Reflection by Frances Flatman on next weekend's Readings :-
In the wealthy west, Christians like to ‘blend in’, becoming part of the scenery in which a vast array of ideas and options concerning belief or none are acceptable. We don’t aim to rock the boat. But this was not Jesus’ way, for he was fully committed to ‘saving the world’, and this in vivid contrast to the many current philosophies which came from the Greek world, or the differing cults relatively newly arrived from Egypt and what we call Turkey and Syria. As the incarnate one, perfectly attuned to the will of God the Father, Jesus was not about the shifting-up so common among Roman gods, where there was always room for others in the vast pantheon of paganism. The whole point of the incarnation was to stress not the infinite variety of choices open to people of the Roman Empire, provided of course they recognised the main pantheon of gods – Juno, Jupiter and Minerva, but the point that human beings are really incapable of proper choice, regardless of how we have been persuaded to behave. Christianity, the belief in Jesus crucified and risen from the dead, is always about a unique relationship with God through Christ; and from the start followers of the Way were expected to understand this and take their mission to proselytise very seriously.
The evidence of Judaism suggests that this uniqueness of approach was very important in Judaism too, and indeed may have been one of the reasons for the long duration of Jewish belief as we see in the Old Testament and Jewish history. Granted Jews were very prone to stray from the straight and narrow and, as we find, believed they were usually ‘punished’ by God for this with invasion by enemies, exile and slavery; but when they returned to the worship of Yahweh ancient prophetic writers generally saw this as the right thing, and the will of God. Third Isaiah, the prophet of the return from Babylonian exile with the different policies of the Persians the next conquerors of the Near and Middle East, understood this renewal of their relationship with the divine as a time for action, and this not merely in Temple rebuilding, but more importantly as expressed in the behaviour of those who survived. Judaism was always rooted in the family and society. They were meant to be men and women of generosity to others, especially the poor and needy. Believers were to be judged by God not in terms of theological constructs and ideas but rather in their outreach to others; they had to be seen as those willing to share their goods with the needy. If you ever bother to churn your way through Leviticus you will appreciate how much this is at the heart of Judaism, but here Isaiah hammers it home in a piece of magnificent poetry (Isa 58:7-10). ‘Share your bread with the hungry and shelter the homeless poor...then will your light shine like the dawn...if you give relief to the oppressed, your light will rise in the darkness.’
This was the focus of one of Jesus’ lengthiest teaching passages in Matthew (5:13-16) part of the exegesis of the Beatitudes which we began to read last week. It begins with his reminder to the gathered crowds in Galilee that they are like salt, that commodity traded throughout the ancient world and which we know made fortunes for traders of the Bronze Age, where a whole culture was named after their salty place of origin at Halstadt, and where in the Iron Age we find their rich tombs near Saltzberg and so many other places. Salt was used medicinally as a preservative, flavouring, and as a basis for trade throughout the ancient world; there does not seem to have been any ancient society which did not trade and grow wealthy on salt, it was and is fundamental to life. With this critical image before them then, Jesus defines the nature of the crowd taking that image, with its propensity to found trading cities, to remind them of the centrality of their involvement in the life of their towns in which they are visible, like the ancient ‘tells’, man-made mounds of human habitation and lamps seen from afar. They all have a ministry and are meant to be seen and operative in these small worlds of which they are so fundamental a part; it will be by their ‘works’ that believers were known and identified and thereby acted as adverts for the Christian faith. So we see from this that Jesus does not necessarily expect his followers to engage in lengthy theological debate or liturgical comparisons, but rather in the quality of their lives as they reach out to others. It would be by their lives that they made converts, not their posh places of worship or their wealth. Significantly Jesus chooses much of the imagery of ‘light’ so familiar to the author of 3rd Isaiah.
Of course, by the 50’s, when Paul was dealing with pagan converts to Christianity in Corinth (1 Corinthians 2:1-5) inevitably things had moved on, as the environment in this great cosmopolitan city was so very different from rural Galilee. We take up Paul’s story where we left it last week with this argumentative social world with many competing for their place in the sun. Claims to be ‘wise’ abounded in this world with its many versions of Greek philosophy, Stoic, Cynic, Epicurean and so many more among the leisured wealthy of the city, those already made it to the top who lauded it over lesser mortals on their way up. Paul reminds them that his message of the Good News of Salvation he brought came not from this arrived and therefore ‘wise’ lot, but from his and his companions work at the leather trade in the city, work with their hands, lowly work making and mending leather belts, shoes, and tents when the masses arrived for the great Isthmian Games; part of the great cycle of Games including the Olympics. The Isthmian were held every side of the Olympics. Paul and his companions Priscilla and Aquila worked amidst these teeming masses of the city and the tent villages sprung up for the Games, precisely not with its elite, using the time necessary for mending work to speak of Jesus the man from God, crucified and risen from the dead, and so signally different from the philosophical traditions of wealthy, and therefore ‘wise’ men at the top of the tree. These masses would not have been in general the rich and powerful but other traders, visitors come to watch the various competitions – boxing, running, wrestling, plus competitors in the singing, not to mention the diplomats from far and wide come to petition kings and make treaties. But the majority would not have been those indulging in elite philosophy, but come hoping for that all important opportunity to shine in this world, to find their way in the heaving world of Romano-Greek society, and the majority would have been ordinary men and women, purveyors of food and drink, those who came hoping to make enough to survive the next winter. It was to such as these that Paul spoke of the kingdom, reaching out with them to eternal life, the message of God in its fullness for everyday people. It’s by our living faith made real that we shall be known as Christians, visibility is the very by-word of our faith, this is not a place for the shrinking violet.
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