Reflections from The Hill –Picnics and Betrayals

I’ve been known to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic, to have a couple of monkeys lose in the attic. Sometimes, this state of mind has been occasioned by a surfeit of brown ale or somesuch but, mostly, it’s just this little quirk in my nature that sends me a bit loopy.

A good example of what I’m on about happens when I think about how I got into this Church business. Far from getting misty-eyed, or blaming it on the demon drink, I’m often left with the conclusion that, at the time, I must have been nuts.

My reason for this introversion began when I started thinking about Judas. I sometimes think that Judas was a couple of sandwiches short, too. However, although he appears in the Passion Narrative, we don’t know very much about him; he’s not much more than a face in the crowd, really.

What little we do know of Judas includes the fact that he was the Treasurer of the group. That, in itself, indicates a certain level of idiocy and may explain some of his behaviour, but it doesn’t altogether explain the betrayal.

We’re not told why Judas did what he did. What was the real story behind that piece of skulduggery? Disappointment in Jesus? Fear of failure … or success? I struggle to believe that it was all about greed, so I’m not convinced by the 30-pieces-of-silver argument.

Was it just another monkey loose from his attic or was there something more sinister going on here?
In our society, we’ve always reserved our harshest judgments for those who commit some act of betrayal, whether it’s a David Hicks or a Rodney Adler. Trust, the other side of betrayal, is critical in maintaining a relationship, whether that relationship is between two people or a whole country. The ground shifts when a betrayal occurs.

Betrayal breaks the threads that hold us together as a community, or that give us our desires to live together. That’s when we lose our ability to be truly human.

Betrayal can destroy a marriage, a family, a church or a community so, make no mistake, we’ve always been hard on Judas and his imitators.

I wonder if the reason why we show the Judas’ of our world so little compassion is because we’re afraid there is something of his betrayal chromosome in us? That’s a scary thing to contemplate because none of likes the idea that we are capable of betrayal.

When Jesus pointed that out to the Twelve, their anxiety levels went through the ceiling. "Surely not I, Lord?" is what they asked. They might as well have said, "We’ve been worried about that, but we thought we had it under control."

If it’s true that the thing we find most difficult to forgive in others is the very thing we most struggle with and if we’ve fooled ourself into believing that we no longer have a dark side, then it’s no wonder that we show no mercy to those who reflect our own capacity for evil.

Betrayal terrifies us. We think we are doing OK on our commitments, but we just don’t know about that terrible Judas chromosome. Will it kick in to destroy a life that’s been built on righteousness? Who knows, but it’s well to be prepared.

One of the tough messages of Holy Week is that sooner or later each of us will betray Jesus. We will betray him at work when it costs too much to think or act like a Christian; we will betray Him in our homes when our anger is so great that we hurt those who trust us; we will betray him in our churches when our right-ness is more noticeable than our righteousness.

Someone has said that powerful people maintain their power by refusing to show mercy to failures.

In the Judas gospel forgiveness is not possible, because all there is is the pointless efforts we
make to put things right ourselves.

In the gospel of Jesus, however, there is always grace that creates a new ending to our lives; a
recovering of the monkeys that enables us to enjoy a fulsome party with all the
sandwiches.

Humour of The Week (thanks, Michael):

Little Sam was staying with his grandparents overnight when it came to bed- and prayer-time.

“Mardi”, says Sam to his granny “Do you know your prayers?”

"Of course, darling”, said Granny. “Do you know yours?”

“Oh, yes” said Sam and launched into his prayers, finishing with a loud “AMEN.”

Before Granny could utter a word, Sam continued “And do you know, Mardi, that if you
don’t finish with ‘Amen’, it won’t SEND.”

One
Liner of The Week:

Eve: "Do you love me, Adam?" Adam: "Who else?"

Reflections from The Hill –
Disturbing Graveyards

Every now and then someone tells me a tale about a graveyard (you can read the latest one
in Humour of The Week). These stories are nearly always funny, so why
are graveyards regarded as scary places?

I would have thought, despite the belief that people who have passed (as some say) seem
to be noisier after the event than before, graveyards are actually quiet
places, unless your name happens to be Ezekiel or Lazarus.

Let’s start with Ezekiel. If ever a man was made to caste his peepers on an
impossible situation, it was him. The Good Book (today’s First Reading) tells
us that he was taken to a valley of dry bones. Not a headstone anywhere or a
hole in the ground. This wasn’t a graveyard; it was a rubbish heap.

Here is hopelessness like he’d never seen. I suspect that some clergy covet, or
secretly desire, such an audience or feel as if they have one such already, but
I digress.

Ezekiel was in a spot. Not only was this valley filled with bones, it was filled with
dry bones. Not only were the bones dry, they were very dry. The bodies that
once contained the bones had been dead for a long time, otherwise there may
have been a chance of resurrection.

The sinews that held the skeletons together had long disappeared, taking with them
any sign of hope. Whatever bones were left were scattered and dried out. All
this spells just one word: impossibility.

Ezekiel was just the bloke you need in a situation like this. A pantomime
expert, he’s colourful, theatrical, slaps his thighs, and eats scrolls – and he
gets his message across. More than that, his ear’s on God’s voice, a more
productive place to be should he needs to hear something.

I’m not suggesting that we start eating scrolls or slapping our thighs. To be fair
to the text, we know that God set this up this scene to show Ezekiel the
spiritual state of His people. It’s not a pretty sight.

Some would say that the same could be applied to the Church: that once it had a
place of influence in the community under the leadership of the Holy Spirit but
now is nothing more than a pile of disconnected bones, waiting for the
earthmoving equipment to arrive.

However, we know that The Big Fella has a plan, a plan to prosper us and not to harm us,
a plan that will give us both a future and a hope. (Jer.28.11)

That plan has two parts: the first is to hear what God says, the
other is to let God do what S/He wants through His/Her Wind (read
‘spirit’ or ‘breath’). These work in tandem to bring life out of death.

The same dry bones that are scattered around on the rubbish heap are returned to life by
the Word and the Spirit. This is not only a noisy affair but is a far cry from
the way we tend to go about things these days.

All our efforts in the Kingdom are dead as dodos unless and until they’re energised by
the Spirit of God.

We know this, so I’m not writing a revelation here. What is revealing is the connection
this story makes with the story of Lazarus. As one wit said “It’s not the first
time that a graveyard tried to hinder God’s promise.”

In Lazarus’ case, coming back to life is not simply a matter of being raised
from the dead; this is a kind of overture for The Resurrection itself.
Certainly, Lazarus would have died again at some later time.

However, resurrection is not just about the after life but is also about raising broken
spirits and bodies that are as good as dead.

Resurrection is about the healing of hearts that are weak and bruised, of communities that
are divided, of relationships that have become fractious, and of people who
have lost hope. Lord knows, there’s plenty of them around.

Both in the Readings from Ezekiel and John, we see an impossible situation, a plan that is laid out and a result that is far from the silence of the graveyard.

In John, Lazarus is not just healed, but raised from the dead.
From the isolation of death, he is called by Christ’s powerful voice into the
community of the living. That’s a kind of vocation.

His grave clothes, in which he is bound, are loosed and he is
made free to respond as one living before God and in the power of God. Each of
us is so called, another vocation.

Vocation is about being raised from the dead, being made alive
to the reality that we don’t merely exist but are called forth with the smell
of life, of God, on us.

Humour of The Week:

Three blokes were stumbling home from the pub late one
night and found themselves on the road that led past the graveyard.

"Come have a look over here," says Paddy,
"’tis Michael O'Grady's grave. God bless his soul. He lived to the ripe
old age of 87."

"That's nothing," said Sean, "here's one
named Patrick Shaunessy. ‘Says here that he was 95 when he died; Glory
be."

Just then, Seamus yelled out, "Good God, here's a
fella that was 145."

"What’s his name?" asks Paddy.

Seamus stumbles around a bit, awkwardly lights a match to see what else is
written on the headstone.

"Hi name’s Miles, from Dublin."

One
liner of The Week:

Chocolate: the other major food group.

Quote of The Week:

The meaning of the term “vocation,” even in the context of the
church, but much more so in the world at large, has suffered at the hands of
linguistic habit. Like many terms that were once rich with religious
implications, it has over time become first narrow in its association with only
certain forms of religious life, and then secularized. While early in the life
of the church, the teaching on vocation by Origen and Augustine would have
included the call to every Christian, even to every human being, the later
monastic movement so powerfully affected people’s notions of the extent to
which one might go in answer to a divine call that “vocation” came to be
associated with that one role in the church.

Luther and the Protestant Reformers sought to reintroduce the
teaching that everyone, no matter their occupation, was a proper object of
divine call. The correction was long overdue. But the unintended effect was to
suggest that vocation had merely to do with occupation; thus the way was open
to a purely bourgeois and secular use of the term. - The Meaning of
Vocation by AJ Conyers.

An extra bit of humour …

Reflections from The Hill –
Disturbing Graveyards

Every now
and then someone tells me a tale about a graveyard (you can read the latest one
in Humour of The Week). These stories are nearly always funny, so why
are graveyards regarded as scary places?

I would
have thought, despite the belief that people who have passed (as some say) seem
to be noisier after the event than before, graveyards are actually quiet
places, unless your name happens to be Ezekiel or Lazarus.

Let’s
start with Ezekiel. If ever a man was made to caste his peepers on an
impossible situation, it was him. The Good Book (today’s First Reading) tells
us that he was taken to a valley of dry bones. Not a headstone anywhere or a
hole in the ground. This wasn’t a graveyard; it was a rubbish heap.

Here is
hopelessness like he’d never seen. I suspect that some clergy covet, or
secretly desire, such an audience or feel as if they have one such already, but
I digress.

Ezekiel
was in a spot. Not only was this valley filled with bones, it was filled with
dry bones. Not only were the bones dry, they were very dry. The bodies that
once contained the bones had been dead for a long time, otherwise there may
have been a chance of resurrection.

The
sinews that held the skeletons together had long disappeared, taking with them
any sign of hope. Whatever bones were left were scattered and dried out. All
this spells just one word: impossibility.

Ezekiel was just the bloke you need in a situation like this. A pantomime
expert, he’s colourful, theatrical, slaps his thighs, and eats scrolls – and he
gets his message across. More than that, his ear’s on God’s voice, a more
productive place to be should he needs to hear something.



I’m not suggesting that we start eating scrolls or slapping our thighs. To be fair
to the text, we know that God set this up this scene to show Ezekiel the
spiritual state of His people. It’s not a pretty sight.

Some would say that the same could be applied to the Church: that once it had a
place of influence in the community under the leadership of the Holy Spirit but
now is nothing more than a pile of disconnected bones, waiting for the
earthmoving equipment to arrive.

However,
we know that The Big Fella has a plan, a plan to prosper us and not to harm us,
a plan that will give us both a future and a hope. (Jer.28.11)



That plan has two parts: the first is to hear what God says, the
other is to let God do what S/He wants through His/Her Wind (read
‘spirit’ or ‘breath’). These work in tandem to bring life out of death.

The same
dry bones that are scattered around on the rubbish heap are returned to life by
the Word and the Spirit. This is not only a noisy affair but is a far cry from
the way we tend to go about things these days.

All our
efforts in the Kingdom are dead as dodos unless and until they’re energised by
the Spirit of God.

We know
this, so I’m not writing a revelation here. What is revealing is the connection
this story makes with the story of Lazarus. As one wit said “It’s not the first
time that a graveyard tried to hinder God’s promise.”



In Lazarus’ case, coming back to life is not simply a matter of being raised
from the dead; this is a kind of overture for The Resurrection itself.
Certainly, Lazarus would have died again at some later time.

However,
resurrection is not just about the after life but is also about raising broken
spirits and bodies that are as good as dead.

Resurrection
is about the healing of hearts that are weak and bruised, of communities that
are divided, of relationships that have become fractious, and of people who
have lost hope. Lord knows, there’s plenty of them around.

Both in the Readings
from Ezekiel and John, we see an impossible situation, a plan that is laid out
and a result that is far from the silence of the graveyard.

In John, Lazarus is not just healed, but raised from the dead.
From the isolation of death, he is called by Christ’s powerful voice into the
community of the living. That’s a kind of vocation.

His grave clothes, in which he is bound, are loosed and he is
made free to respond as one living before God and in the power of God. Each of
us is so called, another vocation.

Vocation is about being raised from the dead, being made alive
to the reality that we don’t merely exist but are called forth with the smell
of life, of God, on us.

Humour of The Week:

Three blokes were stumbling home from the pub late one
night and found themselves on the road that led past the graveyard.

"Come have a look over here," says Paddy,
"’tis Michael O'Grady's grave. God bless his soul. He lived to the ripe
old age of 87."

"That's nothing," said Sean, "here's one
named Patrick Shaunessy. ‘Says here that he was 95 when he died; Glory
be."

Just then, Seamus yelled out, "Good God, here's a
fella that was 145."



"What’s his name?" asks Paddy.



Seamus stumbles around a bit, awkwardly lights a match to see what else is
written on the headstone.

"Hi
name’s Miles, from Dublin."

One
liner of The Week:

Chocolate:
the other major food group.

Quote of The Week:

The meaning of the term “vocation,” even in the context of the
church, but much more so in the world at large, has suffered at the hands of
linguistic habit. Like many terms that were once rich with religious
implications, it has over time become first narrow in its association with only
certain forms of religious life, and then secularized. While early in the life
of the church, the teaching on vocation by Origen and Augustine would have
included the call to every Christian, even to every human being, the later
monastic movement so powerfully affected people’s notions of the extent to
which one might go in answer to a divine call that “vocation” came to be
associated with that one role in the church.

Luther and the Protestant Reformers sought to reintroduce the
teaching that everyone, no matter their occupation, was a proper object of
divine call. The correction was long overdue. But the unintended effect was to
suggest that vocation had merely to do with occupation; thus the way was open
to a purely bourgeois and secular use of the term. - The Meaning of
Vocation by AJ Conyers.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jeff)

We’re moving into Passiontide with its increasing focus on
Jesus’ last days on earth and the momentous events of Good Friday and Easter
Day.

Keep well. Do good. Laugh lots. Love extravagantly. Stay hot for
God.

In His Grip

Ian

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





 (Thanks
Jeff)

We’re moving into Passiontide with its increasing focus on
Jesus’ last days on earth and the momentous events of Good Friday and Easter
Day.

Keep well. Do good. Laugh lots. Love extravagantly. Stay hot for
God.

In His Grip

Ian