Frances Flatman reflects on the Readings for Sunday 27th February 2022
Conventional morality can be a difficult thing; either encouraging blind following of the status quo, which might well encourage appalling racism for instance, or unthinking adherence to rules, or act as something which simply produces rule-breakers, rebels. But for what reason, for what cause, do we either follow or break the rules? Our Readings seem to be full of conventional piety passed down from Hebrew thinkers over centuries and, as some statements appear blindingly obvious, what are we today meant to make of them; and more importantly what did Jesus and his followers in the early Church make of the teaching? What we do know of Jesus from the Gospels is that he was a questioner; someone who did not simply accept the way things were, and that he got into a lot of trouble for crossing time-honoured boundaries, as he mixed with tax men and prostitutes, touched the ritually unclean and healed them, and in general did not follow the rules blindly. With this in mind, we need to approach today’s choice of Readings with a willingness to explore what is implied by the teachings, and go the extra mile.
Ecclesiasticus or Ben Sirach, was produced in Egypt (which at the time ruled Israel) around c.180 BCE, and appears to be the culmination of conventional reasoning for Jews. Whilst not in the Canon of Hebrew scripture, it still played its part in their thinking; and whilst it seems to call for a strict following of the party line, we do have that last phrase of our passage ‘Do not praise a man before he has spoken’, which does seem to open up room for discussion about really considering where people are at, and what they are up too.
On the face of it our Reading from Luke (6:39-45) could appear to be ‘more of the same’. But, as my New Testament tutor always used to say, ‘context is everything’ and since all this is part of the elaboration of Luke’s version of Jesus’ Beatitudes with its blessings and curses, I expect something more is to be said. Given Our Lord’s capacity for caustic comment on the situation in Israel, and his views on Temple religion, I wonder if Luke included this version for converts from paganism, with the intention not of confirming traditional values, be they Greco-Roman or Jewish, but with the intention that they really challenge the thinking of the time. That was what Christianity did. After all, the degree of self-awareness and self-criticism required over the ‘splinter/plank’ parable was surely designed to make hearers very uncomfortable in the world of the likes of Theophilus, in which magistrates invariably defended the wealthy at law and condemned the poorer regardless of the probity of their cases, or indeed, where the poor were taxed but the rich got exemption. As the parables continue with the sound/rotten fruit analogy, one begins to wonder just who was meant to be squirming, since those that society valued - the elite - might on investigation prove to be rotten to the core. We know that Consular Governors were notorious for feathering their nests from the proceeds of their time as Governors of Provinces. Cicero was thought near insane due to the small amounts by which he fleeced his Province!
What struck me about our Reading from 1 Corinthians (15:54-58), the continuation of Paul’s exploration of the meaning of resurrection to converts to Christianity from paganism, and who were less than convinced of eternal life in Christ, and who it appears were simply after some ‘spiritual’ experience on a par with other ‘mystery cults’, is his use of it to attack the Jewish law. ‘Sin gets its power from the law’. We know that Paul’s entire mission to Gentiles was dogged by Jewish-Christian groups who insisted on circumcision as the criteria by which one entered the faith. Letter after letter from Paul, Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans develop his resolute attack on law righteousness, as indeed we have observed in the life of Jesus in the Gospels too. Towing the party line is not only not enough, it can become a perversion, preventing others, here those not able to keep the law, and so excluding them from redemption. Paul’s absolute conviction, and remember he was a Pharisee and contrived to keep all the laws of Judaism, was that it was grace, met in the redemptive life and death and resurrection of Jesus, which fundamentally altered our sinful natures and made us fitted for life with God, sons and daughters in the Son. Only by this are we capable of meeting God face to face, not due to our efforts, or following of the law, but totally the work of the loving creator Son, whose sacrifice unites every believer eternally to his immortal being. ‘Never give in, my dear brothers….keep on working at the Lord’s work….knowing that, in the Lord, you cannot be labouring in vain.’ Our Christian duty too is to stand for the truth, not to opt for obedience or a quiet life.
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