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.

 

Rise up

“Graffiti is always a political act,” writes Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, “whether overtly or accidentally.  The very nature of vandalism requires some kind of confrontation between a disruptive actor and established structures of the status quo.”  He goes on to say: “A pithy piece of political graffiti by Banksy observes that ‘society gets the [kind of] vandalism it deserves.’  In other words, graffiti is a sort of canary in the coal mine of social health…”

  One of my favourite pieces of this art form – attributed variously to Banksy himself, and to the Australian Meek – depicts a homeless men sitting against the brick wall, begging cup in front of him, and holding a sign that reads, “Keep your coins – I want change”.

  In my mind, this work links to a biblical story of a beggar in a doorway, pleading for alms.  The story is told in the New Testament book of Acts, but when I was a kid, I learned the story through the medium of song.  It went like this:

                “Peter and John went to pray.

                They met a lame man on the way.

He asked for alms and held out his palms,

And this is what Peter did say:

Silver and gold have I none,

But such as I have give I you;

In the name of Jesus Christ

Of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

He went walking and leaping and praising God,

Walking and leaping and praising God.

In the name of Jesus Christ

Of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

  I’ll refer to the full text from Acts 3:1-10 shortly, for some details, but most of the important stuff is contained in this good, old-fashioned Sunday-school chorus.  In fact, those songs were our bible as young kids.  Those and flannel-graph.

  Just some observations about songs.  They have a way of connecting.  They communicate and pass on stories or truths in ways that connect with us (maybe something to do with the senses and synapses in our brains).  They also unite people – around a cause, in cases like a national anthem or sporting chant, a battle cry or a protest shout.

  And, as it goes, I want to argue that this whole story is revolutionary, is about protest.  It’s about an uprising that subverts or overturns the status quo and the prevailing systems and structures.  And it’s about change from the ground up (literally and metaphorically), a real grassroots movement.  Look at Peter’s command to the lame man: “Rise up…” (This is where it’s good to have that old song, and the older English translations of the Bible on which it was based, like the King James Version).

  If you think I’m stretching it a bit here, let’s read around that.  We’re told in Acts 3:2 that the man (who was lame from birth) would be laid at the temple gate daily to beg for alms.  A couple of points here: almsgiving was an established and expected part of Jewish life; and, it was ‘working’ for this man, otherwise he wouldn’t still be there, coming back.  He’d be either dead or begging elsewhere.

  But when Peter and John came that way, they knew they had to do something.  What though?  They didn’t have silver or gold to give him.  And I wonder, if they had, would they have given it to him?  Or whether they recognised that this man didn’t need coins.  He needed change.  A total transformation of his status, his situation, and the system at play around him.  After Peter’s words, the playing field is suddenly levelled, so this man could now join in, going inside the temple (for the first time, I presume) and finally enjoying self-determination , mobility (physical and potentially social), agency and ability to contribute.

  Particularly powerful is Acts 3:7, where Peter “took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.”  Peter literally gave him a hand up, not a handout (to borrow the tagline from The Big Issue).  Peter didn’t carry the man, he just gave him a lift, a kickstart.  The man suddenly found his feet, and used them.

  Christians sometimes talk about being a voice for the voiceless.  But maybe it’s better to help the ‘voiceless’ find their own voice.  Stand with them, echo their cries by all means.  What we need to show most of all, though, is not ‘charity’, but solidarity.  Not paternalism, but ‘fraternity’.

  Revolution has long been a feature of Judeo-Christian tradition.  Hundreds of years before Jesus and his radical movement, the great writing prophets of the Hebrew scriptures called for social justice, for levelling of playing fields and upsetting of apple carts.  And this incident in Acts 3 takes me back to something Isaiah had said (Isaiah 35).  Speaking of the return of the redeemed to Zion (i.e. the exiled people of Israel-Judah coming home to Jerusalem), he says: “Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees” (35:3).  It’s in the same territory as feet and ankles being made strong, isn’t it (Acts 3:7)?  Isaiah goes on: “then the lame shall leap like a deer [walking and leaping?]” (35:6)…. “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing” (35:10; cf “and he entered the temple with them… praising God”, Acts 3:8).  This episode in Acts is a demonstration that God is ending the exile, that God’s kingdom is becoming manifest in the world.  And by definition, that means revolution: an overthrowing of the established and prevailing order.

  Let’s not kid ourselves.  Jesus was partial to a bit of protest and revolution.  Remember when Jesus entered the temple, a few weeks before this incident, on Palm Sunday?  He ruffled feathers and turned the tables on those who were profiting from a corrupt status quo (doves and pigeons were the offering of the poor at the temple, and this had become a market, capitalising on them).

  That act of defiance was a precursor to Jesus’ greatest moment of resistance.  It came a few days later, as he was brutalised, de-humanised and crucified.  And, despite living a life of love and goodness, Jesus refused to resist that great evil and injustice.  Instead, he absorbed it, and in so doing, he rose above and against the inhumanity of it all.  Interestingly, his death was reported in all 3 Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) to have occurred at 3 in the afternoon, the ninth hour of the day.  And that’s also the time of day that this story in Acts takes place (3:1), at the hour of prayer.

  Time is significant in this story, actually.  First of all, there’s the double use of the Greek word hora (‘hour’) in verse 1.  Then there’s a repetition of the related word horaios (translated ‘beautiful’ in vv 2 & 10).  That relates to the temple gate called Beautiful, which many scholars have tried to identify.  It’s not referred to by that name in any other extant texts.  It has been linked with a large gate used by many pilgrims – which would be an ideal location for a beggar.  However, I am much more interested in the name, not the whereabouts, of this gate.  It’s called ‘Beautiful’, but the Greek word literally means ‘apt’ or ‘timely’.  And that is really fitting in this story.  We talk about a window of opportunity, and in a similar way, I think this was a gate of timeliness.  The Greek word horaios occurs in the LXX (Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament) in Isaiah 52:7, which says: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace…” How timely.  How fitting.  They’re a sight for sore eyes, we might say.  And now is the time for Peter, for the beggar, for God, for the people around.

  The great rabbi Hillel the Elder has been attributed with the saying, “If not you, who?  If not now, when?”  It’s probably a misquote, but this Hillel had some influence on Jesus – perhaps not directly, as he died when Jesus was a boy, but his teachings were spread by his ‘school’.  Whether Hillel said it or not, it’s still very stirring.  It’s a call to action.

  Add to that another call: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk…” This is a call to revolution.  The call to disrupt the established order is a divine call.  Peter invokes the name of Jesus.  And it works.  It seems to me that Jesus is about change.  Jesus wants change.  He wants us to rise up and turn the tables, subvert the system in favour of the kingdom – or (as Brian McLaren has called it) the revolution – of God…

Oppression: a history

The other day, I was reading the opening chapter of the Old Testament book of Exodus. I've read it before, but as so often happens, something jumped out at me that previously never had. Of course I knew the story was about slavery and deliverance. But the way the story is told is a real study of the roots and development of oppression.
It sets the scene by telling us about a people group (the Israelites, the family of Jacob) who had migrated from famine-stricken Canaan to prudent Egypt (who had stored grain during the boom years for the bust years). Incidentally, the brains behind that Egyptian plan had been Jacob's son Joseph, who'd been sold to an Egyptian as a slave, and had been fast-tracked to Grand Vizier.  But now, in a different generation, all the original cast have gone, and the Israelites have been fruitful and multiplied in Egypt. So the new Pharaoh decides that they are too numerous, and something needs to be done about them. The story goes that,

"He said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’" (Exodus 1:9-10)

There are a lot of hauntingly familiar notes to this. I wonder whether Pharaoh said this stuff to his people at a rally? Whipping them into a frenzy, stirring up a wave of anti-Israelite feeling with his racist rhetoric? What really struck me about this speech, though, was the way he so expertly de-humanises the Israelites. He is afraid of them becoming too powerful, but doesn't respect them as being able to overthrow Egypt themselves. They might join Egypt's enemies, he says. And there's classic 'them' and 'us' language as well. The Israelites are 'them,' they are different, inferior, other. Egypt has problems, and these problems are laid by Pharaoh at the door of the Israelites, the others among them. In this story, the Israelites are a people group that has arisen, or arrived, and has never (been) integrated into society. At least, that's Pharaoh's angle on it.
How often do we see this stuff? How common has this pattern been in human history? A 'dominant' people group vilifies an 'easy target', and then builds systems to oppress them. I can think of some examples, like Africans, Jews, indigenous peoples (in the Americas and the Atipodes), homosexuals, those with disabilities, women, religious minorities, the poorest in most societies. So often such groups have been scapegoated for political or economic crises not of their making. In many cases, people have been de-humanised, ghettoised, even experimented upon (it's well-known that the Nazis conducted experiments in the concentration camps; I've also heard that black people were treated similarly in Victorian times). Slavery is built upon the notion that the other, the slave, is not fully human, not equal to their masters. Ethnic cleansing is another deadly fruit of this kind of thinking.
Today, I see elites, politically and even more so economically, building systems and sructures that protect their own privilege by the organised oppression of the many.
Another observation on this stuff is that it's often classed as 'phobia' of some kind or another, such as 'xenophobia', or 'homophobia', or 'Islamophobia'.  This has a connotation of hatred (of the other, the homosexual, or Islam, in the examples I've mentioned).  But that hatred is born of fear.  Phobia means fear.  If someone has a phobia of spiders, they don't start a campaign against them.  They usually run screaming.  However, phobias can be overcome.  And often, they are overcome by learning, by experience and understanding, by replacing ignorance with education.  A friend of mine recently told me how she was scared of dogs when she was little.  Then the family got a dog.  She wasn't scared anymore, and now she has a dog which is helping my kids deal with their uncertainty around canines.
In the New Testament letter called 1 John, the writer, an experienced member of the early Christian community, briefly talks about fear.  Writing in Greek, he or she uses the word phobos, meaning fear, the root of phobia.  But the emphasis isn't on fear, it's on the antidote:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." (1 John 4:18-21)

Love casts out fear.  If we have love, which comes from God, perfect love from an experience of the loving God, we can't hate others.  The more we are full of love, the less room there is for fear and hate.  I guess the Exodus image and idea works in many dimensions.  It's not just the slaves who are set free by the end of slavery.  It's the 'masters' too.  It's not just the hated and oppressed who are released; it's the haters and the oppressors.  Set free by love.  Set free to love.
Then we can recognise that, despite our differences (and we are all different), there is no them and us.  There's just us.

Postscript: Tradition - it's in our blood

Tradition

 In The Salvation Army, the word tradition is often bandied about.  I have, at times, been accused of being an un-traditional Salvationist, largely, I understand, on the basis of my not especially liking brass bands.  I suspect other superficial aspects of Salvation Army worship and culture may have been included here also.  But I have to say, some of my favourite Christian songs are what might be termed good, old-fashioned Army anthems, like “Storm the forts of darkness,” and “On we march”, and almost anything penned by Generals Orsborn or Gowans.

 Anyway, I bring all this up because I believe that what many Salvationists think of as our traditions are not as traditional as they think.  Our traditions, our heritage, going way back to our origins, have more to do with attitudes, character, outlook.  The “charisms of the Founders” are more traditional than bands and songsters and uniforms.

 And in this respect, I believe I am a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist.  I believe our finest traditions have to do with our constituents.  Our movement was for the little people, with the little people, and by the little people.  I want to issue a challenge here, that we retain, or perhaps recover, that central element of our heritage.  You could say that it is our DNA.

Bloodline

 And DNA, bloodlines, heritage, are so important in the overall biblical narrative.  Salvation history revolves around one particular lineage.  Jesus of Nazareth, the gospel writers are keen to point out, is descended from King David.  In this way, he fulfils the role as the Messianic Son of David.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is acknowledged as the Son of David on a number of occasions.  Let’s take a brief survey:

• By “the crowds” in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:9).  The term “the crowds” may be an equivalent to the Am Ha-aretz, the ‘people of the land’, treated with contempt in Jewish writings such as the Talmud and the Mishnah.  Their biggest fault appears to be a lack of attention to ritual cleanliness.  If “the crowds” does refer to such people, these would be very much outcast, the little people.

• By the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:22.  We’ve already discussed her story, but to recap, she was a foreigner, outside the people of Israel, and by rights, less familiar with the title and its significance.

• By children, again on Palm Sunday, in the temple (Matthew 21:15).  This angered the chief priests and scribes, but Jesus simply directed them to Psalm 8:2, that well-known verse, “Out of the mouths of babes…”

• By blind men, more than once (Matthew 9:27; 20:30-31).  These men could not see, but they recognised Jesus’ heritage better than most.  Need I say more?

 Quite a surprising bunch of people.  The uneducated, the alien, the disabled.  These were the ones who saw Jesus as the Son of David.  Rarely is the title used of Jesus by anyone else.  But for these people, the Messiah would be the Son of David.  It seems to me that this was how they understood the Messiah.  Not only was David Israel’s greatest king, and the man after God’s own heart.  A vital link between David and Jesus is seen in his relationship with the little people.  In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we read of David, fleeing King Saul, and taking up residence at the cave of Adullam.  And here, the distressed, the debtors and the discontented came to him in their hundreds, “and he became captain over them.”  This was David’s army.  These were his people.

 Later, when David had finally taken the throne, he also embraced Mephibosheth, the disabled son of Jonathan.  2 Samuel chapter 9, which reports that story, ends by telling us that Mephibosheth “always ate at the king’s table…”  David sent for the man, and had table fellowship with him from that time forward.

 The distressed, the debtors, the discontented, the disabled. These were David’s people.  A man after God’s own heart, true enough.

Heritage

 And so, similar groups of people call out to Jesus, “have mercy on us, Son of David!”  They recognise the family resemblance in him.  They see that his heritage, from David, is compassion toward the marginalised.  So Jesus’ solidarity with the little people is not a new thing.  It was his heritage, a family tradition.  He was simply reviving that tradition.

 As Salvationists, our solidarity with the little people is likewise our heritage.  Once again, The Salvation Army was raised up by God to be not only for the little people or even with the little people, but by the little people.  It was inclusive, because other places were not.  We all sat at the table together.  Let it be so now, and always.

Chapter 13 - Sit down

Sit down

 I am quite partial to James.  I don’t mean the New Testament book (well, that too), I mean the Manchester band.  They were carried along on the wave of the Madchester music scene, and it was in 1991 that they had probably their biggest and most famous hit, Sit down, on its re-release.  This song features the chorus, 

Oh, sit down, oh, sit down, oh, sit down,

Sit down next to me.

Sit down, down, down, down, down

In sympathy.

 It’s kind of an invitation to anyone who feels a bit like they do, to sit down with them.  That’s literally what the chorus means, actually.  Sympathy is ‘fellow-feeling’, shared experience or understanding or commitment.  Think of derivatives of that word: sympathetic, when someone is understanding of another’s situation; sympathiser, someone who supports another’s position or cause.

 A similar word to sympathy is ‘solidarity’.  This word is perhaps most associated with the Trade Union movement, thanks in part at least to Ralph Chaplin’s 1915 lyric Solidarity Forever, which became an anthem of the Industrial Workers of the World.  Trade Unions are a good example of solidarity.  A group of people in similar positions stands together for their rights, or against exploitation.  Solidarity, like sympathy, is about sitting or standing together, often for or against something.  It is based on the acceptance that, ‘we’re all in the same boat’, and that we must unite against injustice of some kind.

 I would like to propose that solidarity is the way forward.  Solidarity with the little people.  This, perhaps above all else, is what Jesus modelled.  Let’s ignore for a moment the miracles and words of Jesus (not something I usually recommend!), and look simply at with whom he sat.

 Jesus was criticised for socialising with tax collectors, prostitutes and ‘sinners’.  His audiences were often ‘the crowds’, which may carry a similar sense to the term ‘people of the land,’ who came in the last couple of centuries of Second Temple Judaism to be viewed (by the educated and the religious elite) as simple, ignorant peasants, not fully capable of understanding or performing God’s law.  Yet, it may have been such people whom Jesus made sit down, to share a meal-for-one that kept giving.  Jesus had one of history’s biggest picnics with the little people.  And this was quite significant.  Table fellowship was an important social indicator.  People were defined, in many ways, by whom they shared the table with.

 Jesus regularly ate with poor people, uneducated people, morally dubious people, socially outcast people…

Taking seats

 Of course, Jesus didn’t just eat with the lower classes.  He was also, at least occasionally, the dinner guest of Pharisees and scribes.  And on one such occasion (reported in Luke 14), Jesus watched with interest as the guests took their places at the table.  It seems they were trying to sit in the most ‘important’ seats possible.  Jesus then tells a parable about a wedding banquet.

 If you’ve ever planned a wedding meal, the table plan is one of the most fraught elements of the entire wedding.  Who sits with whom?  And is this table near enough to the top for so-and-so, but they can’t sit higher than that person… It’s a minefield.  It’s funny how where people sit on social occasions becomes such a big deal.

 And so Jesus tells the guests at this dinner that they shouldn’t seek the place of honour at a wedding banquet, in case someone “more distinguished than you” has been invited, and the host has to ask you to give them your seat, leaving you to take the walk of shame to the bottom.  Instead, Jesus says, take the lowest place at the start, then the host might say, “Friend, move up higher”.  The point Jesus is making is that, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

 This last line is used a lot by Jesus in the gospels.  The idea of some sort of reversal, a social re-ordering (some might say revolution), seems important, and not just in the gospels, but in the prophetic tradition too.  Actually, maybe in the whole Judeo-Christian tradition.  The prophet Zephaniah (3:11-13) speaks of God removing the “proudly exultant ones”, and arrogance, from his holy mountain, and leaving in their place, “a people humble and lowly”.  Look at Psalm 146, particularly verses 7-9, and while you’re there, Psalm 147:6.  David’s song of thanksgiving in 2 Samuel 22, recapitulated in Psalm 18, features the line: “You deliver a humble people,” (2 Samuel 22:28; Psalm 18:27), continuing, “…but your eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down” (2 Samuel 22:28), or, “you bring down the haughty eyes” (Psalm 18:27). Hannah’s prayer, in 1 Samuel chapter 2 has a lot of echoes in Psalm 113, especially 1 Samuel 2:8 and Psalm 113:7-8.  The former of those texts says this:

​He raises up the poor from the dust; ​​​​​he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

​To make them sit with princes​​​​​​ and inherit a seat of honour…

 That’s exactly what Jesus is talking about with the host of the wedding banquet.  So Jesus is not coming out with some new-fangled idea.  In fact, his parable here (Luke 14:8-11) is really a midrash on Proverbs 25:6-7, which say:

​Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence

or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’,​​​ than to be put lower in the presence​​​​ of a noble.

 (Proverbs, especially chapter 25, provides a lot of material for Jesus, as it goes.)

 After this midrashic parable, Jesus then turns to his host and says that when giving a dinner, he should not invite friends or family or well-off neighbours, because they might invite him in return, and he would be repaid.  Instead, he should invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind”, and thus he will be blessed, because these people can’t repay him, and he will receive his reward “at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14).

 In the first place, this sounds a bit ungrateful from Jesus.  But apart from that, Jesus takes us toward the kind of ‘social inclusion’ that characterises God’s kingdom, where meals are shared between all kinds of people, from all social classes, all abilities, all ages, all genders, all races, and so on.  And not just meals.  Life.

 Jesus invites us all to look outside of our families, and our social groups, and to move in wider circles, to include others, especially the little people.

Provision = Division?

 But before we take this just to mean we should run a feeding programme, open a foodbank, or such like (all commendable and, sadly, useful initiatives in places, sometimes), let’s step back and remember that Jesus was only reported to have fed people once or twice.  But he ate with people a lot more.  Jesus spent much of his time sitting down with people.  Sharing with them, often over a meal.  Investing in them.  Listening to them.  Talking to them.  And this is, in general, a better approach than simply feeding people, for a few reasons.

 Firstly, feeding (or meeting specific needs through service provision) can keep a division between we who provide and they who receive.  The benefactor and the beneficiary remain where they are.  In fact, this can replace one form of dependency with another, or worse, can replace one form of oppression with another.  When our interactions with the little people keep us superior to them, and them inferior to us, we perpetuate the social stratification that God opposes (as we have seen above).

 Secondly, and related to this, is the danger that social action can, in practice, hinder social justice.  An example of this is the tendency for politicians (local or central) to attend the opening of foodbanks.  This betrays a tacit agreement between all parties that it’s ok to have foodbanks, because they meet the need of hungry people – often made hungry because of government policy.  Thus, the temptation is for well-meaning people to focus resources on feeding people, rather than diverting some of these resources toward campaigning for social justice, by challenging the systems which create the need for foodbanks in the first place, and calling politicians to account.

 However, there is a third strand to this cord.  Alongside social action and social justice is social inclusion.  In simple terms, these three roughly equate to doing something to people; doing something for people; and doing something with people.  Sometimes all of these approaches are needed.  But the most important, in terms of God’s mission in the world, the most Christlike, of the three, is the last.  It is only through including people, on equal terms, that we fully live out the gospel.

 This is solidarity.  Getting alongside people, the little people.  Listening to them.  Learning from them.  Not simply saying, “Let me help”, but “Let’s share life together…”

Don’t do something, just sit there

 An example from my own experience may help to demonstrate this.  When circumstances forced the closure of a soup kitchen, a predecessor of mine decided to redirect the donations of short-date food to the local hostel, run by a housing association.  This opened a door for him to become a sort of chaplain to the hostel, dropping in every two weeks or so.  Shortly after I succeeded him, circumstances forced a re-think of the food drop to the hostel.  The responsibility for this was passed to a couple of other churches in town (the donations eventually dried up).  However, I continued the chaplaincy, and in fact this became more fruitful, as (apart from some milk and cake left over from another activity), I was taking nothing with me.  I was no longer someone who was going there to do something to the men and women who found themselves there (ie. feed them); I was there primarily, solely even, as someone who just wanted to listen, to talk, to learn from them, to share with them.  They made me tea, not the other way round.  And some people – staff and service users alike – were drawn a little closer to God, and felt more valued.

… But for the grace of God…

 As noted above, the concept of social inclusion (for want of a better term) is Christlike.  The apostle Paul quoted what is thought to be an early Christian hymn, in writing to the Philippian church that their attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ,

who, though he was in the form of God,

   ​​did not regard equality with God

   ​​​as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   ​​taking the form of a slave,

   ​​​being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   ​​and became obedient to the point of death—

   ​​​even death on a cross.

 Jesus crossed the largest social divide in the universe.  Although he was God, he didn’t let it go to his head.  He was prepared to lay it all on the line – status, reputation, safety, his own life – and live with us and like us.

 If Jesus could do it, why can’t we?  I mean, Jesus literally had it all to lose.  He really was someone.  He really did have a reputation to protect.  He really was above us.

 There’s a saying that really winds me up: ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.  We use it to mean, ‘that poor person I see before me could just as easily be me, except that (for some unknown reason) God’s grace has spared me from their fate’.  But why would God’s grace choose me over them?  In fact, is it not the case that God’s grace is at least as much in evidence in the life of that other, as in mine?  That person lives with his or her condition – of poverty, of pain, of illness – even in very dignified ways.  And I simply condescend, patronise: ‘There but for the grace of God, go I…’  Maybe we should, rather, realise that God’s grace can free us from such a superiority complex, and say, instead, ‘Here, but for the grace of God, go they…’  Such people as ‘they’ are often humble, not exalting themselves.

 And as long as we keep these unhelpful distinctions, these social groupings, we are always in danger of paternalism.  By this, I mean that our service provision is all about us, the experts, fixing the other.  Paternalism is the enemy of solidarity, the enemy of genuine inclusion.  Paternalism prevents people from truly standing shoulder to shoulder, from truly sitting down next to one another, from truly kneeling side by side.

 In the quote from Philippians, above, we read that Jesus was “found in human form”.  Jesus became one of us.  He looked like any other man.  There was nothing that made him different, except that He was God.  But to look at Him, He was ‘just one of the guys’.

 Another story from my own experience.  One of the best models of feeding programme I have seen was run by a local housing charity, working among the homeless and vulnerably housed.  It happened once a week, in a local church, at lunchtime.  It entailed a three-course meal for a pound (first time free of charge).  What I love about this model is that it adds value to the whole thing by charging for the meal.  That means it is not free, it is not a handout.  Those who eat are investing something in it, they became stakeholders.  But at a pound, it is accessible to almost anyone, as anyone can get hold of a pound.

 Also, this programme included a monthly ‘thrift store’.  This part was free, and allowed people to go into the next room and look at a small stall of donated clothing, and some household goods, and take what they wanted.

 The charity also encouraged ‘service users’ to become ‘service providers’ by volunteering.  A number of the regulars became volunteers at the programme.

 For a period of time, I regularly attended this meal, usually only eating the soup and bread course (which was free, although I always paid the pound).  I went to sit with the other people there, to listen, to chat.  I got to know quite a few of the regulars.  I always wore some form of Salvation Army branded clothing (never full uniform).  But once, a volunteer from the thrift stall came into the dining area, and went round the tables telling the guys about the stall.  She came to the table where I was sitting with two or three others.  And, looking me straight in the eye, with a sincere and sympathetic face, she told me to come through and help myself…

 For a second, I was torn.  I almost wanted to say, ‘Sorry, you’ve made a mistake, I’m not one of these guys…’  Then I realised how that might sound to my friends.

 So I smiled and said, ‘Thanks’.  And she moved on.

 And then I realised that, regardless how it might have sounded to my friends, it would have been wrong to say I wasn’t one of those guys.  I was having lunch with them, I was getting to know them.  In some way, I was one of them.  And my ‘blending in’ was, in some way, Christlike.  That is what we must become: indistinguishable from the little people, because we are with them, and they are with us, until, ultimately, we are all one – there is no them or us.

 There’s a famous quote from Oscar Wilde, that, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”  We must recognise that we are all in the gutter.  We must realise this Biblical solidarity.  And then, all together, we can look at the stars.