Frances Flatman writes on next Sunday's Readings :-
Parties seem to be much in the news at present, but our Readings all look at their meaning and how we deal with them. We have all met those who stand and watch others prepare all the food and drink and clear up, without any offer of help; similarly we’ve all met control freaks who take on the entire burden and then complain. Appreciation of what is at stake is fundamental to everyone’s welfare and belonging, our understanding of whose and what we are.
In our Reading from Genesis (18:1-10) we meet Abraham who by now has had a number of encounters with God. He and his wife have been renamed by the divine as a mark of whose they are, and he has circumcised even his slaves and his bastard son Ishmael as a sign of distinction and belonging; so when this time he is met by three ‘angels’- signs of God’s presence - and marked out as the founder of a huge dynasty, he knows what to do and promptly calls for a huge banquet. In the Hebrew text ‘Three measures of flour’, so about 25 kilos (see Matthew 13), so we know this is to be quite a bash! Whole beasts are slaughtered, a lavish covenant feast celebrated; it is the coming to be of Israel. As confirmation of their dazzling future a son is promised to the barren and old Sarah, confirmation of this altered reality. Of course as Patriarch, Abraham has plenty of slaves and his wife as director of ops, so his job is to stand appreciatively by whilst the divine guests eat.
In his letter to the Colossians (1:24-28) Paul continues to explain to the Christians of Colossae precisely the implications of the powerful credal statement he referred to in verses 15-20, which is all about Christ and his total power over the entire created universe. We really need that creed if we are to make sense of the massive implications of today’s passage. Paul writes from prison in Ephesus here ‘rejoicing’ (not the Jerusalem Bible ‘happy’) in what his flesh is undergoing in union with Christ for the Church. He pictures himself as a servant of the community, one sent by God to unveil or disclose ‘a mystery hidden for generations’, so that we know he is pointing right back to Israel’s formational event with Abraham and the angels. As part of this we have the word ‘mystery’ repeated three times, paralleling Genesis, and what we find disclosed is ‘The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory’. And it is a mystery given to pagans, inclusive and for all, God the Son’s gift to the entire universe in his death and resurrection. What was once divisive and only for Israel has now reached its culmination in a universal relationship through the human flesh of the redeemer. God now has a visible face and presence in and through Jesus. Where formally God was met at a huge distance in the temple sacrifices and the keeping of the Jewish law, he is now open and accessible to everyone. Ritual purity, even moral behaviour, is not what is important; nor are those huge barriers of sex, class, status and money which would have prevailed in the tiny but wealthy city of Colossae, grown rich on its profusion of very fine wools which were sent down river to Ephesus. Only ‘In Christ’ was this radical shift in daily reality to be achieved; and Paul writes quite deliberately from captivity to speak of their liberation; in Greek ‘The mystery of Christ IN you.’ (not among you. JB) So their reception of the faith it not simply intellectual like a Greek philosophy, but would touch every aspect of their lives, intimate as they come to ‘know’ Jesus, life enhancing to all as they are all empowered to reach out to the world.
We get something of the vision of all this through Luke’s Gospel. (10:38-42) We have a tendency to think Martha rather hard done by, but when we consider other events, like the Feeding of the 5,000 with its invitation to sharing, and the many other instances on other occasions, what becomes clear here is that poor Martha is a control freak, she quite unlike the Good Samaritan of last week, doesn’t do spontaneity, and being so busy and hassled she’s thoroughly fed up. Jesus simply wants her to worry less and let it all happen – no doubt when the time came everyone would join together and act as the Church, the family of God and muck in.
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