Here is Frances Flatman's Teaching on next weekend's Readings :-
Christians often have difficulty understanding the Incarnation of Our Lord. What does it mean for the Son of God to become a human being in time? There are those, and always have been (Monophysites) who focus so much on the divinity of Christ, that apart from his being sent to die and redeem us, his becoming human appears to have no effect at all on his earthly life, and they would attribute his earthly acts and ministry to his divinity. They would claim that his relationship with the Father was such that he always ‘knew’ the will of God and did not need to grow in understanding of that will and of his mission. Today’s Readings explore the sense in which Jesus ‘grows’ as we do, and has to change his mind in response to the world about him.
As preparation for this, we begin with Third Isaiah (56:1.6-7). This Prophetic school worked in the late 5th century BCE when the Persians had conquered the Babylonians, (who had destroyed the Temple and taken the Israelites off into exile), and whose policy it was to return the dispersed of what had been a large empire back to their homelands as grateful vassal states, allowed the Hebrew people to return home. The prophets write to guide and warn the returnees about their behaviour, since of course they had lived among the pagan gods of the Babylonians and, whilst continuing their Jewish faith albeit without the temple or sacrifices, had adapted their faith to be centred largely on following of the Torah, the law. The writers recognise that during this 70 odd year exile they will have attracted foreigners, pagans to the faith and once again give instructions for their acceptance as Jews. Becoming the People of God therefore means belonging to the Jewish faith. At various points in the Books of Isaiah we find this universalism, but it always meant conversion to Judaism.
Matthew’s Gospel (15:21-28) gives us an account of Jesus’ ministry amongst Jews, and tells the appalling and tragic tale of a people prepared from the beginning for the messiah, but who ultimately rejected him when he came in favour of their preconceived ideas of what such a leader would be like, focussing on military power. As we continually work our way through Matthew, we see the growth of increasing hostility between Jesus and the law-righteous religious, the scribes and Pharisees, whose narrowness of understanding about who was acceptable to God and who was excluded as unrighteous and a ‘sinner’ and who rejected entire segments of the population because of occupation such as farmers, herdsmen, fishermen or the sick, deemed rejected by God for some faults which manifested itself in illness. In a world before any understanding of hygiene or antibiotics that excluded a large proportion of the population. But Jesus did not grow up with these prejudices, indeed, was a man of huge compassion. Perhaps we see the origins of this in Matthew's Infancy Narrative where, far from publicly rejecting the pregnant Mary, Joseph takes her into his home and provides for her and Jesus, an act of huge subversion and grace.
Initially, we find Jesus following the ways of Judaism, though his baptism by John clearly marks an important move away from Temple and Torah. During his ministry he sends his disciples out (10:5) with strict instructions only to work amongst Jews, yet increasingly his clashes with scribes and Pharisees over his lifestyle, his outreach to the destitute and sick and those he mixed with so joyfully and freely, including tax gatherers who collaborated with the Roman occupying forces, not to mention women of ill repute, illustrates his departure from hardline Judaism. We have already met Jesus crossing the Jordan into the pagan Decapolis and healing the Gadarene demoniacs (8:28) and such is his compassion, and also his growing awareness that his outreach to Jews as the fulfilment of the Jewish search for the messiah is doomed to failure, that we meet up with him once more in our Reading with a trip up to Tyre and Sidon, powerful pagan cities from the Bronze Age who traded the Mediterranean, establishing colonies at Carthage and along the coast of N Africa and into Spain. These cities held extensive lands around their city states, and here Jesus is accosted by the pagan woman begging his help for her sick daughter. Initially Jesus rejects the woman’s approach, and very firmly too, comparing pagans to dogs; but the woman, from desperation and belief, swipes his rejection back with her feisty response. Clearly here was a moment of growth and insight for Jesus, a lightening moment when the truth dawned that whilst Judaism would not accept his way of being messiah, pagans would – and what possibilities the sea-traversing Canaanites offered! In the end, just before his ascension, Jesus will command the disciples to ‘Make disciples of all nations.’ Clearly, just like the rest of us, Jesus grows with experience and learns from mistakes just what his mission and God’s will is about.
In Romans, (11:13-15.29-32) Paul reflects on his ministry among the pagans. Last week we saw how appalled he was. Paul, a trained Pharisee and devoted Jew, desperately wants his fellow Jews to accept Christ, indeed, would sacrifice his own life to bring this about; and now he has come to the conclusion that his ministry amongst former pagans – a ministry of which he is enormously proud - could possibly be the spur to bring his fellow Jews to faith in Jesus, as the culmination of their search for the messiah. He faces the breathtaking possibility that through the convert pagans, Jews who have been responsible for ‘The reconciliation of the world’, will be moved by envy and jealousy to finally complete the course of human history with their own turning to Christ. Paul cannot conceive that God, who chose the Jews so long ago, could now reject them; and longs with all his being for the now disobedient Jews to follow the path of the formerly pagan and, like them, Jews will ‘enjoy mercy eventually.’ He can only conclude that his present sadness and disappointment lies in God’s way of working which is to give everyone time and opportunity to grow, that is what human beings are like. ‘God has imprisoned all men in their own disobedience only to show mercy to all mankind.’ So there we have it, Jesus the human being from God has to learn through his experiences what the Father’s way is as did Paul, and learn this through disappointment and great sadness and near despair, placing complete trust in God even when we ourselves see little hope in the present.
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