermon on the Mount' (recorded in Matthew chapters 5-7). It doesn't really matter which mountain it is. What's more important for Matthew and his audience is that it is a mountain - that's where a lot of thin places have been.  And so much of the story of God and Israel had high points on high points.  God reveals the Divine Name to Moses and launches the Exodus (Exodus 3).  Later, on the same mountain, God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses.  Elijah, the great prophet, also met with God on a mountain, shortly after demonstrating God's superiority over Baal on another mountain.  The temple in Jerusalem was built atop Mount Zion - the place that was to represent the meeting of earth and heaven.

Also important was that this was a mountain in Galilee - it could be the very place that Matthew's community found themselves, or nearby, possibly in Syrian hills.  And so, at this hilltop location, not too far from or dissimilar to where they are, they read of Jesus appearing to his followers.  And those followers displayed two reactions.  First, they worshipped him.

Worship is one of the main contexts you might hear about thin places among Christians today.  In acts of worship - sung, spoken, symbolic acts of worship - people sometimes find themselves in thin places.

What the term 'worship' literally denotes here is kneeling and kissing the feet.  Like one might do before a great monarch, or before a liberator, or as one might do in desperation, when pleading.  I wonder, then, if the disciples were literally kneeling before their risen Master - in desperation, or relief, or awe - perhaps a combination of overwhelming emotions.

Worshipping Jesus was not really something his disciples had done before this in Matthew's gospel.  Others had, occasionally, and mostly foreigners (like the wise men), lepers, and women (also foreign, Matthew 15:25).  It's rarely good Jewish men.  The only other time in Matthew that the disciples actually worshipped Jesus is in the middle of the book, in chapter 14.  There, Jesus gets into their boat in the middle of Lake Galilee - having walked to them on the water, in a fierce storm, which subsided as soon as he joined them on board.

The second response Matthew reports is that "some doubted".  What we don't know is, did they all worship, but some were doubting at the same time?  Was this an either/or thing - you were Team Worship or Team Doubt?  I'm more inclined to go with the former, that those who doubted had mixed feelings.  And the reason I think that is that the word literally means 'to double-think', to vacillate between two positions.  It's like being in two minds about something.

And who could blame them for that?  What a mixed-up turn of events they'd experienced.  One minute, everyone loved Jesus (well, not exactly everyone), the next they all want him dead; the next, he is dead; the next, he's not dead... And now, here he is.  And there were all his stories about how God sees things, and the miracles that proved it, and their own successes and failures as his students.  Yeah, it's no wonder some doubted, even amid the worship.

It's the same combo we find on that day when Jesus had walked on water.  Peter raised his head above the parapet and asked Jesus to call him out of the boat.  So Jesus called him, and Peter climbed out and started to walk on the water, to his Master and like his Master.  What a moment that must have been for Peter.  But then reality sinks in, and sinks Peter, when he remembers he's on a lake, in a fierce storm, and he's not in the boat.  As soon as he starts sinking, Jesus pulls him up - physically and figuratively, saying, "Why did you doubt?"  And then comes the worship part.

Maybe worship and doubt go together.  After all, if doubt is about holding together two disparate realities, trying to reconcile two positions, then that probably is a part of true worship, and it certainly speaks of thin places - where our experience, the world as we know it, meets with a reality we can't fully make sense of.

And in a sense, that's what was happening for Matthew's community too.  They were Jews, but were finding themselves at odds with their compatriots and their convictions up to that point.  They were finding their story now centred around Jesus, it came together in him.  Matthew's gospel is a re-imagining of the Jewish story, filtered through and focused on the person of Jesus.  Jesus was not only the ideal Israel - God's people as though they'd done everything right - but, somehow, he was also... God, as they were now worshipping him.

It may well have been an awkward space to be in. It's what we call a liminal space - on the boundary, between two worlds.  They were no longer truly what they had been - although it would always remain a part of them.  But neither were they fully 'there' yet; they didn't even know where 'there' was, or what they would end up being.

I get the sense that a lot of us can relate to this.  Whether it's to do with world or regional events - such as COVID, and the new normal/old normal/different normal - or in a faith context, where perhaps we've come to a point where we don't feel fully part of the tradition we've known, or the community we've been in.  Perhaps we've started to question some of the things we were once certain of, or that others are.  Maybe you are on a journey that others around you aren't on, and are not prepared for.

Doubt, of course, is not the opposite of faith - certainty is.  Doubt admits questions, welcomes diversity of opinion.  Doubt is open, and without openness, we can't imagine, and step out into new possibilities.

So, if this resonates with you, step out.  Join us.  There's plenty of (liminal) space.  And Jesus.

“Who hath believed our report?”

The above quote is from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) book of Isaiah (53:1). It comes in a passage often referred to as the Suffering Servant Song. This speaks of God’s servant bringing hope and transformation in surprising ways – including an account of the servant’s abuse, unjust treatment and general experience of trauma. That text is commonly linked with the Easter story. And on this point – “Who hath believed our report?” – it connects directly with a part of the story that we read only in Matthew’s version of events. In Matthew (Mt) 28:11-15, we read about the report of the guards who had been stationed at the tomb of Jesus. When the earth shook and the angel rolled the stone away, the guards had trembled and became “like dead men”, frozen by fear. Now, they returned to the city to report to the chief priests what had happened. And the chief priests got together with the elders and concocted a counter-story. They paid the guards handsomely to spread the alternative version, that Jesus’ disciples had gone to the tomb by night and stolen his body – while the guards were sleeping. Because this was likely to come back on the guards for sleeping on the job, the chief priests assure them they’ll satisfy the governor. We’ll circle back to this. I want to look at the final verse of the story, verse 15: “So they took the money and did as they were directed, And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.” At the time of Matthew’s writing, “this day” may have been around 50 or so years after the event. But it does appear that there were Jewish alternative biographies of Jesus that were possibly written down in the forms we now have, perhaps in the 15th century. A text known as Sefer Toledot Yeshu (Book of the History of Jesus)can be traced to around that time. There are possible references to some of its content or traditions in works from the 9th century, and even in the Babylonian Talmud of c.600AD. These traditions will have been oral in the first instance, and quite possibly trace their origins all the way back to Matthew’s late 1st century, or earlier – perhaps to this episode itself. The broad points that Toledot Yeshu and other similar texts, like Maaseh Yeshu (The Episode of Jesus), cover are the illegitimacy of Jesus’ birth; his exceptional intelligence; his miraculous (or magical) works; his death (in disgrace); and explanations of what happened to his body (it was moved by Sages and then hidden by a gardener, to prevent Jesus’ followers taking his body out of the tomb). Some versions of this story are fierce in their derision and denunciation of Jesus, effectively saying, “He’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy…” There has been debate about how kosher such stories have been , and whether or not they were rabbinic (ie, endorsed or even perpetuated by the rabbis). The manuscripts that we currently have probably coincide with a time when Jews in Europe were suffering persecution, on account of the argument that ‘they’ had killed Jesus. However, the point here is not that Jews hated Jesus (some might have), because Matthew’s audience were very likely Jewish themselves – ‘Christian’ Jews, exiled from the mainstream, but still Jews. I believe, rather, that the issue is with the powerful. The villains of the piece in Matthew 28:11-15 are the chief priests and the elders. This is one of a long line of examples of powerful, privileged men paying to perpetuate lies and silence the truth, in order to protect themselves and their positions. They did not want this story out there. They would stop at nothing to invalidate the experience, the testimony, of those first followers of Jesus. So they literally added insult to injury. It’s the same old story. I see echoes here of the Me Too movement. Powerful men thought they could ‘get away with it’. Super-injunctions and Non-Disclosure Agreements are today’s equivalent of paying off those guards. So many powerful and privileged men have abused their status, abused others (especially women), and used their often immense resources to prevent the truth coming out, or to discredit the victims, or make them think no one will believe them – “Who hath believed our report?” They try to control the narrative, often by propagating a counter-narrative. This is basically the idea of alt-facts. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Me Too and more recently, Everyone’s Invited, demonstrate that reports sometimes are believed. Harvey Weinstein, in the end, didn’t get away with it. Donald Trump failed to secure a second term in office. What I find comforting about this is, most of us have never heard of Toledot Yeshu before. But we’ve heard the gospel account of Jesus. They weren’t silenced, those first followers, the witnesses. They spoke out. It’s a fine tradition in Christianity – speaking the truth, standing up for the truth. Sharing testimony, one’s own experience. I pray that the church, and all who call themselves followers of Jesus, will always be open to hear and validate the experience of those who suffer – and will never protect the corrupt at their expense.

Lo! Jesus meets us - Matthew's Easter Sunday

One of the finest Easter hymns – and certainly the most triumphant – surely must be ‘Thine is the glory’.  The words were penned by Swiss minister Edmund Budry, and translated into English, from their original French, by Richard Hoyle almost a century ago.  But the tune to which that fine lyric was set is older still.  It is often referred to as Maccabeus, because it is a movement from George Frederic Handel’s oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus.

Just in case you don’t know much about Judas Maccabaeus (the person, not the oratorio), he was the main leader of what came to be known as the Maccabean Revolt.  It happened in Palestine during the Second Century BC.  The Jewish land had been occupied by Greek King Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who died suddenly (and young) in 323 BC, leaving a monumentally vast kingdom around the Mediterranean, with no heir.  So his generals fought it out, and two dynasties were formed: the Seleucids and the Ptolemies.  Palestine changed hands between their rival empires, but ultimately came under Seleucid control.  Things came to a head during the reign of Antiochus IV, who apparently incited the Jews to revolt – after the invasion of Greek (Hellenistic) culture, the final straw was forced worship of Zeus.  (There is a belief among scholars that Antiochus merely intervened in a Jewish civil war, between the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem, and the traditionalists in the country.)

In any event, there was certainly a sense of oppression in some quarters, of displacement, of lost or damaged identity.  A sort of exile, even within one’s own land.

In those days of unrest and conflict, the traditions around the figure of Daniel were popularised.  The stories of Daniel and other heroic Hebrews in exile in Babylon (in the Fifth Century BC) became emblematic of the struggle of the Maccabees.  It’s thought that the book of Daniel was written or at least heavily edited around that time (the mid-160s BC).

Great.  What’s all that got to do with Easter?

Maccabeus, remember?  Thine is the glory…

In Matthew’s account of Easter Sunday, we read about a single angel “in bright raiment” rolling the stone away: “His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow” (Matthew 28:3).  Each of the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – recounts the Easter story slightly differently, for their own reasons.  I was interested in why Matthew wrote it this way.  So I looked into references to lightning, and found something pretty similar in Daniel chapter 10.  There, Daniel has an angelic vision, and the angel’s “face [was] like lightning” (Daniel 10:6).  That angel wore linen, but it was a very particular Hebrew word for linen, that denotes white linen.  It kind of sounds like Matthew wants people to link Easter Sunday with Daniel.

There’s more: in both cases, there’s trembling or fear among others present (the companions in Daniel 10:7; the guards in Matthew 28:4); the angel says “Don’t be afraid” (Daniel 10:12; Matthew 28:5 – ok, they usually say that…); there’s also something about the efficacy of words – Daniel’s words had been heard, prompting the visitation (Daniel 10:12), and Jesus was raised “as he said” (Matthew 28:6). 

A further connection between the 2 narratives lies slightly outside the immediate texts, and has to do with wider resurrection.  In Matthew 27, at the moment of Jesus’ death, we read that “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection, they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:52, 53).  Compare this with the end of Daniel’s vision, which comes in Daniel 12: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” (Daniel 12:2).

Why, though, would Matthew be so interested in Daniel?  Perhaps it has to do with Matthew’s audience and context.  This gospel was probably written toward the end of the First Century AD, and probably for a group of Jewish Christians living either in Syria (adjacent to Palestine) or in Galilee.  They were possibly displaced, in a sort of exile.  Even if not geographically exiled, they were probably in a state of flux – by this point, relations between the early Jewish Christians and ‘mainstream’ Jews were strained to say the least.  So there people may have been looking for ways to be faithful to both their past and their present.  Trying to forge a new identity, not getting rid of their roots, but translating that for their new reality.

Into this context, Matthew’s angel announces that the risen Jesus is going ahead into Galilee (not staying in Jerusalem, but going to perhaps the very place they found themselves, or nearby).  God’s presence in the person of Jesus is a key theme in Matthew.  The gospel is virtually bookended with this promise.  In the opening chapter, the impending birth of Jesus is linked with the sign of Emmanuel from Isaiah: “…’and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23; cf Isaiah 7:14).  The closing line is Jesus’ promise, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

What’s particularly interesting in Matthew’s Easter is the phrase, “there you will see him/me [that is, Jesus]” (Matthew 28:7, 10).  This has a sense of discovering, meeting, encountering Jesus, out there, in Galilee.  Not in Jerusalem.  And not at the tomb.  But in the place where they live.  Where life happens.  That is where we, like them, meet Jesus.  In one another.  In our daily struggles and interactions.  In our circumstances.  In our working stuff out.

Jesus pushes and breaks boundaries, he doesn’t maintain and enforce them.  Easter is, of course, about triumph – over adversity.  And about hope.  But it’s also about this promise of God’s presence symbolised in Jesus, whose resurrection and ongoing presence show a breaking of barriers – barriers of place, of culture, or experience.  Jesus’ resurrection is the dawn of a new era, of new possibilities for new kinds of community – and a new humanity, where you don’t have to fit in, and it’s ok to be on the margins, because there you will see him.

If, like me, you feel isolated from your faith tradition, your religious roots, or whatever (whether physically or by ‘not fitting in’), you’re not alone in that, and you’re not the first.  Matthew’s Gospel was written for people like us – trying to connect where we’ve been with where we are, seeking and finding new ways to live the old story.