Did Jesus separate politics from religion?

Sunday 29A 22^nd October 2023

[Matthew 22:15-21]

When two opposing teams compete on the football field, we enjoy an exciting afternoon. It’s a game. But what happens when we divide the world, or our local part of it, into two competing sides? The world we are born into is divided like this: our family may be Christian – either Catholic or Protestant; or maybe Muslim – either Sunni or Shia; or perhaps Jewish – orthodox or liberal – or then again, Hindu or Sikh… or anything else.

One of the harshest and most destructive divisions is between a colonising power and the people it has conquered, when the newcomers profit from the resources, land and labour of the original inhabitants. Jesus was born into such a conquered land. For nearly a century the Roman empire had controlled Palestine by allowing puppet kings and Jewish religious leaders to manage and tax the population.

But Jesus did not teach people to rise up in revolt against the Roman oppressors. He invited the burdened peasants – and the Romans and us later generations – to “Repent, get a new mind, see the bigger picture and believe the Good News.” This News is that every person is loved by the Infinite One who created us. We are all equally valuable to this mysterious Parent/God, who calls us to love our enemies. If we can do this, we no longer need to find our identity, dignity or pride in belonging to any nation or group.

But Jesus’ teaching, then and now, hugely threatens leaders who exercise power by dominating a majority. So the leaders of Jesus’ own religion joined with the State to murder him. Matthew’s gospel shows the build-up to his death: Jesus challenging the religious leaders by symbolically cleansing the House of Prayer by driving out commercial and financial interests; then warning them in parables that they would be stripped of their leadership and excluded from the coming Reign of God.

Then the priests and King Herod’s agents tried to trap Jesus into speaking against the Emperor: “Should we pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” If Jesus agrees to pay taxes, he will lose credibility with the populace whom Rome is oppressing. If he refuses, he will show himself a rebel against Rome. But Jesus refuses to divide the world into either-or. He sees it as profoundly one. Caesar’s power is real enough, so give him what his violent conquest lets him demand, for now. But Caesar is only a tiny part of God’s empire – the whole world and every person – so “…give to God what belongs to God”.

Jesus is not teaching: “keep your religion separate from politics”. The task of politics is to run states justly, to be fair to everyone, to negotiate peace… how different from our dominant capitalist system, based largely on arms-dealing and the profits of war!

Don’t we need, urgently, to bring prayer and Christian/Muslim/Jewish action into the heart of politics, and to see all war’s’ victims – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Yemen, Ukraine, Palestine and Israel as images of the living God?

Jesus skilfully avoided dualism, “us” against “them”, Jews against Romans. Can we follow him by refusing to oppose Arabs against Jews, Russians against Ukrainians? Can we each help to bring peace to the present terrible conflicts by prayer, by emptying ourselves of anger and thoughts of revenge for long-standing injustices, and in helpless waiting allow God to work from within us? “Blessed are the poor”.

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Does God pay just wages?

Sunday 25A 24.9.2023

[Matthew 20:1-16]

Jobless workers during the Great Depression

Our scripture discussion group was trying to understand this parable. One member – a factory worker – angrily declared: “this is unjust!” Many people reach the same conclusion, at least on first reading. It hardly seems fair to pay workers the same wages, when some have laboured for about twelve hours, and latecomers for only one.

We can understand the anger. In the story, the workers who had been hired early and worked all day felt the same. Even back in Jesus’ time there was tension and conflict over working conditions, among workers themselves and between workers and the property owners who employed them.

Workers in Australia and in many other countries won fair treatment from their employers only after long struggles. During strikes they often endured violence at picket lines, even from government forces; and their families often went hungry. The conflicts were worst during times like the Great Depression (see picture).

The vineyard owner in Jesus’ parable has immensely more wealth and power than the labourers he employs. These workers own nothing and must wait every day in the marketplace hoping to be hired. In other parts of the gospels, Jesus criticises wealthy people of this kind. He challenged them to give away their wealth (Matthew 19:21, 16:25-26); and called them “fool” for thinking they can live at ease on crops that labourers have harvested for them, forgetting that life is short and that they “cannot take it with them”. (Luke 12:16-21, 16:19-31).

The struggle between labour and capital is the setting for this parable, but like all parables, it is about God. Parables usually contain a shocking detail, to make us think more deeply about how God deals with us. When the vineyard owner pays the latecomers a full day’s wage, he is being compassionate: they will at least be able to feed their families today. Was Jesus challenging his Jewish hearers, showing them that although they were God’s “chosen people”, God welcomes and equally rewards people from every other nation? In the Christian community for which Matthew wrote, was there jealousy between those who had faithfully followed the Jewish Law, and those who had come from Pagan backgrounds? Do we feel just a bit jealous that people who have done geat wrong might later turn to God, and eventually enjoy Eternal Life like everyone else?

The problem with all such jealous complaints is that when we make them we are being extremely short-sighted. We imagine that God treats us in the same ways that we treat each other. Is God a paymaster who rewards our labours and punishes our failures? Or is God more like an artist who – where once there was nothing – after an immensely long process of evolution created us in this beautiful world, among countless other species?

Did we in any way earn our place on this small planet amid a trillion galaxies, enjoying the gift of consciousness by which we can discover and share truth and love? No matter how many hours we might work, could we ever deserve the promise, which the gospels guarantee, of eternal life within God, who is Infinite Love?

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Can rebukes be good for us?

Sunday 22A 3^rd September 2023

[Jeremiah 20:7-9, Matthew 16:21-27]

We feel good when someone thanks us. Last week we read how Jesus praised Peter for finding and stating that Jesus was the messiah. To be rebuked by someone is the opposite of being thanked. Soon after Jesus had thanked Peter, he severely rebuked him for not understanding that the Good News, the way to deeper life and to changing the world, inevitably includes suffering.

We don’t like to be rebuked. It goes against our ego, our image of self. It’s embarrassing to be shown up as not understanding. Yet when the person rebuking us knows what they are talking about – such as wise parents? – their rebuke can help us to grow. They break open our small circle of experience – which we think is the whole world – and show us that there are infinitely vast spaces beyond our knowledge.

A wise rebuke is the mental equivalent of lifting weights or riding up hills to strengthen our muscles. Perhaps it has the same effect as being attacked by bacteria or viruses, which strengthen our immune system? Now that we have wiped out many diseases, and over-sterilise our surroundings, our defence system tends to turn against us in the form of auto-immune diseases.

Peter was one of the group whom Jesus had invited to help teach the world about the Realm or Empire of God: the transcendent dimension beyond our senses, beyond time and space. Jesus invited his generation – and ours – to “repent” – the Greek word is metanoia, to let our mind see the bigger picture.

But those who dare to announce this Good News challenge the world’s rulers: the Roman emperor with his legions, or today’s obscenely wealthy capitalists who rule our world. Then and now, rulers get most of their wealth by exploiting and oppressing the majority of humanity. Whereas Rome’s ruthless looting only partly spoiled the lands it conquered, today’s rapacious rulers threaten to ruin the whole earth.

Rulers don’t like to be told that it is wrong to conquer others and take their livelihood; that it doesn’t bring happiness and can’t even continue for long. They violently rebuke those who tell them this truth. They don’t want to hear that God – the source of all being – is more real than the things we grasp or take delight in.

The prophet Jeremiah – in today’s first reading – felt driven to rebuke the rulers of his nation for exploiting the poor and living in self-indulgent luxury. Their wider sin was to rely on military alliances with foreign empires rather then building up their people’s own religion and culture.

Jeremiah felt daunted and afraid, and loudly rebuked God too, for seducing – even violating – him by giving him what looked like an impossible task.

It can be healthy for us to rebuke God, when our suffering is incomprehensible and seems more than we can cope with. But we can find some clues to understand it in Jesus’ Good News about the Reign of God. God loves us all, more than the best of parents could do; God is not remote, but is within us, even in the worstsuffering. Although suffering is itself evil, it is temporary, and through it – whether caused by the weakness of the human body or the malice of other people – God can bring permanent good.

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Do we realise the power within us?

Transfiguration 6^th August 2023

[Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19, Matthew17:1-9]

The earliest human beings must have wondered at the power of the sun’s everlasting fire, shining on them year after year. Those ancestors harnessed some of that fire, probably at first from lightning-struck trees. Perhaps a million years after we had become thinking animals, we learned to use fire to make steam to work our engines, then drew electric power from wires and magnets, and light far brighter than from spluttering wicks. In 1945, we took the huge leap of tearing open uranium atoms to release forces that in seconds could wipe out our million years of working, learning, loving and creating beauty.

One of our ancient stories tells of Prometheus, endlessly punished for stealing fire from the gods. Another tells of Moses, who heard God speak from a flaming bush. Today’s gospel tells of three friends of Jesus of Nazareth, who saw him, while praying, transfigured and shining like the sun. His brightness is telling us, Matthew suggests, that we are seeing a glimpse of the divine. Like most encounters with God this happened on the margins: in a remote place, on a mountain. The disciples heard a voice telling, as at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him”. We are reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah, where a mysterious figure, the “beloved son”, suffers for the benefit of all people.

The disciples saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, ancient prophets who on Mount Sinai / Horeb were each re-empowered for their task of leading God’s people, challenging and opposing the status quo. The task would bring them suffering, as it brought Jesus to a terrible death for showing the world that we build God’s Empire by giving justice and love to all.

But such reassuring glimpses of the Transcendent are not the goal of our lives. We would like to cling to them, setting up camp as Peter suggested. But they are only pointers to guide us; we cannot build our home there; we have work to do. We live now at a time when every living thing on our planet: coral, bees, fish, forest dwellers and humans, is threatened by imminent ecological disaster. We are just a technician’s mistake away from nuclear accident and holocaust. Will we, like the stunned disciples, feel Jesus touch us, saying: “Get up; do not be afraid.”

Was it just a curious coincidence that on the 6^th of August 1945, while Christians in churches around the world were honouring the Transfiguration of Jesus, our world witnessed another transfiguration? On that morning an atomic bomb was dropped on a city for the first time, by choice of the US government. It killed more than 200,000 of Hiroshima’s residents. This unspeakable destruction was not a military necessity, but a weapons test, for Japan had already been asking to surrender, though not “unconditionally” as the US demanded. A different bomb was tested three days later, at Nagasaki.

The Australian government also share in nuclear guilt. It allowed Britain to test twelve nuclear bombs in this country, without proper precautions. The experiments poisoned many Indigenous people and military personnel, and large tracts of land were permanently polluted. Will we learn – before it is too late – to listen to the Transcendent light within each of us, “the true light that gives light to everyone”? (John 1:9)

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What is my greatest treasure?

Sunday 17A 39^th August 2023

[Romans 8:28-30, Matthew 13:44-52]

Could we even begin to imagine the terror of having our children or partner kidnapped by the fanatical groups Boko Haram or ISIS? A recent television documentary showed this happening in parts of Africa, and to Yazidis in northern Iraq. How would we cope with the horror of not knowing where our family members had been taken? Were they still alive, as slaves, being routinely beaten or raped? Would we ever see them again?

Jesus announced the Good News that the Empire of God had begun: a living community that would outlast Rome’s powerful legions. People belonging to this Empire were said to be “redeemed”, as a first-century slave, or victims of ISIS or Boko Haram might be freed by paying a ransom. But today, claiming that we have been “redeemed” doesn’t mean much to us. It’s a dead metaphor. We may have been taught that this is why we should go to church or celebrate the Eucharist, but what does it mean in practice, especially for young people?

We might be touched more effectively by Jesus’ story of the buried treasure which a person found when working in someone else’s field. The only safe, legal way to get their hands on it is to buy that bit of land, so they sell everything to raise the money and get the treasure.

Today we see the same single-minded focus in young athletes, swimmers or musicians who hope to become champions. Even as children, they practice and train for many years. But what about us? Is there a treasure for which we hunger and strive with all our heart? If Jesus Good News that God’s Reign has begun doesn’t much excite us, is this because our generation is tired of endless arguments attempting to prove that “God” does or does not exist? Weary of such mental gymnastics, perhaps we need to look again at what Jesus was talking about: the deep hunger within us for friendship and love. Do we remember what life is like when we are deeply loved?

We cannot de-fine the Infinite One, but Jesus own actions and compassion showed that God is more approachable than the most loving of parents, and can be talked to as friend. Jesus used the child’s affectionate name “Daddy”, and invited us to pray to “Our Father in the skies”, without meaning that God is male, or is out there among the trillion galaxies. Jesus assumed that God is present everywhere, and as Infinite Consciousness is aware of all that happens to us. This is why Paul – in today’s reading from Romans – can say that God co-operates with all those who love God, “turning everything to their good.”

If this extraordinary claim doesn’t match out little experience of life, we need to recall that in order to believe the Good News, we need to “repent” (Greek metanoia), to get a new mind so as to see a picture far bigger than our little ego-centric world-view. As we grow closer to God we begin to see that the love of this Infinite Friend makes relatively trivial the many evils in our life. Whether they come from nature – sickness, weather events – or are inflicted by people, they can ultimately deepen us, making us more aware of God and compassionate towards others. Indeed, trusting that we have an infinite future in this Love, all our fears dissolve.

How can we grow deeper in this friendship? In the same ways that we deepen a human love relationship: by spending time with our Beloved; offering our self; listening; asking. For good reason, mystics in all ages and in other religious traditions have described their friendship with God in terms of sensual love, but many “religious” people do not recognise this treasure, stopping far short with commandments and rituals.

But we cannot be friend to God merely as individuals. Because all people are loved by God, we are all intimately linked. The community Jesus invites us to build comes alive to the extent that we care for each other, feed and clothe the needy; shelter the homeless; and abolish forever the scourge of war. Impossible tasks? Not when we find that every good deed, every act of kindness, no matter who performs it, is done in collaboration with this loving Partner who lives within us.

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The wisdom of children

Sunday 14A 9^th July 2023

[Matthew 11:25-30]

A true story: When the parish priest, Father Cuthbert – not his real name – came to dinner at her family’s home, little three-year-old Margaret observed him closely. The following Sunday she was taken to Mass in what she was told was “God’s house”, where the same good cleric was to preside in ornate vestments, of which he was particularly fond. As the procession moved up the aisle, with acolytes, candles and celebrant, Margaret could not see it, for it was hidden by a forest of adult bodies. Always keen to know what was going on, she climbed up the back of a pew, and just as the priest solemnly approached the microphone to open the ceremony, she announced in her piping voice, heard in every corner of the church: “Oh there’s Father Cuthbert, pretending to be God”. We all cherish a few such funny statements, made innocently by a little child, which had a hilarious and perhaps embarrassing meaning for the adults present.

Jesus’ life-task was to change our world by announcing and beginning the Reign of God. He was solidly opposed by leaders of his own Jewish religion, who had succumbed to formalism and become corrupt. Those educated scribes and pharisees used their learning to oppress the common people with onerous ritual obligations, “purity” rules and heavy taxes. In contrast to the “yoke of the law”, Jesus invited the poor to accept his own “yoke”. They could find that God is totally loving and forgiving, like the father in the story of the “prodigal” son, or like the generous employer who paid latecomers a full day’s wage.

Speaking to people who were desperately poor, and suffering cruelly, Jesus offered them rest and life to the full. He spoke of God’s limitless love; and commanded us to support each other in all material needs, and to forgive. For us who hear him centuries later, he offers the wisdom to handle all the burdens and worries of our life, from childhood to old age and death. But his teaching challenged religious hypocrisy; and announcing the Kingdom of God alarmed the officials who represented the oppressive Roman empire.

When Jesus occasionally healed individuals and fed crowds, he was predicting that he would give himself to us in the Eucharistic meal. This was intended to gather as equals women and men, poor and rich of all races, to share the same meal. He gave it as a visible way to celebrate God in and among us, present in food we share: the foundation of the Reign of God.

When Jesus said that only “mere children” are capable of receiving and understanding his radically alternative view of God, it ought to make us pause. What material things and “adult” concerns so fill our lives that they block us from seeing God, the Infinite Mystery, in every particle of the universe as well as in every person? Or prevent us from waking up to the truth that the one whom Jesus called Daddy is our own closest friend?

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