Here is Frances Flatman's Teaching on next Sunday's Bible Readings :-
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all human beings could understand God’s plan for us and be obedient and therefore successful every time? Well perhaps not, since then we would not be able to exercise the free will God has given us and be truly the absolutely free creatures he always intended us to be. Our Readings suggest that far from being God’s puppets, he allows us to make mistakes, to wander away from his will, and yet still gives us the possibility of finding our way to him; and moreover, that he does this time after time. Surely the entire story of the Jews in the Book of Exodus confirms this, as the escapees from Egypt seem to do nothing except mess up on their long journey to the Promised Land, yet God still cherishes them and gives them more and more chances really to know him. Perhaps if we never make mistakes, we will just become incurably arrogant and unpleasant – indeed, such is the history of Israel that all their failures, their turning from God, appears to be due precisely to their ‘let’s do it our own way’ ideas.
Our Reading from 1st Isaiah (22:19-23) read out of context, is, to say the least, confusing and simply appears like some divine diktat. But it is not when we understand its background. It comes from the 8th century BCE when the powerful Assyrians were expanding their empire from Mesopotamia and turned down to Syria and towards Egypt. In 721 BCE Samaria or Israel, the northern kingdom was sacked and fell to the enemy, and we find that pagans, foreigners from Babylonia, Hamath and more distant parts were settled in Israel/Samaria. As this huge war machine continued its murderous path, Judah, the southern kingdom too was threatened, even Jerusalem might have fallen, and certainly important cities like Lachish to the south, south west fell. Sennacherib’s frieze from Nineveh shows the grizzly details (now in the British Museum). You can read its graphic story in 1 Kings 17-18. Our prophet puts this catastrophe down entirely to the apostasy of the people – you will recall Ahab and Jezebel’s introduction of Baal worship and their appalling end in the northern kingdom - and clearly this situation was rife in the south too, for, contrary to scripture, they never removed all the pagan indigenous peoples from the land. The prophet records the dismissal of Shebna for this corruption, and his replacement by Eliakim, clearly a Yahwist. He records how with divine intervention, in the form of a plague and possibly a coup back home, the Assyrians abandoned plans for the siege of Jerusalem and returned home. What they did recognise is that the ways of God and the opportunities he gives us are mysterious and to us unpredictable; they humble the proud, those who think they have sorted things by their own powers, such as the reigning king asking for help from the Egyptians. As a result of this succession of events, all ascribed to the divine, the new master of the palace, clearly in tune with Isaiah, is ascribed unprecedented authority; (v.22) all seems fine and dandy, unless we read on only to find things go belly up once more!
In our Gospel (Matthew 16:13-20) Jesus and the disciples visit Caesarea Philippi, the furthest north he travelled. The pagan city, ruled by a son of Herod the Great, was at the site of a large spring in a cave and dedicated to the god Pan. Herod built a temple there to the god, and the cave was believed the entrance to the underworld, so Jesus’ choice of venue and his acclaim there by Peter clearly should be seen as Jesus’ refutation of the pagan gods of the area; a new creation, mastery of nature gone awry. And let us not forget his clear outreach to pagans at this point. No doubt the ascription of ‘Rock’ to Peter also reflects this setting and the ultimate triumph of Christianity, though here ascribed with Jesus’ usual acerbic wit. Peter, whose impetuous enthusiasm for Jesus and his equally rapid downfalls should by now be familiar to us, is acclaimed with something very like Isaiah’s titling of Eliakim, a warning to us from the distant past. Jesus seems to be saying that we are all capable of enormous insights and grace but, and here as the text continues, we see we will all have to bear the consequences. Our text is surrounded by Jesus’ teaching and miracles and the feeding of the 4,000. We might think this definitive, but up pop the kill-joys from Jerusalem demanding a ‘sign’, a magic trick to prove Jesus’ identity – which he rejects. Yet Jesus is acclaimed, the Christ, the Son of God by Peter, and in response gives the first of his three predictions of his passion and death, to the utter horror of Peter. Things are definitely not going to plan! Jesus firmly puts this source of scandal in his place; ‘Get behind me Satan.’ About as harsh as it could be. So the acclaim of Jesus, and then by Jesus of Peter with his promised power to build the church, and powers to forgive and retain sin, are by no means cut and dried. Peter, and the rest us, have to struggle continually to make sense of the world about us with its rejections and abuse of Christians, and still find the Redeemer through all this tragedy and pain. That is his way.
So, we are left with this huge conundrum, of our partly knowing and then finding that we seem to have got it all wrong. St Paul too, (Romans 11:33-36) continues his reflection on this, as he tries to cope with the tragedy of Jewish rejection of Jesus. He has to recognise that God does not fail, and begins to understand as we saw last week, that through the faith going out to the pagans all is not lost, as he firmly believes that ultimately too his people will be drawn to Christ. Yet Paul admits that he cannot fathom the ways of God. ‘Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor?’ In the end, we simply have to trust in God through all our fear and pain and disappointment, as we witness the destruction of churches and lives in India, or the failure of our firm hopes in the furthering of the faith of others as betrayals and difficulties, such as child abuse and the waywardness of our priests, make us despair; or our own faith falls away with ageing or personal loss. This surely is why Paul places all his hope and knowledge in the crucified Christ, and never in any warrior prince or mission which appeared on the surface to have wonderful success. As he had himself been in Jerusalem for the Passover which saw the crucifixion of Jesus and then within months he had experienced his totally unexpected conversion to Christ and knew only too well the ups and downs in missionary experience, ultimately he can only place all his hope in the resurrection, of the man who defied known reality and came back from the dead against every expectation, and still reveals himself today in the renewal of the lives of men and women against all expectation, and frequently amongst the poorest and least educated of the world.
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