The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’  I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”  And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.  I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’  And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

Commentators

NRSV:  “John identifies Jesus as the powerful Lamb who has come to change the sinful condition of society.  The imagery of the Lamb is drawn from the Passover lamb and from the depiction of the “servant” of the Lord in Isa 53, 4-7.” A.E. Harvey:  One of the many beliefs about the Messiah was that he was already on earth, unknown – and Jesus conformed to that belief about the “hidden Messiah”, who, once revealed, proved completely different from conventional expectation.  He notes that John twice uses the phrase, “I myself did not know him.” Alain Marchadour notes the contrast between the Gospel of John and the synoptic accounts:  here it is the Baptist who sees the Spirit descend and rest on Jesus, and it is he who bears witness to his identity as “Son of God” (or, in some manuscripts, the Chosen of God).  In the synoptics, it is Jesus who both receives and witnesses this divine confirmation of his identity.

Gospel for gays

Like Alain Marchadour, I am struck by the contrast between this version of the baptism of Jesus, and that of – say – Luke.  The focus is on John the Baptist.  Twice he says that he himself did not recognize Jesus for what he was, the Messiah.  John and Jesus were cousins; Mary’s first act after being impregnated with Jesus was journeying alone to spend three months with Elizabeth, John’s mother.  So it’s natural to suppose that the two boys knew each other when they were growing up. What John did not recognize, until the moment of the baptism, was the actual identity of his kinsman:  truly, Jesus was the hidden Messiah. The other thing that strikes me about this passage is John’s own sense of fulfillment, now that he has encountered the chosen one, the man he calls “Son” and “Lamb” of God:  “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” In that flash of revelation, he understands why God has called him out of the wilderness and told him call Israel to repentance and baptize the crowds:  this is it, this is the unlooked-for culmination of his mission, the reason he was called, the fulfillment of his own vocation. The goal of his life. His work is over – yes.  He understands that.  But he also understands the “why” of it. Somehow the Baptist’s experience strikes a deep chord in me.  Last week I was almost envying those for whom the call of God seems simple and direct and – OK, I’ll use the word – pure. It’s not that way for me.  It’s messy and confusing.  How can it be otherwise for a gay person? But this week, here’s John the Baptist talking about his own vocation.  No one could be more simple, more direct, more pure than this wild man, this ascetic messenger clothed in the rough skins and living on wild honey.  The iconographic tradition portrays him in an arid landscape, with unkempt hair and huge wings – signs of his great asceticism, and (the wings) his angelic nature as God’s messanger. Yet – here we find out that this man of total commitment did not know why God had called him to do the crazy stuff he was doing.  He heard the call, and he did the crazy stuff – without fully understanding why. And only in this moment of fulfillment, when he recognizes Jesus for who he is, does he comprehend his own vocation:  “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” I find this wonderfully encouraging.  As gay Christians, we are bound to feel isolated, disregarded, ignored, and sometimes actively rejected by a church that so overwhelmingly serves the sexual majority. So there are bound to be times of discouragement, when we – I – wonder:  “Why continue this senseless struggle?  The church says it’s either-or:  either be Catholic or be gay, you can’t have both.  They don’t want us (me).  Maybe it’s time to just leave.” But I think we’re called to bear witness to a deeper reality – and we don’t yet know the “Jesus” of that deeper reality; we only glimpse its shape, its dimensions, its importance in the plan of God. And so, when I pray over this Sunday reading, I ask for the grace to remain faithful – not to the God of the “either-or”, but to the God of “both-and”.

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Sunday, January 9, 2011 – The Baptism of the Lord

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Journal extract:  January 13 2010

Last night I was asking the question, did Jesus laugh?

That opens the door to other questions.  Did he get drunk at the wedding feast?  Did he have sex?  What was his emotional life?  How did experience, including the experience of prayer, lead him, teach him (c.f. the boy Samuel)?

Of course, others have asked and are asking these questions; there is a whole theology of his nature and his development.

But is it appropriate to write about gay Jesus?

In one sense, gay Jesus is a cliché.  What is there to say?  And certainly straight Jesus/Magdalene is a particularly boring popular cliché.  It’s easy and oh so yawningly predictable to create a parallel fantasy love between Jesus and John or some other male follower.

But the thing about gay Jesus:  really it’s about bisexual Jesus.

It’s unfallen man as both male and female, like the first Adam.

And since he is the new Adam, you could imagine two rivers flowing from Jesus’ sexuality – gay and straight, the first (gay) seeking completion in itself, the other (straight) seeking completion through sexual union with another.

So the purpose of gay sex is different.  The two players seek completion in themselves – but like straight people, they need relationship, they need partners, they need community.  It is not good for man to be alone.  Therefore, they play sexually with other partners of the same sex.

It’s play.  It’s not procreative.  It’s extra, unnecessary from a evolutionary point of view, it’s like prayer, or poetry, or joking, or art, or music.  Or dancing.

That’s gay Jesus.

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I mean offering as in worship; as in primitive practices of sacrificing the best yearling, the best fruits, the best of whatever we value to God.

We’ve long since abandoned the literal application of that impulse.  By which I mean, we don’t lay an animal (or a human) on an altar and slaughter it, ostensibly to please a distant and jealous deity.

In the Christian universe, the ultimate offering has already been made – that of Christ on the cross.

In the Eucharistic sacrifice, that offering is both memorialized and repeated, bloodlessly, forever.

And in prayer, I – we – every Christian – participate in that offering, in all places, at all times.

So in the dark hour, when I wake with anxiety (or euphoria), offering that experience, whatever it may be, is central to my prayer.

It’s part of the thanksgiving and praise that form the circle of fire, the accompaniment to the repetitive cycle of “Ask, Listen, Discern, Act”.

At least, that’s my very limited experience.

**

So the other night I awoke gripped by a deeper dread than usual (“Why so much dread?” you ask.  For the purposes of prayer, the cause doesn’t matter, and seeking an answer to that question, at that time, is a distraction, a red herring.)

I followed my usual practice:  opened my heart to the fear, without trying to push it away or ignore it or explain it or repress it.

And also I offered it, just as it was, to God as my gift in that moment.  As a gift from him, re-gifted by me, without mental gymnastics and especially without imploring him to take this unpleasant feeling away.

None of that.

Instead, I tried to merely rest in that place of offering and receiving.

Strangely, the dread disappeared, to be replaced by a quiet euphoria, its flip side.  But that is not the point of this little experience.

The point is something a little different.

It’s my understanding that my particular feeling – unpleasant anxiety, pleasant euphoria – doesn’t matter.

What matters is opening the heart/soul to God, and resting in his presence.

**

At dawn, when I read the Gospel of the day (the call of Matthew), I understood something new in a familiar truth.

Jesus didn’t come for healthy people, or rich people.

He came for the vulnerable, for the sick, for the poor, for people who have needs.

Our vulnerability is the needle’s eye through which we must pass to find the Kingdom of Heaven.

When we make ourselves invulnerable, it’s not that he is not present – never that.  It’s we who are closed to him.

Conversely, when we open our own vulnerability to him, he enters, bringing  light, peace, happiness – and healing.

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I suffer from mild anxiety attacks (too strong a word), so sometimes I wake full of dread.  And sometimes it’s the opposite:  euphoria.  Either way, it’s hard to sleep again – so I pray.

I begin by uniting myself to everyone else who is also praying:  the prayer of the church.  I remember a whole lot of companions by name, praying with them and for them, without forgetting the dead.  That’s why we say “our” Father, at the start of the Lord’s Prayer.

And then?

The body of my prayer may take two or three different paths, depending on circumstances.  Sometimes, particularly if I’m anxious, I pray the Office of Readings, which is always rich in scripture and wisdom from the past.  Sometimes I pray the Jesus Prayer, or the first, God-centred phrases of the Our Father, breathing in and out along with the life-giving words.  Sometimes I anticipate the workmanlike prayer of first light, with its string of particular people and its focused intentions.

In an important way, the particular method doesn’t matter much.  What matters is laying myself open, just resting in the presence of God – like the person in the Gospel who takes from his treasury things both old and new.

Of course, there’s dryness, and there’s the monkey in the mind with its incessant chatter:  pay him no heed.

I don’t meditate, as one of my friends does.  I tried it for a sustained period at one point in my life, and I’m thinking of pursuing the practice again with some formal training, as an aid to centring, to finding stillness.  But I also know that I’m OK as I am.

**

So that’s the basic frame.

Lately, I’ve understood that there’s a continual cycle in prayer, a wheel that we constantly follow, which takes us deeper even if we’re not aware of increasing depth.

The cycle is very simple and it is consistent with the advice of Jesus:  “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.”

But you have to ask.

So here it is:

• Ask – Listen – Discern – Act;
• Ask – Listen – Discern – Act;
• Ask – Listen….and so on.

**

But what about praise, you ask?  And what about thanksgiving?

Good questions.

They’re constants, like the fire that animates this perpetual wheel.

That is, we don’t only give thanks when we get something.

We give thanks at all times, while asking, while listening, while discerning, while acting (and also when we don’t get something).

The same goes for praise.

And what about this business of resting in the presence of God, which is surely a silent thing, free of petition?  Something that approaches the gates of contemplation?

Well, that’s a lot like listening, it seems to me.  And saying “yes” to the fire that envelops but does not consume.

**

Lately I’ve felt that God is calling me – once again – into some new venture.  How do I know, and what do I do?

The experience (and the accompanying feeling of restlessness;  there must be more) was sufficiently persistent that I visited a trusted guide.

What did he say?

Pray.

Ask, Listen, Discern, Act.

Don’t be afraid.

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It was summer, and I’ve been taking stock.

I started this site more than a year ago, so I’ve been evaluating the experience.

What have I learned?

**

The first and most important thing:  the Jesus of the Gospels is utterly silent respecting same sex love.

Utterly silent.

That’s very important, because it means that church people who trot out fragmentary texts to condemn gays can never with any confidence cite Jesus himself.

So how can they be so sure of themselves, if the Master himself says nothing in support of their prejudices?

It isn’t as if Jesus never condemns anyone.  He has lots of negative things to say about the religious authorities of his day, about the rich, about hypocrites.

But never gays.

Indeed, it’s tempting to imagine him condemning the religious authorities of our own day as neglectful and uncaring and hypocritical respecting our lives and our needs.

**

Hypocritical?

Yes, hypocritical.

There’s the old-fashioned, garden-variety, Bible-thumper hypocrisy – of which “Judy” offers a convenient example in her comment on this site.

“Has anyone on this website read Romans 1-27 or Lev 18:22 and 20:33?” she asks, rhetorically.

Well, as a matter of fact, I have, and I’ve done so thoughtfully, perhaps more thoughtfully than she.

And in my turn, I have questions for “Judy”.

Do you, as a woman, cover your head in church (1Cor. 11,5-10)?

Do you, as a woman, keep silent (1Cor 14, 34)?

Do you, as a woman, seek guidance in the privacy of your home on church matters from your husband, who has authority over you (1Cor. 14, 35)?

If you don’t, you’re a hypocrite, “Judy”.

You throw a rhetorical Pauline reference at us, while refusing to accept the elements of those same readings that apply to you.

**

And then there’s the deeper hypocrisy of the institutional church to which I belong, which condemns gay sexuality – while denying its own very obvious gayness.

We now learn that the Pope himself has a boyfriend (The Pope is Not Gay!, by Angelo Quattrocchi).

It’s a Platonic relationship, of course.  I have no doubt of that.  And it is a tender and intimate one.  He and his stunningly handsome, much younger personal secretary, Georg Ganswein, spend most of every day together, breakfasting, lunching, walking – just like a long-established gay couple.

And what’s wrong with that?

Nothing at all.

As the writer of Genesis says, “It is not good for man to be alone.”

And some of us, by natural inclination, seek intimate relationships with our own kind.

In the church, it’s the tradition of John, who (alone among evangelists) is depicted in icons with his young friend, Prochorus.  And Prochorus in turn had his own younger male favorite, Irenaeus.

Just as Jesus himself is believed to have enjoyed a specially intimate relationship with that same John, the beloved disciple.

This is normal.

And it’s also gay.

There is a permanent inclination on the part of many holy people to form deep attachments with someone of their own sex.

This is not an inclination toward an objective evil.

Rather, it’s of God.

It’s holy.

It expands and enriches and fructifies the grace of God, which works in many ways, and especially through human sexuality.

Denying this fundamental reality is a sin.

And denying the inclination in yourself – while condemning others for expressing the very same impulse – is hypocrisy.

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He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.  And do not bring us to the time of trial.’”  And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’  And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me, the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed.  I cannot get up and give you anything.’  I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.  So I say to you, Ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks, receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.  Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Commentators

In its laconic fashion, the NRSV comments:  “This model prayer appears in a more elaborate form in Matthew.  In both Matthew and Luke there is an eschatological cast to the petitions.  Yet the concerns registered are related to daily life.”  An understatement indeed, given the thousands of books, homilies, treatises, reflections that have been written about this short prayer.

A. E. Harvey tells us that in Jesus’ day, the Pharisees and others taught their disciples to pray, using specific words and phrases that reflected their teaching and defined the relationship between the worshipper and God, the benefits for which they were entitled to pray, and the conditions they had to fulfill in order for their prayer to be acceptable.  He notes that the brevity of Luke’s version “lays bare, even more starkly than Matthew’s, the radical economy of Jesus’ teaching.”  In particular, using the familiar but respectful word, “Abba” to address God was distinctive.

Does God answer prayer?  Harvey comments:  “…surely God does not grant all prayers?  In Matthew’s version, the promise seems quite general:  God will give ‘good things’ to those who ask him.  According to Luke, there is only one prayer which will certainly be answered, that for the Holy Spirit.”

Hugues Cousin has a different take on the generosity of the Father in responding to the prayer of his children.  In his view, God’s gifts are infinitely greater than those of human fathers, and while Matthew’s version promises “good things”, Luke focuses on the “supreme gift”, the Holy Spirit, presented in Acts as the gift characteristic of God at the end of time.

Cousin also has something original to say about the parable of the friend knocking on the door in the middle of the night (which is unique to Luke).  It is necessary to be “tenacious” in approaching God, he says – a point so important that Luke makes it again, in another parable (18, 1-5)

Gospel for gays

This is a wonderful passage, and it’s not merely the story of the importunate friend in the night that is unique to Luke.  It’s Luke who links what we call the “Lord’s Prayer” to other sayings, thus providing a deep answer to the disciples’ demand:  “Lord, teach us to pray.”

For me, the most striking thing about the passage is the brevity of the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus spent hours – days – in prayer.  Indeed, I think his whole life was prayer – irrespective of what he was doing.

That’s the key to understanding his divine nature:  the divine permeated his human nature through prayer.

Yet when his disciples ask him how to pray, he doesn’t start where we would begin today – talking about how you should sit or stand or kneel (or lie down, a possibility accepted by Ignatius of Loyola – with the warning that you may fall asleep!).

He doesn’t talk about prayer at certain hours.

He doesn’t talk about breathing, and doesn’t distinguish between the head, the body, the spirit.

He doesn’t give his disciples a mantra and lay out the disciplines of focusing, of letting go, being attentive to the moment and of resting in the presence of God.

Rather, he gives this deceptively simple set of 38 words (in English).

And then brilliant, literary Luke gathers up other sayings of Jesus about prayer and lays them out here.

And interestingly, there are two themes in those sayings:  generosity on the part of a loving Dad; and perseverance on our part, in asking for what we need.

Which tells me, first of all, that prayer is a relationship; and secondly, it’s a process.  And thirdly, it requires trust and courage on our part.

Why courage?

It goes with trust.

Prayer is a risky venture.  What if he doesn’t answer?  Or what if he gives us something we don’t want, instead of the thing we crave?

Does God answer prayer?

**

That’s a legitimate question; some would say it’s the only question.

In my experience, the answer is “yes” – with abundance.

There’s an obvious “but” however, and Luke ends this passage with an important surprise when he has Jesus say, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

The Holy Spirit?

Where did that come from?

Right to the end, the examples are concrete – daily needs, particularly bread in a society of scarcity.  Is this a trick, after all?  We ask for bread, or a paying job, or acceptance of our gay identity by a defensive hierarchy, or a partner, or a cure for cancer – and we get the Holy Spirit in response?

It’s a surprise, but it’s not a trick.

Jesus is telling us that our relationship with God is so intimate that even as we praise him, even as we rest in his silent and intimate presence, we must ask for the things we need, for the things our children, our friends, our neighbors, our beloved needs; for what the world needs – peace, for example.

And he answers, with the generosity of a loving parent.

And in order for us to understand his answers, which may be different from our imagining, he always gives us the Holy Spirit which guides us, informs us, transforms us, shows us the path, encourages us, accompanies us, enables us, liberates us.

He doesn’t sweep all the tough stuff aside.  Rather, he shows us our path, and empowers us to do his will, and he’s with us – through prayer.

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Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.  She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.  But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her then to help me.”  But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Commentators

The NRSV says that “This enigmatic account affirms the importance of listening to Jesus and at the same time the account shows Jesus’ openness to and acceptance of women among his followers.  According to Jn 11.1, Martha and Mary were the sisters of Lazarus and lived in Bethany, just east of Jerusalem.”

A. E. Harvey also finds the incident enigmatic:  “But what the moral was for Jesus’ contemporaries or Luke’s readers is a harder question.  Simple fare for visiting preachers?  Women’s rights in the Christian church?  Or simply the very modern tension between domestic chores and ‘things that matter’?”

Hugues Cousin opens up a very fertile line of feminist reflection in noting that Mary assumes a “classical” posture familiar to Jewish rabbinical literature, by sitting at the feet of the master.  However, it is extraordinary that a woman would be allowed to do this.  In occupying herself with service, Martha takes the traditional female role – and she demands that Jesus return her sister to that role.  Instead, Jesus encourages Mary to receive his teaching as a disciple would.

Thus, he is treating Mary, and through her all women, as if she were male.

Cousin further suggests that when he shows Jesus rebuking Martha for her anxiety over table service, and giving priority to his teaching, Luke is echoing the conflict that arose in the early church between preaching the word and serving the distribution of food.  It’s her anxiety that he rebukes, he says; at issue is the priority of the Word over material things.

Gospel for gays

This episode immediately follows the story of the good Samaritan.  Both episodes are unique to Luke’s gospel.

The proximity and uniqueness of the two texts lend significance to an interesting difference between them.  In the encounter with the lawyer in the Samaritan story, Luke refers to Jesus by his name, “Jesus”.

In today’s episode, Luke calls him “Lord”, not once but twice; and the female disciple Mary is portrayed as sitting at his feet and listening to him – unlike the lawyer in the previous episode, who was testing him and also seeking to justify himself.

The scene is intimate, interior.  We are in the sanctuary of the home, where Martha has welcomed Jesus.  He is present among his own.  He is at the centre of their attention – as he will be present in their home-church gatherings, after the resurrection.

This is not merely a social visit, and it is not a public event, like Jesus’ participation in a banquet.  Rather, Luke is showing us a sacred space:  a time of intimacy, a time of communal teaching and prayer.

The word “distracted” is used twice in this short passage, once by the narrator, and once by Jesus himself.  I think of liturgy; I think of the distractions and irrelevant anxieties that assail me and prevent me from hearing what the Lord has to say – uniquely – to me.

I also think of how discharging some function of service in support of the community at just such event can take all my attention, and prevent me from really being “there”.

That’s Martha’s situation – and her distraction is so great that she wholly misses the opportunity before her.

She has welcomed Jesus into her home, and he is present to her – but she is not present to him.

Instead, she is worrying about getting the meal, and resents the fact that her sister is behaving like a man, like one of the disciples – instead of helping her.

**

So I disagree with the NRSV and Harvey.  I don’t think there’s anything enigmatic about this gospel.  I think it’s really about prayer.

That’s consistent with the ancient tradition that treated it as an allegory of the active versus the contemplative life, with Mary (the contemplative) choosing “the better part”, “which will not be taken away from her” – since in heaven, all is contemplation, and contemplation, correctly understood and practiced, is the purest form of action.

Consistent but slightly different, in that prayer is for all of us, all the time, no matter how “active” our lives are in the world – and mine is very active.

**

All this said, and in line with the old allegorical tradition:  both sisters have something to teach us.

Martha creates the conditions for prayer:  she “welcomed him into her home.”

And Mary is silent:  she “listened to what he was saying.”

That’s where I end this reflection.  As a gay man, I hope to welcome him into my own space – my gay space, the space of my gay identity.  And having welcomed him, I don’t want to distract myself with all kinds of busyiness – or with my rants about this or that.

I need to listen.

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Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.  “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the law?  What do you read there?”  He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this and you will live.”  But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them.  Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’  Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”  He said, “The one who showed him mercy.”  Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Commentators

The NRSV offers several useful background facts.

• Wanting to “justify himself” meant showing himself to be righteous, acceptable to God;
• The road from Jerusalem to Jericho (a distance of about 30 km) was notoriously dangerous;
• The priest represented the highest religious leadership among the Jews; the Levite was the designated lay associate of the priest;
• Oil served as a salve; wine as an antiseptic;
• Two denarii would have provided lodging at an ancient inn for about two months.

A. E. Harvey comments, “We may feel that the response of the first two was strangely inhuman” – and goes on to speculate that they assumed the man was already dead.  Their conduct, he thinks, was due to a conflict between two priorities:  unwillingness to incur ritual defilement by approaching a corpse on the one hand, and on the other, the command to love their neighbor.

He notes that this is the only occasion when Jesus provides us with a moral tale, and an example to be followed:  “Go and do likewise.”  He offers a paraphrase:  “if even a Samaritan could do so, how much more should you do yourselves?”

In his multi-faceted interpretation of this story, Hugues Cousin begins by noting that Jesus does not reply to the question of the lawyer/scribe.  Giving a definition of a neighbor would have amounted to falling into the casuistry of which he reproaches the scribes.  Instead, he tells a story and poses a question of his own:  “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

He goes on to explain that Samaritans were considered heretics, who recognized only the authority of the written Pentateuch – the “exact opposite of the honorable servants of the temple” like the priest and the Levite in the story.

It is the heretic who is close to the victim and shows mercy, as God shows mercy – not the religious specialists.  Thus, it’s the heretic who has found the Kingdom of God; and he has found it because he knows who his neighbor is, and recognizes him in the ritually unclean, the impure.

Interestingly, he also notes that the Samaritan continues on his route – but only after providing for the needs of the one in need, through the intermediary of the innkeeper.

Gospel for gays

This story confounds the practices of ritual cleanliness and official righteousness, along with the priorities they impose.

By their own estimation, the priest and the Levite sought eternal life and put God first in their lives, loving him with heart and soul – through avoiding ritual contamination.

But in so doing, they actually missed the opportunity to gain eternal life.

Indeed, by maintaining their purity, they may have imagined that they were already “there”:  official members of God’s kingdom.

Along came an unexpected event that put them to the test – and in reality, they weren’t even close.

The heretic, in contrast, actively participated in the life of the Kingdom of God (which is eternal life), by his act of mercy.

In so acting he was, consciously or unconsciously, living the life of God, who is only mercy.  And the Samaritan’s mercy embraced his traditional enemy, a Jew.

At the beginning of the sequence, the lawyer seeks first to test Jesus, and then to justify himself by posing his question, “Who is my neighbor?”

Unlike the lawyer, the Samaritan did not need to justify himself.  He sought the Kingdom of God, not righteousness, not justification.  He only showed mercy.

**

In telling the story, and posing the climactic question the way he does, Jesus shifts the focus from the original question posed by the lawyer.  The lawyer recites the law:  we inherit eternal life by loving God with all our heart, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Then he asks who his neighbor is.

Jesus responds with a different question.  He doesn’t ask who the Samaritan’s neighbor is, but rather who the victim’s neighbor is.

I’ve always had a problem with that.  It has always struck me somehow incoherent.  The story makes perfect sense, and is endlessly nuanced when we read it, as we always do, and as I did above:  the victim is the Samaritan’s neighbor and we should act as he does.  And, by corollary, we should not act as the priest and Levite do.

But if Luke has it right here, there’s another dimension to the story.

We are being invited to consider the question from the victim’s point of view:  Who is his neighbor?  And his neighbor is the enemy who saved his life by showing him mercy, when he was so abandoned, so broken, so damaged that he could not even ask for help.

So in his case, eternal life was a pure gift, unsought and undeserved, at the hands of his racial/religious enemy.  All he did was receive.

**

I think this line of thought opens out an interesting spiritual exercise, and it’s this:  we have to think about both sides of the Samaritan-victim relationship, in which one offers mercy to an enemy and the other receives mercy from an enemy.

For gays, it’s easy and natural to read this parable as an illustration of the perils of a clerical culture that prizes its own righteousness, seeks above all to maintain its own purity (no sex for us, thanks), and as a result fails to respond to the moment of God:  the unclean victim (us gays for example).

Easy, that is, to read it in an accusatory manner.

But I wonder if it isn’t more authentic, and more healing, as well as more generous, to allow our reading to prompt deeper questions – such as,

• Have I been open to receiving grace from my “enemy” – including, perhaps, the institutional church that outrages me?
• Have I been merciful toward my “enemies” – including people who don’t approve of me?
• Have I found the Kingdom of God in giving mercy?  In receiving mercy?

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After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.  He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.  Go on your way.  See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.  Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.  Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’  And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.  Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid.  Do not move about from house to house.  Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’  But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you.  Yet know this:  the kingdom of God has come near.’  I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”   ….The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”  He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.  See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.  Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Commentators

A. E. Harvey notes that all three gospels report that the 12 disciples were sent out on a mission of proclamation and healing, but that only Luke has a further such mission, involving a much larger group of 70 people.  Their instructions are almost identical to those given to the 12 in Matthew, but there is added urgency to their instructions.

“After their return, they play no further part in the story.  What is their significance?” he asks.

Answering his own question, he surmises that Luke, as a professional historian familiar with the later evangelical history of the church, wanted to establish a larger corps of missionaries than the 12 disciples.  He also notes that 70 is an important round number in Jewish legend and history.

Hugues Cousin reaches a similar explanation by a different path.  He thinks that Luke is working from two different sources – Mark and an unknown manuscript that collected together many of Jesus’ sayings.  He speculates that rather than synthesize them, as Matthew did, Luke kept them distinct.

“In working this way, he made himself into a theologian,” Cousin comments, because Luke wants to show that Jesus did not limit missionary activity to the apostles – and that the same powers accompanied a vastly larger group, also directly commissioned by the Lord.

Hence the astonishment of the 70 when they return:  “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

Hence also Jesus’ response:  “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.  See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.”

Gospel for gays

Last week, the reading was about the call of Jesus, and the focus was on the hesitations and second thoughts of a sample of anonymous would-be followers.

This week, Luke’s attention shifts to the large number of recruits (70, a symbolic number) whom Jesus sent out to prepare the way for his own immanent arrival in the towns and villages of Judea.

He gives them instructions very similar to the earlier missionary excursion of the 12 disciples, in Galilee:  travel light, accept the hospitality offered to you, remain focused on the mission, and offer a greeting of peace every time you enter a house.

“[F]irst say, ‘Peace to this house!’  And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”

They come in peace, and they leave in peace.  If a village refuses to receive them, they are not supposed to call down vengeance on it (as John and James proposed in last week’s reading).  Rather, they are to shake even the dust of the street off their sandals, taking nothing away – and leaving only a warning behind:  “Remember this:  the kingdom of God has come near – and you missed it, by your own choice.”

And what is the mission?

There is really only one.  Proclaim the kingdom of Heaven, which is near:  Jesus, the man himself, will soon be entering your town.

(There is a secondary mission of healing the sick; but that is not an end in itself.  It is a sign of the new reality, the new world order, the kingdom of peace which is open to all those who welcome it.)

**

Two things strike me here:  the gift of reciprocal peace; and the gift of power.  Both are signs of the kingdom, which is here, and yet to come.

The 70 are to offer a blessing of peace when they first enter a house – and if there is someone in that house who shares the peace, the blessing will “rest on that person”.

What happens then?

I know by experience what happens then:  the fruits of inner peace (light, happiness, sharing, healing) increase; community is created; and the kingdom of heaven is realized, in that house.

If there is no one who shares this mysterious peace – no harm done:  “but if not, it will return to you”.

That is, the blessing simply returns to the one who offered it.

The one who offers the blessing of peace is, thus, unharmed:  he has nothing to fear, he loses nothing, his inner peace will remain intact.  But it is not shared, and the fruits of peace, especially community, are not present in that house.

The gift of power follows.  Luke doesn’t say this with the clarity I here propose, and neither do the other gospel writers.  Therefore, I treat it only as a thesis, my own opinion.

But with that qualification, I say this:  community is the necessary condition for the miracles of healing that fill the gospel accounts.

The 70 were astonished to find that they could heal, and that even devils were subject to them.  But the necessary first step was the blessing of peace, offered and accepted, just as the risen Jesus would later offer peace to his followers.

**

We need community.

I think this is a real problem for gay Christians – at least for this gay Christian.

Because the reciprocal relationship offered within our specific church communities either omits or avoids the core of my identity; while the community offered by specifically gay communities ignores (or rejects) the faith.

In each case, the offering of peace seems incomplete and unreciprocal to me, and the miracle of community is, therefore, frustrated.

I wish I were wrong about this – but that’s my experience.

**

But let’s end on a hopeful note.

The instructions of Jesus begin, very interestingly, with prayer.  That’s the first thing he says:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

The prayer intention here cited is specific:  pray for more laborers, a prayer usually interpreted as one for more vocations.

And that’s fine.

But prayer is prayer and “vocations” narrowly conceived are not the only thing intended by this instruction.

Those of us who hear the Lord’s call, and who also share the frustration that I here describe, continue to pray for community, continue to pray for a sharing of the mutual peace that both prefigures, and is, his kingdom of happiness and healing.

And that prayer sustains us.  As Jesus notes in response to the excited wonder of the 70 when they return:  “… do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

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