Tag: Week 13

I wonder what you make of today’s reading? It begins with Jesus being asked a straightforward question about fasting. Jesus, however, responds with three confusing word pictures. So often, in my experience, this passage is glossed over as something that is ‘just there’ in scripture, something to be skipped over until we move on to another more accessible part of the narrative.

In Jesus’ time, fasting was an essential practice within the Jewish faith. All of those fasts commemorated the many tragic things that had happened in Jewish history. John’s followers were devout Jews and, like the mainstream of their faith, they fasted because they were waiting for a new day to dawn. Jesus did not feel the need to dwell on past tragedies, and neither did he feel the need to mark a period of waiting. Jesus did not fast because the sun had already risen on that new day. The Pharisees lit candles to remind themselves of the light of earlier times; Jesus threw open the curtains to let in the light of the new day that had dawned in him and was already shining brightly on the world.

The three pictures in this reading illustrate this point admirably. Weddings and funerals cannot be combined. Jesus (the bridegroom) is in the world to celebrate. At such a great celebration there is no room for mourning and misery.

Then we are cautioned against just making do and paying lip service to the old ways. If we have an old coat that is in need of repair, we need a patch that is already seasoned. If not, the patch will react in a different way and a gaping hole will result where there should have been something that revels in new life.

Similarly, new wine needs new wine skins. Ignoring this necessity will result in an explosion that will waste the new wine. Similarly, if we follow the new ways that Jesus represents, we cannot do so under the guise of the old religious practices. We need to allow ourselves to be poured into new minds and bodies that have been shaped and crafted by Jesus.

Today’s reading is a real message for our times. For more than three months we have heard talk of the ‘new normal’. For many this phrase has become annoying and irritating. For those people, the ‘new’ normal needs to be a reinstitution of the old ways. But … that is not where we are, either as a nation or, indeed, as a world. Things have changed and, for once, we have no choice but to change with them.

At the recent Diocesan Clergy Conference one of the speakers asked this: Is 2020 the year we have been waiting for? We have often spoken of change, well here we are having to change … what are we going to do to make things better?

The same speaker went on to say: Things are not as they should be, nor are they as they will be. That is exactly the message Jesus is giving us in today’s reading.

May we find the courage to bathe in the new light that is shining all around us, in Jesus’ name.

‘Authority’ is a difficult word.

For many people it goes hand-in-hand with the more negative issues that dog human society. People who are associated with authority are often seen as stern and solemn, uncompromising and unfeeling in their rigidity. This negative view of authority is, of course, about the abuse of power and strength; it is about intimidation and coercion, rather than enhancement, enrichment and protection.

Today’s reading shows us how authority can be used for good.

No one can doubt that Jesus has authority. Jesus teaches with authority, heals with authority, brings calm and order with authority, expels demons with authority.

And … today … we encounter something else. Jesus shows he has authority to do what God does … he has the authority to forgive sins, that is, to change a person’s life from the inside out.

To accept Jesus’ authority to forgive sins demands faith.

For the religious leaders, Jesus’ claim to share in God’s authority was a challenge.

Their physical and political strength would appear to win as they nailed him on a cross.

But … of course … Jesus’ divine authority would ultimately overcome all that abuse of human authority as he conquered sin and death in his glorious resurrection.

The paralysed man had faith in Jesus’ authority and he was forgiven and healed.

Do we share in that simple but sincere faith, or are we too caught up in the human take on authority?

Are we ready to lay our shortcomings and sins before Jesus and ask that we may know the unspeakable joy of his healing touch?

When they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighbourhood.

During our time of enforced lockdown, we are told that many people are suffering from increased levels of mental illness. Even in our modern world, people speak of those who are afflicted in this way as ‘wrestling with their demons’. Such people might be seen as having the storm in yesterday’s reading raging within them, rather than battering the physical world in which they live.

Today, Jesus encounters two stricken souls who are definitely wrestling with the demons that are making them feared outcasts from their own local community.

As we might well expect, Jesus demonstrates his power over such malign forces. He cleanses those who are afflicted, sending them symbolically into the ritually unclean pigs that were grazing on the hillside. 

In a very few steps, we have seen Jesus moving from his authoritative teaching on the hillside to his demonstrations of divine authority over all that destroys the calm of our God-given lives.

Just imagine what it was like. This itinerant preacher comes into town with a whole new message. Alongside his preaching and his teaching, he demonstrates the power and the love of God by healing those who are fearful and diseased. Wouldn’t we, like most who encountered the human Jesus at this stage in his ministry, want him to stay and guide us to happier and more fulfilled lives?

Or … is it more probable that we would be like the people of Gadara? Isn’t it more likely, in our sophisticated modern way, that we would view him with fear and suspicion, with doubt and scepticism? 

What Jesus did on that hillside, was to bring his healing touch to a gentile (that is, non-Jewish) community. He was uncompromising in the way he used the ‘unclean’ pigs as a vehicle for removing that which was causing so much harm. But … he did bring miraculous healing into their midst.

But … their fear, and perhaps their anger at the destruction of a herd of pigs, overtook their sense of awe and wonder.

Those people of Gadara made their decision. They decided that, they could not cope with facing the challenge of having Jesus in their midst. They saw him and then they begged him to leave.

Where are we in this story? We know the truth of Jesus. But … are we in reality constantly asking him to leave us alone, instead of facing up to the challenge he presents in his unfailing loyalty to both God and us?

In 1998, the Christian composer, Margaret Rizza, set some simple words by the priest and author, David Adams, to music. That hymn has the prayer-like quality that we more commonly associate with the chants of the southern French community of Taizé.

At the beginning of the music, we are not offered the more normal speed direction of ‘allegro’ or ‘andante’; instead the single word ‘tranquil’ is offered.

The hymn is written to be repeated ad lib … we are being told to repeat it as many or as few times as we might want … or need.

David Adams’ words are these:

Calm me, Lord, as you calmed the storm;
still me, Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all the tumult within me cease;
enfold me, Lord, in your peace.

In November 2018, I went on the Diocesan Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Towards the end of our pilgrimage we were taken on a boat trip across the Sea of Galilee. With no warning at all, a strong wind blew across the land-locked lake. Suddenly the boat rocked and water splashed over the sides. For the briefest of moments we knew a fraction of the uncertainty that manifested itself as fear in the disciples.

As quickly as the wind gained strength, so it abated and calmed. The sun came out again and we saw the jetty where we would soon land.

There are many times in our lives when the wind suddenly gains strength and all of our certainty and confidence drains from us. It is in those times that we need words like those of David Adams to help us focus on the certainty of Christ’s power to bring calm and equilibrium back into our lives.

Sometimes the squalls pass quickly … perhaps, in those moments, the instruction to repeat ad lib will only involve four, five or six repetitions of those calming words.

At other times, the squalls quickly turn into storms, and may even escalate into hurricanes or tornados. Then we need that instruction to repeat ad lib, perhaps for days and days.

Whatever strategies we feel we may have to cope with the storms of life, too often we forget that Jesus is there with us.

So … why don’t you join me in memorising these simple words?

Then, when the storm strikes, we have a powerful tool for keeping us focused on the one who loves us and will always be with us, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.