Reflection by Frances Flatman on next Sunday's Readings :-
There can be a tendency to think that, since Christianity was formed out of the rejection of circumcision and of the Jewish law, that it’s all a bit of a free-for-all. Today’s Readings certainly place serious doubts that any individualism is intended as the Christian way, for they all stress solidarity in belonging, and this is something we have to take very seriously lest we incur the penalties Jesus points out await the failing Jewish cities in Luke’s Gospel.
We begin with Isaiah. (66:10-14) Now, read out of context, we might think this passage from Third Isaiah, the prophet of the return from exile in Babylonia in the 6th century BCE, was simply goodies all round. But even the briefest glance at the rest of this document will indicate that it is full of warnings about the right behaviour of the community. Rightly does Isaiah understand that the people of Israel were not to be trusted. He’d had the evidence of his forebears, and cherished no belief that his own generation would behave any better. The lure of foreign gods was ever present, and the ways of the pagans all too enticing. Other contemporary writers speak of the difficulties of rebuilding of the Temple, and the failures of the returned Jewish population who found life in the Promised Land not to their liking when compared with the sophistication of Babylonia. No, reliance is to be placed solely on the faithfulness of God, described here as the nursing mother.
Our Reading from Luke (10:1-12.17-20) is similarly full of warnings. Indeed, as we read it we become aware precisely how hostile it is to Judaism in the wake of the failure of the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE where Luke was writing to a ruined landscape, something resembling the Eastern Ukraine today, and where his patron Theophilus and the Romans, converts from paganism that he was addressing, reflected on the cost in terms of Roman lives during this savage period. Luke begins this story, which carries on directly from last week’s Gospel, with the utter resolution of Jesus God’s Son as he makes his way to Jerusalem and his Passion. He selects seventy two followers to go ahead preparing his mission. Now Luke knew that this number, gleaned from Genesis 10:2-31, was not random but rather reflected the spreading out over the cleansed earth of the sons of Noah after the flood, and that at this time there was no Judaism. These people were pagans and went as far as Tarshish – Spain and Greece - Jarvan. In other words, they encompassed the entire world. Jesus sent his troops out with the warning, ‘I am sending you out like lambs among wolves’, so be on your guard. Likewise they are to make no preparations in terms of baggage or contacts; they are entirely his people at his command and not free to wander off to nicer dwellings or superior people. At this point we get the omitted verses 13-16, with the curses of the Jewish cities Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, unfavourably compared with Sodom, the epitome of evil, whilst pagan Tyre and Sidon are favourably included in the Kingdom! This is real shock and awe. Luke goes overboard to include converts from paganism.
The disciples come back from their duties rather pleased with their results at casting out devils, only to be firmly put in their place by Jesus here proclaiming himself the victor in the cosmic battle against the devil. Nothing and no human being is his equal, his authority is absolute. Jesus knows who he is and what he and he alone can achieve as our Saviour. Converts from paganism who knew all about power, like Theophilus, were meant to be put firmly in their places, as are we too.
The closing part of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (6:14-18) is similarly forceful, and we are told that Paul wrote it himself rather than dictating to a scribe; and like last week’s passage is his final word to a congregation divided on the value of circumcision and the Jewish law. Paul simply appeals to the example of Christ and his cross, his ‘only boast’. Saved by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross none of us, circumcised or uncircumcised, have a leg to stand on for in Christ we have all become ‘a new creature’, or as the Greek has it more corporately ‘a new creation’. Paul writes definitively, ‘I want no more trouble from anybody after this; the marks on my body are those of Jesus.’ What we all have to remember is the extent of our debt to Christ, and therefore the absolute necessity of our attempting to live out our lives as his kingdom people. We can never by our moral probity earn our places in the kingdom, but we can do him homage when we live together as his new creation; it’s both our opportunity and our calling in Christ. Always and everywhere we are invited to bear the marks of Christ, to show whose we are in great things, giving our lives for others, or in small acts of human kindness in the mundane and in the outstanding. That’s what it means to be a Christian.
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